Chapter Twenty-One
While Imperial history tends to consider King Vylanar the final ruler of the island, a more careful reading of the source material reveals that he was in fact merely the subordinate consort to his wife, Queen Talvia.
She was what the locals referred to as “goddess-touched,” a status that this scholar has been unable to absolutely define.
(For more information on the goddess-touched, see my volume on Religious Figures and Rites.)
Akeisa: An Overview of Prominent Historical Figures
by Guildmaster Klement
Einar had been gone a long time.
Well, perhaps not a long time, but far too long for Aleksi’s tastes.
He said as much to Naia, and she threw her head back with a laugh. “Am I boring you?”
“Of course not.” They were sitting on the sofa, facing one another. Her bare feet rested in his lap, so he tugged on one of her toes. “But you know what I mean.”
Her laughter subsided into warm affection. “Yes, I do. You do not like when he is gone because it leaves you with an empty place shaped like him.”
It was such an apt description, nothing Aleksi ever would have thought, but it fit. Not just the way he missed Naia and Einar when he wasn’t with them, but how he felt them when they were there.
He ran his hand up Naia’s leg to rest in the bend of her knee. “I also have a place shaped like you.”
“Mm-hmm.” She lifted her foot to rest on the middle of his chest. “I’m the other half of your heart.”
He caught her ankle. “You are.”
“I know.”
Aleksi did not like to rely on words to convey his feelings. He much preferred to demonstrate them. But they’d had precious little time to spend on moments like these, enjoying each other’s company and learning how to simply be together.
For now, words would have to do. “I mean it, Naia.”
“Aleksi . . .” She pulled her foot from his grasp and shifted until she was kneeling on the sofa.
“I know. When you wrapped us in the Dream, I did not just feel your pleasure. I felt everything.” She leaned forward and kissed his nose lightly.
“Do not mistake my serenity for nonchalance. I just know what is mine.”
It eased a weight he had not realized he’d been carrying, and he winked up at her. “Then can you please convince the staff to stop building fires in here every morning? It is becoming increasingly too warm for them.”
The moment the joke left his lips, the blazing fire in the hearth receded until only glowing embers were left.
“How thoughtful,” he murmured. “Thank you, Naia.”
But she only shook her head and smiled. “That? Was not me.”
“Then how?”
Naia moved again, this time crawling over to him. “I think you might need to accustom yourself, my lord, to the fact that this island? My island?” She traced her finger along the skin left bare by the open vee of his shirt. “Wants to see you happy.”
“Well, in that case . . .” He grasped her hips. “You should come a little closer.”
The door swung open, and Einar walked in, a distracted frown creasing his brow.
He closed the door and leaned against it for a moment, still frowning.
Without saying a word, he shrugged out of his new jacket and dropped it haphazardly over the back of a chair.
When he dropped carelessly onto the love seat across from them, the wood frame creaked dangerously.
Naia sat back on her heels. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Einar heaved a sigh that sounded like the weight of the world was pressing down on him. “Gwynira wants to know when she can schedule my coronation.”
And there it was.
Aleksi had known, on some level, that this would be coming.
No, he had not imagined that Gwynira would be the one to suggest it, though perhaps he should have.
She hated this place, in a way, not because of the people but because of Sorin and his cruelty.
And of course, the people would want the heir of their most beloved rulers in her place.
Their prince.
Their king.
But Naia just blinked. “She what?”
Einar scrubbed his hands over his face with a hoarse laugh. “I know. I know. But she took me up to your temple . . . and the tree is blooming. The one that hasn’t bloomed since the day I was born.”
“Oh, Einar.” Naia climbed off the sofa and went to kneel on the love seat next to him.
It was a stark separation, barely even symbolic. Aleksi on one side of the room, and Naia and Einar on the other.
Would it hurt this much when he had to leave without them?
Einar reached for Naia, his fingers finding hers. The touch seemed to ground him, and he instinctively sought more contact by clasping her hand between his.
Naia tilted her head, her frown returning as she regarded Einar, but her words were carefully, studiously neutral. “Do you want to be king?”
“No,” he said, too swiftly and forcefully for it to be anything but the truth. “I may have been born a prince, but I was raised on ships. On the sea. I know nothing about courts and castles and how to run a whole island. It would be a disaster. Except . . .”
Aleksi’s fingers and toes had gone numb. “Except?” he prompted gently.
“Can I say no?” He looked from Naia to Aleksi and back, conflict clear in his tight expression. “The island has a chance to be free of Imperial rule. And Gwynira doesn’t want to stay. But if she leaves now, when there is such chaos everywhere . . .”
“It isn’t your responsibility, just because Gwynira doesn’t care to shoulder it anymore,” Naia protested.
“Is it not?”
“Not if you don’t want it.”
As if her assurance had freed him of some terrible burden, he relaxed back against the cushions, stroking his thumbs over the back of her hand. “I don’t think I would make a very good king. But maybe I wouldn’t have to be. The island already has a leader, and I could be your protector again.”
Naia nearly jerked her hand from his. “I . . . No. No, that’s not—they had councils, I only—” She stopped and took a deep breath. “That isn’t who I was. What I did here.”
She was near tears, and no wonder. It was yet another reminder that Einar still did not remember their life together. Worse, that there was no one left in this world that remembered her—the real her—at all.
Einar had gone still again, his gaze roaming over her face. Finally, he said softly, “You are the island. What do you want?”
She climbed off the love seat and paced toward the opposite side of the room before turning to face them both again. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. I can’t, not yet.”
When she did, she would not be able to countenance leaving. She had only left her people before to save them, and they worshipped her. What could ever tempt her to walk away from that?
Einar’s brow furrowed. “Do you mean you’re not sure if you want to settle here?”
Her agitation worsened. “I mean, I haven’t thought about it.”
“And you don’t have to.” Aleksi held out a hand. “Come and sit, love.”
She sank to the sofa once more, but at the very opposite end of it. Now, she was far away from both of them. She clenched her hands in her lap and looked down.
“Neither of you has to decide anything right now,” Aleksi continued. “And no one should expect it of you. It’s not right.”
“It isn’t—” Naia shuddered and looked up at each of them in turn, her eyes shining with tears. “I don’t know if I can leave now. Did either of you think of that?”
Einar muttered a stricken curse, one that Aleksi silently echoed.
He had considered it, but not in terms of physical capability.
It had never occurred to him that she might be tethered to this place now by more than custom and devotion.
She might not be like the gods of the High Court, or even the storm god of old, free to roam the lands and seas.
She was this island.
“You have a seat in the Sheltered Lands,” she told Aleksi, then turned to Einar. “And you have your ship and crew. I have not thought about staying because . . .” Her shoulders fell. “I might not have a choice, but you do.”
“Naia—” Einar left the love seat to kneel in front of her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“Don’t.” Her whisper was barely audible, and she softened the command with a hand on his cheek. “You don’t want to rule here, Einar. You’ve told us that from the very beginning.”
“It’s not even that,” he said quietly. “For two thousand years, all I’ve wanted was to destroy the Empire.
When Sorin fell, I could have come here, you know.
I thought about it. But I was afraid that I had forgotten how to want anything else.
” He pulled her hand to his lips for a kiss, then looked to Aleksi.
“But now I want something. I want you. Both of you.”
Naia slipped onto the floor, as well, and wrapped her arms around Einar.
But Aleksi stayed where he was, because there was only one outcome here.
Naia and Einar would stay. Of course they would.
Their shared legacy would not be denied.
A Rahvekyan king, one who had liberated the island from colonial rule and was a god twice over?
A king whose queen consort was the island itself?
Epic poems had been based on less.
Aleksi opened his mouth. Words came out, and though he did not know what they were, he knew they were the right ones. Words that would reassure, that would comfort.
This moment was a much-needed reminder of what the universe had been telling Aleksi all along. His lovers had a grand destiny—two immortal lifetimes’ worth by now—and he would not stand in the way of it.
His heart would not let him.