Chapter 45 #2
“Well…” she said, drawing out the word. “A fire doesn’t just destroy. It also warms you when you’re cold. It cooks your food.”
“Something you’d know nothing about,” he teased, and Felíne bumped his shoulder with hers in mock indignation.
“It banishes the darkness…”
Kal looked upon her, his tender gaze filled with hope and longing—not the Godking’s, but his own. Two things she suspected were as foreign to him as the other side of the realm. Felíne turned to him and placed a hand on his cheek. “You’re not going to burn me, Kalevar Kaine.”
“I didn’t believe in you,” he breathed. “I’ve read the prophecy.
I’ve seen the lastmarks. And what we saw up there?
What we felt? That’s something I haven’t even fully processed.
” He shook his head. “But I didn’t care.
I still don’t,” Kal admitted. “I would let a civilization die out if it meant I could keep you.”
Felíne didn’t know what to say. “You’re not a selfish man, Kal.”
“Oh, but I am. With you, I am terribly, horribly selfish.” He paused. “I…care about you a great deal.” Felíne’s insides flipped. “I know what I want, but I can also admit that I haven’t been good about prioritizing what you want.”
Felíne let out a nervous laugh. “If my desires were all that mattered, you might find that they aligned very closely with yours.” She sighed.
“But what I want doesn’t matter, Kal. It never has.
I didn’t ask to be the Prima. I don’t relish that the fate of our people depends upon me.
I don’t even think I’m capable of…” No. She wasn’t going there.
“But I have no choice, Kal. There are a million other shurii out there with hopes and dreams just like mine. If I turned my back on their futures? The futures of their children? I’d be no better than the gods who started this mess in the first place. ”
Kal sat quietly next to her, contemplating her words. After a moment, he stood and helped her to her feet. They walked together through the tall grass toward the old wood.
“There is someone we might ask,” Kal offered as they reached the boundary and reentered the forest. “Someone who might know a way around the curse.”
“There is no way around the curse, Kal,” Felíne said, exhaustion returning. “But I’ll bite. Who?”
He glanced down at her. “Have you ever been to Doceo?”
She nearly tripped over an errant root. “Doceo? The elder city?”
Kal nodded. “We could visit the Grand Elder. Their library is the only place I can think of that might have something I haven’t found. It’s the only archive I’ve not had access to.”
“Kal. One does not just visit the Grand Elder. The city is a fortress. It’s hidden. Only those who know the way in have access. My elders came to me in Asteros. Never the other way around.”
“So we find someone who knows the way.”
She laughed at the absurdity of it. “What do you suggest? That we kidnap an elder?” It was madness.
Kal shrugged.
“Oh my gods, you’re actually considering it.
” Felíne pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Kalevar. Let’s entertain this theory. Even if we could find an elder and then somehow convince them to lead us to Doceo—something they would be godssworn to deny us—there isn’t enough time.
The elder city is on the other side of the mountains.
The other side of Asteros. It’s nearly autumn.
My presentation…” Weeks. She had only weeks until her birthday and the inevitable fertile cycle that would follow.
And that was if it arrived on schedule and not before.
“What about one of your elders?” Kal asked, refusing to be deterred. “Were you close to any of them?”
Imogen. Oh, how Felíne wished her friend were here with her now.
“You’re not listening,” she said. “We. Haven’t. The. Time.”
“You’re alive, aren’t you? Am I? Both of us still breathing?”
She glared at him.
“Then there’s time.”
“Gods, you’re stubborn,” she muttered.
“At least I’m trying,” he retorted.
They’d made it back to the Stillwater Wood she recognized. Amber light once again filtered through the canopy, dappling the leafy floor. She’d have stopped to appreciate the soft greens and browns of the forest bathing in dusk’s gilded glow if she weren’t so irritated with her stalwart companion.
“Oh, I’ve been trying,” she countered. “Trying to do the right thing.”
“Right for whom?”
Did he seriously just ask her that? “Right for everyone. Yourself included. You might choose to abandon this path of vengeance and seek a slice of happiness. A wife. Children.” The thought made her ripe with envy. Felíne swallowed the ugly sensation. “Their futures depend on me, too.”
Kal shot her a bitter smile. “Don’t paint a portrait of my future family as though I wouldn’t have you in it. You’re not running into another man’s arms for my sake.” He thumbed his chest. “Selfish, remember?”
His subtle declaration momentarily stalled all brain activity. Had he even realized what he said? Felíne imagined Kal’s family portrait. Only, instead of some faceless woman standing next to him, surrounded by their children, it was her.
She slammed the door on that mental manifestation so hard her head rattled.
“You are impossible,” Felíne fumed. “Absolutely impossible.”
Kal barked a laugh, riling her further. “At least I’m not so self-sacrificing that I refuse to stand up for myself.”
She whirled on him, hands fisted.
He faced off with her, a wicked grin curling his lips. “Go ahead, Kitty girl. Put my lessons to use. Let’s see those claws.”
She almost hit him. She wanted to. But the fact that he wanted her to stilled her hand. Instead, she lifted her chin, met his darkened stare, and said, “If you want to brawl, go find a tavern. You can talk to me again when you’ve composed yourself.”
Felíne turned on her heel and continued on her way. It wasn’t the first time she’d walked off with no sense of direction, but this time she didn’t care. She was mad enough to fight a grimalkin. Besides, Kal wouldn’t leave her. She just needed some space to settle her temper.
How dare he? Did he think she hadn’t spent hours contemplating a way out of her situation?
That she hadn’t exhausted every possible alternative?
There wasn’t one. Felíne was no intellectual prodigy, but if there’d been a way to avoid her inevitable fate, Mender Alcuin would have devised one. Imogen would have advocated for it.
Wishing her life were different didn’t make it so.
She might close her eyes and fashion a beautiful world for herself, but she couldn’t dream forever.
When her eyes finally opened again—and they always did—reality would be there to slap her in the face.
Even if she succeeded in breaking the curse, even if she denounced her compact with the Primordial Male after bearing his child, even if Kal wanted her despite all of that, Felíne was still a princess of Asteros.
The king and queen would never allow their daughter to forsake her godchosen mate.
She stomped through the brush, her distance from Kal and his sudden reticence decidedly not helping her temper.
“So, what,” she snapped without turning, “now you want to listen to me?”
Silence.
“I tell you to stop talking, and that’s what you choose to abide?”
A grunt.
Felíne stopped. Now she was going to hit him. “You obstinate, vexatious, inconsiderate—” She spun.
And the accusations turned to ash on her tongue.