Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
Trials
Everything felt wrong. Aoife sat in the strange garden, twisting her fingers around themselves and then releasing. Twisting. Releasing. Twisting. Releasing.
When Shadach had declared it was time to fight back, to take up the Emperor’s crown, Aoife had had only one thought: I’d follow you anywhere.
Especially after that night they’d shared.
She knew it was silly, foolish, perhaps even stupid, throwing herself after Shadach like this.
That’s what Mum would have said. Aoife was being too irrational and that was the very wrong thing to be.
But Aoife wanted to believe Shadach’s view of the world.
She didn’t want to need Mum or anyone else telling her if she was being a fool.
She wanted what she truly desired to be right.
And for it to be good enough simply because it called to her heart.
Yet, after all those magical moments with Shadach, with creating art and feeling like she was beginning to find a freedom she didn’t know she could have …
things were changing. The Halcin homeland wasn’t what she’d expected.
Aoife absently scratched her nail against the hard bench she sat on, watching two Halcin women pass the garden by the street behind.
They looked identical. Pale clothes. Dark hair.
Eyes of shadow and ice. They looked at Aoife through the shrubs, murder in their eyes. Aoife looked away, studying her feet.
Everything here was so … plain. So functional.
Mum would have loved it. Aoife had expected a tribe of artists with every person covered in as many tattoos as Shadach.
So far, the only tattoos to be seen were Shadach’s.
She could feel her nerves creeping in. What if she couldn’t fit in among Shadach’s people?
What if she should have stayed on task, stayed purely scientific, and then gotten the hell out of this world?
These thoughts and more bombarded Aoife, but only for a moment. Because then, oh then.
Then, she saw him. Coming out the back door to meet her. Shadach’s smile was a thing of pure joy, the relief in his eyes at seeing her the perfect antidote to her nerves. This. This was why she’d followed him here. Why she would follow him anywhere.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. He kissed her until he was breathless.
“Was it that bad?” Aoife said.
“I’m still alive, so it could have been worse.” His tone said he was only half-joking.
A new voice entered the conversation, coming from the back door. A woman’s voice, stern and brutal. Shadach looked back and Aoife followed his eyes. A middle-aged woman with dark, greying hair pulled into a bun was looking at them. Or glaring, rather.
Shadach said something to her in Halcin. She said something back.
“This is my mother, DaFira,” Shadach said to Aoife. He said something in Halcin to his mother that included Aoife’s name. She assumed he was introducing her.
DaFira looked Aoife over, her lips pinching as if she’d been sucking lemons.
Aoife’s ears went hot as she felt the need to run, to hide beneath the weight of DaFira’s gaze.
But this was Shadach’s mother. Despite the complicated history she and Shadach had, Aoife wanted to make a good impression.
But how to endear herself to a woman who hated her?
Aoife held out her hand in greeting. A gesture of friendly politeness was always the right call, wasn’t it?
As Aoife stretched out her hand, she saw it.
Her salvation. Peaking out from beneath a filthy, outdoor rug beside her feet.
With her boot, Aoife nudged the rug away so she could see it better: a faded mural etched into the stone ground.
Unlike the one they’d seen on the way to the Temple of Lust, this one was full of light.
Of hope. There were animals and smiles and a dream-like tone to the sky.
“Oh,” Aoife said, “this is exquisite. Absolutely beautiful!”
Her tactics were a bit of a gamble. Maybe they didn’t love the art of their ancient past, considering how artless the modern Halcin decor was.
But Aoife’s genuine appreciation of Halcin art had endeared her to Shadach, so maybe it would work on his mother, too?
Besides, Aoife didn’t know if DaFira could see lies.
This way, she would know Aoife was being honest, she wasn’t just sucking up.
But then, DaFira’s laugh cut through the air. Unbidden, the memory of Mum laughing at Aoife’s teapot flashed through her mind.
“Beautiful?” DaFira mocked. “What’s so beautiful about it? You can’t sell it, you can’t eat it, you can’t do shit with it. All it does is sit there and be useless.”
DaFira muttered some less-than-pleasant sounding words in Halcin to Shadach. When Aoife looked at him for a translation, DaFira quickly obliged: “you don’t belong here, Selat. Not in the Western Lands, and especially not in my home.” She went back into the house, slamming the door shut.
Aoife’s pulse rang in her ears. Suddenly, she was a child again, everyone around her telling her she had no business entering that art competition, that she was a fool to think the thing she liked was worthwhile.
“She’s in a foul mood,” Shadach sighed, “don’t mind her.
” He put his arm around Aoife’s waist and kissed her head.
That one, gentle gesture pulled Aoife back to the here and now.
Aoife was allowed to think the mural was beautiful even if Shadach’s mother didn’t.
She wasn’t a child anymore. But even as she told herself this, even as she truly believed it, DaFira’s final words gnawed at Aoife’s stomach like a lion on an antelope carcass.
“The good news,” Shadach said, “is we have a place to stay.”
“I thought she said I don’t belong here.” Aoife’s voice felt hollow, something about those words hitting a place deep inside her. She wasn’t quite sure what that place was, but it was cold. And painful.
“She said you as a Selat don’t belong here.” Shadach’s grin was hopeful with just the right amount of cheekiness. “You’re not a Selat.”
Aoife couldn’t help but smile through the tension in her body. “That’s the good news then. What’s the bad news?”
~*~
“Well …” Aoife studied the sagging, animal skin tent. It had been pitched at the side of the house with about as much love as a barista forced to make a drink for the ex that cheated on her. “We’ve had worse.”
“Nothing but the best for the long lost son.” Shadach opened one of the tent flaps and peeked inside.
“Your mother said you had to sleep out here?”
“More or less.”
“She said I had to sleep out here.”
Shadach crawled into the tent. “She’s not a subtle woman.”
Aoife followed him into the tent where a smattering of old blankets sat on the floor alongside something that looked like a deflated pillow. Shadach was lying on his side.
“Do we get food at least?” Aoife said with a tone she hoped was light.
“Certainly.” Shadach reached for her hand and she lay beside him on the hodgepodge of blankets. “Probably. Maybe.”
“It’s been that tense, has it?” Aoife closed her fingers tighter around his, nestling her head against his shoulder. The feel of him against her was better than the finest Egyptian cotton pillows.
“I didn’t exactly leave peaceably,” he said. “And Halcin are not known for forgiving and forgetting.”
“Was it that bad being here?” Aoife closed her eyes, breathing in the spicy, soothing scent of him.
“No … and yes. I was tired of my life being chosen for me. Having to pretend I had no ambitions other than being a criminal. But I didn’t have a lot of tact at eighteen when it came time to explain that.” The slight laugh in his voice held a sea of embarrassment.
“I noticed,” Aoife traced a circle on the back of his hand with her thumb, “no one else has tattoos. I thought that was a Halcin thing.”
“It is,” Shadach pulled in closer, his chin resting on her head. “Or it was. Tattoos used to be a fundamental part of our culture. I’m trying to bring it back, but it obviously hasn’t caught on yet.”
“Well, I like them.” Aoife opened her eyes for just a moment to see how warmly he was holding her hand. “If it matters.”
“That’s all that matters.”
Aoife’s fingers tingled with warmth as Shadach kissed her forehead. “Speaking of opinions. You know what I think would help my family’s opinion of us?”
Aoife hesitated. If he said she had to grovel in front of them, she would probably do it, but she wouldn’t like it. “… what?”
“If we worshipped very, very loudly.”
Aoife laughed, any lingering tension pulling out of her with the force of her breath. “Do you think so?”
“Most definitely.”
She looked into his eyes. Dark. Brilliant. Beautiful. “If you think it would help.”
His kiss was soft. Slow. As if savouring every second, every taste.
He kissed her up and down. She melted like ice on a hot summer day as every inch of her skin tingled with heat and desire.
Aoife ran her fingers underneath his shirt, feeling the hardness of his chiselled eight-pack and chest against her fingertips.
It was a strength that went far beyond muscle, beyond aesthetics.
It was a power, a resilience that was baked into his soul.
Aoife groped to hold him tighter, to get closer to that strength, to borrow some of it for herself.
She was going to need it in the face of DaFira’s mockery.
In the face of all those eyes telling her the same thing over and over and over again: you don’t belong here.
Shadach’s husky moan pulled Aoife’s thoughts back to the heated present.
She had put her fingers to his pelvis without realising, tantalising the base of him.
Moving back up, she pulled off his shirt, raking her hands over his hard body before running them back down, down, down his smooth, chiselled chest. His head fell back, jaw tight, straining to hold in a moan.
“Don’t get shy on me now,” Aoife whispered in his ear.