20. Kazrith
You can’t tell her yet.
I stare at her in wonder, watching as the red light from the window highlights her perfect form, accentuating every bead of sweat and emphasizing the blood that pools to her cheeks and her bosoms.
She seems perfect in every way. Built to endure every possible hit to her character, navigating beautifully through impossible tragedies. I question how I could ever doubt her beauty—doubt the very notion of this partnership. To survive as she has in this world, as a human no less…
But I don’t dare wake her.
This could be the greatest moment of our lives together—the beginning of our end. I have to cherish what time I get with Hanna because we might soon find ourselves separated. And then Hanna will be nothing more to me than a memory.
And I don’t know why that bothers me so much.
She rolls over in her sleep, and I press down against the bed, bringing myself to my feet as I watch the dim light on the horizon. In the morning light, the barren trees just outside my manor window are coated in an unnatural glow. Hanna has often commented on their ugliness. I smile to myself at the thought.
How did I end up here? Why does something so deeply based on a lie hurt so much?
It was never supposed to be anything real. I was a convenience to her more than anything. She knew that. I knew that.
“Come back to bed.”
Shit.
I turn around from where I look out the window to find her fully awake behind me, watching my back. Her eyes are half-open, Hanna never having been an early riser.
“Go back to sleep,” I tell her, rubbing off the command. “It’s too early for you to be up.”
She stares at me and then yawns.
“You’re a fucking hypocrite,” she says, her mouth roaring mid-yawn.
“But it’s morning,” I say. “And I’ve got a lot to do down at the shop. I’m just getting my day started.”
She shakes her head, possibly seeing through my lie.
I hope she won’t probe, asking for the information I’m keeping from her and myself. Yesterday at the shop, I learned something that should elate me but doesn’t.
“That’s a load of shit,” she replies. “You don’t need to do early mornings anymore. You’ve got me now.”
I chuckle, amused at how she insists on keeping up this ruse even while we’re together.
She has become incredibly helpful as a business partner, to say nothing of the sex. But it’s all just a role she’s playing—an act she’s putting on. This can’t go on for much longer.
“Hanna, we’re alone. The servants aren’t awake. You don’t have to bother with that.”
At this, she brings herself up from bed, standing beside me. I can vaguely see her reflection in the window.
“You think I’m not being genuine?” she asks. “If you’re that worried about it, we’ll face it together. Fake marriage or not.”
I realize, with a start, that I want to knock her back down to the bed and take her, and I wonder whether they’re my real feelings or something I manufactured for the ease and convenience of this marriage. It’s so hard to know what’s an act anymore.
How much of this is a lie?
“What aren’t you telling me?” Hanna asks, scrunching up her nose.
She reaches up to grab my face, turning it toward her own. I feel my eyes shifting away from hers, the temptation to lie reaching critical levels.
But I’m not going to lie. I don’t know why it bothers me so much, just admitting it to myself.
Even though it will probably cause our separation, I have to tell her what I discovered.
“I have a spy on New Solas,” I say. “I’ve been keeping eyes on the city while we’ve been away, in anticipation of our mutual mission.”
“Vrask,” she replies, interrupting me before I can finish.
Her eyes are still dim and unaware. I should be recounting the weather forecast to her, or explaining my culture.
I shake my head.
“Not Vrask, no. Somebody else. A trusted confidante.”
She studies me, as though somehow distrustful of my words, but too tired and unmotivated to challenge me.
“Anyway, my source has pinpointed Zathex’s exact location,” I continue. “For a while, we were blind, but Zathex made a dumb mistake, and it’s going to cost him.”
I feel that this is where I should smile. After all, this is supposed to be good news. I can finally fuck over the asshole that ruined me, and she can find her revenge for all the ways he abused her.
And I’m happy for her. She’s finally getting everything she asked for… finally finding peace knowing that soon, her would-be captor will be dead.
So I smile. Because I should be smiling for both of us. But somehow, it doesn’t feel genuine.
“It’s finally going to be over, Hanna,” I say. “We’re going to put an end to that bastard. However you want to end it, he’s within my grasp.”
And I allow myself to feel what I know I should be feeling at the moment.
Now that we have him cornered, there’s nowhere he can run. I’m determined to bring an end to him, solidifying once and for all the power of my words, and the legitimacy of my work. I’m never going to have to deal with hardship like what he put me through ever again.
I can still see his smug smile in my mind. I imagine driving a dagger through his face, ruining his perfect teeth and his jagged, cocky jaw. He’s the only xaphan who ever crossed me and got away with it, and soon, he’ll be dead.
I bring myself out of my fantasy to discover a roused and overjoyed Hanna. I find myself somehow disappointed at her authentic elation.
“What? That’s fantastic!”
Hanna’s reaction is more immediate than I imagined. Once half-asleep, her groggy mind urging her to return to bed, her eyes are wide awake now, brimming with excitement.
“How long have you known this?” she asks.
“I just found out via karasu,” I lie.
She shakes her head, as though uncertain of the new reality thrust upon her.
“And you’re certain that we’ll be able to track him down? That you’re not trusting old information?”
I nod, struggling to keep the smile on my face.
“We know where he’s going to be when we’re ready.”
And when we find him and kill him together, we won’t have to pretend to be husband and wife anymore.
I’m grinning, but inside, the realization hits hard.
Our entire reason for being together will soon be gone, and Hanna will no longer need me.
“You know, at first, I had so many doubts,” she says. “You were a total stranger, forced to listen to me talk and ramble. I thought it was too good to be true…”
I move up to her, putting my finger up to her lips.
“We haven’t caught him quite yet,” I say. “So why don’t we save our celebrations for after he’s dead?”
I embrace her tightly, gripping her slender form in my arms. As I bring her up to me, I smell her hair… feel the smoothness of her neck.
“But Kazrith,” she says suddenly. “I thought we had business to get to? To set up the shop?”
I rub my jaw into her ear, feeling her long, flowing hair against my skin.
“Oh, shut up,” I say, chuckling slightly. “Let’s head back to bed for a bit.”
There’s probably a world of errands I could be doing right now. I’ve got to analyze trends, looking at what my competitors are doing. I need to develop new things and discover new resources to sell. I need to figure out where to go next for the most valuable items.
But my business will be here when Hanna leaves, never to return again. I’ll be able to study the market and organize my shop front as soon as this marriage comes to its inescapable end.
“You’re shaking,” Hanna says, gripping my arm and stabilizing it.
What’s wrong with me?
I pull away from Hanna, grinning to mask this pain. Then I chuckle.
“Just can’t believe we’re finally going to nail this asshole,” I lie, imagining her face as she walks away from me forever, and we return to our separate worlds.
She reaches in, breaching the distance. This time, she wraps herself around me.
“He really fucked you over, didn’t he?”
I look down at her, meeting her comforting gaze and reflecting it back.
“Well, it isn’t anything like what he did to you,” I say. “But yeah. I’ll be able to sleep a lot more soundly at night knowing Zathex isn’t alive to fuck with people anymore.”
Feeling her lean into me, her fragile body delicately perched against mine, I wonder if we would have ever crossed paths if it weren’t for this vendetta.
It wasn’t that long ago that her kind was strange and baffling to me. I still remember walking the dark market, pondering to myself how any demon could find human women attractive.
Then, by whimsy more than anything, life showed me the one exception to the rule—a human who was willing to fight the establishment’s choking grasp around her neck. It inspired me, seeing my preconceptions unravel before my eyes.
But it could have been anybody.
You set the bar so low, that you’ve started idealizing her.
I nod, more to myself than anything.
With all of my strength, I wrap my hands around her, letting time fly by.
It could be the end of an era. After all, what do we have binding us together, other than this strange, coincidental alliance against a shared enemy?
“We’ll get this asshole,” I say, partly to myself.
She nods, holding me tightly. I’d love to capture this moment forever, to claim this one isolated segment of time.
I might not know what will hold us together after the death of our arrangement, but I know that Zathex is as good as dead.
And I know I’m going to enjoy seeing her genuine happiness when he’s gone forever.