Twenty-Five - Redric
It had been one week of just this room. Just Evangeline and I trapped within it while she ‘did’ her work –the girl really knew how to procrastinate– and I bugged her every so often for conversation as well as sex. Agents came to the door constantly for her approval on something, but they never came inside.
As she shut the door behind her after the latest person, she dropped down onto the couch and swore.
“What is it?” I asked, looking up from my book. It was an interesting read, and a week ago I would have enjoyed it, horror being one of my favourite genres, but after having read most of Evangeline’s books, I was waiting for the smut. This one was too much of a slow burn and had way too much plot.
A hundred pages in and the serpentine monster hadn’t even chased her through the woods, pinned her down with his tail, and ravished her with his double peen yet. He hadn’t even fucked her with his forked tongue. What a let down.
“I should have heard from Ashema by now.”
“She did cut off a hand. A week isn’t a very long recovery time.”
“She has another. If she’s screwing me over, I’m going to kill her. Then you’re going to revive her, and I’m going to kill her again.”
“Hey, you can’t just rope me into your stuff.”
She glared at me, and her pout was annoyingly cute. I was finding a lot of things about her annoyingly cute now that I wasn’t trying to kill her. It was awkward and weird, and I didn’t particularly like it.
But I also didn’t hate it.
Which was awkward and weird.
And I didn’t particularly like that either.
Clearly the week trapped inside was messing with my head. My eyes dipped to her stomach.
Or perhaps it was the potential child who would need us to get along.
“If I suck your cock, will you do it?” she asked, making my eyes jerk back up to hers.
“You do that anyways.”
She scowled and mumbled something about rationing them, but it was a threat I knew she wouldn’t hold on to as long as we were trapped in here. She’d do anything to get out of doing paperwork. In the week we’d been here, the pile had only grown as other people had dropped off more than she’d done.
If she’d just worked for a few hours straight instead of stopping every five minutes for hour-long breaks, she might actually finish in a couple days, but pointing that out had only given her an excuse to argue instead of work.
“If she doesn’t use the drop tomorrow, I’m going to kick her door in.”
“You don’t know where she lives,” I pointed out. There was a reason she’d agreed to let me kill her over and over again if I joined her at the therapy resort. It had been a once in a lifetime chance to find Ashema – a chance I doubted she’d ever get again.
“No one likes a buzzkill, Redric.”
“No one likes you period,” I said.
She grinned. “Touche.”
“What happened between you, Jace, and Richard? You three used to be inseparable.”
Her humour faded as she stood. “I don’t have time to entertain you all the time. I have work to do.”
She settled in her chair and grabbed a sheet off the pile.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, closing my book and leaning forward.
“Does it look like I do?” She glared at me.
“Doesn’t look like you want to do that paperwork.”
Her jaw clenched, but a slight smile lit her eyes and then it was gone, hidden behind her mask.
Putting the pieces together –her discomfort around old friends, her mention of hating someone as much as I had hated her– I placed the book on the sofa. A part of me told me to just leave it. We weren’t friends. We weren’t lovers.
We were just two people stuck in a situation together.
But Aurelia had been mourned on our side more than she’d been mourned in Raza. We had believed she might one day bring peace. That with her as queen, we could have a chance at reconciliation. At being given back the lands they had stolen on our southern border. We had talked in the dark of night about how she might end the generations of slaughter that had started out as a civil war. A civil war no one had even wanted by our time, our king completely disinterested in sitting on the Razian throne.
Princess Aurelia had tried to save our wounded just as much as her own, not seeing nationality, just fairies. Just people hurting on both sides.
And then she’d died, taking all our hope with her.
“Twenty-fourth of Inder,” I said, now unable to take it back.
“What?” she asked. “It’s the sixth of –”
“I know what today’s date is,” I said dryly, then added, “The twenty-fourth of Zi is our national day of mourning. It’s when we remember those who have died in war.”
“Okay…”
“In our southern cities…” The ones that had been on the border in the thick of battle, as well as the ones on the edge of those. “They remember Aurelia Morningstar every year,” I said softly, holding her gaze.
Her throat worked as a glint of light reflected in her eyes, almost as if they were shining with unshed tears. But then she blinked, and the pain was gone. No. Not gone. Just hidden.
“She is honoured for saving hundreds of daughters and sons, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers. She is mourned to this day and celebrated now that we have the peace we always thought she’d bring as queen. I have not see any remembrance of her here.”
She looked away, her throat working once more.
“So I thought you might want to know.”
She didn’t say anything as she returned her gaze to her paper, but I knew her attention was still on me. Her knuckles were white on her pen, which stayed unmoving across whatever form she was filling.
“Aurelia,” she finally muttered. “I named my daughter Aurelia.”
I didn’t say anything, knowing the moment was too delicate, too poised on a sharp edge, ready to collapse at the slightest breath.
“I don’t see her as much as I’d like to,” she said, putting her pen down and looking up. “Couple times a month…” She hesitated, the look on her face making me still. “If I am pregnant…will you raise her in Vyla?”
I nodded. “You could come with us.”
She shook her head. “I promised Aurelia I would take care of Raza for her.”
“She wouldn’t want –”
“You have no idea what she would have wanted. You didn’t know her. Just because your people mourn her and remember her in your celebrations doesn’t mean shit.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” I said. “But I know she was kind and loving and cared more for others than she did herself.”
Evangeline stilled, just for a second, like a viper eying up a threat. Then she was the same as before, but it had been enough of a window into her pain for more pieces to slide together for me.
It had been said Princess Aurelia had died from cancer, but she had never looked sick on the front lines. She had fought every day and had gone out every night to tend to the wounded – both hers and ours. Her energy had been endless in her desire for change despite banging her head against a rock.
After her death, Raza had had its first ruling king since its creation, having been a very strong matriarchy. Not even its Council had any male members. It had been a shock to us all…though also a huge relief given his sister Sephora had been batshit insane. She had once released a hive of exploding bees that had devastated both sides, our numbers lost in the tens of thousands in a single day.
But Richard could not have taken the throne if Aurelia had been alive.
Anger for him filled me. Despite her being an enemy, despite her being in Evangeline’s company, she had been pure – or as pure as one could be when forced to go to war as a child. If he’d killed her –
I stopped, the final puzzle piece clicking into place.
He had loved Aurelia.
And Aurelia had loved her people.
“Don’t,” Evangeline said. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”
And it was her soft tone, an almost plea that broke down the last of my anger for her. Her job would require her to kill me for having this information. And I knew she knew I had just realised the truth of King Morningstar’s rise to power.
Yet here she was, pleading more genuinely than she did when she was under me.
She cared.
As much as she pretended not to, as much perhaps as she didn’t want to.
She cared.
“I’m sorry,” I said, holding her gaze. “For trying to kill you when we were –”
She shrugged, cutting me off. “We were at war. Would have been pretty dumb for you not to try to kill me.”
“You were a child.”
“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t a dick.” Her attempt at humour fell flat, but I allowed her the out she wanted. It seemed neither of us knew how to take an apology. Not a verbal one at least…
But perhaps, as the days passed, I could show her.
Just as she was showing me.