19. Nineteen
We”ve spent the entire day here amongst these kids who clearly mean so much to Kairon. He hands a sleeping toddler to Miss Fee, smiling at them as they ascend the stairs before turning to me. Our eyes meet, and I can”t help but grin at him, enjoying some time with just Kairon before we return to our assigned roles.
”Sit.” He gestures at the closest couches. ”We”ll say goodnight to Miss Fee when she comes back down, then walk home.”
I nod, smoothing down my pant legs as I sit across from him.
This is whatI wanted to see when I first arrived, and yet, there”s no way I could have appreciated it then as I do now.Seeing this place through the eyes I was taught to use would have been a waste of time.
This is the best anyone in Oksangui can do. Truthfully, it”s the best anyone anywhere could do for these children. Coming to this country, I thought it was full of the worst of mankind, the most terrible of monsters. But through the history books I”ve read here and the stories Maren tells me during our mid-afternoon walks, it”s become clearto methat everywhere is the same. Anyone is capable of being a villain in someone else”s story.
Rhyma has just become very adept at hiding their atrocities with frilly words and empty promises. Can I go back there and continue to do the same? Absolutely not.So, howcan Itakewhat I”ve learned hereand use itto help my nation thrive?Pretending to be without fault is not the same thing as being perfect.
”What are you thinking?” Kairon asks me, noting my mental absence.
With a sigh, I confess, ”I”m just thinking about how I can take what I”ve learned from your home and use it to help my own improve.”
For a second, it looks as if his chest caves in, like he”s trying to take a breath but cannot. His expression is full of fear, the blood draining from his face. Then, all at once, he is himself again, an emotional blank slate.The change is so rapid thatI”m almost certain Iimagined the entire thing.
He clears his throat. ”And what have you come up with?”
”Well, I think my people believe yours to be...”I can”t think of the proper word.
”Barbaric?”he supplies with a grin.
”Sure,”I laugh. ”But the truth is that you are just more willing to face the darker pieces of yourself. I”ve—Rhyma pushes us to be the best sides of ourselves, but I wonder if they just mean that they want the pretty version—the facade.”
A calm understanding fills his face as he leans back, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee.”I think that”sfair to say.I told you the day after you arrived that you wear a mask, did I not?”
”You did,”I agree begrudgingly, fighting a blush at the memory of his proximity that day. ”I just don”t think I understood what you meant then. I assumed everyone did, I suppose. That being human just means being what everyone around you wants you to be. I never considered that it was being false, just that our wickedness is something to be shunned, shoved in a dark corner, and ignored.”
He laughs. ”Well, for some, that probably is true. Unfortunately, those are also the ones who are generally blessed with terrible power to match.”
”Like you?”
He beams, grinning ear to ear. ”Like me.”
I need to tell him about mine. He”s shown me this piece of himself and trusted me with it. He needs to know about me before he puts any more misplaced faith in me.
”Kai.”I swallow my nerves. ”I need to-”
”So, Mr. Horned King, you didn”t think little old Miss Fee deserved a warning that you were bringing a guest this time?”The old woman appears, carrying three small tin glasses. She hands me one, settling into the chair beside mine and holding her glass against her forehead. ”Those children were begging to stay up and play with the girl with a lion”s mane.”
A laugh escapes me. The description is so apt it”s hilarious. My hair has become utterly wild from all the running and playing today. Kairon watches me across the table, a small smile pulling at one side of his lips.
”And how could I have warned you, Miss Fee? I can”t send you letters nor visit any time other than the last Tuesday of each month.”He takes a small sip from his own tin cup, grimacing. ”Goodness, woman. How do you drink this?”
”For being a king, you are quite a princess about your drink,”she chides, takinga drink of her ownbefore turning to me.”Don”t let that get warm, child. It”s fine cold, but once it”s reached room temperature, it”s intolerable.”
Tentatively, I take a sip of the dark, viscous liquid. It is vile. Bitter and sickly sweet at once, it is thicker than any other beverage I”ve had before. I can feel it sticking to my teeth, practically fighting not to go down my throat.But, afterthe scolding Kairon received, I”m not going tocomplain.
Drink finished, I place it on the table before me. ”Thank you so much, Miss Fee. And for your hospitality today. It really means the world to me that you would welcome me here.”
She looks slightly incredulous. ”While I”m very happy you joined us, I”m not the one you should thank. Kairon brought you. I just teach and feed and clothe and play with the children.”
”Right.”Warmth creeps into my cheeks. ”Well, then, thanks for just the drink.”
”You”re welcome.”She smiles. ”Did Kairon already tell you about the adventures of his time here?”
”Fee, no- that”s not-”Kairon scratches the back of his neck. ”She doesn”t know that part of it yet.”
My eyes dart up to Kai”s, his nerves written plainly on his face. ”You lived here?”
Miss Fee laughs. ”He grew up here! He and that Raya, two peas in a pod. Did everything together.”They literally grew up together. That”s why they”re so close. Like family, she said. And I didn”t believe her. Well, partially, I suppose. But, if I can be brutally honest with myself, my jealousy did not allow me to wholly believe there was nothing romanticthere. Miss Fee sniffles. ”It”s a terrible shame what happened to her. That bastard king Rivchi—”
”Okay, I think we should be going now.”Kai stands suddenly, shaking his head at the kind old woman. ”We need to be on the other side of the barrier before nine.”
I stand with him. ”Okay. How do we do this?”
”Do what?”One eyebrow raises.
”Wipe my memories?”
Miss Fee cackles. ”Why would I do that?”
”To protect the secrets here. I don”t mind. Really. Do what you must.”While I”m sad to lose the beautiful memories made with Kairon today, it”s a small price to pay for the safety of those who live here.
”No one is taking your memories, girl,”Miss Fee insists. ”If you”re here, you”re trusted.”
I look to where Kai isalreadyhalfway to the front door, and he nods. ”You”re trusted. Let”s go, or we”ll be stuck here for an entire month.”
Rushing to keep up with him, I wave at Miss Fee, shouting thank you again as we exit the home far swifter than we arrived. The whole way up the trail, Ihave torun to keep up with the king”s long strides.
Once we pass the strange hedges keeping the trail hidden from sight, he finally slows to a stop, letting me catch my breath. With thinly veiled amusement, he watches me. ”I mean this with no disrespect, but you have zero stamina. Don”t they teach you to run or fight at all in Rhyma?”
”No. We fight with our words,” I tell him.
He laughs again. ”No, you don”t even do that. You placate with your words and fight with backhanded deceit. Well, not you, but Rhyma. In any case, you need to be training in case something were to happen.”
”Like what? Like the attempt on my life only a few days away? I think it”s a bit late to learn to defend myself for that.”I laugh to cover up the lump growing in my throat.
His chest does that strange caving breath again. ”Well, when we get you through that, then you”ll begin training.”
”I”ll be going home after that,”I remind him. ”So unless you plan to meet on the border each morning, it probably won”t happen.”
He stares silently at me.The onlyshowof emotion isthe clenching of his jaw.The weight of this moment sits on my chest, like we stand on the precipice of something utterly horrible or possibly life-changing and extraordinary.
”Let”s get inside,”he finally says, walking towards the secret rock passage.
Silently, we journey back to his room, the mood exponentially colder thanit waswhen we passed through this morning. He walks behind me, guiding me with a hand on my lower back until I”m at my bedroom door.
He clears his throat. ”Thank you. For coming with me today. For being such a good sport for them. Everything.”
”Thank you for showing me. I”m sure it was hard to share that. I promise I”ll keep their secret safe,”I tellhimemphatically, slowly opening the door to step inside. ”What was she talking about with Raya? What happened? Did the king do something to her?”
Sorrow spreads across his face. ”He did. But it”s a long story, and not one Raya would want me to tell. Maybe she”ll tell you. One day.”
The chances of that happening are slim, and we both know it. I”m leaving in a fewdays”time or dying before then.
”Goodnight, my Elva,”he tells me, shutting down any further conversationon the topic.
”Goodnight.”
I watch him as he stalks back to hisownbedroom, disappearing behind the door and leaving me with even more questions than I had before our adventure today.
What happened to Kairon”s parents?
How did he end up in the orphanage?
How did Raya?
What did the old king do to Raya?
It makes sense that Raya was willing to kill him and help Kairon take the throne.
Questions swirl in my head until I finally drift to sleep hours later, wondering if Raya would be willing to share it with me. If I”m worthy of that kind of trust when I”m still keeping a huge secret of my own from them.
The following day at breakfast issomehoweven more tense.The high from yesterdayandthe fear of how things are happening between us, and the now undeniable attraction are making for a volatile mix. Onethat could explode into disaster at any moment.
He has shown endless support for my vision for our nations, making my ideas stronger and more infallible. He has given me complete freedom in the library, even lending me a few guards to reach booksthat Icannot get on my own. He has forced me into overwhelming pleasure and shared a vulnerability with me. It”s almost too much to bear.
Even with all the kindness he”s shown me, I can”t help the voice screaming at me that he”s only doing this because it benefits him. If my guard is down, he has no need to harm me to get what he wants. If I give myself to him, it”s not only me he owns but my entire country.
But even still, my body begs me to surrender. One sordid orgasm in the library didn”t sate me in the least. In fact, it”s been the opposite. The small taste I”ve had ofhisdesire only inflames me more, craving to feel all ofhim, with nothing between us. And those are dangerous thoughts, treacherous ones. Even traitorous to my home, my people.
From his own seat, he sips his coffee, watching me closely. ”You seem distracted this morning.”
”Oh.”I smooth my wild curls from my face, forcing a false calm. ”There”s just been... a lot to take in since I”ve arrived.”
”I see.”He smirks. ”Do you want to talk about it?”
”No.”The word escapes me, not allowing me to hidethe desperation within it.
He hmms, a small smile pulling at his lips. ”Are you still afraid of me, Miss Elva?” His voice deepens with the question, the tone sounding sleepy and blissfully depraved, like it”s being panted between the sheets on a lazy morning and not across the breakfast table.
”Yes,”I answer honestly, lost in the mixture of fear, anticipation, and heady arousal I can no longer deny.
”What are you really afraid of?”He tilts his head to the side. ”I can”t harm you. I”ve shown you pieces of me that no one else has seen. So what do you have to fear from me?”
He”s making my head spin with his lazy, drawling voice. With confidence I don”t feel, I respond, ”I”m sure if the feeling strikes you, you”ll still kill me. I”ve seen the spell books you have in the library. Open to the page with a shapeshifting spell and an invisibility one. How hard could it be to replace me and send the false one home to infiltrate Rhyma?”
He looks at me strangely,lookingalmost wounded by the accusation, before coming back and answering with a calm smile, ”Those spells both only last up to two days, my Elva. And both require an extensive list of ingredients. Ensuring you are safe and pleased is far less work and certainly more fun.”
My cheeks warm as I remember the ways in which he”s pleased me thus far and how else he might in the future if I allow it. Shaking the depraved thoughts away, I remember back to the page, a few of the items so obscure I”d never heard of them before. Then, a few other well-known ones, like unicorn horn shavings, rotroot, and Syren scales.
”Then why were the books out?”I ask.
With a shrug, he answers, ”Raya loves alchemy. She had— has an affinity for it. She created a few of her own potions, in fact. I”ve always thought that was her Zalig ability, but there”s not really a way to prove whether it”s true or not.”
”Really?”Excitement fills me, and he grins.
”You”ll have to ask her about it,”he tells me. ”Though, I”ll warn you, once she gets started, she”ll never stop talking about them. She once turned one of my childhood stuffies into a puddle of goo and tells the story every chance she gets.”
”Why would that be the story she chooses to tell?”I laugh.
”Because it is one of only two times she”s seen me cry,”he admits, a blush rising on his cheeks.
”And the other?”I taunt.
All the color leaves his face. ”That one is not a story for your ears, my Elva.”
Memories from our trip to the orphanage pop up, reminding me that the former king did something terrible to Raya, and I can”t help but wonder if the two things are related. But if his change in mood is anything to go by, it”s not a subject he”s willing to talk about, and I”m not going to push him on this, not when we are so close to the peace I”ve been searching for.
I”mso close to being finished with all of this, and thenI can go home and bring the stories of my adventures with me to share with my friends and countrymen.
Not all the stories, of course. Some will just be mine.Mine to reminisce on someday when I”m... well,I guesssomeday when I”m married and feeling nostalgic.It feels strange and somewhat sickening to thinkthat therewill be days when I”m committed to someone else.
I”ve always thought I would settle down eventually, after serving my country, and find a nice person with whom I might want to raise children. But sitting here, after seeing how much the worldactuallyhas to explore, the idea of that life is stifling. Just thinking about it feels like I”m suffocating.
How can I go back to a life I used to dream of,backwhen I believed it was the only life I could ever have? I”m not foolish enough to think that Kairon and I could have a love story. He”s certainly not the type to move to a small house and have a family.
”Are you alright?”he finally asks. ”You”re being completely unlike yourself today. You haven”t even asked me a single question about the basilisks.”
”Basilisks?”His redirection reminds me of the book I was reading the other night. ”How did you— do you snoop through what I read in the library?”
The tops of his ears and cheeks redden. ”I do.”
Feigning offense, I gasp, ”How dare you?”
”In my defense,”he says, taking another drink before placing it before him, ”you always come to me with a list of questions, and I rarely have the answers. So I”ve taken to glancing at your reading material and finding related texts.”
Curiosity gets the best of me. ”And what did you find?”
He grins, and I”m fully distracted, forgettingwhateverupset me just moments agoin order toenjoy our shared love of new discoveries.
”There isn”t much known about them, to be honest. Their gazes are known to be fatal, their venom even more so.”I nod, having read the same thing yesterday. ”But they”re also quite small, only being a foot long or so. And in the rolling plains of the desert where they reside, the howling wind and swirling sand hides them until it”s too late.”
”Then how are there any stories?”I ask the one question I hadn”t been able to find an answer to.
He smiles. ”That”s the exact answer I was looking for.”My head starts nodding without any conscious effort on my part, silently begging for whatever he found. ”There have been a handful of stories over the years, never confirmed, of course, but people have claimed that the basilisks spotted them and buried their heads in the sand to let them pass by safely.”
”Really?”
He smiles bigger. ”Those same people claim to have found riches beyond their wildest imagination hidden within the desert.”
”And what happened to them?”
”They were killed. Robbed, usually.”
The air in my chest deflates. ”What?”
”Elva, there”s nowhere on this earth someone can travel through, bragging about untold riches to anyone who will listen and not be attacked by someone,”he explains.
”But the things those people have seen!”I argue. ”And they”re killed over... money? Something so trivial?”
The king”s eyes narrow slightly. ”Trivial?”He hmms in thought. ”The only people who could possibly call money trivial are those who have always had access to it.”
”I—”
”Have you ever gone without food for days? Or even wondered where your next meal will come from? Or where you might lay your head at night?”he asks me, not without kindness, just that calm demeanor he uses when Kai knows he”s facing my naivety once again.
”No,”I admit. While my country hasitsissues, food security and housing have never been one of them.
He tilts his head.”Perhaps ifyou did, you would think differently about whether knowledge is more important than money.”
”Have you?”I can”t help but ask.
”Many times.”
”Oh.”I feel properly chagrined. Embarrassed even.
His smile remains calm and empathetic. ”It”s alright, Elva. You can”t possibly know what you don”t know. No one here is blaming you for not being taught these things.”
”Being ignorant is humiliating.”I bite my lips between my teeth, wishing I could take those words back.
He shakes his head. ”No, it”s not. Choosing to remain ignorant would be, but that”s not you.”
”Thank you.”
”You”re welcome, my Elva.”With a playful wiggle of his brows, he changes the subject. ”Can we talk about less dour things now? Like the basilisk”s neighbors? The ghouls?”
”Yes! Is it true they eat mortal flesh?”I ask, lost in my unquenchable thirst for knowledge and, if I”m being honest, more time to learn about this world from Kairon.
”Yes and no.”He puts one ankle over his opposite knee, leaning back to regale me with more stories. ”All the ghouls were once mortals, you know.”
”No.”
He chuckles again. ”Yes!They should be feared more than the basilisks, I think.They were once mortals who got lost within the desert.The storiesgothat a man will go to desperate lengths if hungryenough.That our survival instinct is far more indomitable than any rational thought we might have once had.
”So after weeks without food and days without water, the mortal mind becomes twisted enough to do horrid things. Tirriel”s father once told me of a man stumbling into town, half-mad, bathed in sand, with blood dripping down his chin. He spoke of finding a fresh corpse and did what someone does when they find food for the first time in weeks. He ate, and he drank, hoping their flesh and blood would sustain him enough to find his way home.”
”And did it?”
Kai shakes his head, a somber expression turning his smile upside down. ”He found his way to a small village on the outskirts of Lermo, where the people took him in and summoned the king. The king had to make a judgment on whether or not what he did to survive was illegal.”
I sitin silence, waiting for what I already know will be a horrible end to this story. Whether the man lives or dies, he”ll be suffering.
”The king called for his execution by hanging. The entire town gathered to watch it be done, as people do. But no one cheered, for this man didn”t actually harm anyone. He only survived.
”When it was done, the executioner released the rope, the corpse falling to the ground, only for it to rise again, growing to twice his original size with razor-sharp teeth and claws to match. It tore through half the town before someone managed to remove its head.”
I stare at his self-satisfied smirk, utterly distraught.
”What was the point of telling me that story?”I finally ask.
He shrugs. ”You asked. Would you rather bury your head in the sand like the basilisks? Or do you want to see everything this world has to offer? The good, the bad, the dangerous? Do you think I am the type to help you remain hopeful and foolish?”
”Well, no, I want to know everything.”
He smirks but it doesn”t reach his eyes. ”The price of knowledge is a steep one. But you”re strong enough to handle it. If you”re brave enough to ask, know that I”ll always be brave enough to answer.”
The statement weighs heavy on me, even as we venture into the day”s activities. He”ll answer any question I have. I just have to be sure I want the answers. And that”s the problem, isn”t it? I don”t know that I”ll ever be ready for the truths that he harbors.And Idon”tthink I”lleverbe ready to share mine, either.
Whatwould bethe point if wewere tojust goour separate ways?That”s where this is leading, whether I like it or not. So, keeping my secrets and letting him keep his is the best thing I can do for myself.