Chapter 14
Asta nervously paced in her common room as she watched the time tick by. Any minute now and Kaid would be in her suite for their lesson.
With royals from neighboring countries and nobility from all over Salendron arriving every day in preparation for the wedding, security around the castle had tightened and no room was a secret anymore, not even the music room.
So, Kaid suggested having their lesson in Asta’s suite, since no other suites in the west wing would be occupied per Asta’s request.
It wasn’t a request, really, but more like a scolding. Asta had reamed her father out weeks ago when she realized that Kaid and Halsten were taking up rooms in her wing and King Botmar had heard the message loud and clear, and not simply because of the volume of her voice.
Knock, knock. Pause. Knock, knock, knock. Pause. Knock.
Asta rolled her eyes and opened the door, wisps of her light waves blowing back from the motion.
Kaid stood in the hall with his cloak hood up.
“I told you a secret knock wasn’t necessary.
We’re the only ones here.” She snorted, taking in his appearance.
“Also, you’re wearing a cloak indoors. Not very inconspicuous.
You’re literally just walking one door down the hall. ”
Kaid stepped inside and closed the door, turning the lock behind him. “I’m the husband-to-be in the upcoming wedding. Surely, I cannot be seen entering my fiancé’s sister’s suite without trouble.”
The overly cautious lord pulled his cloak off, revealing a white blouse with a black button-up vest over it, the fabric clinging to his back muscles as he reached up to hang his cloak on a hook.
Her eyes traveled lower, observing the curves his pants hugged, admiring the view from behind before he turned back to face her.
Asta only allowed herself to look because she knew nothing would ever happen between them.
If she was stuck with this man for the rest of her life, she might as well enjoy the little things.
Luckily, Asta didn’t match him in her white flowing dress and black underbust corset.
She had inspected every one of their outfits as they approached each other since that day on the beach.
The day when she broke what little trust they had finally built between them.
She had sacrificed it all for a silly prank.
She hadn’t asked Niklas for any gossip since.
Asta had made up for it when saving Kaid from his own embarrassing antics at the party a few days ago, but things had still been awkward between them.
This was the first time they were meeting like this since their argument.
Well, since their first real, emotionally-charged argument.
Asta hated the weight of the silence as he continued into her chambers.
“Where do we start?” Kaid smiled as he sat on the sofa.
The pair focused on the sign language lesson for about an hour before somehow trailing off to the real reason as to why they began lessons in the first place.
Asta had been to the village a few times since the killing of the courtesan creature.
Luckily, the number of new orphans had slowed over the last week or so, but the villagers were still going missing at an alarming rate, and the majority were not just sailors anymore.
Many were townsfolk who never approached the coast in fear of such fate.
That female thing had not been lying when she said the disappearances would worsen.
“Maybe the answer is in one of these thousands of books.” Kaid lifted his eyebrows as he toyed with the leather cover of the book on top of a stack next to the sofa.
Asta cocked her head to the side and arched an eyebrow. “Are you making fun of my reading habit?”
His head swung back-and-forth. “Not that you read. But I am definitely poking at your ability to collect books.”
“Sometimes life is too heavy. But no matter the size of the book, it is always lighter than reality.” She knew that all too well.
Asta had done a remarkable job at pretending that the whole night in the forest had never happened, but that blood would be stained on her soul for eternity.
She shrugged as she snatched the book from Kaid’s hands. “Don’t you ever feel that way?”
Asta’s heart raced as the echoes of footsteps and voices sounded in the hall outside of her suite door.
No one was supposed to be here! But she supposed the castle was open ground for guests, so maybe they were just passing through.
She turned to say as much to Kaid, but before she could, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into her bedroom with a finger pressed to his lips.
“What in the—”
Kaid gently shut the door behind them. “We can’t risk it, blondie. I’m serious.”
And he was. He was as serious as Asta had ever seen him. Maybe he really was taking his marriage to her sister seriously. But still, something tugged at her, reminding her that he can’t marry Maren.
Oh, sweet Knud, god of love above, not now.
Asta excused herself to the washroom before she imploded, tapping her doorway on the way in. She pointed at her reflection in the mirror. “You are not falling for him. You hear me? That is your sister’s husband, to be king of Salendron someday. He is off limits.”
After a few minutes of scolding herself, she emerged to find Kaid picking up various items on her vanity and investigating them.
“Will you ever tell me why you tap them?” Kaid gestured to the doorframe where Asta had just exited. “Is it a nervous habit?”
Asta wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t feel like hiding it anymore. Not from Kaid, at least. Something about him being in her room made her give in, made her want to just have someone to talk to without secrets.
“It’s not exactly a nervous habit, but similar.”
Kaid listened tentatively as Asta explained her rituals she had been doing since the beginning of her memories.
The tapping, the bone cracking, the hair brushing.
There wasn’t an easy way to explain that she simply could not move on with her life if a ritual wasn’t fulfilled.
If she tried to skip over one, a tugging in her chest would eat her alive to the point of a breakdown.
If she didn’t complete her ritual, something bad would happen to her or someone she loved and it would be all her fault.
It was hard to put into words, but Asta described it as a giant fly, buzzing around her head, and the more she ignored it, the closer the fly would get until it burrowed deep into her ear and drove her mad until she cracked a knuckle or tapped a threshold.
She knew it made no logical sense, but she still couldn’t let it go once it was in her mind, until she completed the task.
Well, except for one time, when she passed through the doorway of the music room to listen to Kaid play.
“You didn’t tap the threshold that day?” It was the first and only question Kaid asked throughout the entire explanation. He didn’t look at Asta like she had lost her mind, like she needed to be locked up. Instead, he looked to be in awe.
Asta shook her head in response.
“And you live through this every day and keep it to yourself?” he asked.
Asta nodded. “Every day.”
Kaid sighed. “Don’t ever see this as a weakness or flaw.
You fight something internally that others may never understand, and that makes you a warrior.
Your greatest battles may be within your own mind, but you do not have to fight them alone.
” Kaid grabbed Asta’s mother’s comb from her vanity and held it up.
“Do you think if I combed your hair, it would work that way?”
Asta didn’t know how to respond to that.
No one had ever offered to do it for her.
She supposed it made it difficult because only her father truly knew how important her rituals were to her, but the people around her had seen it enough to know.
No one had ever bothered to help, they simply avoided the topic.
“I don’t know. I’ve never had someone try.”
Kaid gestured to the stool in front of her vanity and Asta rested on it, her back as stiff as a board.
She was nervous, to say the least. Kaid was so close to her, and not only was brushing her hair intimate enough to begin with, but knowing that it may fill an emotional gap for her made it feel worse.
He is your sister’s betrothed. He is your sister’s betrothed. He is your sister’s betrothed. Asta chanted to herself over and over as she pulled her hair from its braid, breaking it free.
“Twenty-eight, right?” Kaid asked as his turquoise eyes met Asta’s in the mirror before her.
She simply nodded, her heart swelling at the thought that he remembered the number she had said during her rambling. He began combing through her hair and with each stroke, Asta’s nerves vanished more and more.
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…
It was working. She might easily fall asleep tonight without needing to re-comb her hair. A small ball of guilt settled in her stomach for sharing such a moment with Kaid, but she pushed it away. He could break her rituals.
When Linnea was first appointed her lady-in-waiting, she had combed Asta’s hair, and the princess would secretly redo it once she left her bedroom. But Kaid… His combing had satisfied the clawing monster within.
The two didn’t speak. Kaid strictly concentrated on the comb going through Asta’s blonde locks and Asta concentrated on watching him in the mirror, the way his muscles shifted with each stroke.
Twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Done.
He was done, and she felt… free. Although her ritual had still been completed, it was the first time in her twenty-one years of life that Asta hadn’t had to do it herself, and it was liberating.
Asta let out a happy sigh and ran over to her bed, jumping on and propping herself up against the mound of pillows there. Kaid hesitated for a moment, shuffling his feet.
She patted the top of the comforter. “It’s only a bed, and I’m just a friend. Surely you can sit in bed with a woman without anything further happening.” Asta gestured to the room around her, challenge in her tone.
Taking her challenge to heart, Kaid stalked over to the other side of the bed and sat down, resting against the pillows like she had. “Is there anything you do to distract yourself from your—what do you call them? Rituals?”
A surprisingly astute question for a pretty rich boy.
Asta explained to Kaid how difficult it had been when she was younger, the crippling feeling that came with each ritual.
When she was a child, it was difficult to express the distress it caused to her father.
He was never knowingly cruel to her about it, he just simply hadn’t understood the importance.
But as she aged, he began to empathize to the best of his ability.
Her brain was unfixable, but they needed to find ways to help comfort it.
That was why she took up reading at first. She could disappear into the world of a book and not feel the need to crack a knuckle.
The imagery of other worlds bringing her mind temporary peace.
But after a few years of burning through nearly every book in the castle, she needed something else.
That was when Gyrial offered to teach her how to fight, which in turn helped her learn how to defend herself on her outings.
Her mind felt healed when she fought, whether hand-to-hand or with blades. She could kick men through doorways and step through them to continue her attack. She could duel for hours before feeling the need to snap a finger.
Asta’s words trailed off as she felt her eyes close, watching Kaid’s posture relax more and more as she spoke. She was so comfortable, and so tired. She would close her eyes for a minute. Just one minute…