Chapter Two Cat
CHAPTER TWO
Cat
Cat packs his bags for the capital. He does not have much.
Books, mostly. He has grown fond of Elena’s collection of medical texts while staying here.
Fonder, too, of the various volumes of fiction tucked into a hidden nook by the hearth in her main room that he doubts she meant for him to find.
They were gregarious tales, filled with laughter and poetry and romance that was both confusing and inspiring.
Hardly appropriate for him to be focusing on when there was so much more to learn, and yet charming to flick through late at night when he needed something to distract him from all the thoughts that kept on spinning.
They do not belong to him and he would not presume to take them with him, but he wishes he could. He’ll put them back. Not right this moment – Lio and Elician are still downstairs – but later…when there is no one there to take note of his selection in the first place.
A soft knock at the door gives him enough time to obscure the spines revealing the titles of the more scandalous novels, and when he calls out a welcome, he isn’t expecting Marina.
He thought Fen would be there. To scold him or to complain about something.
Elician even. But Marina slides inside and shuts the door behind her with a delicate click.
For a long while, she doesn’t say anything.
Just stays at that door, frowning a little as she looks him over, head to toe.
He stays still beneath her attention. Then, in his own language, she asks: ‘Did you have a chance to sing for your mother?’
The tears that come are instantaneous. There before he knows what to do with them.
His hands slap to his face, stunned by their existence.
She crosses the room, wrapping her arms around him before he can tell her it isn’t necessary.
Death is a celebration, something to be happy about.
To be grateful that the trials and tribulations of life are over and now the loved one can move on and become something new.
‘May her change be good,’ Marina whispers into his hair, cupping the back of his head as she holds him against her.
He hugs her back, clinging to her like a child.
He should be happy. He should have sung.
The household moves about without them. People are talking, voices crossing up and down the stairs and the hall. No one bothers them, and by the time he feels strong enough to pull away, he is ashamed to confess: ‘I don’t want to.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I should.’
‘Not every death is a blessing,’ Marina says simply.
‘There were things left unsaid between you. Many things.’ She sits on the edge of Cat’s bed and Cat sits beside her, hands hanging limp as he braces his arms on his knees.
‘She didn’t want you to return to Alelune.
She ensured you had your freedom secured in Soleb.
You could stay here. Elician would release you from your oath, and you could live your life away from this. ’
‘It would condemn Soleb and Alelune to more war,’ Cat replies. ‘It would condemn my Reapers to forever live in those cells.’
‘That’s not your burden to bear. Reapers were held in those cells long before you were ever born, and that war is happening one way or another. Anslian murdered your mother at the Blessedsafe. Alelune will respond, and Soleb will have to deal with the consequences of those actions.’
‘Unless Gillage doesn’t tell them to march. Unless…if I am king I would tell them to stop.’
‘It’s not that simple. You’ll only be able to take and keep that throne if the people believe in you.
If they have faith that your choices are better than all the other options they might dare to consider.
And it is one thing to become king just to stop a war and save a few tortured souls, but Cat – you will have to lead.
There is more to being a king than giving one order at one moment of turmoil. ’
He knows this. He knows all of this. He had seen his queen, his mother, struggle for years.
Watched her make choice after choice, not because she wanted to but because it was what was expected of her.
He wishes he had more time with her, in the end.
Feels, perhaps for the first time, the Soleben urge to grieve the death of someone, not because she died but because he had hoped that one day…
things might be different. And now he will never get the chance to see that day come to pass.
He will undo the last thing she ever did by relinquishing his freedom and anonymity to stay at Elician’s side.
And he will never know if she would be happy for him.
It is a selfish series of thoughts, disconnected from the reality that his mother’s soul has moved on, has changed, has had a chance to become something else.
And still, it aches worse than any death he has ever experienced before.
‘I know what I have to do,’ he tells Marina. ‘And I will do it. I will learn how.’
‘And after?’ she asks. ‘After you marry Elician, use his army, use his people and his support, after you are somehow made king. And yes, we will need to revisit that. But what happens then? When all this is over, what future do you expect to have?’
Cat has never been good at imagining his future.
There was no point thinking of such a thing in the cells.
To hope for something better was folly. Accept the world as it is, not as it ought to be.
He hoped for time with his mother, perhaps.
But he never dared to dream of specifics.
And now, he tries to see it. Himself in a crown.
The war stopped. He tries to imagine Elician, as he once was. When they first met, Elician was kind. Sweet. He laughed and played with Lio, he told stories with such passion.
‘I want to learn the names of the birds in Alelune,’ he says.
Marina frowns, lips tugging down as her brows furrow over her eyes.
‘There was a game Elician played on the way to Kreuzfurt…naming all the birds he could see. I want to play it with him again.’ He wants to see Elician smile. He wants…
‘I’ll get you a book on ornithology,’ Marina promises. Cat thanks her. It seems like the only logical thing to do.
‘Do you think it’s a bad idea? Getting married?’ Cat asks. ‘Adalei was against it.’
Perhaps they have been hasty. Perhaps it was too much last night.
Perhaps he pushed the thought too firmly.
Elician had looked at him, brown eyes brimming with passion for the hope of a future better than the one they have now, and Cat had not had it in him to say no.
He felt, instead, consumed by the idea. As if every part of him had been enveloped by a new sense of potential and being.
As if every fear and every uncertainty paled in the face of one simple promise.
Together. We’ll stay together. Cat could return to Alelune, he could set things right, he could save his people and stop a war.
Prove to everyone that Reapers are not people to be feared, and that he never should have been sent away to begin with.
And through it all: he would not have to face the gauntlet alone.
‘Yes,’ Marina sighs. ‘You’ve seen how Soleb treats Reapers.
That prejudice will not fully subside merely because Elician offered you his hand.
You are both a Reaper and an Alelunen, and that will be even worse.
You and Elician both want to stop the war because you believe in peace.
That’s fine. But there are people in both countries who want this war to happen because they want to eradicate every last trace of the other nation’s people from existence.
And they will never want peace, and so they will never want you. ’
‘You’re a Reaper, and Alelunen. They do not treat you so bad.’
‘I’m a prized pet,’ Marina replies. ‘I’ve been here for so long that I’ve been granted an exception.’
‘Much like how I’m Fen’s exception to her own prejudice.’ He knows full well that Fen still mistrusts both Alelunens and Reapers alike. But for him, her best friend, she will close her eyes and ignore everything that makes him who he is, because it suits her to do so.
‘One day, perhaps you’ll be granted an exception at court too.
If for no other reason than to keep up appearances as their prince consort, but Soleb likes its traditions, and they don’t like change, and Elician is asking them to do both in a very short period of time.
But…Elician is also right in that if he simply calls you his betrothed and allows for a prolonged courting period, it gives each one of his detractors the opportunity to intervene.
By marrying you during the coronation, he forces the point to be made moot.
He is going to help you get your crown, and suing for peace is going to be the strategy they will all be forced to accept.
It is not an ideal circumstance, but it is not inherently without its merits.
Adalei was right to question it, but she’ll support it. As will I.’
There is something in her tone though, grudging or forced. Cat shakes his head, pulls away from her gentle touch. ‘But you don’t agree with it.’
‘I agree with the politics to an extent. You don’t have any power at all until you become king, and there is a long distance to go before you get there.
And…there is more to marriage than politics.
Cat, you’ve never had the opportunity to explore, to be with another person in an intimate fashion, or even discover what you like.
You’re marrying a man you barely know, and I wish you simply had more time.
Because in the end, the future I want for both of you is one where you are content. ’