Chapter XLI Scar
XLI Scar
I sit in my study, going over my speech for the trial for the hundredth time. The date is set for tomorrow, much sooner than I’d prefer. Ronan has been locked in a dungeon cell at Magnar’s insistence.
My husband wants to eliminate as many likely suspects of the attack by the pond. Right now, his spies and soldiers are looking into every group and individual that might actively oppose a human queen. As it turns out, there are many.
“Ugh, I can’t look at this anymore,” I say, pushing my draft away. “I’ve read it so many times, it sounds like gibberish in my head.”
Raduna looks up from the gardening periodical he’s reading. “It’s an excellent speech, my queen. You must know it by heart by now. Come rest for a moment.”
He points at a free space on the ottoman next to him. Arvi stands by the window, his hands clasped behind his back. He seems to be lost in thought.
I push away from my desk and stretch my aching arms. Raduna pulls me closer to his side when I sit next to him, letting my head settle on his chest as he combs his fingers through my loose hair.
“Would you like me to massage your shoulders?”
I nod, and he scoots back, inviting me to sit on the free bit of upholstered bench between his spread thighs. I go easily since it’s not his lap. My affliction is funny that way. Some gestures and positions make my skin crawl, yet others, no matter how similar, are completely safe.
And Raduna knows by now not to make me sit in his lap. Magnar does sometimes, but he’s always open about what he wants. His honesty makes it bearable.
“Let me tie it up for you.”
My knight gathers my hair into a bun and secures it with pins until it’s out of the way. When his warm, skilled thumbs press into the base of my skull, I sigh with relief.
“You’re so good at this,” I murmur, my shoulders dropping as he gently kneads my tense muscles. “I’m so glad I have you.”
“Thank you, my queen.”
We sit in silence for a while, and I let my feelings come close to the surface.
There’s affection, gratitude, admiration.
All the ingredients are there, but when I try to say it in my mind—I love Raduna—a fear presses at my heart, a slimy nauseating darkness similar to what I felt sitting in my father’s lap.
He’s not my father. He’s nothing like him!
Uncertainty creeps in, because how do I know? Of course, I know Raduna as a person. I know what he’s like, I know his passions, and I know I can rely on him. But what of other things?
“How did you get the scar on your face?” I ask softly.
Arvi turns, his eyes narrowed as he watches us without a word. Raduna takes a deep breath and stops kneading my shoulders.
“I’d prefer it if we were face to face for this conversation, my queen.”
I stiffen, instantly knowing I stepped into something serious. His voice is neutral and low, and I turn at once, searching his face. He looks sad. Oh, so very sad.
Clearing my throat, I get up and sit next to him, and Raduna nods. His hands lay in his lap, fingers uncurled but tense, and I take one into both of mine.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I remind him. I say that so often, it’s a wonder they haven’t realized what my predicament is about yet.
Though maybe it’s only obvious in my head.
“I’ll never hide anything from you,” he says seriously, looking into my eyes. Some of my darkness melts and softens. I believe him.
“You can tell me another time if today is too hard.”
He smiles with infinite understanding, the patchwork of his scars stretching into a new shape. “It will always be hard. The scar—I got it eleven years ago. I was twenty-eight. You don’t know this, because it’s something I have difficulty speaking of, but I was married back then. I had a family.”
My lips part with the faintest murmur of dismay. That simple word, had, conveys an ocean of sorrow.
“One night, I was out drinking with friends. We were farmers, and the reaping was finally over after a grueling harvest. My wife encouraged me to go out and celebrate, and I went gladly. We stayed out long into the night until one of my neighbors burst into the tavern, screaming that my house was on fire.”
I press my hand to my mouth to trap the sounds of pity lodging in my throat. Raduna’s face is calm, his voice almost serene, but his eyes, oh, they brim with grief.
“I ran as fast as my legs allowed, but when I arrived, it was clear nothing could be done. I went inside anyway. We had a small cottage, just a kitchen with a sitting room, and the bedroom in the back. It had its own door. When I forced it open, I saw at once our bed was engulfed in flames. My wife was gone. But my daughter’s small bed was closer to the door, and miraculously, hadn’t burned yet. ”
“You had a girl,” I whisper, almost choking on my words.
He nods slowly, and his fingers spasm in my palm. “She was five years old. I carried her out, grateful that I could save her, at least. But when I laid her in the grass, she wasn’t breathing. She suffocated from the smoke. I lost everything in one night.”
We sit in silence, and I swallow tears, desperate not to add the burden of my grief to his own. And still, a tear I can’t hold back rolls down my cheek. Raduna smiles sadly and wipes it away with a trembling hand.
“She’d be sixteen if she lived,” he says with infinite sadness and longing. “My sweet, pretty girl. I miss her every day. My wife, too, but my daughter the most.”
Oh, it’s so much worse than what I anticipated. Images of Raduna with a female Agnidari child with red hair race through my mind. I want to know what kind of dad he was. His daughter would have been like me, growing up with only a father.
I don’t know how to put my questions into words, and I have no right to pry into his pain. I clear my aching throat and squeeze his hand. “I am so, so sorry. It must have been terrible.”
He holds my gaze. “It was. But it’s in the past, Caliane.
I learned how to live without getting crushed by it.
That night, when I realized my child was dead, I tried to rush back into that house and die with her body in my arms, but my friends and neighbors held me back.
I buried her by the ashes of our house and her mother, and I left the village.
For a year, I wandered the country, doing odd jobs here and there for food and a place to sleep.
Then Magnar became king and started building his army. I enlisted.”
“And now you’re here,” I whisper, feeling so guilty I can’t love this man.
He hums. “I’d never cheapen their death by saying it happened for a reason.
That’s not how it was. But after it happened, kind fates led me to Magnar’s side on that battlefield.
If not for me, Khay would be dead. He was overrun by three skilled warriors and exhausted.
I stepped in and chopped off their heads. ”
He smiles, his eyes twinkling, and a surprised laughter bursts out of my throat. Even Arvi chuckles, still watching us carefully from his spot by the window.
“Magnar asked me three questions after I saved Khay: was I free of family ties, was I willing to stay celibate, and would I devote myself to him and his queen once he found her. I said yes to all. I meant it. I still do.”
“And he knighted you then and there,” I murmur, remembering that part. “He must have seen something in you. Loyalty. Strength.”
“The ability to chop off heads,” Arvi mutters with a smirk.
I bite the inside of my lip. I think I finally know how to ask him, but it feels invasive. When Raduna catches my eye, he smiles.
“You can ask me anything you’d like, my queen.”
I huff. “Am I that obvious?”
“Sometimes. I make an effort to learn your tells since you have trouble asking for what you want.”
“Oh.” I look away, my cheeks burning. It’s now or never. “Well, if… If your daughter had survived that night, what do you think your life would have looked like?”
He inhales sharply, and I look up in alarm. “I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be.” His face crumples, lines of sadness aging him like time didn’t. I regret asking, but I must know. My heart beats so fast, I’m almost dizzy. His answer will reveal something, I hope, and maybe, finally, I’ll be able to love my knight.
He takes a long time to speak, and when he does, his eyes gain a faraway, sorrowful look.
“I would have found us another house. She would cry every night for her mother, and I would comfort her, hiding my own grief. My neighbors and friends would help us, probably try to find me a new wife. I suppose I would have remarried for my daughter’s sake.
A girl must have a mother. A man can’t understand everything, teach her everything she should know.
I wouldn’t look for love for myself, but for a kind, sensible woman who would love my girl like her own.
It would be a different kind of happiness. ”
A sob rips out of my throat. His answer is completely unexpected, and it burns a path across my mind, revealing things I never considered, opening possibilities I didn’t know existed.
Raduna watches me closely, and I get up on shaking knees, looking around for a place to hide—anywhere they might not see me.
Arvi takes a step closer, frowning with worry, and I shake my head. Sobs burst from my throat, tears running down my face as I spin around, feeling trapped, too exposed, sick with it.
“Hide here,” Raduna murmurs, tugging me to himself. “It’s all right, Caliane. You don’t have to speak, but don’t run from me.”
I cry into his chest as we stand together, and he holds me loosely but surely. Arvi comes closer and wraps his arms around us both, and I disappear, just like I wanted. My knights hide me from the world as an agonizing realization rends my heart into shreds.
A girl must have a mother.
Not once did my father speak of finding a new wife, and it was utterly abnormal, wasn’t it? Raduna made it his first choice. Find a mother for his daughter. Because he loved her.
What would have happened if my father had made an effort to find a new wife, one who would love me like her own, in Raduna’s words?
I would have been safe. She would have protected me, and he never would have done the things he did.
Which is probably why he never sought a second wife.
I always thought he loved my mom so much, he couldn’t bear the idea of marrying again, but Raduna must have loved his wife, too, and yet, he would have found another woman. Not for himself—but for his girl.
Over the years, I tried to understand the reasons for my father’s behavior. I grew up into a woman similar to my mother in appearance and stature, and I thought maybe he saw her in me, and that was why he did it.
Raduna’s simple explanation shatters that delusion. If my father wanted an adult woman similar to my mother, he could have found one, even in his court. My type of beauty is common in Farneer.
But he didn’t. Because he didn’t want an adult woman.
He wanted to touch a child.
I remember all those nights I woke up to find him in my room, his clothes rustling in the shadows, his breaths heavy.
A scream of rage bursts out of me when I comprehend what it was.
How can I not realize, knowing what I know now, when I have men, a husband?
I know what it sounds like, don’t I? What they do, how they touch themselves when they are in lust.
My sobs freeze in my throat, and I shiver harder and harder, awed and crushed by this new discovery. It should have been obvious, but I was wrapped in it, spent my whole life tangled in the lies. I had to make sense of all the depravity by myself, without the help of adults. I knew too little.
I think I know enough now to finally understand it, though.
My father was a deviant.
My mind spins as I slowly return to reality. Above me, Arvi leans his head on Raduna’s shoulder, and they hold each other as much as they hold me. It’s so peaceful. Safe.
Maybe I could finally tell.
“It wasn’t the best day for it, after all,” Raduna murmurs quietly with a regretful sigh. “With the trial tomorrow and everything.”
I deflate, responsibilities weighing down my shoulders.
The trial. Oh, no, I cannot risk breaking it all today.
I hope that’s not what will happen, of course, but I’ve been here a short while, and I don’t know everything about the Agnidari, their values, their beliefs.
What if they decide my father’s depravity is hereditary?
What if they’ll believe me sullied and broken?
Not today. Sometime else. It’s enough that I know now. Maybe I’ll deal with it on my own. Maybe I’ll never have to tell them.
Arvi steps away with a sigh, and I straighten, looking up at Raduna. His eyes are kind as always, and warm. Yes, he is fatherly—in the way of a normal, healthy father who would sacrifice his pleasure for his child, not the other way round.
“My invitation will always be open,” he says softly. “You can tell me anything, my love, and I will not judge or hate you. I promise.”
My heart squeezes tight with longing so powerful, it takes my breath away. He’s never called me his love before. And I realize I could say it back with no trouble now. The darkness is gone. I trust Raduna, because I know what kind of father he was.
The kind I would have wanted for myself.
“I will,” I promise, my voice so hoarse, I barely hear myself. “But not today.”