Chapter 104 Kai
Chapter One Hundred and Four: Kai
Molsi is bustling despite the chill in the air, shifters filling restaurants and taverns and spilling from shops as they meander about beneath the dwindling sunset.
Leaning against the stone facade at the back of an apothecary, I watch my cousin work his charm on a female running a clothing store across the street, her guard completely lowered if the blush on her cheeks is any indication.
Kane’s flirting is intentional, and I can only hope it draws out the information we need without being too obvious.
Though direct attacks in Molsi have dwindled, skirmishes keep popping up in surrounding towns and with them, a single message has become abundantly clear: The rebels are still active, and someone is still leading them in Tua’s place.
When Kane laughs riotously at something she says, I snort and divert my attention elsewhere.
It’s been weeks since the night I found him in the fighting pits, and in that time, Kane has changed in subtle ways.
He’s more present during meetings, more engaged in topics when he previously wasn’t.
He still teases Jahlee, my sister all too eager to taunt him back, but there is a certain kind of fondness that glimmers between their jabs at each other now.
My sister and I had come to view Kane as the enemy for so many years.
It is nice to simply see him as my cousin now.
A high-pitched laugh draws my attention back to Kane just as he bows and kisses the shop owner’s hand before gently dropping it and sauntering away. I push away from the wall and round its nearest corner, losing the remaining sunlight to the shadows of an alley.
“You know you’re too big of an oaf to hide properly,” Kane says when he joins me, taking a stance across from me and folding his arms over his chest. “Everyone knows it’s you just on your height alone.”
My lips flatten as I stare at him. “What did the shop owner say?”
He arches a brow but answers quickly. “Nothing beyond what we already assumed. She hasn’t seen Malin in weeks, and he wouldn’t tell her where he was going before he just disappeared.”
Malin is a presumed rebel, the male spotted at several attacks of small businesses. I tilt my head as I eye him. “All that flirting, and that’s as far as you got?”
“My flirting skills aren’t the problem here.
The rebels know we are looking for them, and they assume the former Tua sympathizers in our dungeons are feeding us information.
They just decided to act and make that information no longer relevant.
” Kane shrugs. “Besides, a little flirting could do you some good. When was the last time you even talked with a female who wasn’t working for you?
” When I don’t answer, his gaze finds mine again.
“Please tell me you have at least fucked someone since Bahira left.”
“I’m not having this conversation with you,” I grumble, turning on my heel to begin heading back to the palace.
“Holy gods above, Kai. No one since her? Not even your cute little assistant, Inessa?”
I grind my teeth together, brushing past a crowd of shifters that pile out of a tavern, their steps sloppy. “Inessa is a valuable member of my council—”
“Yeah, yeah, and she is fucking gorgeous too. Unsurprising considering who her mother is.” He smacks his lips together before looking over at me. “I don’t know how you can spend so much time in her proximity and not think of fucking her.”
My brows lower, the stares of a few shifters drawn our way by Kane’s crude speech. “Just because you can’t manage not involving your dick in every thought doesn’t mean it’s hard for everyone else,” I say quietly, earning a deep chuckle from my cousin.
“Fair enough. Still, it’s been months, Kai.”
I don’t need the reminder. I had utilized the Mirror plenty every week, calling out to her kingdom with no response.
I have so much I want to say to Bahira, yet I am still being denied the opportunity to do so.
It goes against everything I thought we had together.
Every moment where I felt like we had found something similar in one another.
I knew Bahira. Beyond how she felt in my hands and on my lips.
I knew she valued being praised for her intelligence more than she ever would for her looks.
That she wanted to help because it gave her purpose and because she hadn’t received that same feeling from home.
I memorized the way her eyes warmed when I put my trust in her.
How they then dimmed when I told her it had been broken.
“You don’t just move on from a woman like Bahira,” I finally say as we reach the center of Molsi, a few females lingering their gazes on my cousin and I.
Beyond them, three males dip their heads in greeting while even more offer small smiles.
A far cry from how my people treated me mere months ago, and it can be traced back to the stories of Bahira and what she learned while shackled with Kane.
“What are you going to do? Just mope around for another three months and hope that she eventually reaches out to you?” When silence again answers him, Kane shakes his head. “Why don’t you just go to the Mage Kingdom? Call it a diplomatic visit or something.”
“Because Bahira has already been given trouble from a letter Jahlee sent. The last thing she needs is to be the subject of even more whispers of treason just because I can’t get her out of fucking head.”
Kane rubs a hand at the back of his neck as we walk, his voice dropping lower. “I’m sorry, Kai. I didn’t mean—”
“Kai Vaea, you are a fucking liar!” I stumble over my feet at the voice that comes from directly behind me, Jahlee taking up the entirety of my vision when I spin around to face her.
Her finger immediately jabs at my chest, and I hiss as her nail digs into the skin.
“You never told me you had heard from Bahira!”
“I didn’t,” I say, my eyes scanning the faces of the curious shifters that pass us.
“Stop lying! I just heard you say—”
“Were you following us?” Kane interrupts, eyeing the bright red wool coat slung over Jahlee’s shoulders, and the scarf wrapped around her head.
“Yes, I was following you,” she growls, rolling her eyes. “I could tell you’ve been hiding something from me.”
“Jahlee.” The rumble of my voice does nothing to ease the rage in her eyes, so I guide us all to an alley between a tavern and a bakery for a semblance of privacy. “If you had questions, you should have just come to me.”
“Oh, sure. Like you would have answered anything involving Bahira. Like you haven’t avoided talking about her since the moment she left.
” She narrows her gaze at me, making Kane laugh.
He quiets when we both turn to glare at him, prompting him to lift his arms in mock surrender.
Jahlee’s voice cracks when her eyes flit to mine again.
“What is going on? And please, don’t lie to me.
I can tell when you are, and it’s embarrassing for us both because you are so bad at it. ”
I consider lying, but Jahlee is nothing if not persistent, and I know my sister well enough to understand that I’ve already lost this battle. “I did not receive correspondence from Bahira or anyone in the Mage Kingdom.”
She groans, throwing her arms out to her sides. “Kai, I swear to the gods above—”
“King Dolian reached me through the Mirror and told me that Bahira was being accused of treason.”
Jahlee’s mouth drops open, her arms falling limply as Kane whistles and rocks back on his heels. “What? Because of the letter I sent?”
I keep my voice low as I tell her about my interaction with the mortal king, and his questions about my time with Bahira. But in my hurry to explain, I slip and accidentally insinuate the king was not alone when I spoke with him.
“Who was with him?” she asks, her light brown eyes brimming with emotion.
Jahlee has always felt many things all at once, and I often wondered if it was a hindrance to be so open in that way.
I had been raised to live behind a mask, to always hide so that my weaknesses were not exploited.
I look to Kane for help, but my stupid cousin gestures with his hand for me to continue, apparently just as invested in the story as Jahlee is.
“It doesn’t matter who was with him—”
“Oh, yes it does,” she says, laying her hands at her hips and cocking them to the side. “Why avoid answering otherwise?”
“I’m not avoiding,” I lie, and she gives me a look as if to say, see? I do curse under my breath this time. “Fucking gods, fine. But you cannot say anything about what I tell you. Neither of you can.”
Jahlee sucks in a sharp breath, one of her hands flying to her mouth. She mumbles something unintelligible beneath her palm, her eyes growing wide enough that I see the whites all around them.
“What the fuck did she just say?” Kane asks, annoyance carving a line between his brows. She sends him another withering look.
“It was Rhea, wasn’t it?” she asks after lowering her hand. “Rhea was with him in the Mirror.”
I nod as I answer. “Yes.”
Kane steps closer. “Who is Rhea?”
“None of your business, idiot. Kai, you need to tell Siyala.”
“Absolutely not,” I counter, folding my arms over my chest. “She has already tried sneaking off this island three times to go to the Mage Kingdom. I will not risk Siyala getting hurt. Not after she just returned home.”
“But is she even here when her mind is so preoccupied with whether or not Rhea is okay? This information will be hard for her to hear, but it will also at least give her the truth. There is freedom in that.”
I exhale roughly, drawing a hand down my face as the memory of King Dolian and Rhea pushes to the forefront of my mind. “This is not a truth that I think will help. It will only hurt her.”
“Kai.” She says my name as if it’s both a question and the answer. “If you could know the truth about what is happening with Bahira right now, and you found out someone you thought you could trust was withholding that information from you, how would that make you feel?”
The air feels too heavy to breathe in as I look at her, my chest clenching at the thought.
“She’s right,” Kane says softly at my side. “I don’t know the context—”
“Because you don’t need to,” Jahlee draws, rolling her eyes again.
Kane ignores it. “But I do know that when faced with being honest or not, honesty is always the best way to go.”
Godsdamn it, of all the times for Kane to suddenly agree with Jahlee, this certainly isn’t the moment I would have picked. “Fine,” I say, my voice sharp. “We tell Siyala the truth.”
Siyala heeds my call for her to join me in the throne room, Jahlee and Kane also present.
We had spoken on the walk to the palace about the scenarios that might play out once Siyala learns that Rhea is in the king’s clutches again, and they all pointed to one conclusion.
One that I will need Kane’s help with in order to execute.
The door hinges creak as they open, and Siyala enters. Her hair is windswept, and the normally golden skin at her cheeks is stained red from the chilled air outside. She eyes the three of us warily, her gaze lingering on Kane the longest. “What’s going on?”
I swallow as I take a step towards her, my hands clasped behind me like it will somehow bolster me and make this conversation any easier.
“We need to talk.” With a deep breath, I tell her about how I had seen Rhea with King Dolian in the Mirror—what she looked like and how little she spoke.
The longer I speak, the more I watch Siyala’s shock morph into something keener, something more jagged, until rage carves lines between her brows.
“You knew,” she breathes out quietly, her voice dangerously rough, “this whole fucking time that she was with him?”
“I did.”
She takes a step towards me, rings of gold now glowing in her eyes. “You knew, yet you lied and told me you didn’t.”
“I did,” I repeat, expecting her anger to manifest physically. But Siyala works her jaw twice before she swallows all her emotions down, instead lifting her chin in unbridled defiance.
“I’m going to the Mortal Kingdom.”
“No.” I hold my hands out in front of me when she lifts her upper lip in a snarl.
The veins at her neck bulge with her unrestrained fury, and though her temptation to shift is visible, now is not the time to do it.
I need her calm and rational if we are going to attempt what I suggest next. “We are going to the Mage Kingdom.”
She scoffs. “To see your pathetic and worthless girlfriend? I don’t think so.”
The rumble that builds in my chest and travels up my throat bounces off of the stone that surrounds us, a reaction I hadn’t meant to let slip.
But the slight against Bahira isn’t one I will ever tolerate, no matter who it comes from.
“We are going to the Mage Kingdom because you may be able to pass through the Spell, but the rest of us cannot. You will need help to go after Rhea. I will not have your mother suffer any more than she already has over the thought of you being dead.”
Siyala drops her gaze to the floor, drawing in a deep breath.
“He is right, Siyala,” Jahlee says, laying a hand gently on her shoulder. “If you want to help Rhea, this is the only way.”
I watch as Siyala runs through the options in her head, but she is smart enough to know that this is the best one.
Alone, she might not get very far. But with my help?
Her odds are better. Rhea’s odds are better.
“If this is the way it must be, then fine.” She tugs her shoulder from Jahlee’s grasp, her gold-threaded eyes lifting to meet mine.
“But let it be known here and now that I will never forgive you for keeping this from me. No matter what you try to do to atone for it.”
I nod even as Jahlee sucks in a quick breath. “Pack your things and meet us back here in two hours. Then we set sail for the Mage Kingdom.”