The Eden Chronicles Boxset

by S. K Munt

  ‘Hey!’ he tried to snatch it back, and genuine panic crossed his face. ‘That’s private until it’s public!’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Fine,’ I folded the paper in two then tore it, then tore it again and then, I stuffed it into his untouched champagne flute, watching the inky black scrawl dilate. His mouth fell open, but I bumped my foot against his under the table and smiled at him. ‘Cheers, and get over it. And know that if I see you pull another out tomorrow, you can forget about being embarrassed by giving a poor speech, because people won’t be talking about anything but the Companion who crash tackled you in public to spare herself a fifteen-minute long snore-fest.’

  Karol grabbed his glass and stared forlornly into it. ‘I can’t believe you did that! I’ve been working on that for two weeks!’

  ‘Then you should thank me then for stopping it from taking two weeks and one day.’ But he still looked mad so I sighed and rested my hand on his wrist. ‘Karol? Stop it. I’m not trying to sabotage you here, okay? You are a wonderful natural speaker. It comes to you like surfing to Kohl, and singing to Kohén.’ I squeezed his hand. ‘Go out there and be your funny, eloquent self, and speak half from your head and half from your heart because no one wants to hear too much from either, leave out the disgusting innuendo- and your people will adore you.’

  ‘You don’t adore me,’ he groused, looking down at my hand sullenly. ‘Every word that comes out of my mouth seems to piss you off.’

  ‘That’s because your flirtations disgust me.’ I patted his hand when I saw this thumb twitch to rub against my skin, reclined back in my seat and smiled brightly. ‘So like I said: don’t flirt and you’ll ace this.’ Across from me, Adeline tittered and though Karol rolled his eyes, there was a pleased curve to his lips. ‘Oh and please leave your clothes on. After all, it’s going to be chilly and you’d hate to underwhelm everyone the way you did me that time.’

  He gave me a scathing look, but I narrowed my eyes back in imitation and eventually, he chuckled. ‘Thanks for the advice. But for the record…’ he leaned forward and rested his hand on my knee which was a very different experience from when I’d touched his, because my knee was bare and his fingers squeezed slowly but gently before he finished with: ‘That’s six.’

  ‘What’s six?’ Kohén asked from beside me in a casual tone, and I felt the hand on my knee freeze just as Karol’s green, and suddenly glowing eyes locked on mine.

  I almost swallowed my tongue in fear. Not because Kohén was very likely about to cause a scene if he realised that Karol was flirting with me, but because when Karol had rested his hand on my leg, I’d felt it somewhere else- and by the look of pleased surprise that had just fluttered behind Karol Barachiel’s eyes, I knew that he knew it too.

  Smiling, he slipped his hand up my leg and caressed my sensitive flesh with a suddenly overheated hand, and I felt a sweat break out along my spine as my lips parted around a startled, aroused gasp. The lust rolled over me like a tsunami of tingling sensations, and though I wanted to push his manipulative, magical hand away, I didn’t. I couldn’t have anyway, without drawing more attention to the fact hat he was privately copping a feel while delivering an unsolicited thrill.

  Did he just use his fucking voodoo on me in public? I’ll KILL him!

  I could barely think to do anything, but I did manage one smart move- I put down my champagne and swore off it for life, just as Karol’s hand retreated from beneath the white cloth and took up his ruined champagne glass.

  ‘Oh nothing… he said demurely to his brother. ‘Larkin’s just given me some advice for my speech, and it’s not the first time that she’s helped me out so, which makes it the sixth good turn I’m going to have to do her in gratitude for her candour.’

  ‘The best good turn you can do her, is to remind Maryah that you two aren’t supposed to be seated beside one another while dining,’ Kohén said, sounding annoyed and moving his chair closer to mine.

  Karol raised an eyebrow. ‘Why? Larkin and I get along just fine now, don’t we little swan?’ he leaned on the table, closer to me, and I felt my cheeks heat. ‘In fact, we’ve had quite a few chats lately- since you’ve been, erm, distracted- and now that we’ve gotten to the core of her issues with me, I have high hopes that someday soon, I’ll be able to win both her trust and her companionship.’

  Huh? We got to the core of what now?! All I remember is rubbing God in your face and slithering away with my tail between my legs!

  ‘Companionship?’ Kohén asked through gritted teeth before I could articulate my own question, and Karol chuckled.

  ‘By the dictionary’s definition of the word, little brother- not Arcadia’s, and it troubles me that you’d suspect otherwise.’ He winked at me. ‘Paranoid, isn’t he?’

  I stared at him, open-mouthed. With performances like THIS, what did he expect? I wanted to throttle him for putting a spotlight on me at all!

  ‘So long as paranoia is all it is, and not accuracy…’ Kohén grumbled, and I realised that Kohl was now looking our way and listening intently with a frown on his perfect face to match Kohén’s.

  Oh god… I’d duck under the table to hide, but that would only make things worse!

  ‘Well, it is. I have no intention of collaring your little swan.’ Karol sought out Adeline’s hand and pressed a kiss to it. ‘I like my women willing and excitable.’

  ‘And pliable and dishonest,’ Adeline agreed, reaching for the champagne bottle and pouring him another glass. ‘Prone to flattery, not tough love.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Karol said, winking at me. ‘If you’d been gifted to me, I’d be huddled in your empty room and rocking myself in the foetal position by now.’

  I arched an eyebrow, not certain if he was lying through his teeth, or making it clear that he only wanted me the one, willing time.

  Kohén rested his arm across the back of my chair and snickered, and I stiffened. ‘I guess that’s what separates the boys from the seventeen-year-olds, huh?’ he drawled, tickling my shoulder and I stiffened. Across from me, Kohl’s eyes flashed a brilliant, unmistakable blue and locked on Kohén’s, and I was overcome with seasickness again, just like that!

  ‘And what would that be?’ Kohl asked dryly.

  ‘The ability to handle a strong woman.’

  I didn’t know why he’d imply that he had any sort of control over me, but it was such a ridiculous and blatantly untrue declaration, that I snorted without meaning to and next to me, Karol practically swallowed his lips to keep in a guffaw or a sarcastic counterpoint. Kohl’s eyes brightened again, but with glee.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Kohén demanded of me, sounding indignant and embarrassed, and the very squeak in his voice pushed me over the edge because it was too boyish to follow such a masculine statement and I’d had far too much to drink.

  I slapped for my napkin and pressed it to my face mumbling: ‘Allergies, sorry,’ but then Adeline let a half-giggle gasp into her champagne glass and I actually felt Kohén’s body temperature heat exponentially as he looked around, doing the math on how many people were looking away and trying not to laugh.

  ‘You don’t have any allergies!’ he snapped.

  ‘Yes she does, remember Big Kahuna?’ Kohl asked, and then nodded to my shoulder. ‘Your golden watch is against her neck, and she’s clearly having a reaction, so you should probably move your arm… before someone removes it for you.’ He glanced over at Emmerly and Kelia and mused: ‘or maybe it’s just how close she’s sitting next to the girls who you do have control of… and often, by the looks of it.’ He frowned quizzically at Kohén. ‘Actually that’s a good point- you’ve clearly been having a lot of sex- so why are you still so tense? Are you sure that you’re doing it right?’

  There should have been stunned silence in response to Kohl’s blatant disrespect and Karol should have been the one to pull him up on it- but Emmerly was one of the ones who ought to have taken the most offence, so when she clapped her hand to her mouth to conceal a giggle
, and Karol dropped his head onto the tabletop hard and almost howled with laughter- everybody cracked up while I gaped at my grinning secret paramour in shock.

  ‘It’s not fucking funny,’ Kohén groused, standing up, but that just made everyone laugh harder. He looked down at me and demanded: ‘Are you happy to see them laughing at my expense?’

  ‘At his expense!’ Elfin hooted, covering her mouth too late and pointing at the girls across from her. ‘That’s you two! We’ll name you ‘Cha,’ and ‘Ching!’

  Emmerly howled with laughter and almost bowed into her mousse, and it occurred to me that I was not the only one who had had far too much to drink, and a giggle escaped from my lips. Kohén glared at me, hearing that tiny sound over the din, and that made me snort-giggle again and look away. Honestly! He was entitled to feel nothing but confident, and yet he was the most insecure boy I’d ever met!

  ‘I don’t get it…’ Kelia said, looking around dubiously, and that made everyone laugh harder, me especially. I was trying to wipe at my tears but then Adeline leaned over and hissed:

  ‘We’ll call that one ba-boom-boom ching!’ and I actually threw my head back so hard that I hit my neck on the back of my chair.

  ‘Ow!’ I hooted, and Karol rubbed my neck, healing me with a hit of warmth. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s how I handle strong women,’ he teased, ‘healing them after they hurt themselves while mocking me!’ and we all cracked up again.

  ‘Enough!’ Kohén protested, looking around in terror. ‘Everyone is staring!’

  ‘Then sit down, and don’t be such a wet blanket,’ I gasped out, taking his hand and yanking him back down- remembering suddenly that as his Companion and the only one with my wits about me, it was my job to handle my flummoxed prince. ‘Finish your delicious chocolate mousse and learn to laugh at yourself so no one else has to do it for you.’

  Kohén sighed, but lifted his spoon and wagged it at me. ‘Fine, but we’re having words later concerning your allergies, young lady.’

  ‘When she gives you the command to speak, you mean?’ Kohl asked, and when Karol actually fell off his chair after swinging around to deflect his guffaw to the wall behind him, Kohén made an annoyed sound, pushed back his seat again and marched off, and we all fell about laughing so hard that the tablecloth shifted, spilling Karol’s fresh wine onto it, which was just the next most hilarious thing ever.

  Everyone at the opposite end of the table was staring at us as though we were a pack of wild hyenas ruining their dignified meal, but where most of them looked baffled or half-amused, the duchess was giving me a: ‘Now you’ve done it!’ look that made me want to roll my eyes. Karol and Kohén had clearly started this, and if Kohén’s inability to take a joke made me wicked, then I was in good and matching company because even Shep and Elijah’s brother, Ewan Barachiel, was laughing by then!

  ‘Well done, your royal smart-arse!’ Adeline teased the boy behind her. ‘He’ll not ‘speak’ to any of us for a week now!’

  ‘Nah...’ Emmerly drawled, glancing over her shoulder and then to me, giving me a wink. ‘Odds are that he’s coming back with a pair of Larkin’s slippers or a rolled-up newspaper, if not both.’

  We were goners after that, and Adeline and I collapsed onto the tabletop and laughed, clinging to each other’s arms like the drowning women we were who had been offered one precious gasp of oxygen. I lifted my face to hers, and her eyes were so like Martya’s that my heart seized up. I whispered:

  ‘I miss her.’

  ‘So do I.’ Adeline’s dancing eyes sobered. ‘But she’s free of this life, which would be a victory in itself for a girl like her…like you.’ She took my fingers in hers and kissed them briefly. Her nails were painted with spirals of colours, her skin was milky and soft, her red hair was perfectly coiffed and decorated with a white feather clasp, and she was a vision. But the most beautiful thing about her was the fact that she was perfectly okay with who she was: a Companion, and a damned good one. She glowed from within.

  I sighed, not knowing what to say. Adeline was my polar opposite, living the life I feared like a nightmare, and yet- she was five times happier than I was. My heart twisted- could that have been me, if I’d accepted the fact that I needed Kohén more than I needed anything else, instead of fighting what may have been my true fate? Was it really Martya that I was more like, not her aunt?

  ‘I’ve never asked what happened to her, because I’ve always known somehow that you would work it out and tell me if there was anything portentous to know.’ Adeline glanced at Karol fondly before looking back at me with that same, sad smile. ‘But I do not believe that Karol was involved Larkin- in my heart, I know that he is a good man.’

  I darted my gaze to Karol, who was still getting off the floor, and it was hard not to giggle in response to his adorable indignity, even while his mother’s caution about how the Barachiel’s could charm us brainless rolled about inside my head. ‘And if he was involved in her death?’ I couldn’t help but ask as my inner Martya rose to the surface once again. It didn’t matter which companion I was more like- it mattered that out of the three of us, one had very possibly been assassinated, and I couldn’t allow myself to forget that. Especially not if Adeline was counting on me to get to the bottom of it all!

  ‘Well, I got a ninety-nine in combat my last time around, and Rosa Barachiel is just one of my many hard-assed ancestors,’ Adeline smiled prettily at me then winked as she pulled back to help her lover off the floor. ‘So I will kill him while he sleeps.’

  My heart skipped a beat, and when I looked up and caught Kohl’s watchful eye, it skipped another. Had he heard the exchange? But Kohl smiled, touched his necklace again and then pointed to the twelve on his steel watch. I nodded, touched my ring, and felt it on my heart.

  Tick-tock. Soon enough, the party would be over and I didn’t know if there would be a coach waiting for me after, or a rotting pumpkin.

  25.

  After dinner, the men started to move upstairs for drinks and cigars, but the women all wanted to go to bed early and embark upon the fabled beauty sleep. We’d had a special luncheon earlier that day as well, so we were all tired from having eaten so much and so well, and the next day was going to be exhausting; a parade was going to pass through the streets of Arcadia in Karol’s honour and afterwards, he would give his important (and hopefully inspired!) address to the town on the Eden common. We would be standing in the sunlight and autumn winds for at least three hours, with more drinking, eating and dancing to be done afterwards, and every woman in Arcadia wanted to look her best for it, so the lights of the city below us blinked out like stars while I watched from the dining hall window, where I’d been hiding since Kohén had come back down to re-join us. He was clearly still angry, but he’d gotten over the tantrum part quick enough to act like a prince again and schmooze away, so I gave him space to do so and watched Lette and Elfin give their first public performances as Companions, feeling as though they needed someone there watching them to admire their skill, and not just the way they looked while displaying them.

  Elfin was playing the piano, which she’d gotten fairly good at, but Lette’s beautiful scarf dance was eclipsing her accompanist’s skills. Elfin was fairly good at most things, but Lette was a natural dancer and I saw that even a few women looked impressed when she bent at the spine and doubled back slowly until her short hair swished against the floor. As she folded back, Lette cycled her pearlescent, feather-trimmed scarves above her- one in each hand- and when the tips of each touched the floor for the first time, she began to slowly raise her right leg, defying gravity by keeping her balance until one foot was flat on the floor supporting her and the other extended high above her head and pointed. We all broke into applause then and when that leg began to tilt back too, there were a few murmurs of astonishment- mine being one of them. Agonisingly slowly, she began to bend back further, and I held my breath as her foot came over her head. Her arms cycled furiously at her sides and then- she flipped in
one blink with using her hands at all- ending upright again, and making my jaw drop in awe. She’d whipped her body in a perfect loop, just like one of her scarves!

  The people in the room broke out into wild applause and she smiled a lovely, smug smile and curtsied the Companion way- right fingers fanned to her chin in front of her neck, left arm over her head, wrist bent, fingers fanned to her right temple. It was the performance bow- and one more of the many things I’d yet to practice doing. And of course, because it was movement, Lette had it perfect.

  I clapped the loudest, then turned to Emmerly and cringed, rubbing my back. She nodded and whistled for her friend using her fingers (something she must have learned from her father, for Maryah would never teach anything so masculine!) and I began to move toward Lette to congratulate her, hanging back so that the men of the nobility could approach her first. I glanced around, wondering if Kohl and the duchess had come back yet (she’d taken him out the door immediately after dinner to introduce him to some long-lost cousin), and that was when I saw Kohén engaged in a serious conversation with Atticus Hartley and Elbert Yael in the corner, and not looking Lette’s way at all. I frowned, bothered by the fact that he had his back turned to his Companion’s awe-inspiring display, for it seemed very rude. She’d learned that dance to impress him! Couldn’t he have spared two minutes to watch her contort with her clothes on for once?

  Or maybe he’s seen that routine with her clothes off too many times for it to impress him anymore...

  I brushed the ‘wicked’ and jealous thought away and concentrated on trying to be self-righteous, but the longer I stared daggers at him without him noticing, the more I realised that he was beyond absorbed by whatever Elbert was saying. In fact, he was frowning deeply as though perplexed- as was Atticus. It was strange to see those two looking so out of sorts, but in comparison, Elbert seemed to be in an incredibly good mood. He was talking a mile a minute and waving his hands around, and something he said even made him laugh heartily but when he did, Atticus and Kohén only shared a look of consternation. As though suddenly aware that his anecdote wasn’t going over well, Elbert wrapped his arms around Kohén’s shoulders and smacked him in an encouraging way.