32. Eshe
Eshe
After spending the afternoon with everyone, enjoying cups of kava and music from Casimir and Norrah’s sound bowl, we had dinner in the main hall.
I was distracted, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to enjoy anything after what Ezra admitted to me.
Anyone would be. Now, I had a bigger issue.
Figuring out if my brother killed my family or not, after finding out that said brother did indeed try to kill me.
What a fucking mess.
I was a mess.
Despite Ezra’s better judgement, he continued following me closely all afternoon.
Dinner was quick, and Yven brought everyone outside for a fire and wine above the cliffside, towering over the desert sands. It didn’t go over my head when Ezra refused the wine.
Norrah leaned into me on the lying palm trunk. “Are you ever going to tell me what’s going on between the two of you?”
“I’m not marrying Casimir, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Casimir leaned toward me from my other side with a twinkle in his eye. “Good, because I don’t want to marry you either. You’re insane!”
My jaw dropped, edged with a smile. “I’m insane?!” I blurted out. “I think this is our first argument, and we’re not even married.”
Casimir dropped his voice. “You and Ezra fight non-stop. What does that say about the two of you?”
Norrah chortled on my other side, and my face flushed with heat.
“It says we hate each other, Cas. What else would it be?” The moment the words spilled from my mouth, I instantly regretted it.
“It can mean a lot of things, love.” Casimir winked at me.
I looked across the fire, hoping to God that Ezra wasn’t overhearing this conversation, but his eyes were locked on mine with tightness in his jaw.
“Go away, Cas. You’re nothing but the source of meaningless drama.” I gently pushed him off the bark of the palm, and he laughed and joined Yven and Ezra on the other side.
“Not to add to the meaningless drama, but I was serious about the question I asked… about you and Ezra.” Her eyes peered into mine.
“Absolutely nothing at all, why?”
“It doesn’t look like nothing. It looks like everything. He looks at you like you’re… everything. I would like someone to look at me one day. The way he does with you—it’s different.”
I wanted to roll my eyes at her, but I refrained. “It’s the kava talking, Norrah,” I deadpanned.
“Well, then he’s been drunk on kava ever since I’ve seen you two together. Because it’s not just tonight.”
My heart began to thump a little harder at what she was implying. “You have some keen observation skills I don’t know about, Norrah?”
Norrah dropped her gaze. “I… I’ve just learned how to survive in my own way. I’m not a warrior like you, Eshe.” She began to play with the bark between us. “But I’ve learned to anticipate people’s reactions before they even know.”
The crackle of fire faded the voices on the other side as Norrah continued to talk. “I’ve also been on edge, which just makes me more… observant. It’s like an obsession now. I’m constantly looking for Gabriel.”
“He won’t find you,” I said.
“I know, but… can I do this forever?”
“You won’t have to.”
“I have a feeling he won’t stop. In my bones, I can feel it. I feel like he’s right behind me. I find myself constantly looking over my shoulders.”
“If that’s what you need to do, then it’s worth it. You don’t want to be married to a man who frightens you. You want someone who makes you feel safe. Makes you feel like you belong together. Every moment that passes, you just can’t wait to be near him, not away from him.”
Norrah suppressed a smile.
“What?”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
The fire was causing my skin to feel unbearably hot. “That is not at all how Ezra makes me feel.”
“Are you sure?” she sang softly.
My eyes flickered to Ezra. “Well…” I swallowed the lie. “He does make me feel safe, but… I don’t think he feels the same about me,” I admitted the truth in a whisper.
I glanced back at Ezra, who was now staring into the fire.
She leaned a little closer this time. “I read people, Eshe. That’s what I do. He feels the same way you do. Every time he enters a room, he looks for you, and he’s always near you.” She nudges her shoulder to mine. “He admires you.”
My mouth went dry at the possibility of her words.
My gaze dropped to his mouth, and I remembered for a moment what it was like to feel it on my lips.
I tried to be mad at him for the rest of the day for what felt like rejection, but the truth was, he was only doing what he thought he had to.
I could almost see the battle in his head as he lifted his eyes to mine from across the fire.
Gooseflesh pebbled my skin and rose to my nipples.
I cleared my throat and told the group I was going on a night walk into the sands. I was angry, confused, feeling things I’d never felt before.
Walking down the slope of the sand-covered mountain, my boots sank with each step down. It was dark, but the skies were a blanket of tethered strings of light.
I could feel him behind me. I couldn’t escape him, nor did I find myself wanting to.
I turned to my left when I reached the bottom of the slope, where the rock cliffside started peeking through the sands.
I stopped in my tracks. Through the darkness, I could see a sliver of an opening.
Like a crack in the mountain. I approached it, wishing I had a torch, but all I had was the faint light of the stars behind me.
Ezra was behind me as I crept through the crack—I could imagine only three of him could fit in here. He was like my shadow. It was dark except for the faint glow illuminating the entrance of the cave as we went further in.
Inside the cave, there were dead shrubs scattered around as if the wind had nowhere else to push them but here.
I grabbed a few, and I noticed Ezra did too, and we peacefully built a fire together, using two daggers.
Neither one of us made a move to disrupt the silent truce.
Of realizing that we both just left a perfectly comfortable place with our friends by a fire to move to somewhere more… private.
I slid my eyes to Ezra, and he could tell there was something on my mind because he asked, “What?”
I shrugged and continued to stare into the fire, feeling warmer here than I did there. The cool nights, especially near an oasis, turned out to be chillier than I was used to.
“Do you travel often with the Atrove?” I asked.
Ezra nodded.
“What do you usually do when you’re with them?”
His body tensed, and the crackling of the fire echoed loudly across the cave. For a moment, I swore he wasn’t going to oblige me with an answer. Maybe he thought himself too proud to answer me, or maybe he didn’t want to say it out loud, making it more real.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he finally answered. “Curious woman, you haven’t changed a bit,” he muttered and shook his head, though the tips of his lips curved up.
I quietly scoffed but remained focused on the flickering fire dancing between us.
His voice echoed softly against the walls of the small cave. “I… have never had a conversation about what I do, except with my men, so it’s strange to discuss any of these matters with people who are not part of the Atrove…” he admitted.
“I’ve always wondered what the Atrove does. If what people said was actually true… or not.”
Ezra let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Keep wondering, because it’s not your business.”
“I know it’s not, that’s why I’m asking you,” I bit out. I could tell Ezra was holding himself back from responding.
We stared into the fire, but I didn’t speak or push the subject again. After several minutes, Ezra cleared his throat.
“We deal with the laws between the countries, and if something goes against what we want, we change it. We send messages through different ways depending on how aggressive or rebellious the Qahl or leading commanders are about doing what we bid them to do. Some are harder to convince… It’s not pretty.
Others are more pliable. We keep the law intact by protecting it and holding accountable those who do not uphold it.
That’s why there haven’t been wars in a very long time.
” Ezra paused, and there was a moment of reading each other’s eyes.
I knew some things about the Atrove, but still—I wanted him to share more, and he seemed to know that.
“If people disappear, well, they blame it on the Atrove, and they have reason. I know for the most part what is happening, but not every broken law or crime. I trust in my men that they are keeping their division in check. If there’s anything that is important for me to know, they tell me when I’m at the Atrove.
If I’m not there, Amr finds me at the palace… only him.”
A moment went by, and something shifted in the air, like Ezra physically felt lighter. Like he had been holding on to these secrets forever, and maybe just speaking some of it out loud felt freeing.
“What about your own laws?” I asked quietly.
“What about them?”
“Can you change your own laws?” My eyes finally met his narrowed gaze.
“They are there for a reason. The past Atrovian leaders have kept our families from fighting each other through generations because that was their job. Not to have families, but to guide others.”
“But—”
“There is no but.” His eyes flashed at me.
“Yes, there is,” I pressed on.
“You simply don’t understand.” He gritted his teeth.
“Then explain it to—”
“Women complicate things. You complicate things. I am complicated now because of you. You’re a problem to me that shouldn’t even exist in my world. I can’t decide what’s best for the Atrove now because I’m compromised.”
My lips parted, letting out a quiet gasp echoing across the small canyon. “Are you?” I whispered.
“What?” he growled.
“Compromised?”
“Of course I am.” Ezra brushed a hand over his face. “I want what’s best for you, not for the Atrove. I want to protect you over the Atrove.”
My heart might have expanded and warmed just a bit more by his confession. “I see.” I pushed my fallen hair behind my ear. “But I don’t think it has to be like that.”
“How so?”
“What if choosing what’s best for me is what’s best for the Atrove?”
“That’s impossible.” He shut down the subject and rose from the ground. I rose with him and reached for his arm, sending a current down mine.
“What if we were on the same side?”
He looked down at me, and with me this close, it still amazed me how incredibly tall he was.
“What are you talking about, woman?”
“What if… I was part of the Atrove as well?”
A rumble of laughter ran through him. And then he stopped when he saw how serious I was.
“Women don’t belong in po—”
“Don’t you dare say it, Ezra. You know that I’m just as capable as your own men. Don’t you?”
A silence fell in the cave. I couldn’t hear the fire crackling anymore, or the breath within me. I could feel Ezra holding his own as well.
His body tensed at that question, and he cleared his throat again.
A chilling sensation rose in my hand that touched his, and I snapped my hand from his arm. I took a step back.
“I can’t believe it.” I lashed out and turned on my heel, stomping away. I was about to reach the end of the tunnel before Ezra caught my waist and pulled me into his arms.
“Yes,” Ezra growled.
My palms, which were pressed against his chest, relaxed. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, I know that you’re equally capable as any man.
” He pulled me tighter against him, and I nearly winced.
He shook my body. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that what you wanted me to say? Because it doesn’t change anything.
It will never change anything. The law is bigger than you, bigger than I.
It’s the Atrove we’re talking about, the law above the laws. ”
“It changes everything,” I challenged. His closeness sent a shudder down my spine. “You can choose both. I’ve been trained by one of the greatest trainers in Mongah. I… We…”
We could be together was what I didn’t say.
“Eshe…”
“Just think about it.”
“No one would accept you.”
“Then let me fight them and prove my worth.”
His body went even more rigid, and he almost pulled away. “I would never let a man beat you.”
“They wouldn’t, Ezra, trust me. You beat me once, and I survived.” I winked at him, reliving the moment I pushed him to fight me. But something that looked a lot like pain flashed across his eyes. Like he didn’t find it as funny.
“Well… that’s what you and I do: we fight. But I won’t allow another man to touch you like that in training, or I’ll have to kill them with my bare hands. You see now how that’s a problem? I’d kill each one of my men if they so much as touched a hair on your head. I won’t allow it.”
“Ezra—“
“I won’t hear it—”
I pulled his head closer to me, his forehead touching mine, and I was so close I could almost taste his lips. “Don’t be such a pious bastard.”
He tugged my hips closer to his, and I gasped when I felt hardness against my core.
“Don’t be such a brat.”
My heart raced.
“But I’m so good at it,” I breathed.
His head lowered to my neck. “You sound like you’re bragging about something you should be on your knees apologizing for.”
I tightened my grip on his hair. “And you sound like you need a few lessons on how to talk to women.”
“Oh yeah? Because it looks to me like you can’t get enough of me, Eshe.” His lips touched my neck, his spot, and I let out a shudder. An aching sensation spread between my legs. Oh God, I was so weak to his touch. I nearly whimpered at a kiss.
“And it sounds to me like you enjoy it when I touch you.”
Despite how much I wanted him on me, I mustered as much strength as I could and pushed him off me. He had a smirk on his face as if he just knew he was my weakness too. Leaving him behind me, I threw out, “I’m going to sleep, don’t bother me anymore,” and left him to deal with the fire.