Chapter 17 Seren
Chapter seventeen
Seren
Overbright sun shone upon my dark hair, unhindered and boasting. My fingers poked and prodded, twisting around blades of green, green grass. I tugged, wenching them from their roots, earthen clods still attached.
Harkin attempted to rouse me, but I remained steadfast.
“Seren, this does not have to be difficult,” he implored, gazing at me with a kindness I immediately and thoroughly loathed.
“It can only ever be difficult,” I assured him. “These are the cards we have both dealt.”
While my hands worked mindlessly over flowering weeds, my mind whirred with plans for escape.
I needed supplies, first and foremost. Enough food and water to get me started.
I could hunt and gather once I had traveled far enough to be safe against recapture.
I would need the thick cloak Harkin had lent me and my weapons, of course.
Everything else I owned had been left behind in Ordelés.
But the only things that mattered were my life and my freedom.
“Seren.”
I did not even spare him a glance.
Let him sit in this discomfort, I thought. Let him fail at his task.
It would be far less painful than all I had faced, and far more deserved.
Leaving in the night seemed most practical. That morning, I had inspected the small round window in the bedroom. It would have been just large enough for me to squeeze through had it not been sealed around its entire circumference.
It seemed that Harkin, or whoever had lived here before, had already thought ahead on that front. I couldn’t use it to escape unless I broke the glass, and I was sure Harkin would wake and apprehend me before I could run far enough to evade him.
While Harkin had bathed—his attentive gaze hidden behind the privacy of the long white curtain—I had hastily tried every window in the living room and kitchen. None of them were willing to open for me.
The front door was my only option.
“This does not become you.” Harkin was scowling now, and I found it quite pleasing to rile him so.
I only smiled, a sharp grin that did not reach my eyes.
Tonight, I thought. Tonight I will leave this place and start anew.
Hours passed. I ignored and deflected until Harkin finally walked away, frustration clear on his usually placid face. I laid back with my cloak pulled tight to my chin. The sky was a milky blue above me, hardly a cloud in sight.
I watched it unblinking, daydreams lacing through the endless blue. A glimpse of chestnut, the flash of gold. Blood in the snow.
The dreams had not ceased. Where they had once been so few and far between—so muddled and distant—they now bode of urgency. They lingered deep in my belly, begging me to remember. But why?
What do they want from me? I wondered desperately.
Water and fire clashed in my vision, then settled into a peaceful thing.
There was some message in the feeling of calm that washed over me. A desire to hold them close—the dreams themselves or the characters who visited me night after night?
But that was silly. The dreams were only a figment of my imagination.
I looked back to the pure blue sky, real and unyielding above me.
It was a pleasant view—punctuated by a weighted feeling—until Harkin’s face marred the image.
His light brown skin appeared darker, silhouetted by the sun as he was.
Curling hair fell into his eyes as a light breeze tugged at the strands.
His expression was carefully smoothened, but the tightness pulling at his jaw betrayed his annoyance.
I was getting on his nerves. Good.
“Seren, I need you to cooperate. I understand that this is difficult for you, but this only works if we both commit.” Harkin spoke slowly, placatingly.
“You assume I care to help you,” I began, finally standing and catching his eyes with my own. “I do not. It is a mercy for me to consider you inconsequential. Continue to push me, and see yourself transformed into my enemy. I assure you, you’ll wish you had never met me.”
His eyes narrowed before he could school his expression. A deep breath rattled his chest as he looked away, then back to me. “I do not wish to be your enemy. As I have said—time and again—I wish to help you. Let me help you.”
“What you will have me do does not help me!” I exclaimed, voice rising and fists clenching.
I took a half step toward him. “You would have me not only bend but shatter my morals entirely. You would see me further alienate myself from my home and family in the name of claiming a power and a people I do not want. You are everything that I despise, and if you think that you will be the one to change me, then you are sorely mistaken.”
“I could give you a life!” He shouted in return. “A fresh start. A chance to be something more.”
“I am not lesser because I was raised as a human,” I spat, drawing closer to him with every word.
My finger pressed into the firm expanse of his chest, nails biting.
“You Rázuri look down upon us as if you are so much better… Why? Because you wield mágik? Because you still hold favor with the Goddesses? But we are people, too. We are trying to survive, too, so don’t bother offering me a life in Acsilla.
I had a life, and I will forge a new one without you. ”
“You hold no claim to them!” Harkin shouted in frustration. “They are trying to survive. Yes, you’re right. But you are not human. You are Rázuri, and the sooner you accept that, the better it will be for the both of us.”
I stormed away, pushed through the cottage's front door, and locked myself away in the bedroom. Blood rushed in my ears, pounding against the rapid beat of my angry heart.
Harkin did not call on me for the rest of the evening.
That night, I laced my boots and donned the pack I had carefully pilfered together. I strapped my sword to my side and sheathed my daggers. I hesitated at the bedroom door, listening for the soft and steady sound of Harkin’s breath in deep sleep.
When he had not stirred in an hour, I slipped through the door. I nearly stepped on a plate at my feet. Harkin must have left me supper. I didn’t bother to hide the rolling of my eyes in the darkness.
He lay on his back on the worn couch, an arm and a leg dangling to the floor as his long body attempted to fit the too small space.
Harkin’s face was peaceful, so different from the mask of feigned indifference he wore for me. Only the scars across his nose and the corner of his mouth betrayed any of the fight that I suspected was in him.
I tore myself from my thoughts and continued for the door, feet moving silently through the dimly lit room.
I reached the door, bracing two hands on the iron handle and turning it as quietly as I could manage.
The door slid open smoothly, then at the halfway mark, the hinges squealed.
I squeezed my eyes shut then shot them back open.
I cursed myself for forgetting the first time I had entered the cottage, the squeak of disuse the frame had emitted as the door pushed inwards.
The floor creaked behind me, and I spun, already raising the dagger I had drawn. Harkin was awake, his expression a mix of tiredness and annoyance. He was unarmed, but I was not foolish enough to think him defenseless.
“It did not have to come to this,” Harkin sighed.
His calm disappointment only proved fuel to the fire of my anger.
Raising my dagger, I rushed him. Harkin sidestepped, and my blade sliced through air.
He grabbed my arm—his fire warmed hands blazing against my bare skin—and tucked it tightly against his side.
He pulled my body to him, locking me in place with a hand at the back of my neck.
Harkin forced my eyes to meet his. “Stop this. You are acting like a child.”
I thrashed against his grip to no avail. “Get your hands off me!”
“What must I do to convince you that I am on your side? What do you need? What do you want?” Desperation filled his voice, and I sensed that he was trying to shove it down.
“Why do you insist upon this when I have made it clear it is not what I want?” I cried, voice hoarse with repressed emotion. “Why does the Prince of Acsilla give a fuck about where I am and what I do with my life? You act as if I understand what is going on here when I do not.”
“You do not want to understand.” Harkin’s face turned from me as if he could not bear to look me in the eyes for a moment longer. “I have already explained the prince’s motivations.”
“Right, of course, your prince is such a kind and generous royal who has dedicated his life to helping poor, lost Rázuri girls build a better life. Is that what I am to understand?” I laughed, loud and disbelieving. It was a joke, and we both knew it.
Regret passed over Harkin’s face. His grip on my body loosened, just the slightest amount.
An angry huff of breath escaped me. “I thought not. I do not believe a word from your poisonous mouth. You are fucking intolerable, and I will never help you.”
I wrenched from his grasp, taking advantage of his lax hold. My dagger licked out once more, poised just over his heart. The tip tore through the fabric of his tunic before it simply stopped, frozen midair as he had done on the training grounds.
An armor of impenetrable air surrounded his body, protecting him from my fatal cut.
Harkin tore the dagger from my hand, my fingers twisting painfully. He tossed it to the floor, and made quick work of disarming me. The rest of my daggers and my sword were relieved from my possession, tossed haphazardly in a pile before the fireplace.
“If you choose to act like a denied child, then I will treat you like one. You no longer have the privilege of being armed in my presence. Should you have a change of heart and agree to train your mágik with me, as planned, you may earn back your weapons one at a time. Just like you earned that Ordelésan armor. The choice is yours.” His voice was toneless, his face blank.
“I have already made my choice,” I snarled, but the red had cooled from my mind.
“So be it.”
I was struck once more with the oddity of the man before me. I had met him first as a sarcastic and witty opponent, I had ridden through the woods with a kind companion, and now he stood before me as a cold and empty presence.
It was impossible to pin down who the true Harkin was, and it unnerved me more than I cared to admit.
His mágik released me, and he strode back to the settee without a second glance.