Twelve #2
I find Alaris and Fen sitting together near the fountain where we first entered. They are so close their knees touch. I almost leave them to it. But something about the scene pulls me in. They look impossibly small beside the towering stone figures of the fountain.
I hang back, close enough to overhear. Close enough to know I shouldn’t.
Alaris is the first to speak. “It was quick I think. At least he didn’t have to suffer.”
Fen’s voice is a rasp. “That’s a lie. Rask choked him to death with one hand. I saw the light leave his eyes.”
Alaris puts a hand on Fen’s shoulder, awkward at first but then firmer. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. He was brave though. He did it for us. He wouldn’t want you to give up.”
Fen laughs, bitter and ugly. “Well, he’s dead now, so he doesn’t get to ‘want’ anything.”
Alaris’ face twists but he says nothing.
“I just want this to be over,” Fen murmurs.
They sit in silence for a while. Alaris traces invisible shapes on his thighs, while Fen stares at his hands, twisting his fingers together until the knuckles go white.
“You said you would try,” Alaris says. “You promised me.”
Fen shakes his head in disbelief. “I lied. I just wanted to make you feel better.”
Alaris’ voice cracks. “I can’t do this without you.”
Fen shrugs, small and defeated. “You can. You’ll have to. You’re the better channeller anyway.”
“Stop saying things like that,” Alaris pleads. “I hate it when you talk like you’re already dead.”
He sighs and sits up straight. “You know I’m only here on a gamble. I've got plenty of Mana, sure, but I only volunteered to get the coin for my family. You’ve seen the guys from Fire and Shadow, I don’t stand a chance.”
“Now who’s giving up,” Fen retorts, nudging Alaris with his elbow.
Alaris doesn’t answer, but when Fen leans into his side, letting his head rest on Alaris’ shoulder, he lets it happen.
Alaris wraps his arm around Fen’s back and holds him there.
They sit like that for a while, two wounded animals huddling together for warmth.
I feel suddenly out of place.
Like I'm spying on something I wasn't meant to see.
Still, I can’t look away.
“Will you stay and fight with me?” Alaris asks.
“I can’t promise you that,” Fen says. “But I’ll try.”
Fen seems to fall asleep, his breathing evening out as his body goes slack against Alaris’.
Alaris keeps his arm around him, watching the walls with hollow eyes, like he’s waiting for the ground to fall out from beneath him.
I leave them there, but the sight of them stays with me.
For a moment I almost step closer.
Almost say something.
Almost ask if I can sit with them.
But I stop myself.
In another life, maybe I would have been brave enough to ask for that kind of comfort.
The Embrace suddenly feels like a prison. I sit at the desk in my room, letting my thoughts run in aimless circles.
I think about Marissa, and Callen, and the sad, intimate cocoon Alaris and Fen have made for themselves. I think of Sorin and Theon, and I wonder if it will be my turn next.
The golden cracks pulse faintly, like my room is alive, breathing through the pain of the wounds I inflicted. I find it oddly comforting.
There’s a knock at the door—two quick raps then silence. I want to ignore it, but I find myself rising, heart fluttering, hoping for someone I have no right to expect.
When I open the door, Kael is standing there, hands in pockets, head slightly cocked.
In the low light, the tattoos on his forearms look like swirling strips of darkness, stolen from the night and pinned to his skin.
Each time I see him, I feel certain he’s about to kill me, or at least threaten to. Like a demon come to claim his debt.
Instead, he nods a fraction. “Little rabbit,” he says.
I flush a little, unsure when the moniker started to make me feel giddy instead of murderous.
Without thinking, I step aside to let him in.
He moves with a careful grace, as though he doesn't quite trust the room.
He takes the chair. I take the bed, sitting on the edge with my hands braced on either side of me.
The distance between us is small. His long legs rest barely a foot from mine.
For a few seconds, neither of us speaks.
“I didn’t expect to see you,” I say.
Kael shrugs. “I didn’t expect to come.”
He turns his hands over slowly, studying them with a faint frown. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“About?” I try to sound casual, but it feels like there is a razor in my mouth.
He laughs, short and sharp, void of friendliness. “Do you want the truth?”
He waits for me to nod.
“You should have been the first person I killed out there.”
The words are heavy, but not surprising.
“And yet you didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t.”
He laces his fingers, leaning forward to place his elbows on his knees. “I spent the entire trial searching for you, you know. Nyxen and Vaelis tried to keep me away from the centre, but I wouldn't listen.”
He glances up. Something unreadable flickers across his face before he smothers it. “I thought maybe I’d—”
He stops, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“What?” I ask, keeping my voice calm and even. “What did you think?”
He sits back. “It doesn't matter,” he repeats, but I make out the lie this time.
I try a different tack. “Did you plan to kill me? Make good on your threat?”
He snorts, sidestepping the question. “I have a duty to fulfil.”
It seems everyone has some noble duty but me.
“My father has expectations. I can’t afford distractions.”
He says the word father like it tastes rotten.
I lean in, curiosity trumping fear. “Is that what I am? A distraction.”
Kael smirks. “You are—something.”
“And what of your father’s expectations?” I probe, feeling brave.
Kael’s eyes still, flat as death. “I’m expected to win. My father is the Shadow Crown, and he raised me to be the same.”
His fingers tighten together. “It’s either win and earn the Crown or die and prove him right.”
“He sent you here?”
He shakes his head, bitterness filling his eyes. “There are no choices when it comes to my father. It’s an illusion. Even when you think you’re making one of your own, you’re really just picking which part of yourself to cut off.”
He rubs at his knuckles, like he’s trying to scrub away a memory. “The first time I killed someone, I was eight years old. My father calls it a rite of passage. To learn death. He watched me do it.”
I flinch, involuntarily.
“I failed, if you must know.”
The ghost of a smile twitches on his lips.
I wish it hadn’t.
“I didn't do it properly and the boy bled out for hours. My father left us there, locked in a cell. He said if I wanted to get out, I had to finish it.”
He meets my gaze, and there is nothing but shadow in his eyes.
“And I did.”
Something like panic flutters behind his eyes, as if he doesn't know why he said all of that out loud.
“None of that is your fault,” I say.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says for a third time, but this time, the words are gentle, almost tired.
We sit in silence. I feel the wriggling itch to fill it with something, but I resist. Instead, I let myself look at him properly—not at the mask he wears for everyone else, but at the person underneath.
He is beautiful, in the way that a blade might be considered beautiful: all sharp edges and danger.
“Why are you telling me this?” I finally ask, painfully aware of the terseness of our previous interactions.
Kael schools his features back into that unreadable expression.
“Because you keep doing the opposite,” he says. “You keep trying to save people. Even when they don’t want you to. Even when it’s hopeless.”
You robbed me of my choice.
“I’m not better than you,” I say.
He stares at me, and for a second, I think he might hit me, or worse, laugh at me. Instead, he just says, “Maybe not. But you’re not the same either.”
He rises and steps towards me. He is close enough that I can see the sheen of sweat on his collarbone, the edge of a swirl of black ink. I look up at him, unsure if I should retreat or reach for him. I do neither.
Kael moves even closer, until there is nothing between us but the faint, pulsing light leaking from the golden cracks in the ceiling above.
He places his hand beneath my chin, tilting my face to look at him.
He is so close that I’m momentarily lost in his eyes—pools of black, swimming with gold—and the way the shadows within them writhe as he studies me.
“I—” he starts, but his eyes flash with hesitation, maybe even fear.
“I don’t know why I care what happens to you,” he says, voice barely more than a whisper.
I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to. That I can take care of myself. But the lie refuses to form on my tongue.
I look at his hands, deadly and graceful, and I wonder what it would feel like to be touched by a man like this without fear. By my own choice. Unforced.
“Are you afraid?” he asks.
I huff a breath, not quite a laugh, and snap back to reality. “Always.”
“Of me? I mean.”
I swallow, my mouth suddenly, painfully dry. “No,” I say.
The barest of smiles lifts the corners of his lips.
“You should be.”
I reach out, stupidly, and place my hand over his where it still rests under my chin. I don’t know why I do it. This is reckless.
He doesn’t pull away. His skin is cool and smooth, but beneath it I feel the slightest tremor, like he’s battling to keep still. It's as though he's afraid to move.
We stay like that for a moment, breathing the same air, the world reduced to this tiny speck of human contact.
Kael pulls away gently.
He stands in the centre of the room, looking at me like he is trying to memorise every detail.
Then he is gone.
I sit back down on the bed, tracing the cracks in the ceiling, the gold lines drifting into each other, forming a fragile web.
I try to calm my racing thoughts.
It doesn't work.
All I can think is:
What the fuck just happened?
Dinner is a morose affair. Everyone pretends to be whole when most of us are falling apart.