Chapter 17 - Chance
XVII Chance
All those eyes are on me, the stares growing more and more intense. I catch a flash of a woman’s angry face, her teeth bared. Then another, obviously disappointed. Judgmental gazes slide over my features, cataloging my clothing and hair, and obviously, inevitably, find me lacking.
“Fuck them,” Khay murmurs so quietly, only Magnar and I catch it. He steps forward and raises his arms, his voice loud and insolent.
“I was just as shocked and speechless when I saw her first!” he exclaims with a laugh. “Such a beauty, a true prize! And even better—she was alive!”
There are a few scattered laughs, and I swallow my unease, realizing belatedly I’m squeezing Magnar’s hand too tightly. All I can think is, He wasn’t joking. Prejudice, indeed.
“Princess Caliane has gracefully agreed to marry our king, thus making him a lawful member of the Table of Kings in the north!” Khay shouts again. “The war is over! We are victorious, and she is the one who brought us peace!”
He claps, and this time, the Agnidari follow his lead. The town square erupts with loud cheers, but they don’t fool me. I finally understand why Magnar was so adamant I come to him if someone is nasty to me at his court.
It’s very likely I will be hated.
“How come they didn’t know? We’ve traveled for days, and you must have sent messengers ahead,” I murmur to Magnar while keeping a forced smile on my face.
“We travel faster than gossip, and I wanted to wait with announcements until we perform the Agnidari wedding rituals,” he replies, an equally artificial smile on his face. “I’m sorry. It’s… a difficulty I will resolve.”
My smile grows a little more genuine as I contemplate Magnar commanding everyone to accept me as their queen under the threat of disembowelment. He won’t, of course. I’m not that important, and it would be ridiculous.
“It’s fine,” I say. “You have your seat. It’s all that matters.”
He turns to me with a frown, but a large Agnidari man jingling with gold jewelry steps forward, and Magnar drops my hand to greet him. Introductions are made, and I get to know the mayor of the town. He’s jovial and laughs loudly, inviting us to freshen up in his personal bathroom in the town hall.
“Go with Khay,” Magnar tells me, leaning down briefly to kiss my cheek. “And come to eat after. We’ll stay no longer than an hour, I promise.”
Khay listens to the mayor’s directions, nodding attentively while he firmly holds my hand. The chaos and the deep, unpleasant feeling of being out of place remind me of that day in the throne room when it all started. Just like then, Khay refuses to let go of my hand.
Except now, I feel comforted instead of trapped. Things have truly changed.
“Got it,” he says, pulling me toward a tall stone building with handsome pointed arches above the windows.
As we pass through a group of Agnidari women, they speak rapidly in their language of which I don’t understand a word. Khay growls and utters a short, angry sentence, scattering the women.
“What was that?” I ask.
He huffs unconvincingly, as if nothing happened. “Oh, nothing. They were just in the way.”
We enter the enormous, three-floored town hall through a set of thick doors that shockingly make no sound, swinging easily open.
It’s cool and empty indoors, and I sigh in relief, taking in pretty landscape paintings hanging on the stone walls.
We ascend a wide staircase covered with a faded carpet.
Upstairs, Khay leads me through a veritable maze of narrow, tall corridors with multiple dark doors. We turn, once and again, go through a door, then down another corridor. My head spins, and I know I’d be lost here without Khay. I was never in a building so densely packed with small rooms.
“And—yes!” Khay exclaims with triumph, opening a door that indeed leads to a bathroom. It has everything I need, and when Khay makes to follow me, I stop him.
“Please. I’d like to be alone.”
He gives me one of his mournful stares, his long-lashed eyes brimming with longing.
“Will you stop punishing me when we get to the keep, my diamond?” he asks, his voice on the verge of breaking. “Please. I’ll never use your body like that again.”
I startle, because I’ve entirely forgotten the reason why Khay stopped sleeping in my bed. I didn’t mind him rocking against me in the least. It was just, well, convenient to push him away, and he suggested the punishment himself. The familiar guilt surges in my chest, unquenchable, sick.
“You’re forgiven, Khay,” I say, avoiding his eyes. “I’m not punishing you. I just… I need a moment alone.”
He sighs and pulls away, motioning me into the cool room. “I’ll be right outside, my lady.”
I take my time, enjoying the comfort of a proper toilet after having to squat in the bushes on the road. When I’m almost done, male voices filter through the door, Khay speaking to another man in the Agnidari language.
“Caliane, I need to leave for a minute,” he says. “Stay there until I come to get you. Keep the door locked, please.”
I wash my hands and face, then undo the top ribbons holding my bodice in place and splash cold water on my throat and nape, too. The towels here are soft, and the soap smells like honey. I cool my hands and face until my nose is numb.
So what if they hate me? It’s not like they’ll ever see me again.
Magnar will probably lock me up in the keep for safety.
After all this, it will turn out things haven’t changed at all, will it?
Just like in my father’s castle, I’ll spend my days doing pointless things to fill my time until I give Magnar an heir—gods, a squirming, tiny, gray-skinned baby with strange eyes—and then, I’ll be busy raising the child until he wants another.
That’s an existence I’ve been prepared for all my life.
There’s comfort in familiarity, even if the future stretching ahead seems so utterly lonely and bleak.
That one moment of camaraderie, of utter belonging with these four men when we laughed together shines like a beacon in my mind, something I could have, a dream just out of reach.
Anyway, where is Khay?
I get anxious when I realize he’s been gone for a good five minutes, if not more. When there’s a knock on the door, I sigh in relief. “Gods, Khay, what took you so…”
I trail off, looking at a blue-haired Agnidari woman standing in the threshold of the bathroom with a pleasant smile.
She’s dressed in the Agnidari fashion, in a green dress and a blouse, with a white, crisp apron on top.
And yet, she’s much shorter than the other women I saw—we stand nose to nose.
When she turns a little, I realize it’s because she’s a hunchback.
“Follow, follow,” she says, motioning at me with a clawed hand. Her voice is heavily accented, and I get the impression she won’t tell me much more.
“Where’s Khay?” I ask, looking left and right, but the corridor on either side of her is empty.
She nods emphatically. “Hara! Khay, hara. Follow, follow.”
I hesitate, checking again, but there’s no sign of my knight. The woman smiles encouragingly, beckoning me with her long finger. “Khay, nahiri. Follow, follow.”
I rock on the balls of my feet, indecisive.
On the one hand, Khay told me to wait, but what if he got held back?
If he sent her here because he couldn’t come, I’ll be quite a dummy if I insist on staying in the bathroom while the time Magnar allotted for eating ticks away.
My stomach grumbles, reminding me how hungry I am.
That’s what settles my choice. I give up and nod.
The woman’s steps are small but quick as she leads me through the warren of corridors.
I get the impression we’re taking a different route to the one that brought me here, but maybe it’s a shortcut.
We go down a narrow staircase, and then into a corridor without windows, with tall doors on either side.
There’s a heavy door at the end, standing ajar.
I sigh in relief, thinking it must lead outside.
The woman stops and gestures at the door. “Khay, nahiri. Khay.”
I thank her with a smile and go through. The door slams shut behind me, and I turn fast, realizing this is not the way out but a dead end. I’m in a strange room with windows boarded with planks, the only light coming from a single candle sputtering on a low, messy table.
I tug on the handle and knock on the door, certain there must have been a mistake, but the door won’t open.
Oh no. No, no, no.
“Let me out!” I scream, the familiar panic clawing at my insides, the fear that lives in my guts choking me until I can’t breathe.
There are no windows, no way out, just like in the cellar. Just like back home, no one will come. No one ever comes.
“Help! Please! Let me out!” I beg, my voice so high-pitched, the words barely push out of my throat. The air grows thin, suffocating. I beat on the door in a frenzy, knowing I’ll faint soon. I always do, and then, I’ll wake here again, lost and confused, and so very scared.
“Someone! Please!”
“There’s no need for that, is there?”
I freeze with my fists pressed to the cool wood. The voice is male and unaccented, human. In my panic, I didn’t even notice that I’m not alone in this room.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, I turn around.
At first, I think the voice must have been a figment of my imagination until the shadows in the farthest corner shift, and a man stands from an armchair.
He walks into the circle of light cast by the candle, and I swallow nervously, looking him up and down.
He’s a stranger. His hair is dark, falling in greasy clumps down to his shoulders.
His face is unshaved and pale, dark, beady eyes set deep under sparse eyebrows.
He might be anywhere between his forties and sixties.
His build is tall and lean for a human, though after spending so much time among the Agnidari, I catch myself thinking of him as short.
He wears a tattered cloak. There’s a sickly aroma of unwashed skin in the room.