24. Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
I was surprised to see neither Sin nor Dey at breakfast the next morning but at the same time grateful for the brief reprieve. I had no idea what I was going to say to Sin after last night. Every thought I had about him was jumbled up with mixed signals and confusion. One minute he was a colossal asshole, and the next he was saving me. One minute he’s kissing me with a blazing passion, and the next he’s telling Dey that it was a mistake. Though I might be partially to blame for that one. I did tell him that I thought it was a mistake first, if only out of self-preservation.
I still didn’t know if it actually was a mistake. All the same reasons I never went there with Dey applied to Sin as well, and yet… my resistance for Sin was so much weaker. Now every time I saw him I’d be thinking of how his body had felt wrapped around mine, how his lips had burned against my own. I wanted to feel that again, to feel more even, and that was a problem I didn’t know how to solve.
“Are you well this morning, Raynella?” my father asked, taking his seat at the table. I hadn’t seen him since we made the deal yesterday, and I would be content with avoiding him as much as possible. He made it clear all he wanted from me was to fulfill the prophecy, and I could do without the fake fatherly concern in the meantime. Or maybe the concern wasn’t fake—I was important to his kingdom after all—it just wasn’t fatherly.
“I’m fine,” I said curtly, focusing on the plate of food being set in front of me.
“Raynella, you do know that you can talk to me if you wish,” he said with a sigh. “I know everything that happened yesterday. There is little in this castle that happens that I am not informed about.”
I almost choked on the pastry I was chewing. I really hoped no one had told him about me kissing Sin. The rumors about Cam and I were bad enough.
“If you know everything then you know I’m fine,” I said before taking a sip of kinna juice to clear my throat.
“Yes, well, you do seem to be in good health this morning. I hope the events of yesterday can be left in the past where they belong.”
I had no idea exactly what events he was referring to—the kiss, the rumors, the fight, or the panic attack—but I was more than happy to let all the subjects drop. “So where are Dey and Sin?” I asked casually.
He steepled his hands under his chin. “Ah, yes. My Cennux and my Foster. They do seem to be at the forefront of your thoughts these days.”
His tone indicated he had a strong opinion about that, but I couldn’t quite determine what that opinion was.
“Deylan is in the city overseeing preparations today, and I have decided to heed Cennux Dreisin’s advice in regard to your time with him. He was correct. Training you for combat is an exercise in futility given our short amount of time and your current lack of physical prowess. So you will not be training with him any longer. I trust my soldiers to get you through the forest safely without you needing to engage.”
I dropped my fork. Was he kidding? First my lessons with the twins and now this? He was the one who said I needed all this training and education to begin with.
“So what am I supposed to do all day?”
“That is entirely up to you, Raynella. Though I would advise you to keep your distance from Cennux Dreisin. The Elemental Games are in four days, and while I have little doubt that he will be one of the champions, I have asked him to spend the next few days honing his skills. He does not need any… distractions.”
The pointed look he gave me said that not only did he know about the kiss, but also the ensuing brawl.
I shoved my plate away, no longer hungry. “Great, so I’m stuck here in the palace with no TV because it doesn’t exist in this world, no books because they’re all in a language I don't understand, and now I can’t even work out with Sin?”
I snorted. Not being able to go to the gym was something I never thought I would be upset about.
“I am sorry my kingdom has proven to be such a disappointment to you, Raynella,” he said with a heavy sigh. There wasn’t even a hint of sarcasm to his words, and it sounded like he was genuinely sad about the fact.
“Yeah, I know. God shits in my breakfast once again. I’ve learned to deal with worse situations than this.” I stood from the table and strode briskly toward the door. “I’ll be in the Sylvarium communing with the crescia if anybody cares.”
I spent the rest of the morning hanging out in the Sylvarium, letting the same two crescia nest in my hair again. I named the red one Jenni because of its red coloring and the smaller one Opal for its shimmering, iridescent wings.
After a few hours of braiding the hanging vines, drawing stick figures in the dirt and idly chatting with the crescia, I concluded nothing was going to happen.
Leaving the Sylvarium, I went in search of my father’s office, having decided maybe I could learn to ride one of those unguisen. I had nothing better to do with my time so maybe he could spare someone to teach me.
I realized fairly quickly that finding my father was not going to be an easy task.
Most of the doors on the first level were closed, and knocking yielded no responses. After an hour or so, I moved to the second floor. I saw a soldier come out of a room three doors down and made a beeline for it, hoping he had just been with my father.
The door was still slightly ajar so I peered inside, but my hope dwindled when I saw the room was empty. A broad table in the corner caught my eye, and I stepped inside, smothering the little voice in the back of my mind that whispered snooping might get me in trouble.
What I thought was a table was actually a highly detailed topographical map, and judging from the presence of the mini diamond castle in the bottom right corner, it was a map of Rivella. I poured over the rendering, excited to finally get an idea about the landscape of this world. There was another castle to the western side of the continent made from bits of gold and a third made of silver nestled among a range of craggy mountains to the northeast. Three palaces. Diamond, Gold, and Silver.
My eyes drifted over the rest of the map, taking in the expansive sand dunes of the northwest and the bay flowing out of the east. An assortment of roads connected the three castles around the perimeter of the island, but the dark forest and jagged mountain range prevented direct access from the Diamond Palace to the Silver Palace.
I was surprised to see there was no marker for the Onyx Palace. There was only a black hole in the middle of the forest that comprised a sizable chunk of the map’s center. Maybe they just didn't know what it looked like.
I pulled away from the table and turned to leave when something shiny caught my eye from the desk in the center of the room.
Was that…?
I stepped closer to investigate, and sure enough it was exactly what I thought it was—a cell phone. More importantly, it was my cell phone. I would recognize that silver case covered in music notes anywhere.
What was it even doing in my father’s office? And if my phone was here, did that mean…?
I went around to the other side of the desk, ripping open drawers and rifling through them. Tucked in the very back of the bottom drawer, hidden in a way that could only be intentional, was my purse.
My heart bottomed out. My father had it this entire time and never said a word.
I sank into the oversized chair and stared at the faded brown messenger bag that I’d carried around for years, refusing to get rid of it despite the multitude of small rips and tears. It was one of the things I bought with my first paycheck when I turned eighteen. The first thing that was truly mine that couldn’t be taken away by greedy foster parents.
Practically my entire life was in that bag—keys, wallet, sunglasses, makeup, extra hair ties, phone charger, book I was reading, and a small canister of pepper spray—along with other assorted items like period supplies that I was suddenly very grateful to have since I had been dreading having that conversation in a few weeks. But the shining beacon of hope was the small orange bottle of Klonopin. I counted ten remaining pills, and I was tempted to pop one in my mouth just to calm my racing heart, but I knew I should save them for emergencies.
Dumping everything into my bag, I hurried back toward my room to hide my purse. I prayed that my father didn’t notice it was missing right away. Although, it’s not like he could question me about it because then he would have to admit that he had kept it from me.
As I stuffed my bag into a dark corner under my bed, it occurred to me how little I really knew about my father. He had seemed so happy to see me at first that I allowed myself to believe he was a good person. That he might turn out to be the kind of parent most kids dreamed about. Instead, he forced me into doing uncomfortable things, tortured Cam and Ram, restricted where I could go, and dictated who I could spend time with. Not to mention the most recent discovery.
I had chalked it all up to him putting his devotion to his people before anything else, but… what if it was more than that? It devastated me to think that maybe I had been horribly wrong and actually had no idea what kind of person he was.
But I was going to find out. Starting by talking to the other male here that I couldn’t get a very good read on.
Cennux Dreisin.