26. 25 #3
Akaur, the God of the Sun, was the King of our faith. Aseem was, therefore, one of the most powerful men in the country. As the Leader of the Sun, he was also Dytho’s mayor. If believed, he had an ear with our king, too.
“Seera was the opposite. We bonded over a mutual hatred of our fathers. Hers, because he kept her locked in that House like a doll, and didn’t let her have an inch of fun.
Aseem could be unkind, and overly protective.
I pretended my hatred was a kindred fire to hers, and not an inferno eating me from the insides.
We became friends very easily, and the betrothal came soon after.
It was common in our culture to have these arrangements, and it seemed neat.
The children of the two Aralaji House Leaders, together. ”
I nodded. Tradition was a hard thing to escape from.
“I was fourteen when it happened,” Davian said, and my heartbeat tolled in my ear.
“Once more, my father came home drunk. I was dining alone. My mother had retired early. I told him this, and I saw him look at the staircase. That was all he did, in the end. He just looked towards her room.” Davian paused, and swallowed hard.
“I lost it. I grabbed the fire poker from the fireplace, and I ran at him.”
He raised his head, and I didn’t look away.
A queer smile crept against his cheek. “That was the only time he ever hit me. Defending himself.” The smile dropped.
“I didn’t think I was strong enough. I wouldn’t have been if he was sober, but he was too drunk to fight me off.
It wasn’t an honourable fight. I stabbed him with that poker, and left him to bleed out on the rug of the dining room. ”
I didn’t react, and he measured the look in my eyes with a physician’s focus.
“Knessus left me that night,” he continued, finally dropping our eye contact.
“She values forethought and temperance, after all. I woke my mother, and told her. Her first question was to ask if he had hurt me. After that, she thought it through entirely like her god.” A curl of resentment ate at his tone.
“It was her idea to send me to Samiscus. I don’t remember ever seeing relief on her face.
Her only thought was keeping it secret, and keeping me out of prison. ”
I breathed through my nose, my whole body tensed with my desire to reach for him. Gods, he must have been so scared.
Davian coughed. “My mother told Aseem that my father had died and I couldn’t handle my grief.
She told him she had sent me to Samiscus for my own good.
The betrothal was off, of course. A Wisdom match was respectable.
A boy hiding in the House of Pain with a blackened Wisdom mark was a stain. I was disowned, by all accounts.”
I grimaced. At least he found another House, another family. I couldn’t imagine the devastation of losing both parents and his God in a single night.
Davian smiled mirthlessly. “That’s how I ended up with Samiscus. I killed my father.”
I squeezed my hands together harder. I wouldn’t touch him now, unless he invited me. He had opened himself up like a wound before my very eyes. I would let him call every move.
Davian looked up. “Annie, why are you crying?”
I reached up quickly, not realising my tears had spilled over. I laughed at myself, and it came out in a hoarse choke. “Sorry.”
Davian shook his head.
I wiped the tears away, but once I had started, I found it difficult to stop. My lip wobbled as I tried to swallow them back. “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I managed. “That is awful.”
Davian narrowed his eyes. His whole posture looked defeated, but there was something in his eyes, a boyish hope. As if he hadn’t expected me to say that, at all.
As if he could have expected anything else.
“I am glad you killed him,” I said, more solidly. “He might have killed your mother one day. You saved her.”
Davian hissed in a breath, his shoulders locking in tension. “I killed someone.”
I nodded, slowly. “You also stopped someone. The sunners kill all the time. What you did was justice, too.”
Davian blinked. For a few seconds, no one spoke, and the water lapped lazily against the wood of the boat. The ancient natural world, so completely unaware of the mortal struggle it contained.
He shook his head. “You’re not afraid of me?”
Afraid?
“How could I be?” I asked.
Davian breathed in heavily, like a sailor emerging from a drowning craft. He clenched his hands together, and looked at the water. I saw the tears in his eyes, and how his breath wavered with every exhale.
This was a man desperately trying not to cry.
I cleared my throat. “Would you like to go back? I think we’ve covered most of the Spit, now.
We can eat the rest of the food with the others in the lounge.
” I paused as he looked at me with a tortured expression.
I pointed down at the cold chicken near the bottom.
“That meat has got Carnage’s name on it. ”
Davian pulled in another unsteady breath, watching me with an entirely different kind of intensity. He smiled, and nodded. “Thank you.”