34. Raya
RAYA
“The smell was overpowering. Damp and Dirty.”
- KHOL AND RAYA
Istormed out of the palace, my ridiculous dress swirling like smoke beneath me. I had never visited the gardens at night, but I was too angry to appreciate the blooming white roses and glowing pink lilies. I scoffed at the sky-high walls that surrounded the entirety of The Temple, for safety Ezra had said.
Now I know she means imprisonment.
I stared at the windows placed along the walls, they looked lonely. I had walked within the walls before; it was like a long corridor that stretched the entirety of The Temple’s perimeter. I had stood up there, staring at the miles and miles of tangled trees. I could’ve jumped, fled, never looked back.
But I didn’t, I had instead turned on my heel and hastily ran to my training session with Khol.
Khol.
I paced through the lush garden, flowers brushing against my hands and I shivered as the night air made its way along my exposed spine. Stepping out of my heeled shoes, I wriggled my toes against the soft earth, and I was suddenly grounded. A flower bloomed at my touch and a tree groaned as it grew taller at my request.
“Raya?” Khol called from somewhere behind me. His voice sending a million different shivers through my veins.
I turned toward him, noticing his face was pale and grave. My body tensed immediately. Khol stepped towards me, attempting to grab my wrist. I pulled from his touch and marched further into the gardens. Something happened after I left the ballroom. I could see it on his face.
Stopping next to a pond, I waited for him to catch up.
“I won’t do this anymore,” I whispered into the silence of the garden, furiously wiping tears from my eyes.
“Won’t do what?” His voice was frantic as I stared at the tiny ripples in the pond water below me.
“Raya, please just talk to me,” he pleaded. I spun at his request, all my anger and frustration exploding into words.
“It is killing me,” I almost shouted, and his face remained blank. “Being near you and feeling the way I feel is killing me.” I fisted my hands through my hair, messing the sleek waves given to me only hours before.
“I care for you, I care for you so deeply that I wish I had never met you.” Blood rushed to my skin, heating my cooling cheeks. Khol started to reach a hand toward my face but lowered it hastily.
“I’ve been forced from everything and everyone I know, and your mother is trying to kill me and all I can think about is you. I truly am pathetic.” I heaved a deep breath and turned toward the white lilies scattered around the garden, attempting to hide my shame.
Silence engulfed both of us for a few moments, and I wasn’t even sure that Khol was breathing. Faint music from The Temple’s open doors reminded me that a celebration still raged on inside, but I wasn’t part of it. I never was.
“Do you think I do not feel the same? Do you think that I look forward to hours of frivolous attention from everyone in this Goddess forsaken place apart from you?” His words flew from his mouth faster than I thought possible before he spoke again, this time his voice was so quiet I wasn’t sure I had heard anything at all.
“I feel like my heart will burn a hole in my chest every time I look at you.”
I turned back to face him, and he strode forward, closing the space between us, our faces so close I could smell the wine on his breath.
“Sometimes when I look at you, I cannot breathe.” He edged his head closer. I stared at him, wondering how such soft words could come from such a brutal mouth. The corner of his lips turned upwards as though he could hear my thoughts, the movement causing his lips to brush over the corner of mine. I took in a deep breath, my entire body shivering at the small contact.
“Does this scare you? My feelings for you,” Khol whispered, his hand trailing up one of my exposed arms. I nodded, aching to feel his lips against mine. He chuckled slowly as I stopped nodding.
I trailed my hand up his torso and rested my palm above his heart. The sound of my name on his lips was ethereal, his breath hot on my cheeks, and his hand began trailing from my shoulder, down my torso, all the way to my thigh. My eyes fluttered shut.
“Khol,” a guard shouted from The Temple’s doors. My eyes snapped open.
“Not now,” he shouted back, not breaking eye contact with me for even a second. “Tell my mother I will be back in a moment.” He smiled at me and I gasped, his smile was so rare that it completely changed his face.
But then his smile fell, and he cleared his throat softly.
“Raya,” he threaded his fingers through my hair slowly, as though he was categorizing everything about me. I rested my hand on his forearm. “Raya, I’m so sorry.” He closed his eyes. “You were right about everything.” He looked up at me again.
“About what?” I whispered.
“About my mother, about the trials. Everything you said is true. She… she means to…” he stumbled over his words, not daring to say them out loud. “She means to sacrifice you at first light.” He dragged his free hand through his hair. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated.
Even though I had suspected Ezra’s conspiring against me, it still wasn’t easy to have it confirmed. My lungs became tight and my breath shallow. The realization that my life would be cut short caused pain to grow within me. I was trained to deal with this, I had been training to risk my life for years. But actually facing it was completely different.
I didn’t want to die, I wasn’t ready.
“Raya, it’s going to be alright.” He placed a hand on either side of my face and stared into my eyes. “I’m going to get you out. Tonight.” His quiet confidence was almost calming.
“I choose you, Raya.” And for the first time in my whole life, I suddenly and irrevocably knew what it felt like to have a home. I thought I knew the feeling, with Alias and Matron, but this was different. A deep sense of anchoring, a tether that I knew would never break, never wither. Home wasn’t a place; it was a person.
It was Khol.
And then all his words caught up to me.
“Khol.” I couldn’t let him give up his family for me, not without knowing the truth. No matter his feelings for his mother, he loved many who resided at The Temple.
“There is something you must know before we go any further.” Guilt and nervousness coated the inside of my mouth. I hadn’t touched the letter in my desk draw for weeks, I couldn’t. Every time I opened the draw, I had been met with so much guilt I had almost collapsed from the pain.
“I was sent here, by the Sage Guard.” My words trickled out slowly, not wanting to leave the warmth of my mouth. Khol nodded, he knew this part of the story.
“But not because I belonged with the Sorcerers here.” My eyes cast away from Khol’s, not daring to hold his gaze.
“Raya, what do you—” he interrupted.
“Please, let me finish. I can barely get the words out.” The pain in my voice was clear, and Khol nodded solemnly.
“I was sent here to learn about The Temple, to find its weak spots.” I dared a glimpse at Khol’s slack face. “Once my power had bloomed, the Sage Guard no longer trusted me.” My voice trembled. “And I had to do anything I could to get that trust back.”
“You betrayed us?” he whispered in disbelief, before quelling his emotions quickly. “You betrayed me for people that didn’t want you?” Khol’s voice was deadly and quiet.
“They threatened my friend, the boy I had grown up with. They tortured me, cursed everyone I cared about,” I pleaded with the man in front of me, reaching out to touch his shoulder.
“I had come here to get infor?—”
“To spy,” Khol corrected.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it, I didn’t do anything. There is a letter in the top draw of my desk. I wrote it weeks and weeks ago, it contains all the information I had learned from my time in the Temple, from my time with you.” I fisted the lapel of his jacket. “But I didn’t send it, I could’ve, when we went to the human village for this dress.” I looked down at the midnight blue wrapping around me.
Trying to portray everything I felt for Khol, I looked him deep in the eyes.
“Please believe me, Khol,” I pleaded. “I would never betray you now, never betray Elijah.” Small tears slipped down my cheeks and neck.
“But don’t you see? You already have,” he spoke in a voice I didn’t recognize and then realization dawned on his face.
“I spent my time training you, did you even need it?” I winced at his words.
“I have been training to fight for the last nineteen years.” Guilt buried a hole in my chest.
“You are a liar,” Khol whispered. Disappointment sat so nakedly on his face.
“I’m sorry,” I said, because there was nothing else to say. “But Khol,” I rested a hand on his cheek and surprisingly he let me. “I choose you too,” I whispered, hating the fact that I spent so long fighting my feelings for him, so long lying to him. We gazed at each other, knowing that time still surged on, but pretending it did’nt.
He closed his eyes, heaved a breath, and pulled away from my touch.
“Meet me in the dungeons in one hour, pack light.”
“You’re coming with me?” I asked, hating how hopeful I sounded. He glared at me.
“I can’t stay here,” he looked back at his home. “Not now I know what my mother is capable of.” My heart broke softly for him.
“Thank you for under?—”
“I do not understand. You feel like a stranger to me now,” he whispered, and his words hit like rocks. I swallowed back the tears, knowing now wasn’t the time to try and change his mind.
“How are we going to escape in the middle of the ball?” I whispered, afraid to talk too loudly. Khol no longer trusted me, he no longer wanted me.
“It’s the perfect distraction, no one will notice we’re gone until morning, we have all night to get as far away as possible.” His voice was gruff and distant, like the brute I had met on my first night here.
“Khol, I don’t think you understand…” I stepped out of this reach. “If you leave with me.”
“I can’t come back,” Khol finished for me. He turned from me slowly, kicking the grass under our feet hard. I flinched.
“Something is not right with my mother, with this place, and I think I’ve known it for a while now. I can’t stay here and wait for things to get worse, I need to do something.” He turned back to me, nodding softly.
“Khol—”
“I need time, Raya, I know you didn’t send the letter, but you still wrote it. You betrayed me. I need time.” He heaved a sigh.
“Okay,” I spoke, nervousness wet against the back of my throat.
“I still haven’t figured you out,” he whispered, more to himself than to me.
“Take your time,” I whispered back, trying to convey all my feelings of remorse, guilt, sadness, happiness, and something new that I couldn’t quite put my finger on with only a few words. “I’m not going anywhere.”