20. Twenty
Yesterday was wonderful.
This morning, too.
Adventuring with Elva is everything I could ever hope for, but thequiet moments between us, the ones where she sits in rapture as I tell her stories, those are the ones I crave the most.I thought I knew all the exciting thingsthere wereto discover in our world,andyet she makes everything look brand new.
Even when I terrify her, she soaks in the knowledge like she needs every drop to survive. If only she were so willing to be that waywhen it comes toherself and her own country.ButI supposelooking outward is far easier than looking within.
For nearly three hours, I”ve been only half-listening to Shan as he”s told me of his time traveling with my best guards and investigators. They”ve scoured every inch of this fucking country, no sign of Syrens or even the damage they”ve left behind.
Since Elva arrived, the attacks have ceased altogether. While the peace should bring me comfort, it doesn”t. Their silence is only proof that it has everything to do with her. They”re somewhere, preparing for their war, waiting to hear the news that their martyr has finally fallen.
I have eyes on Elva every minute of the day,be it hiding in the shadows of her closetor a well-placed skull between books.She”s being watched constantly, vigilantly,even nowas she sits quietly reading in the library.
”We even traversed several miles into Fastid and Rhyma, and there was no sign of any encampments close to our borders. Perhaps they”ve fallen back now that the negotiations appear to be going well,” he suggests.
I groan, digging my fingers into my eyes to relieve the ache behind them. ”You know as well as I do they wouldn”t simply stop attacking. They”re preparing for something. Somewhere.”
”Perhaps. Or maybe they do just want peace like they claim.”He fiddles nervously with his pen and map. ”There haven”t been any more attempts on Elva”s life, after all.”
My jaw clenches. ”Why would you think the two things are related?”
”Oh.”He swallows. ”I, I don”t know. It just seems suspicious that the attacks on the border and the ones here have both stopped so suddenly. Certainly they”re connected somehow.”
There”s a niggling in the back of my head, a quiet voice telling me he”s lying. He knows more than he”s willing to share with me.Ifhe”s been communicating with Rhyma this whole time, Imightbea bitproud.
I”mgoing tokill him, but before that, I”ll admire him for having a spine for once. I can”t provethat he”sresponsible for anything, but it”s the only explanation.
Nonchalantly, I comment to him, ”I wonder if there”s a chance your missives between you and Elva could have been compromised.”
”Oh, no, that”s impossible,”he assures me. ”Rhyma”s Head of Communication checks all incoming and outgoing messages for tampering.
”I see.”The pieces start coming together, and I wonder how I could have been so blind to Shan”s treachery. But as I was just thinking about Elva, looking outward seemed more manageable andmoreplausible. ”Do you have these missives? The ones from Elva?I”d like to see ifthere”s something within them thatmight give me a clue.Perhaps she”s been plotting against us from the start.”
Stuttering again, he tells me, ”I”m sure I could find them. You know I can be quite unorganized. Let me go look.”
Not responding, I watch him go, sending two of my guards to follow behind him. He looks at me strangely, so I assure him, ”We might have a traitor staying in our home, Shan. Better to be overly cautious.”
He nods, walking quickly out of the room with the guards right in step with him.His nervous nature is nothing new, but there”s somethingnot rightabout how paranoid he”sbeing.I”m almost positive he”s hiding something, but I want proof first.
Not because I would feel guilty about killing him if he”s innocent, of course. But because if he”s not, I want the information he”s harboring before I tear his soul and body into shreds.
Half of my mind follows him into his room, the stacks of papers and maps overtaking the entire placeaside fromhis bed. He”s speaking to himself so low that I can”t tell what he”s saying, but he has a habit of doing that, so I don”t think much of it.
The other half remains trained on Elva, reading silently and soaking up everything she can find. She”s reading about the fair folk in the forest up north today, comparing herownnotes with the texts we have here. As she”s done most of the time thus far, she”s sitting in the window, the sun shining through the multicolored glass, rainbows of light dancing across her face.
Shan digs through his mess of a room and office, digging through stacks of paper. I”m becoming impatient, though he”s only just begun. He”s shown loyalty for years, so I can afford to give him a few more minutes to prove his innocence.
I”ll bide my time watching Elva.
She sits entirely still, aside from her fingers twirling through her curls between flipping thepages of the tome. Her brows are slightly furrowed, concentrating so wholly on the words before her that the rest of the world falls away. Her shoes are long since abandoned, her feet tucked under her in the little chair she”s moved up against the window.
A coffee mug sits, also abandoned, on the shelf underneath the window. Never have I seen someone so consumed by the need to learn assheis. I wonder if she wants to continue learning through just books or if she could be persuaded to learn through travel.
She hasn”t even seen the beauty of the ocean in all its glory, only small glimpses. She”s never seen the desert, only existed in her country, cut off from the rest of the world. Even my library can”t give her all the wisdom she must crave.
All of this is pointless to think about because she”ll be gone soon. Back home with nothing but the memories of her time here. A stifling, unsettling feeling settles in my chest, thinking of how she”ll spend the rest of her days on the other side of a border I can”t cross.
I”ll just have to send her messages. Send books with my runner once a month.
Even as I think it, I know it won”t be enough. Anywhere but in the room beside me will be too far for me. Even that feels likeshe”san ocean away, late at night when I crave her biting words and unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
Something near Shan catches my eye.
Just a tiny sliver of something sticking out from betweenthe sheets of his bed.One of my guards walks silentlyover, lifting the bedding and pulling the papers from them.
The missives. Allthe letters sent between Shan and Elva that he tucked away where he thought no one would find them.This iscertainly proof enough to lock him away indefinitely.
The other guard grips Shan by the arm, and he instantly starts stuttering, trying to pull away, arguing that he didn”t put those there andthat hewas searching for them.
They drag himall the wayto me, and I hide my fury behind a cold mask of indifference. I”m not willing to show how much it rattles me that he was behind the attacks on Elva, and I”mnot willing to admit that I”m rife with guilt over having someone so treacherous so close to her.
”You”re not even going to let me explain?”he shouts, each arm gripped tightly by a guard dragging him into my office.
”What is there to explain?”I ask. ”The very things I was asking you for were hidden. That seems quite self-explanatory to me.”
He shakes his head, trying to gain footing. ”You don”t understand. I didn”t put them there. I don”t know how they got there.”
”Why should I believe you?”
His jaw drops, offense clear. ”Because I”ve been loyal to you for years. Since you first took the throne, I”ve stood beside you.”
Calm fury fills me. ”Being a good dog is not the same as being a loyal one.”
”Your Majesty,”he pleads. ”What would I have to gain from this?”
”An empty throne.”
A grimace twists his features. ”I have never wanted to rule. I”ve seen the toll it takes, and I have no desire for that kind of responsibility.”
”So you are telling me there”s an intruder in my home? One who has gone completely unnoticed by every one of my guards, both the living and the dead?”I narrow my eyes.
”I don”t know, Your Majesty.”
My instinct is not to believe him. Togut him here and now. But even still, something isn”t adding up. If it is him, he wasn”t alone in this and killing him now will only cut me off from my only lead.
”You”ll remain in the dungeon until our guests have returned safely home,”I tell him. I do not have the time to torture answers out of him now, and with my current state, I”m more likely to kill him before retrieving anything useful. I just want Elva where he can no longer reach her.
The sooner she”s gone, the better. If she makes it home, her adoring fans will be waiting, and not a single soul will dare harm her, lest they fall to the throngs of people celebrating her victory over The Horned King.
”You”re not killing me?”Incredulity fills his face.
”Not yet.”I shrug, sending the guards away with him in tow.
Rather than listen to another second of his pleading, I go the opposite direction, heading to his chaoticmess of a room.
Everything is strewn about, from the papers to his dirty clothes.There”snotaspot here where you can walk without stepping on something.Even with the help of several sets of eyes and hands, this will take me weeks to sort through.
Instead of allowing myself to become overwhelmed, I rifle through the missives between him and Elva, my fingers drifting across the small, tightly controlled script in hers. The almost too-pristine letters leave me wondering if she rewrote it several times to get it right.
Her writing is just another version of the masks she wears. She”s endlessly articulate and cordial but not overly friendly.She shows her knowledge of our customs and traditions but withnone of the wisdom that comesfrom seeing them firsthand.
I think ofall the thingsI want her to see, and I consider starting now.
She would love the hot springs, I think.The way the water glows at night. I stand in the mess of a room before me, yet my entire mind is focused, consumed with thoughts ofall the thingsI could show Elva, both out in the world and just between the sheets.
Caressing her sweet handwriting again, I rememberthe wayshe fell apart wrapped around me in the library. She seemed genuinely surprised thatjustmy fingers brought her to rapture so thoroughly. I wonder how else I could make her come. Gods, I want to feel it so badly.
The gloves kept me from truly feeling her in her pleasure, but if I have to, I”ll wear coverings on every inch of me. So long as she keeps letting me strip her bare and please her. Her bod—
”Whatcha doing?”Raya interrupts my thoughts, which is for the best. This is not the time or place to be imagining all the vile things I could do to my Elva without breaking her no-skin contact rule.
I sigh, passing the papers to Raya. ”Shan”s working with Rhyma.”
”No.”She puts her hand over her mouth. ”Is he the one who hired that guy to kill Elva?”
I shrug, leaning against the wall behind me. ”I”m not sure. There are still too many unanswered questions. How are the Syrens involved? How could Shan have stepped away and hired a gunman, even supplying him with the gun?”
”So you haven”t killed him and gotten your answers that way?”she asks, mirroring my posture.
”No.”I don”t really have a good reason other thanthe factthat something isn”t right. I need to focus on getting through negotiations and getting Elva the fuck out of here before I can give this flying horse shit the energy it requires.
”Okay. So what now?”Raya knows better than to ask questions I won”t answer. She”s the perfect person to bounce my ideas off, helping me hear them out loud rather than just in my head.
”Now we get the guests out so we can clean house,”I announce.
She leans her head against the wall behind us. ”It”s that simple, then?”
”What do you mean?”
She looks toward me, raising her brows in disbelief. ”So you”re just going to send everyone home, including Elva, and then get back to business as usual?”
I close my eyes, not willing to see the pity in hers.Sheknows it won”t be that simple for me. ”Yes,”I lie anyway.
She laughs. ”Kai, give me a break. Just ask her to stay.”
I groan. ”You don”t understand, Raya. What kind of man would I be to ask her to sacrifice her life”s work to stay here on a maybe?”
”A maybe?”she scoffs. ”What maybe?”
I gesture at myself. ”Me. I”m the maybe. I have no reason to believe I could be the type of man to make her happy. I”ve never even tried to make another person happy. All I”ve done in my life is cause pain and fear. That”s what I”m good at and who I”m always going to be. She deserves a perfect match, and I”m under no impression that it could be me.”
”I think you”re fooling yourself if you think she wants a perfect match.”I can practically hear Raya rolling her eyes. ”She just wants an adventure. She seems to like your wickedness, too.”
”Ugh, Raya, don”t.”The last thing I need is Raya bringing up my and Elva”s intimacy when I”m trying my hardest not to think about it at all.
”Fine. But you know as well as I do that she doesn”t mind the monster hiding under your skin.”She pushes herself off the wall. ”I think it”s pretty clear that she has her own, even if she”s not ready to face it yet. Maybe you can help her find it, help her embrace it.”With a shrug and a comical salute, she”s off to her next responsibility, leaving me alone with her wisdom and even more of a headache than I had before.
Still unwilling to face what she says, Isend my attention backto Elva. Sound asleep with the book on her chest and her wild curls drifting across her face, she”s as beautiful as I”ve ever seen her.
Even if I were to admit I care about her, it wouldn”t matter. That”s not enough to ask her to stay. The only thing that could be enough is somethingthat Ican”t offer. Can”t even think the word. I”ve no experience with it, not really. Everyone I”ve ever cared for tried to destroy me, or worse, was destroyed by me.
I can”t give her those three words that might be worth changing her path for. I”ll never be that man. So I”ll do the right thing and let her go, let her find someone who can. And in the meantime, I”ll enjoy every second I can of watching her.