12. Raithe
Raithe
“Why do you antagonize her?” Felaf muttered once we were outside the council room. She trailed after me all the way up to our chambers. “She hardly lets us sit in on those meetings, and you find a way to make her reconsider that every time."
“I don’t,” I replied over my shoulder. The servants were too busy smudging the halls and disassembling adornments to notice my brisk pace.
“It’s not that I blame you, but for someone who so ardently serves the Zodiac and its Astrals, you have a funny way of showing it sometimes.”
Cyrene’s death had blanketed the palace with despair, but it would be fleeting. Only the death of a queen warranted weeks of official mourning.
“Because Maryn’s not a Chosen, Felaf, even though she pretends to be,” I whispered. “She was hand-selected by Queen Auden’s barons as an advisor. An advisor was never meant to serve as queen regent for this long.”
She matched my quick strides up the main staircase. “Are you sure it’s only Maryn you have a problem with?”
I glanced sidelong at her.
“I only meant you’re the great Raithe Katsaros, the youngest guardian ever Chosen!
” She spread her hands before her in a grand demonstration.
“You won an Elemental Tournament the same year you were Chosen. I have so much to learn from you still, yet it seems like you’d rather be anywhere else than here. Anywhere else but around me.”
“I’m not a ‘great’ anything, Felaf. I’m a guardian, doing my duty.” I picked up the pace until finally reaching my chamber. Felaf paid no attention to my door as I attempted to close it behind me, inserting herself into my room.
My skin itched in discomfort at her presence. This was my true sanctuary, where everything was orderly and exactly to my liking—the only place I could call mine. I breathed through my nose impatiently, searching for my travel gear while trying to ignore her pacing at my back.
“With Cyrene gone, we’ll have more spare time together. It would mean a lot if I could train with you instead of being forced to punish you,” she said.
Deep down, I knew Felaf took no pleasure in her lashings the way Maryn did when she ordered them.
Felaf’s strength matched my own, therefore only she could inflict pain to the extent Maryn desired.
Shame prevented me from sharing the partial nature of my disobedience.
I would do whatever it took to protect this queendom, yes, but a darkness in me also craved the pain.
I deserved that pain more than I deserved my Athenian blades, my title as champion of the Elemental Tournament, and more than my position as a guardian. I would never be absolved from my past, no matter how much I pretended to forget it.
“Whoa!” Felaf exclaimed, rushing to my bookshelf.
“These carvings are incredible and so lifelike.” She held up a scorpion figurine made of wood, its tail raised and poised to strike.
“Are these from the city?” She studied the dozen others along the shelf.
“Considering what they say about scorpions, you must believe Scorpio is always near you.”
“That’s only for real scorpions,” I corrected her tensely. I wanted her to stop touching my things and leave everything in its place, undisturbed.
“Not according to my family,” she said almost fondly. “My mother believed any sign of a scorpion, even a figure such as this, meant Scorpio was always nearby to watch over us. After she died—before I was Chosen—my father believed their presence was an omen, rather than a sign of protection.”
I swiped the carving from her hand and gently set it back on the bookshelf in the same position she’d moved it from.
I hadn’t intended on starting a collection.
My ventures into the city often left me buying trinkets on my way home.
Chosens received a modest salary. Considering food and lodging were covered by the palace, it allowed us to save enough Tin—Scorpio’s official currency—for more personal expenses.
It was the least I could do to help the struggling merchants.
Most shops that weren’t essential in nature couldn’t afford to keep operating, and very rarely were artisans found in the streets anymore.
Nearly half of the queendom’s farmers and fishers were gone, their lands and lakes decimated by the drought.
Larger skylands still had some reserves of water, forcing rural dwellers to flock to the cities and beg to be let into the Barons’ Districts.
It was only a matter of time before the water reserves stored in the sediment of the skylands dried up entirely. Some still remained in the bedrock beneath the palace, but the water shipments from the queens of Cancer and Pisces to our cities were hardly sustainable.
Every second I wasted here meant another life lost. Unprotected. Exploited.
“Hello? Raithe?”
In the whirlwind speed at which I rummaged through my clothes, packing for my trip to Gemini, I finally acknowledged Felaf. Her arms were folded across her black leather uniform, the feminine version to mine that conformed to her toned arms and legs with a blackened metal breastplate. “Yes?”
She leaned against the bookshelf. I cringed, wishing she wouldn’t have such careless regard for it. “I said, you haven’t asked how I’m doing yet.”
Was this a trick question?
She flailed her arms in exasperation. “Listening to our Chosen queen die? The explosion? This was my first crisis situation as a guardian, Raithe. A big fucking deal. It was nothing like those training exercises on the Martial Isles, but—”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said. Tension coated my body. I needed her to leave me in peace so I could pack and get the fuck out of here. “It was a gruesome day for everyone.”
“And how did I do on such a gruesome day?”
“Fine, Felaf. You did fine.”
“Fine,” she said dubiously. “That’s it? No feedback on how to improve?”
“Look, I’m not your superior. We’re…” I struggled to find the right word. “Comrades.”
“Well, comrades help each other out. Comrades talk to one another.”
“I went through the same training that you did on the Martial Isles. You were even a general for a few years, were you not? That alone is basic guardian preparation.”
“Yes, but you weren’t a general, captain, or commander before becoming Chosen. And you had someone like Hector to learn from.” I fought against a flinch at his name. “One day, I want to be—”
“I get it. You aspire to be the greatest.” I gestured toward my door. “You want a lesson? Refrain from profanity when we’re in the debrief room. Everything gets transcribed, and it’s bad form.”
“Bad form? Me? You’re unbelievable.” She turned to leave, her braid swishing over her shoulder. I breathed a sigh of relief as she—“By the way, why didn’t you warn me?”
I sighed. So close. I’d been so close to ridding her from my room. Having anyone here, in my space, was too much.
She lingered at my door. “How it would sound.”
A beat passed as her words registered. The death and drowning of Cyrene. “You went through a trial yourself. Your own, in fact. Your father and aunt—”
“Yes,” she said, shutting her eyes tightly. “But their deaths were at my hand, by my blade. I was able to ensure their end was swift. They didn’t drown.”
It wasn’t until the Age of Libra, nearly four thousand years ago, that a more humane approach was adopted during the familial sacrifices. Chosens could opt to kill their blood relatives however they saw fit—without intervention from another—and their deaths would still be accepted by the Astrals.
“I assumed you knew what would happen.”
“Yes, but hearing Cyrene suffer like that was horrible, Raithe. I’ll hear that for the rest of my life.”
“You learn to live with it.” Sort of. There were times I still heard a phantom scream in the bath, belonging to the fallen princesses.
“It’s our sworn duty to protect that woman, yet we had to stand there and listen…” Felaf shook her head at me. “Is that what I must become too?”
“Become what?”
“Like you.” She paused. “Detached. From everything, everyone.”
I ignored her words, true as they were. “We are guardians. Our duty is to remain detached, remember?” By the time I’d left the Isles, Felaf and I had barely crossed paths.
“None of my training included anything about living in complete isolation or operating without compassion. The life of a Chosen is lonely, and yes, we must adhere to our oaths, but that doesn’t mean we can’t share the burden of our responsibilities and forgo friendships entirely—”
I held my gloved hand up to stop her. “Since when were we talking about friendships?”
She peered up at me, unfazed. “Is it because of the lashings? Is that why you ignore me?”
I suppressed a groan. “Felaf—”
“You know I… Wait a minute. Why have you been packing clothes?” She peered around my shoulder and gasped. “Why is your sleeping gear out? You’re leaving at a time like this?”
“Another princess won’t be Chosen for ten months at least. Keep the palace safe while I’m gone. Ensure the topaz’s protection.”
“Where the fuck are you going?”
“On holiday.”
Felaf barked a laugh. “You, on holiday?”
“Weren’t you just on your way out?”
“She’s very likely to kill you,” she said, not a trace of humor to be found. “She’ll make me do it.”
She could try. “I’m Chosen, she’s not. There are limits to her power. She can’t kill us without answering to the other courts.”
“These are unprecedented times, Raithe. I wouldn’t test her. And what about me?”
“What about you?”
“I…” She shifted on her feet, her bravado dissipating. “We need to train, remember? Like I said earlier.”
“Alekko can help you prepare for the tournament.”
“Not just for the Elemental Tournament. For being a guardian. You learned from the best, from Hector.”
It was the third time his name had been said this evening, and it was three times too many. “Leave, Felaf.”
“Cyrene was the twelfth since the curse started,” Felaf murmured on what was hopefully her final retreat. “She should have been the one to break it. This is our life from now on, isn’t it? The laughingstock of the realm, utterly useless?”
You are useless. You are nothing. You should never have been born.
The brutal words my mother had regularly stabbed me with as a child rang in my ears. I shook my head, reminding myself of who I had become and what I was destined to do. What Gregorios foresaw in me. I had a purpose. I was Chosen for a reason.
“You are anything but useless,” I said. “You’re a guardian.
Act like it.” I secured my door behind her and breathed deeply.
My gaze snagged on the drawing of the black rose atop my desk.
Felaf did need training, for she hadn’t noticed the drawing or that I was even packing until several minutes had passed.
I was alone at last, and the drawing seemed to mock me. Struggling to reconcile its significance with the curse, I curled the parchment in my fist.
I would find the black rose and bring it to Gregorios, no matter the cost.