5. Chapter Five
Chapter Five:
~Melrose~
“Thank you so much for having us over for a bit, Daphne,” I chirped, kissing my best friend’s cheeks. “Will I see you at the candle lighting ceremony tonight?”
“Of course!” Daphne grinned, “I’ve just got to change to something more candle-service appropriate.”
I snorted, rolling my eyes but wishing my friend well.
Daphne Oliphante was one of those friends where we wouldn’t talk to for several months, then run into each other at the markets, and spend the next three days catching up like no time passed.
She was one of my best friends and I loved her to the moon and back.
But she was also someone who came to service, not for the religion but because it was expected of her.
Her father had been a paladin of Avaris, her mother a healer blessed by our lady, and so she was expected, like all four of her siblings, to attend service.
She kept all the holidays, went to each rite, and did all the things they said good followers of the goddess did.
Only, I could tell her heart wasn’t in it.
I couldn’t blame her for it either. My own crisis of faith alone, I completely understood why someone so involved with the Order would want nothing to do with it.
We were two sides of the same coin, as despite my complications, the Order brought me solace.
I never felt alone because of it. Maybe I should, but I didn’t.
Even in my grief and mourning, I still sought out the comfort of Avaris.
Maybe that makes me a fool…it’s complicated.
Much like my relationship with everything.
I glanced at Keida, striding down the cobblestone path away from the Oliphante’s manor, shoulders back and head held high.
What even happened in there? It happened so fast that I considered it might have been a hallucination.
If I knew that deciding not to wear small clothes would get Keida to give me the best orgasm I’d ever had, I’d trot around her in nothing but short skirts for the rest of my fucking days!
“You’re staring,” Keida pointed out with a hollow tone.
“Well, I was wondering when we were going to talk about what happened back there,” I confessed with a slight shrug.
Keida neither looked at me nor made any indication what I said phased her. “What happened was you chose to flirt with danger, and I taught you a lesson.”
“Oh?” I chortled. “That was teaching me a lesson?”
“Are you insinuating you won’t think twice now when dressing?” She finally glanced in my direction, if only sharply and for a moment.
“If you think that did anything but instill a deep desire to never wear small clothes while you’re around, you’ve got another thing coming, Keida—”
She huffed much like a bull, a heavy puff of smoke made from the cold air around our heads. “Why can you not just behave?”
I wanted to ask why. Why should I behave when being trouble has gotten me so much more?
And who was she to tell me to behave? It wasn’t like she’d staked a claim on me, nor had she spoken anything about it since she kissed me.
I wasn’t the one pretending like I was anything to her other than a good time.
Only, her gloved fingers wrapped around my wrist and dragged me off the path, deep into the thick, wooded area outside the Oliphante’s manor.
Beyond most of the richer homes in the kingdom, there were patches of trees and bushes, but Daphne’s family was as close to the mountain as they could get.
It was hilly and snow spilled over our heads as Keida pushed branches aside.
She twisted me up against a tree, pinning my hands over my head.
“Your father will have my head for this,” she breathed.
“He’s not beheaded someone in a long time,” I teased as I hooked my hoof behind her calf and tried to urge her closer.
She stayed a firm arm’s length away from me, piercing eyes studying my face.
It took me a moment to realize, but when I did, I blurted out, “You won’t be with me because of my father? ”
“He is the Hierophant Rex of the order.” Her words were so point blank, as if she expected that to be explanation enough.
“How long?” I ground the two words between my teeth.
“For the last 15 years, or more, you would know better than I—” She blinked rapidly when I snarled, finally breaking free of her grip. I pushed away from her, storming over crunchy leaves to put more space between us.
“No! How long have you liked me?” I spat. Keida’s face fell as I twisted to face her, furious. Heat licked across my cheeks, fists shaking as I stared her dead in the eye. I asked my question a second time with significantly more venom, “How. Long. Have. You. Liked. Me?”
She audibly swallowed, gaze falling away from me. “Since I first saw you.”
“Liar,” I sneered. Rolling my eyes, I twisted from her once more and pushed further into the slumbering trees.
Winter left most of the trees with dark bark and no leaves but some of the spruce trees were still a vibrant green.
I stomped past a few of them, letting their sticky needles grab onto the edges of my dress.
A gloved hand caught my sleeve and I stopped mid-crunch onto another pile of leaves.
“The moment I entered that office and saw you, flush like a poppy in the midst of winter, so brazen, so confident, and unapologetic, I knew then. You’re the only…
” she trailed off with a sigh. I twisted to catch her expression again and found her saddened stare directed at my hooves.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Why?” I shrugged, hands tossed out to the side a little in confusion.
“Because it’s not right. It’s not fair to you and it’s torturous to me,” Keida confessed before dropping my sleeve.
“Let’s get back to the festival. We still have two hours till the candle lightning ceremony, I’m sure you can get up to more mischief down there. And we can forget this ever happened.”
That’s not what I want. I wanted her to confess her feelings for me!
Actually, admit to them or accept that I was nothing but a fun time.
Keida had to pick one! She wasn’t allowed to string me along like this.
I swore to myself years ago that I wouldn’t plead with someone to love me when they didn’t.
Melrose St. Augustine would never beg someone to stay.
And I didn’t intend to go back on my word.
But this?! This limbo where there’s a chance we could be together but we’re not? This tango of if she’ll kiss me or if she’ll shut me out? I can’t do this. I refuse to do this any longer.
I shook my head, “No.”
“What?” she blurted out. A breeze crept through the trees with a haunting whistle. It made all the branches near us shiver. Snow fluttered around our heads.
I spun to face her fully before jabbing a finger in her face.
“Either you care for me and want to be with me. Or you just want to have some fun that means nothing to either of us. You don’t get to dangle this heartache in front of my face and say words like I’m the only one you want.
Either you gather your courage to like me, Keida of the Frost!
Or you admit right now that what transpired between us meant nothing. ”
She rocked back a step; hands collected at her stomach.
Baby blue eyes roamed my face with knitted brows and an open mouth.
A mouth I think about kissing constantly.
I kept my face hardened, ready for the worst and hoping for the best. My shoulders ached from the tension.
Keida finally sighed and pushed my finger down.
“My apologies, what transpired between us meant nothing.” She couldn’t even look me in the eyes when she said it.
Instead, glancing away, her lips turned into the first scowl she’d ever given me.
Frown, sure, even a deadpan look, but she’d never scowled at me.
Like the words tasted awful on her tongue. Liar.
I snarled, “You’re a coward.”
“Melrose—”
I shouldered past her, my hooves grinding the leaves beneath me into paste mixed with the dirty snow.
Tears welled up in my eyes. Well, I did ask her to choose.
I told her to tell me what I needed to hear.
So why does this fucking hurt? My lungs threatened to collapse as I broke out into a gallop.
Hands to my mouth to keep the sob from escaping, I sprinted toward the one place that ever made me feel safe. Home.
I broke through the trees, rushed through the streets, and ignored the sounds of boots slapping against the stone as someone ran after me.
It took me no time to make it to the massive cathedral doors and bully my way inside before she could stop me.
The sound of my hooves hitting the stone echoed around the walls.
I felt the stares of all the gods looming over me as I raced through the last few pews toward the back.
“Rosebud? What are—where are you going?” Papa didn’t even have time to react, let alone get off the organ bench before I burst into the backroom.
I only heard the crash that followed, and a yelp and curse words after that.
It tore me out of my despair long enough to gasp and turn back around.
I scrambled, finding Leonardo on the floor, holding his left leg in agony. Keida skidded to a stop beside me.
“Papa,” I squeaked. In the blink of an eye, I was a child again, clinging to my father’s robes and begging him to help the random bird I found in the cathedral yard.
Then I was barely twenty, sobbing into his robes as he explained why he couldn’t bring my mother back.
All that bravado and strength I carried disappeared as I sobbed, trying to look at his leg. “What happened?”
“I cracked a hoof against the uneven floor,” he wheezed, flopping onto his back. “I’m fine, I’ll be fine.”
“Sir, let me heal you,” Keida rushed forward only to have her hands swatted away.
“No, no, I can do it. Just give me a second.” Leonardo flopped his hands over his face like the room was spinning over his head. “I’m fine, just an old goat catching the lip of some stone flooring. Both of you stop fussing over me.”
“Sir, please, your hoof is bleeding and your knee is displaced, let me heal you.” Keida reached forward again only to be shooed a second time.
I wanted to command Keida to do it. Not that a broken leg or cracked hoof were necessarily bad, my father was not in peril.
But my first response to seeing him in pain opened an old wound I thought finally scarred over.
Instead, it was a flimsy scab and the wound oozed mercilessly.
I trembled on the floor, reaching for the hem of his robes.
Papa slowly sat up, putting his leg out ahead of him. He finally saw me and his eyes widened.
“Rosebud, I’m fine, please,” he wheezed, reaching out to cup my cheek. Tears spilled down my face, drenching his palm in my heartache. “I promise you, it’s just a scratch.”
“Are you sure you’re fine?” I crawled closer till I was nestled under his arm. He curled it around my shoulders and hugged me tight.
“Takes more than some clumsy footwork to take out this old cleric. I promise you, I’m fine. Pride’s a little bruised, and my ego’s going to need some tending too, on top of this hoof and knee. But I’m fine. Shhhh, Rosebud, I know, but I’m fine.”
I trembled against his torso, soaking his robes in tears that never seemed to stop.
All I could think of was the last hug I gave my mother before she passed.
I lay in her bed beside her, listening to her lungs struggling to fill, but her arms so tight around me.
I could almost believe she’d make it through the night.
When I awoke, she was gone and Leonardo was at her bedside, praying over her.
I lay there, trying to listen for her heart, only to hear nothing but my own breaking.
“Sir! The queen is requesting…is everything alright?”
I sniffled hard, sitting up straight to dry the tears on my face. Papa continued to hold me, wrapped up in his arm, but his attention shifted to the cleric. The poor, bewildered clergy man came to a sudden stop a few feet away from us.
“Yes, of course. I’m sure they’re waiting on those blessings and candles. Keida, would you take care of those for me? Take Melrose with you while I get this leg and hoof in order.”
“Sir,” Keida pleaded at the same time I uttered the word ‘Papa’.
“No,” Papa warned with a flop of his free hand. “I have spoken. Cleric Lourne, will you give Keida the list of tasks the queen has requested?”
Leonardo gave me a pat on the back followed by a quick rub before shooing me and Keida away.
I wanted to argue, but the sharpness on his face told me there was no talking back.
Not as he propped himself back up on that dastardly bench and started to cast healing spells on his leg.
While Lourne, one of the elven clerics of the order, rattled off to Keida what was requested from the castle, my focus was entirely on my father.
“Melrose?”
I jumped, twisting to face her. Keida offered me an apologetic grimace before she tilted her head toward the door. “We’re needed at the throne room first.”
“Right,” I swallowed, glancing back at Leonardo one last time, then nodding for her to lead the way.