Divided

by Rae Brooks

  With that thought came a strange sense of dread, though, as if he’d just crossed into territory that shouldn’t be treaded. For a moment, he felt the want for war dancing on the outskirts of his mind. He frowned, unsure why he would think that in the current situation, and then removed the thought entirely.

  The fact that he still considered it an option said much for the way Lavus had reared him. That or something else is going on here, and I haven’t the slightest idea what it could be. I just have a feeling there is. My father is a selfish warmonger, but so too is he a coward—so why does he push for a war that we all know he can’t win?

  Calis sighed. Perhaps he’d just had too long of a sun and so his mind determined that he should think of wild stories to entertain himself. No one else at the castle was going to do it, and since dinner would be in less than a shift—he couldn’t go to Dark District to find some truly interesting people.

  After another little while of staring blankly at his ceiling and working to quiet his mind, there was a knock at his door. Panic surged into him momentarily as he thought of who would be on the other side. Maybe Tareth had decided to break their pact and wanted to speak with him about what he’d said earlier. Calis hoped not.

  When he walked to the door and opened it though, he was relieved to see his advisor standing there. Lee looked disinterested, as he always did, though he offered a slight smile when he saw Calis. “Ah, I’m actually surprised you’re in here. This was one of the last places I looked. I thought you’d be… elsewhere.”

  Lee meant Dark District, obviously, but Calis wasn’t going to comment on that where people could hear it. So, instead he just shrugged his shoulders and figured Lee could figure out on his own why Calis wasn’t there. Once he let Lee into his room and shut the door behind him, Calis spoke, “Were you in Dark District?”

  “I was collecting information there,” Lee answered, “not fraternizing needlessly like you seem to enjoy doing.”

  Calis hardly thought that was fair. He hadn’t gone to Dark District in some time, and he hardly called what he’d done for Kilik needless fraternizing. Though, in Lee’s mind, that was probably precisely what it was. “Did you collect any useful information?” Calis asked, ignoring the insult outright.

  “No,” Lee answered truthfully. He was not one to beat around the bush—well, he wasn’t when he spoke to Calis. If Lavus or another nobleman had asked him that same question, Lee would have talked a circle around them until they’d forgotten what they’d even asked. Calis smiled at the thought. “Apparently our Phantom Blade friend made an appearance recently, but it wasn’t much of an appearance. He just did… whatever it is that he does, and no one knew anything more.”

  A thought twisted its way into Calis’s head. Odd, now that Kilik was better, that said vigilante was around again. The noble incursions in Dark District had been slower before Kilik’s recovery, but there had been a few, and the Phantom Blade—as Lee informed Calis—had not been there. And yet now he had returned. “Lee, as the observant individual that you are, I am certain that you are having the same thought that I am having,” Calis said in a roundabout way in which only Lee would find amusement.

  There was a flash of a grin, and Lee shrugged his shoulders. “The only reason I am not certain, Calis, is the obviousness of it. No one seems to know, and yet when you look at the facts—it is perfectly clear. Though, I can’t help feeling that I wouldn’t be giving the matter enough attention to catch this, if it weren’t for your unprecedented… interest.” Calis flushed at the words.

  Though, his interest had obviously solved a mystery that could have taken them years if it had not been there. “And there is always the chance that we are wrong, and my unprecedented interest is exactly why it seems so obvious,” he answered swiftly.

  Calis didn’t know how much he believed his own words, though. Despite having seen Kilik only moments before the Phantom Blade had appeared—and despite Kilik’s sickness—Calis had seen the boy working with extreme diligence on a sun after recovering. And the healer said that he was not fully recovered, so if his newfound acquaintance felt he was needed, then he would certainly have shrugged off his sickness to stop the noble problem. “That is why I am trying to collect information, the only problem is… no one seems to have it. Still, the signs are there—he is small, with all the right traits. You said you saw this phantom—did you happen to notice his eye color?”

  That was it. The eyes, he thought woefully, those would be unmistakable. The coincidence would be too extreme should their eyes both be that… fascinating color. Calis tried to think back to the sun where he had seen and spoken with the phantom. He could not remember the eyes, though. He had only looked at the mask, and the outfit, and the eyes had been entirely lost in what he wore. Perhaps that meant they weren’t like Kilik’s, then, since Calis didn’t know if he would have been able to miss Kilik’s eyes if he tried. “I’m not sure—I’ve seen the eyes, but they aren’t standing out in my memory.”

  “Then, I suppose we’ll have to gather a little more information. Though, I have a sinking suspicion that your friend would get little help from the vigilante if trouble were to befall him.” The thought struck Calis as though someone had thrown a large object at the back of his head. That was right—Kilik would not be protected from any noble upstart. Thinking back on their conversation, Calis was sure that Kilik had implied this by what he’d said.

  He was almost certain, now, that the person who had caught his interest on the first sun of his return was the same one that had caught it at the festival. An interesting notion, and one that made Calis’s heart speed up far more than it should have. “That would be rather ironic,” Calis said after a moment of silence.

  “Yes,” Lee said, “though not unexpected—since you seem to have a bad habit of staring at both of them.” Calis flushed with irritation. “What?” Lee asked with the slightest of grins on his face, and a playful look in his green eyes. “It should be considered good that you know what you like!”

  There was not much else to say. The point was that Calis was interested, far more than he should be, and for reasons that extended beyond curiosity. As much as he wanted to contribute this to his desire for friends, the strange rhythm of his heart warned against it. “What I like?” he echoed Lee.

  Lee smiled pleasantly. “You are normally so aloof and disinterested. You say that I am, and yet you are far worse—at least I care enough to watch others, and determine what they are doing. Unless you are trying to manipulate another person—or if you are in a battle—you pay no attention to anyone. And yet now…” His voice trailed off as he seemed to come to a realization.

  Calis knew Lee was right. The blond had never been very interested in others—in fact, he had been scolded during his childhood for having next to no interest. Calis had certainly made sure to get as close to Lee as he could when he realized that he liked the green-eyed noble, but even then he hadn’t watched Lee and had been rather glad when his advisor had gone off on his own.

  There had never been any interest from Calis until now. And now all he could think about was Kilik—and all he could do when in the boy’s presence was watch him in a mildly awestruck state. Yes, there was clearly a problem here, and one out of which Calis couldn’t talk himself. “We will see what comes of it,” he told Lee.

  “We certainly will,” Lee agreed severely. “Did you wash for dinner?” Lee asked. Sometimes, he even attempted to do what an ordinary advisor would do. He did a good job at making sure that Calis never missed relevant meetings, but that was as far as it went. They spent much more time together than most nobles and their advisors, though, and everyone in the castle knew that Lee was more friend to Calis than advisor. Lavus had fought the idea at first, but when Calis had insisted on it—he’d let it go, stating that it could be good for loyalty purposes.

  Upon realizing that he hadn’t washed, he bid Lee farewell and headed off to remedy that. The bathroom was as overdone as the rest of the castle. The room
was filled with mirrors and golden tubs. Coals beneath each of the tubs kept the water warm in them whenever they were filled—and they usually were. The insides of the tubs were that familiar crimson that Lavus liked so much, as were the floors. They were a deep, red marble, and the walls were made of stone that did an excellent job of keeping out the cool air during the winter.

  Calis alerted one of the servants, requesting a pair of clothes for dinner before he walked to one of the baths and removed his current clothing. He eased into the water and was surprised at how nice it felt. He could almost feel the stress from the thoughts he’d had this sun evaporate into the water. For a moment, he just sat there, staring blankly at the stone walls of the room.

  His fingers moved carelessly over the sides of the tub before they dropped into the water and splashed it up into his face. The heat was more inviting than he’d remembered it being in a long time, despite the hot weather outside. This heat was entirely different, and it felt spectacular. Calis had always wondered why his father bothered to heat the bath waters during the summer months, but his father insisted that was what royals did, and so they had hot water year round.

  Calis felt a pang of guilt for the families that probably never had hot water. That would go for nearly everyone in Dark District. That brought the unavoidable thought of Kilik back into his mind and he wondered if the boy had ever even had a hot bath before. Certainly not in Dark District, but perhaps he had wherever he’d come from.

  Try as he might to force his mind away from that topic, it remained there, contented to wonder about Kilik’s life before coming to Telandus. He claimed not to remember it, but Calis didn’t know if he believed that. Wherever he had come from must have been a good place to grow up, lest Kilik had turned out the way he had. Calis wasn’t sure he’d ever seen someone so kind before. Certainly not in Telandus.

  A grin made its way across his face at the thought of sneaking those coins back into Kilik’s coin purse when he hadn’t been paying attention. Calis could only imagine how indignant the boy must have been upon seeing those there. Still, that family needed the coin far more than Calis did—after all, what would any coin mean to Calis, anyway? He never had to pay for things in the Shining District, as his presence was enough, and he never bought things from Dark District.

  Kilik’s insistence that Calis keep the coin had been adorable, though. The fact that the young man had been so frustrated at Calis’s attempts to help, and then so determined that Calis get repaid for the service was fascinating and positively charming. Though Kilik was obviously not concerned with being charming or fascinating. He just was.

  The thought struck Calis that he had been staring at nothing for quite some time, and that he hadn’t done any washing. So he picked up the soap, which smelled of flowers and things that he’d rather not smell like, and ran it over his body. He hadn’t gotten very dirty this sun, and so there wasn’t much to come off in the water. He was always glad to see a little bit come off, regardless, and it did.

  Next was his hair, which he washed relatively quickly with a bottle of less flowery-smelling liquid. The process was quick and easy, and after going over his body one more time, he stepped out and grabbed the clothes that the servant had brought for him.

  She had brought a soft green tunic inlaid with gold. Calis thought it was a little too fanciful, but Lavus would be grateful that he’d dressed up for the occasion. He slipped the white and gold bottom of the outfit on and then the black boots. Determining that he was nearly late for dinner as it was, he headed towards the dining hall.

  The room was massive, keeping to the gray and crimson theme. The table was a stark black, and long enough to seat twenty or thirty people, though only four would be filling the seats. Lavus didn’t have dinner for the other nobles, unless he was hosting a ball. He didn’t deem them worthy to dine in his presence. Calis found Claudia and Tareth already seated, and they both glanced up at him noncommittally. “Oh, Calis,” Claudia said, almost cheerfully, “there you are.”

  “Yes,” Calis said flatly. Then, he took a seat far enough away from the two of them so that they wouldn’t feel obliged to converse with him. He probably shouldn’t feel like this around his family, but he did, and that was that.

  Tareth was watching Calis with a sort of glare. They weren’t going to be able to speak civilly, privately anyway, for quite some time. Calis supposed he was to blame for that with his outburst, but he didn’t care to fix it now. Tareth was the fool who thought it funny to ruin the lives of innocent people. “How was court, son?” Claudia asked weakly.

  Apparently, his effort to sit far enough away had been in vain. She wanted to be friendly with him. Maybe Tareth hadn’t spoken to her about him, after all, or maybe she just didn’t care and wanted to be on friendly terms with both of her sons—what a novel concept. “Well enough,” he answered as courteously as he could.

  “Did you speak with Lady Avyon at all after court?” she asked.

  This was precisely why he did not have regular conversations with his mother. They most always involved him talking to women. She wanted him to get married more than she wanted Lavus to drop dead—and that was quite a lot. “I did not,” he answered honestly.

  “That is unfortunate,” she said woefully. She sounded as though she truly believed this, and she believed that Calis thought so too. If he had trusted her, or Tareth, or anyone in the castle other than Lee—he may have told them that he had no desire to continue relations with her—so he said nothing.

  For a moment, he stared at the black table before him without speaking. “Yes,” he said, “it is unfortunate.” Echoing her words was the only course of action that he had deemed plausible, without drawing suspicion, or disclosing information that he didn’t want disclosed.

  “You must not have enjoyed it very much,” Tareth snapped, “you were in a rather foul mood directly after!”

  Calis was impressed that Tareth had actually brought up their confrontation in front of their mother, and in less than a roundabout way. In fact, Calis even offered a wolfish grin to his brother—which surprised the other boy, clearly. “Perhaps I was just unhappy that the whole thing was over, brother,” he answered cheerfully.

  “I doubt it,” Tareth answered, with a sort of sulk punctuating his voice.

  Claudia seemed unsure how to handle the two of them. She pursed her lips and looked from one boy to the other, before she finally opened her mouth to speak. “Calis does not enjoy being constantly greeted by women,” she said, “so he was certainly in a foul mood after.”

  This actually surprised the older prince. He had not expected that his mother knew that about him, let alone that she would comment on it. He blinked at her. “I… yes,” he said. He couldn’t very well argue with her when he was this impressed that she’d known at all.

  “Why don’t you enjoy it?” Tareth asked. This conversation had turned out to be far less painful than Calis had anticipated, though he was still having images of throttling his brother against the obnoxious table at which they all sat.

  Calis stared at his younger brother with no expression. He couldn’t say why he didn’t enjoy it—he just knew that he didn’t. “Why don’t you enjoy riding?” he asked. “I can’t say why I don’t—I just don’t.”

  Tareth seemed to take this as a suitable answer, and he nodded his head. Despite the appearance that all was forgiven, Tareth was harboring more dislike than usual for his brother, and Calis could detect it even at their current distance. Well, he wasn’t going to go to bizarre lengths to repair the fracture in their already haphazard relationship. “You should learn to like people more,” Tareth said, “it would make your life more enjoyable.”

  “It would make his life less productive,” Lavus spoke with a decisive voice that cut through the air and informed everyone in the room that they had better stop talking until he’d given them specific permission.

  Neither of the boys responded but with a nod and a glance down at the table. Now that their father was
present, that meant any and all free conversation was gone, and they had to pretend to respect him wholly. The sad part was, Lavus truly believed that they did respect him. Though, Tareth did fear Lavus so much that he seemed to genuinely respect him.

  “Good evening, dear,” Claudia was the one who acknowledged her husband’s presence verbally. Though everyone had done so physically, and that was all Lavus truly cared about. He needed to know that he was the center of attention.

  Lavus offered a greeting that Calis scarcely understood, and the servants were soon bringing out the first course. Calis barely noticed what it was. They always had soup first, even when Calis took dinner by himself. This soup was a pale, golden color, and the taste of salt had his face twisting into a frown.

  The servants were the only ones that made any noise. Calis hadn’t the slightest idea why Lavus called them to dinner on these occasions—no one ever ate enough, mostly because they were so nervous that Lavus might want their attention mid-bite. Calis’s eye twitched as he shoved another spoonful of whatever was on his plate into his mouth.

  Calis was counting the ticks until he could find a reason to excuse himself. Claudia was staring at Lavus with eyes that seemed to hate and respect him at the same time, and Tareth was obviously still brooding over the things Calis had said to him. This was miserable—and this was his life. He longed instantly for the dinners back in Dokak—he and Lee had insisted on not imposing on the royal family in Dokak—and so they had been able to eat without feeling, well, uneasy.

  In fact, Calis just missed the time when his father wasn’t around. He had felt so much freer, and now that his father was back in his life, he felt as though walls were closing in on him, and closing in more quickly than he could react. “Your majesty,” Claudia started, as Lavus considered anyone using his name as offensive and vile, even his own wife, “were you able to resolve the matter of the Taron and Ukar house amiably?” she asked.