Chapter 3 Calytrix
THREE
CALYTRIX
“You can’t leave me!”
“Come with me,” I whispered to my sister, one leg over the wall while the other always tied me to the life I was trying to escape.
I seemed to only ever be able to get one foot out the door before I was dragged back by the soul tie to my sister.
She was my lifeblood, and it was our strong bond that wouldn’t allow me to leave her behind.
“I can’t,” she said, pleading with her eyes.
“You can. We must. They’ll be here in less than a fortnight. If we don’t leave soon, we’ll never escape our fate.”
“What if we aren’t meant to escape it, but endure it?” She’d never understand, and that was the difference between us. She trusted the Goddess to take care of her and believed the Goddess expected us to take our fate into our own hands.
“No one is coming to save me—us.” I had to do it myself. “You have to see it, Nova. We have been sold on a promise that’s never been fulfilled.”
“But we have peace,” she argued. Her belief in the system was enviable, but I saw the cracks she never looked for.
“Do we?” I asked, knowing she wouldn’t like my answer to all of this.
“We do!” Nova stepped forward, but didn’t reach for me.
She’d never been the aggressive one of us, and I’m just glad she wasn’t born first. From what I’d heard of the princes, the younger was the kinder one, and maybe she’d be happy with him, but I knew I could never be happy with any male from the Night Kingdom.
It went against our blood.
They were and always would be our sworn enemies. I didn’t care what treaty my forefather was coerced into signing. It went against the soul of Light to give myself to one of them, and as the date approached, the more it weighed on me.
I didn’t want to leave Nova because she was my other half, but I couldn’t bear to stay. It would be the path to my grave if I married the prince. I could feel it in my bones.
“We don’t have peace. We have submission, and I can’t live with the difference any longer.”
“Caly, where will you go? They have dragons? They will hunt you down.” She was right, and I knew her heart bled. I didn’t know how she’d survive without me.
And I knew in my bones I’d spend the rest of my life on the run, but the idea was better than spending my life with a male I despised, in a kingdom it was in my blood to defy, even if it was for the good of the bloody kingdom I was leaving behind.
“Come with me.” I turned back and jumped down off the wall to stand in front of her.
“We can make a life somewhere else, with our own choices, and never look back.”
She took my hands and closed her eyes. “We have a duty.”
“Fuck duty.” I snatched back my hand. I could not let her guilt me into staying again. We were out of time.
“What will happen if we run away? We’ll hurt so many others. This is bigger than us. We were promised before we were born.”
“Exactly! Promised before we had a choice in any of this. This wasn’t our choice.
We shouldn’t have to give our lives and our happiness to maybe save others.
It’s rubbish.” And I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.
I’d jump from a tower if I was forced. At least if I ran away, I’d have a chance at happiness.
Her amber eyes met mine, and I looked into a mirror of my own face, except hers was softer. Kinder even. I didn’t know how we had been born from the same female, lived every day the same, side by side, and yet ended up so different.
Her heart was better than mine ever could be. Duty wasn’t even in the top three of my priorities. I shouldn’t have to be the one the fucking peace of our kingdom rested on.
Fuck that.
“Please.” I would beg. Only her. “We could be happy. Find our own life, make our own choices.”
“I can’t leave,” she said with finality.
A part of me knew she couldn’t, and that was probably why I was going to slip out while she slept.
“Nova, your duty is not to some treaty you didn’t have a choice in signing. It’s to yourself and the God of Light.”
“Everything inside me is telling me I have to go to the Dark Kingdom.” She lifted her shoulders. “I believe Light leads us where we belong. Why else would we be put in a place to enact so much change?”
I hated that I saw the situation so differently than she did. “I don’t believe we’ll have any influence. They just want our bloodlines to uphold the treaty.”
Nova gave me a soft smile, but it carried so much sadness behind her eyes. “If the Light is telling you to go, then I understand.”
“Will you be okay without me?” A part of me knew she wouldn’t. Was I taking my fate into my own hands by damning her?
“I won’t, you are half my soul, but I will make do. I know you’ve been miserable and would have left a long time ago had father not prevented it.” Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Please come with me. I think I’ve found a way father can’t block.” I pulled back enough to look her in the eyes.
She shook her head. “You go. I’ll distract them. It will be easier for you.”
I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Thank you.”
I closed my eyes to pull into myself using the spark of magic burning in my chest.
The horn sounded, warning the guards that my sister and I could not be located in our quarters. Ever since the first time I tried to run away, father kept a much tighter rein on us both.
“Hurry,” she whispered.
“The guard doesn’t scare me. Only this uncertain future does.”
I tried not to let all the noise distract me. Messing up could mean death. My magic wasn’t a safe one, like the new magic the King allowed.
Nova’s anxiety washed over me through our bond. I tried to block it out, but her emotions always took a powerful hold on me.
I pulled inside myself until all the air went out of me.
Nova shrieked, shattering my focus.
A guard tackled me to the ground, knocking the wind from my lungs, and the threads of magic I’d gathered dissolved.
No. No. NO!
I tried to catch them, but they were gone.
We were unceremoniously carried back to our rooms and locked inside.
“I’m sorry I ruined it,” Nova said when they’d gone. She felt bad. “I shouldn’t have come to say goodbye.”
“It’s not your fault. It might not have worked,” I replied, resigned, but still held on to a fragment of hope that we could somehow escape our fate together.
“It is our destiny. I can feel it.” She always did have a feeling for those types of things. “Maybe it will be better than you expect. The God of Light means for us to go on this path, wherever that leads.”
“I don’t know if I believe that.” Fuck my duty to the Twelve Kingdoms, I would not stay for them, but I loved her, and I knew she believed it. “But we’ll face together what dawn brings.”
“Can I say I told you so when you change your mind?” She sat on the bed beside me.
“You will anyway, no need to ask me.”
“Give it a chance. You can always leave after we get there. No one will know about your powers, and it will be easier.”
“I will, but only for you.”