Chapter Twenty-Eight
Eliaz doesn’t resurface until dinnertime. Lillienne, exhausted by her library adventure, decided not to join us in order to sleep.
So, it’s just Calli, Eliaz and me, sitting with enormous gaps between us at the long table in the dining room. Eliaz sits at the head, opposite me, Calli to my left four seats down.
We just stare at one another, our perspectives changing by the second as we think more and more about it. Eliaz, pale and stern at his end of the table, appears just as harsh and menacing as he had as he stood over that cauldron.
Yet, with all the new information swimming around in my mind amongst all my preconceived notions about him, he does not look frightening or unkind.
He is tortured and conflicted and much more nuanced than I’d ever given him credit for.
Tired as he looks, and as old as his hair might indicate, time, nor Neyktar, has touched his face, his pallid skin still taut, smooth as my own.
He must be around my age – my immortal age.
I of course could place him there with the information about the Divide and when my father – no, I won’t think of it.
Eliaz evidently does not want me to think of it either, the scar has been kept from my senses since our confrontation in his bedchamber. Not even so much as a flash of gold shines through.
Even Calli seems a little changed in tonight’s gentle candlelight, with the knowledge that she too, has been affected by Neyktar, that she too has to ingest that sinful elixir in order to survive.
Again, I have the poking urge to ask her exactly how her eyes came to be the way they are, and push against it until it is but a hum in the back room of my thoughts.
If I’ve learned one thing about today’s events, it’s that I need to let people offer up personal information on their own, because I cannot begin to know the desperate extent of the intentions behind anyone’s secrecy.
I was so caught up in my own ability to trust them, I forgot that I need to prove myself trustworthy in return.
Eliaz taps his fingers on the table with impatience. ‘Odette is usually punctual with dinner. It’s not like her to keep us waiting.’
It is only when he says this that I realise this is the first time he has joined us for a meal since my arrival in Umbra. Calli’s shoulders bounce with a giggle. ‘She will take a little longer with Eira’s meal.’
Eliaz shoots me a quizzical look. ‘Meat and potatoes aren’t good enough for you, Princess?’
‘It seems that it’s I who isn’t good enough for meat and potatoes as far as Odette is concerned.’ I give an awkward laugh. ‘We aren’t quite friends yet.’
‘And you have tried to forge a friendship with the delightful Odette already?’ He raises a sardonic eyebrow, holding back a smirk.
‘She is difficult to please, I have found. Very set in her ways,’ I say diplomatically.
‘You’re wasting your time with her, Eira, she despises anything to do with Reyhen. Blames you guys for how shit life is here,’ Calli offers. ‘And you’re the physical embodiment of that hatred.’
‘Thank you, Calli,’ Eliaz chuckles. ‘Direct as always.’
The clattering of trays sounds out in the hall, following the bump of rolling wheels hitting the threshold of the doorway and the sour-faced cook herself appears, pushing a table of metal cloches and stacked plates.
Much to my dismay, there in the bottom tray of this mobile table is the big metal pot which I’m certain contains the bland lumpiness that is my dinner. It takes all my strength to hold back a groan.
‘Ah, Odette, come. We were just talking about you.’ The corner of Eliaz’s mouth tugs upwards as his gaze briefly sets on me. ‘And your biased and scathing opinions about the Reyheni Princess.’
‘I won't pretend to feel any different, your Highness. Just making sure she knows her place here,’ she huffs, cheeks flushed and greying hair glued to her forehead with sweat as she pushes the table with a great amount of effort, to the long dining table.
‘And you have deigned it upon yourself to be the one that decides that, of course,’ Eliaz laughs, unfazed by her brazenness. ‘I think the princess knows her role here in this almost non-existent court, now more than ever.’
My cheeks heat as he looks at me from the stretch of the dining-table, amusement and caution in his eyes.
‘Yes, Odette,’ I say to the chambermaid as she sets the plates on the table – and a bowl for me of course – averting my attention from the confusing scrutiny of the king's gaze.
‘We have already discussed the matter and arrived at an understanding. The king would do good to remember that I am, of course, a danger to all those around me.’
Calli scoffs from my left. ‘I think that's a slight exaggeration. You're about as dangerous as a common house-fly, Eira.’
Eliaz raises his eyebrows at her, his lips tightening to suppress an imminent smile, leaning in. ‘You might rethink that after seeing first-hand the kind of destruction she can create.’
I see that destruction as soon as he mentions it.
Eliaz wounded, the whirling ball of flame as it threatens to collide with my own mother before I find it in myself to redirect it, the gates as they are obliterated into nothingness.
The scattered fires on the stone. The smell of fear and shock as it hangs hot in the winter morning air.
Perhaps I am a danger, when I am in the vicinity of the Relic, and the power infiltrates my blood more and more with each second. Here in Umbra, I can at least be sure of the level of threat I pose, and it doesn't even bear thinking what my power might become should I return home.
I’m pulled back into the present moment by the wet thud of beige sludge in my bowl. Eliaz covers up his mocking laughter with a hand to his mouth and a dramatic cough when he sees what Odette deems me worthy of eating.
‘Ah, dinner is served.’ I pick up my spoon and jab it into the centre of the cement-like mixture. ‘Thanks, Odette. It’s as viscous as always.’
Odette grumbles an insult I don’t care to repeat, already dishing out some mystery form of meat from one of the metal dishes onto Eliaz’s plate.
‘Where’s Cole, Eliaz? I haven’t seen him all day,’ Calli asks. ‘I don’t really think he’s forgiven you for the hole in his foot.’
Her brother shakes his head, stabbing his fork into a piece of meat, tense in his movements.
‘He made that clear enough this morning. I told him to take some time out to himself, really mull over his stupidity. He’s probably in some whorehouse in Lessom, drowning his sorrows with something sweeter than whisky. ’
Calli pretends to vomit, earning her a slap on the back of her head from Odette, who has just finished loading her plate with potatoes.
‘That’s unladylike, Calliope. You best begin to act like the grown adult you are,’ she says, returning to her trolley. ‘It’s unbecoming to show immaturity so.’
‘Is it not ladylike to find whorehouses indignant and gross?’ she asks, rubbing the back of her head in a circular motion. ‘I’m mature enough to know that it’s demeaning. To the men who go there and the women that receive them.’
Odette rolls her eyes and mutters a ‘Stupid girl’ under her breath, as she pushes the trolley table and disappears from the room. I take this as my opportunity to shift the subject a little, although still interested in the topic of Cole.
‘What is Cole’s role here exactly?’ I swirl my spoon into the sludge, so as not to appear too curious about the matter. ‘All he seems to do around here is fuss and worry. Is he just an attached footman? A passionate head guard?’
‘It’s complicated,’ Eliaz replies, pouring himself what I hope to be a glass of wine, the red liquid in the decanter indiscernible from this distance. My chest tightens faintly as he takes a sip, swilling the mouthful around before swallowing.
‘Complicated how? Either you don’t know or cannot be bothered to explain it to me.’
‘He most definitely can’t be bothered,’ Calli pipes up through a mouthful of potato. ‘It’s not that exciting. Eliaz met Cole a few years ago, visiting the coastal town of Arlinman and Cole followed him back here like a little lost puppy. And thus, their brotherly bond blossomed.’
Eliaz slams his fork down on his plate with annoyance, breathing through his nose with agitation. ‘You simplify things too much, Sister.’
‘And saying ‘it’s complicated’ isn’t a simplification in itself?’ Calli counters.
I dare a mouthful of my detestable dinner, doubting whether my questioning was the correct move, especially after knowing where my blatant nosiness led me this morning after I let it get the better of me.
The beige sludge is only a fraction of the disgustingness it was this morning, still forming a claggy build up in the throat, but the taste is almost bearable. Fuller, less earthy.
‘Forgive me for being tired of questioning and explaining,’ Eliaz says without an ounce of earnest. Calli sighs into silence, head bowed to her plate, now cutting her chunk of meat with a lot more fervour.
The room shrinks with the tension, closing in on us more and more the longer we eat and play with our food with pure awkwardness and – in Eliaz’s case – annoyance.
The lacing of my dress seems to pull taut behind my back, constricting my ribcage and hindering my ability to breathe as we sit swilling the silence around in our mouths like spoiled wine.
The three of us contemplating our next words, to the grating sound of knives scratching on ceramic and the boastful crackle of the fire in the hearth.
Eliaz is the first to set his cutlery down on his plate and push it away from him. The abruptness of it makes Calli and I both flinch.
He downs whatever remains in his glass before getting to his feet, the legs of the chair scouring the floor with a sound that makes my teeth rattle.
‘Where are you going now?’ Calli throws her cutlery down haphazardly, her fork sliding into the centre of the table and clinking on the metal of a candelabra base.
Eliaz exhales. ‘I’m going to Lessom. We have many of the afflicted close to relocation to the shelters and I want to make sure all is in order.’
‘The shelters?’ I ask. But Eliaz simply pushes away the question with a wave of the hand as he walks by me on his way to the door. When he is gone, Calli turns her body to me, a weak and apologetic smile forming.
‘The shelters are where the rehabilitated go once they are well enough. We have large, specialised buildings that house up to a hundred people, some even more.’
‘And what do they do once they are there? How do they make a living? They just integrate into the new society just like that?’ I snap my fingers in the air.
All those people from Reyhen, unable to go home to their lives, their family, to what they know. Trapped here with no other alternative but death. Diarmid. Myla.
Judging by Lillienne’s timeline of recuperation, Diarmid will be close to being relocated to the gods know where. Poor Myla will be frightened, alone in a warehouse of the sick and newly mortal.
‘Think of them as a hub for people learning how to live after the affliction. We allow people to live together and support each other, and people with useful trades or skillsets eventually get sent to struggling communities where they will be most appreciated and most importantly – needed.’
‘These places, they are nice?’ I lean in.
Calli purses her lips, and blinks slowly. ‘As nice as we are able to make them in Umbra.’
That doesn’t do much to spark hope. But this is what we are working to change. What we wish to create. Endless communities of thriving, happy citizens across the entirety of Valtayre. Reyhen and Umbra joined once again.
Calli fiddles with the sleeve of her dress, pulling at a loose silver thread, eyes closed. ‘I hope we are able to make change, Eira.’
I straighten up my posture, squeezing my own fingers tight on my lap, taking a deep breath, exhaling through my nose before looking up at her.
‘We will,’ I impart. ‘We will, because we have to.’