Chapter Seventeen
When we all finally left Moravia to travel back home to Tygeria, Prince Larz and his family traveled with us.
There were plans to go directly to Laltana after the Consort Janos testified in front of the council, and I would go with them to help get things set up.
I was still troubled by what I believed to be the Imperials’ involvement, and I hadn’t yet decided what to do about it.
It was the second night of our return trip home when I was eating dinner by myself, when I was surprised by Taran pulling out a chair on the opposite side of the table.
I hadn’t seen much of him while the investigation on Moravia had been going on.
Much of my time had been spent at the hearing and in conferences with King Davos and Prince Mikos.
I thought I’d have plenty of time in the coming days to catch up on things with Taran.
I hoped he hadn’t come to be tedious about me not paying attention to him.
That was one of the many troublesome things about having a nobyo—they expected near constant attention.
“Hello, Taran,” I said, bracing myself to be patient with him. “How can I help you?”
“I think it’s more about how I can help you. I’m here to ask you to marry me.”
I gasped in surprise and began to choke on a piece of meat I’d been swallowing. Taran quickly came around and began to beat me on the back, which did no good whatsoever. I finally shook him off, got control of myself and glared at him.
“Stop beating me on the back, damn it. You’re making things worse. And what are you even talking about?”
“I was trying to help. And I think I was fairly clear about what I was talking about. I’d like you to marry me.
After all, you’ve done a pretty good job of “compromising” me.
I have it on very good authority that once a prince is compromised, and I consider myself to be very close to being a prince, since Larz is my father, then the one who did the compromising has to marry them.
That would be you. Since you haven’t stepped up yet, I’m making things easier for us both.
My question stands—will you marry me, sir? ”
“Stop saying that so loud, or someone will hear you. And what ‘good authority’ do you have anyway? Explain yourself.”
“I think he means me,” came a voice from behind me. I jumped and whirled around in my chair to see King Davos’s consort, Blake, standing there at my shoulder. I stumbled to my feet and bowed to him.
“Y-your Highness. I didn’t realize you were standing there.”
“It’s all right. There’s been a lot going on.
I decided to travel back home with Mikos so I could be with Vannos as long as possible.
Naturally, he’s taking all of this with Bryos very hard.
I hated to leave him, but my husband was insistent.
Made quite a scene about it.” He sighed and came around to sit down at the table between me and Taran.
“Please go on with your meal. I didn’t mean to interrupt it. ”
“It’s fine, Your Highness. I-I’m suddenly not very hungry.”
Taran made a little sound of amusement, and I glared at him.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh nothing. It’s just that you seemed to be enjoying your meal a lot until I asked you to marry me, and then you got choked and now you won’t eat at all. Very telling, General. Especially considering you called me your nobyo on more than one occasion.”
“What do you mean?” I glanced over at the consort Blake. “What does he mean, Your Highness?”
“Oh, no, please don’t drag me in the middle of this.
I’ve already given Bryos my opinion on the subject, and from what I heard, he has been compromised, General.
I’m sure you realize that.” He smoothed down the front of his robe and turned to look directly in my eyes.
He gave me an unflinching look, and I could see why his sons seemed to be a bit intimidated by him.
“I also just came by to tell you something.” He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Sorry to change the subject on you, but I need to tell you that I’ve found your omak. He’d love to see you again, and he asked me to give you his information.”
“You-you what?”
He smiled and went on like I hadn’t said a word.
“He’s quite well, and living in Molvalli, which is the silly name for a city we humans used to call New York.
He has married again, and he and his husband have an apartment on the west side.
I’ve written down his new married name and all of his information for you.
He said he’d love to see you and your brother again, and he was so sorry to have lost touch with you.
He wrote to you after your father made him leave Tygeria, but your father deleted and blocked all his messages and warned him not to try to get in touch again.
He even involved the police, who were totally on your father’s side, he said. Typical.”
I was shocked and speechless and just stared at the consort.
“Anyway, dear, that’s his address and number, if you decide you want to see him.
Now I think I’m interrupting an important conversation, so I’ll just excuse myself and get out of the way.
Come and see me again after you speak to him and let me know what you decide.
I’ll do what I can to help.” He looked over at Taran and smiled. “About everything.”
He got back up to his feet, waved at Taran and went on his way.
For a long moment after he left, I sat there in shock.
My omak was alive and had sent me messages.
Could it be true? I wanted to know more, but I had a certain important situation I had to address first. I reached across the table and took Taran’s hand in mine.
“Why would you want to marry me? We don’t have to be married for us to be together. I’ll be accompanying your family back to Laltana with my guards soon, and I thought you could work as my aide. You can be my liaison to the Royal Guard. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“Yes, I think I would. I’d love to talk more about it, anyway. But first, I’d like to marry you. What do you say?”
“What do I…? Taran, I never want to marry anyone ever again.”
He sat back, looking a little deflated. “But why? Why is that? Don’t you love me?”
“It has nothing to do with that. But…I don’t believe in love. What if something happened? What if I were to lose you after we were married? I can’t go through that again. I just can’t. Love is no good. It’s not enough. It’s never enough.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, staring at me with those beautiful dark eyes.
Love is always enough. It has to be, because in the end, it’s all we have, isn’t it?
Beauty fades, and old age and death comes for us all eventually.
We can lose each other to injuries and accidents and illnesses and all kinds of thing we can’t predict.
But in the end, we still have the love. You loved Merik and you still do, even after all this time.
I know you do, and I understand. I’d never want to take that away from you.
Because that’s another thing about love—it’s always willing to make room for more, and it never goes away.
You still have that love for Merik churning around inside of you, just looking around for a place to go.
No wonder you act so mean and grouchy sometimes. ”
“I’m not mean.”
He held up two fingers, an inch apart. “A little bit. I think I can cure you of it, though.”
“Oh, do you?”
“Yes, I’m pretty confident about it.”
“And if I’m not? Confident this will work?”
“I believe I can convince you to change your mind. In fact, I’m willing to devote the rest of my life to it.
But if I’m wrong, and you don’t love me…
then I won’t keep hanging around, hoping for you to change your mind.
My fathers want me to stay in Laltana at the palace, but I’m still loyal to the Royal Guard.
If you decide not to take another chance on love, then maybe I’ll go with the Royal Guard when they find a new home outside of the capitol city.
It would be too painful to hang around hoping you’ll change your mind one day. ”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
He smiled at me. “But you don’t get to decide that if you don’t love me, Kirstos. Don’t worry. I’ll give you plenty of time to make up your mind. But if, after you’ve had time to consider my proposal, you’re still afraid…”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Okay. I believe you. If you decide you don’t want to take another chance on love then…
I’ll move on. It’s only fair to let me go, Kirstos and try to be happy somewhere else.
” He stood up and looked down at me. “Just think about your answer, and I’ll be around.
” And with that, the little bastard turned and walked out of the dining room, leaving me to sit there alone, fuming.
I didn’t leave the dining room right away.
I sat there for a long while, thinking about what he’d said, getting angrier by the moment.
When I finally left, I went to the Observation deck, which had a quiet room for observing the cosmos as we passed through it.
It was dark inside, so dark I had to almost feel my way to a seat at the back.
It was a fairly big space, because the ship was so big, I suppose, and very luxurious.
Little light came from the large viewing screen.
In space, the sky was always pitch black, contrasted by sharp, non-twinkling stars, along with distant planets and galaxies.
And because this was Prince Mikos’s modern, up to date ship, I was using a surveillance screen and not looking through an actual glass that would require a physical hole to be cut into the hull of the ship.
Still, the room was very dimly lit and so quiet I could hear every little sound.
It was peaceful, and I liked to use this room to sit and think when I had a problem.
I found it difficult to do that tonight, though.
I should just let Taran go and do as he damn well pleased.
Obviously, my offer for him to become my nobyo wasn’t of interest to him.
He said if I didn’t accept his ridiculous “proposal” he’d leave the capitol city and go rejoin the Royal Guard so he could live and travel with them instead of me.
If he thought I cared, he was sadly mistaken.
It had made me furious, yes, but I couldn’t have cared less.
Not really. It was probably for the best. I couldn’t and wouldn’t love him the way he seemed to require.
He’d soon find another lover, someone younger and Laltanan, and he’d forget all about me.
Good for him! I’d see them together someday, him and his Laltanan.
Perhaps they’d be arm in arm somewhere. They might even get married in a big ceremony inside his father’s mansion.
He struck me as the type to want a big wedding—a big ostentatious display of his wealth and his fathers’ status. And I’d be there as one of the guards.
I thought that would probably kill me.
Damn it and damn him. He had a way of breaking through the defenses I’d built up against this kind of thing over the years.
I thought I could feel those defenses crumbling even now.
I didn’t understand how I’d come to care for him so quickly anyway.
The bond with my husband had never been fully formed, no matter that we’d been together for months before his death.
The bond with Taran had taken only moments to form—almost as soon as I’d found him in my bedroom on Moravia.
He’d become almost like a habit to me now. And habits were made to be broken.
And yet…I thought again about what he’d said. About how I had love inside me with no place to go. He was wrong about that. I was afraid that I’d found that place in him, and it stubbornly refused to be dislodged, no matter how hard I tried.
Damn it, maybe I should just give in gracefully and accept my fate, because he’d give me no peace until I did.
Two figures came in and I sank down lower in my seat.
The last thing I wanted or needed was conversation.
It must have worked, because they didn’t appear to have seen me, like I couldn’t make out their features.
They were speaking in Tygerian, and very softly, almost whispering.
My curiosity got the better of me and despite myself, I began to eavesdrop.
“Do you have it?” One of them whispered to the other.
“Yes, it’s here,” he said, and I heard a rustle of cloth. “Be careful if you have a cut on your hands. It’s from the watha, and very deadly. It will kill in minutes.”
My ears perked up, and I slid lower in my seat as silently as I could.
A watha? The watha was a type of amphibious creature that lived near the lakes and streams in the forests of Tygeria.
Their venom was one of the deadliest poisons we had on our planet.
If a person ingested its poison, there was no known cure to my knowledge.
Were these people planning to kill someone with this poison?
My first impulse was to jump to my feet and denounce them.
But maybe it was better to let them keep thinking that no one knew about their plan.
I knew they had to be planning to use that poison to kill Janos.
It would be far too great a coincidence for it to be anyone else. And I didn’t believe in coincidence.
I stayed as still as I could to listen to what else they might say.
One of them seemed to pass a small vial over to the other and then, to my disappointment, they left the room in opposite directions.
I was forced to stay still and quiet and let them get away until I could come up with a plan to stop them.
And we were still days away from Tygeria.
When I thought I wouldn’t be seen, I quietly left the observation deck and went immediately to find Prince Mikos.