Chapter Thirty-Eight
The boy does not come to me in my dreams. But rather, I do. I look on at her as she skips down the path into the village of Algran, her skirts ankle-length and her spirits high. The version of me from many decades ago. All the rose-cheeked, youthful, and innocent enchantment of her.
She is me and not me simultaneously, and the image of her plays like a memory and an excerpt from a fairytale, leaving me unsure whether this is something conjured up by my unconscious mind, or presented to me after decades of safe keeping.
Whatever it is, I know I am dreaming, suspended there in a weightless cloud of peace, a willing observer, a bystander to what seems to be a depiction of my own past.
That dream me sings to herself as she goes, hair in two loose braids bouncing on her shoulders, the song that my governess used to sing to Lillienne and me after a few strong wines.
‘They look upon us with their eager eyes, the ones above with the power to give, to take and to ruin. They wait for the same in return, but we’re hungry. We’re hungry. We’re hungry. And we’re foolish, foolish, foolish.’
‘Hey!’ a voice calls out from the trees, interrupting the tune.
Dream-me stops in her tracks to inspect, unafraid, but curious.
Her head tilts as though she’s trying to make someone out in the shrubbery.
I do the same, at a blurred spot in all the green, where there is a face and also the absence of one at the same time.
As though the dream won’t allow me to focus my eyes.
‘Who are you?’ she shouts to the person. ‘And what are you doing in the bushes?’
The blurred figure kicks their way out of the green, almost tumbling to the ground when their foot gets caught in a vine.
‘I’m looking for someone, miss.’ The voice is young and masculine, but distorts as it reaches my ears, rising in pitch.
‘And you’re certain they’ll be in the bushes?’ Dream-me asks, hand on her hip, with all the cheekiness of Lillienne’s influence.
‘I’ve been waiting. A long time. I was told the person I’m looking for might pass by here.’
‘What was your plan? To ambush them when they least expect it? I will not assist in a kidnapping, my day is busy enough without the trouble of holding someone hostage.’
She pivots on her heels, and holds her chin high, and starts down the path again. The figure runs their hand through their hair, and appears to watch her go, their body turning in her direction.
‘Please! I’m looking for...’
But their voice bubbles and oozes into an indiscernible shout. Dream-me almost trips over herself, turning to look at the faceless person, sheet-white. As though she has heard the name of a ghost.
A fire pierces through the centre of the image, like a painting succumbing to a hearth. It burns and burns until all the colours, all the shapes melt and burn into nothing but black.
I rub my eyes with my hands, so that I might open my eyes and restart it all, but instead blink awake to a cabin on a ship, the golden light of the morning jolting me conscious.
I am sitting upright already, and when I place my hand on the mattress to steady myself in the confusion of it, I find that I am alone. The floor, I find, is empty of all clothes but my own.
I pull them on, looking around me, feeling as though I have misplaced something but unable to discern what exactly I am without.
My fingers are too weak to clasp the laces of my dress, and my joints are too stiff from the cold to fully tighten them. I give up and flop back down on the bed with a defeated thud.
He kissed me like it was the only sustenance he had, like there was nothing that brought him to life but the feeling of my lips on his, of my hands in his hair. And he took me to his bed like he wanted more of me.
With the clarity of a new day and a sobered mind, I realise just how intimate the night had been.
He just wanted to hold me and be held in return.
There was nothing more valuable that we could’ve given each other, than the feeling of being needed, and the comfort of indulging in it. All negative factors aside.
I trace the spot on my waist where his hand had caressed and spoil myself by imagining it was there again, worried that will be all I have of him.
He’s out there now, somewhere on the deck, likely thinking about it too.
Probably cursing the ale, and the temptation he fell into, ashamed that he let himself falter twice in one evening.
Someone throws the door open, the crashing of the wood startling me upwards. Lillienne hangs on the door frame, wheezing and scarlet-cheeked, clutching at her ribcage.
‘I. Couldn’t. Find. You.’ Her hair is ruffled, and sticking unnaturally upwards, likely in the position she slept in all night.
‘You weren’t in your bed. I thought you’d gone overboard.’
‘I’ve been here,’ I say, gesturing to the room. Lillienne barely notices, huffing up something awful.
‘I have a stitch,’ she winces, and I pat the bed beside me as though to say ‘sit.’
I almost fall over with the force of her plonking herself down on the bed, haphazardly. Only when she’s sitting does she really take in her surroundings. ‘Hold on, where is here?’ Her eyes widen at me.
‘Lillienne, it’s not what it—’
‘You had a cabin this whole time and you let me sleep down there with the cargo!’
‘Not exactly, I—’
‘I reek of decaying aquatic life and was rudely awakened to one of those questionable members of Truman’s massaging my feet – and he was way too liberal with it, might I add – whilst you were up here cosied up in your own cabin.’
I pick at the thread of my sleeve, avoiding her eye.
‘What do you have to say for yourself? I may be able to scrub the smell away, but the image of that guy all up in my feet will haunt me for the rest of my days.’ She crosses her arms, like a stern governess waiting for an explanation from a delinquent charge.
‘It’s not my cabin.’ I shrug.
Lillienne’s head quirks at me. ‘What do you mean? Who-the-hell’s cabin is it then? I know it’s not the captain’s because I was just in there looking for you, much to Truman’s dismay, and the other cabins had no beds and—oh.’
Her jaw falls open, and she just blinks at me, dumbfounded. ‘Tell me you didn’t.’
I bend down and begin shoving my feet into my boots. ‘I didn’t.’
‘Now say it in a way that convinces me,’ she implores. ‘Because you’re not doing much to convince me that you did not, in fact, sleep with the Umbrian king.’
‘In that case I did. I slept here with him, but nothing else. Now help me lace up my dress, I need to know our journey status, and I expect everyone else is already awake seeing how horrendous the sleeping conditions were.’
She begins tightening my dress behind me, but pokes her head over my shoulder. ‘Nothing else happened? Remember how insufferable I got the last time you kept something from me.’
‘Fine,’ I laugh. ‘We may or may not have kissed.’
‘You KISSED!’ she shrieks, pulling the laces way too tight, crushing my ribcage and forcing out a gasp from my lungs.
‘The whole crew doesn’t need to know.’ I can’t help but giggle at how close this feels to life in Algran, gossiping about boys, and whether or not we had kissed them.
‘Besides, I would put money on the fact that he will have realised how stupid it was already.’
‘Eira, I can’t believe how reckless you’ve been.’ She sits back and looks at me, hand clutching her chest where her heart is, pouting. ‘I am so proud.’
I give her a playful push, rolling my eyes. ‘Oh, give over.’
‘What? I love seeing you let loose and stop fretting over trivial things like logic or rationality. Throw caution to the wind my girl, mama is proud.’
‘Mama is a bad influence,’ I say, getting to my feet. ‘And I will think only with logic and rationale from now on, for the sake of not risking this alliance for a bit of ass. Now come on, we’ve got a shitstorm of a day ahead of us.’
Lillienne clings to my arm as I make for the door, evidently not done with her pestering. ‘Was it good, the kiss? Was he gentle with you, or was he just all over you, all hot and heavy like? Or were you the one to initiate it?’
She gasps when we reach the stairs down to the main deck. ‘Eira, did you try to climb that man like a tree? You can tell me.’
‘Enough, I did not climb anyone – well, not really – anyway, can we just stop talking about it before I push you overboard?’
Lillienne sucks her lips in her mouth, and nods to me, trailing behind me as we descend the stairs.
‘Eira, how nice of you to finally join us.’ Eliaz looks up at us, holding onto the end of the railing, Cole standing behind him with Truman. ‘I thought you’d be eager to find out the status of our journey.’
I search him for any indication, any signs of last night in his eyes, his mouth, his tone. But he looks at me blankly, as he would any of his travel companions. As he would someone he did not sleep the night embracing.
‘Seems like someone wasn’t satisfied last night,’ Lillienne mumbles from behind me, and I swiftly elbow her in the stomach, smiling unfazed at Eliaz. If that’s how you want to play it, then I shall too, feign ignorance.
‘My sincerest apologies for keeping you all waiting. If only there were someone who might’ve woken me earlier.’
Cole scrunches his nose at me like I’m a bad smell, which is rich coming from a man who slept in a damp hold all night, and has most likely pissed himself from drink. Truman looks from me, to Eliaz, deep lines appearing between his bushy brows.
When I reach Eliaz’s side, I remain smiling. ‘What time did you wake this fine morning, dear King?’
Eliaz clenches his jaw, eyes flickering down my body the muscles in his face screaming tension.
‘I was up with the sun, as they say.’ He schools his face back into an expression of calm, easiness, and pats the captain on the shoulder.
‘Truman was just telling us that he thinks we will reach Attanae before dark.’
I look to the captain, who seems a little confused for some reason and smiles weakly.
‘The winds were favourable overnight, I take it?’
‘You would know,’ Lillienne mutters under her breath, and I shoot her a look sharp as a dagger. Eliaz notices the exchange, and arches a brow at me, and fails an attempt to suppress a smirk.
Cole stares at us blankly for a beat, then claps his hands together. ‘Well, I have no idea what the subtext to this conversation is, but I am starving. What fine cuisine do you have lined up for breakfast, Truman, my man?’
Truman just rubs his head, staring upwards towards the galley. ‘We found out about our trip with little time for preparation. So, all I could offer was some loaves of bread my wife made fresh. But upon fuelling my crew this morning, I found our supply to be severely lacking.’
Lillienne strategically diverts her attention to a gull in the air, steps down from the stairs with her hands behind her back, whistling lightly as though no longer part of the conversation. ‘That’s interesting,’ Cole narrows his eyes on her as she passes him.
‘Looks like a breakfast of ale for us then.’ Eliaz stops him from instigating any further questioning, perhaps he knows a side to Truman that we do not, and wishes to keep Lillienne from being subject to punishment. That, or he is desperate to get away from this conversation, and me.
He guides Cole away without a single glance backward, leaving me standing there awkward and uncomfortable.
The silver-haired captain watches until the two men are gone from sight, then takes a sure step closer towards me, and I, having been wary of him since our first meeting last night, take a step back.
‘You must tell me, girl. Does he know?’
The question does confuse me, and I do not make any attempts to hide my bewilderment. I shake my head at him, a nervous laugh escaping at the sight of his tense brow.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. Does he know what exactly?’
Truman recoils from me a little. ‘You mean to tell me you haven’t told him? I would go as far as to say that’s a little careless on your part.’
I clench my teeth together, his tone setting something in me alight. ‘You are so bold to assert you know me enough to make such a judgement of my character. I do not know you, or what you think I am keeping from him. But I can assure you, I am an open book to all that are deserving.’
To my surprise, the captain laughs, and I do not like the way it makes me feel. Like a hot-headed child warning her governess not to cross her, lest she wishes to wake in the morning to mice in her bed.
‘You are just as I was told. Stubborn and passionate.’
I scoff. ‘And he believes he is able to make such a description. He barely knows me.’
‘I am sorry, Princess, I was under the impression that the two of you are rather close. Do forgive me if I have overstepped.’
At his sudden apologetic change in tone, I feel a little guilty to have been so harsh in my response to him. But still, to apologise now would make me seem all the more irresolute and feel all the more childish.
I take a breath, looking to his feet, black boots worn through to the sole. ‘I hope we reach the mainland in good time, so that we might be out of your hands sooner.’
‘It is of no difference to me, I am overjoyed to be back in the waters, and with my young friend no less.’
I can’t help myself. ‘When did you and the king meet? He is old, but you are—’ I stop before I say the word.
‘Mortal,’ he offers. ‘I was but a boy of eight, and Eliaz saw me on the docks, staring up at his ship like it was a gateway to another world, and he was kind enough to humour me.’
‘What do your people think of his seemingly eternal youth?’
He smiles fondly. ‘You learn to turn a blind eye to things that will only ruin you should you look close enough. We will never have a king as kind as him, and we’re grateful enough to not have to. To question it would be to wish it to change, and that is a damning thought.’
A damning thought indeed. How wrong I was before I knew the truth of it all, that I had been raised to rule on the wrong side, and taught that Eliaz was everything but the self-less and beloved ruler that he is.
‘I will not keep you.’ I bow my head to him and make to leave.
‘You should have told him sooner,’ Truman speaks his parting thoughts.
And I stop there, back to him, and scour my brain for any coherent response.
‘At the risk of repeating myself, told him what, exactly?’
He lets out a great sigh. ‘You know exactly what I mean.’
And I turn on my heel to push further, but he is already walking to his post, and I don’t have enough energy to ask any more questions.
This is going to be a long day.