Divided

by Rae Brooks

  One of the men launched forward and caught Taeru’s cheek with the side of his blade. Then, Taeru caught the blade with his own and twisted it so that the man was forced to release it. Next, he pulled his foot up and shoved it into the man’s abdomen. Just in time for another sword to cut over his head, so that he had to duck and slam his elbow into the other combatant.

  The nobles were persistent, though, and one of them was still clinging to Alyx. Rather than worrying with the other three, Taeru moved forward and grabbed the man by his shirt. The man fell away fairly easily, especially since Alyx clung to the fence with a shriek—and kicked him for good measure. Taeru brought the man back and then slammed the hilt of his sword into the noble’s face.

  He caught another blade in mid-swing, angling it so that the man who’d swung was left with a twisted wrist. Then, with a flourish of his blade, Taeru cut upwards and across the man’s cheek with precision. He then used his second sword to cut into the man’s torso deep enough so that the fool crumpled to the ground.

  Only one of them was left standing, and Taeru parried his sword with a quick movement and then shoved him backwards. After another exchange of blades, Taeru managed to get the upper hand by grabbing the man’s arm and twisting it until he heard the snap. Finally, he tossed the guy to the ground.

  At that moment, though, another of them had regained enough of himself to place a kick directly above Taeru’s knee—his injury—and he let out a desperate whimper. Unexpected, he thought painfully, but he was still tasked with getting rid of these men. Though, when he got back to his feet, he was more than a little shocked at who was standing there.

  Even in a brown, upturned cloak, and a tunic that was certainly not fitting for someone with a name such as his—he was recognizable.

  “For all that he could not understand within himself, this prince could see it like a sun in the light of the moon.”

  -A Hero’s Peace, v.ii

  Chapter xxi

  Calis Tsrali

  Calis glared down at the man who had just managed to kick exactly where he shouldn’t have. What were the odds, of the entire length of Kilik’s leg, that he would have kicked that precise location? So much anger ran through Calis in that moment that he wasn’t sure if he could stop himself from killing them all.

  With great effort, though, he withheld his anger enough to slam his sword into the dirt beside the offender’s head. “Go,” he hissed, in a voice that would have scared him—if he hadn’t known that it was his own.

  They obeyed, as noblemen were cowards, and if they did not outnumber—or outmatch—the enemy, then they were not good about staying around. The men were gone in a few more moments, and Calis turned to look at a moderately bemused Kilik—or rather, Phantom Blade. No, there really wasn’t any denying it anymore.

  Kilik, though, was more interested in the woman that he had saved. “Are you alright?” he asked hoarsely.

  Alyx stood, shaking a little on her feet, and observed both of them. She seemed just as surprised to see Kilik as she was to see Calis. She obviously hadn’t expected help at this late shift, but she seemed to underestimate just how crazed Calis had been with worry about Kilik—and apparently Kilik had felt the same about her, Calis thought with a twinge of jealousy. “Y-yes, thank you,” she sobbed. She had been crying.

  Kilik took a step towards her, and he was obviously still intent on being the Phantom Blade, and not Kilik, Calis realized with annoyance.

  What luck, Calis thought, that he had been so entirely plagued with terrible thoughts of Kilik in his bed. Not that he had slept well at all for the past several moons, but this was the first moon that he had tried to actively ensure that nothing was wrong with Kilik.

  The fact held, though, that Kilik could have handled the situation by himself. Of course he could have, but Calis felt a swell of relief that he had been here. “What are you doing here?” Kilik asked Alyx gently.

  “I-I… I don’t want to…” she cried. “Just—I need to get home. Please.”

  “I should take you,” Kilik said worriedly. Calis knew he shouldn’t be feeling so jealous about this situation, but he was. Oh, he wanted to drag the girl home himself just so Kilik would stop being so attentive.

  Alyx glanced from Kilik to Calis with tired eyes. “No! No, please! I just… just… I can make it.” Then, she turned and ran away without another word to either of them. Kilik took a tentative step towards her and then sighed.

  He turned on Calis, then, and his blue eyes were noticeable even in the dark. Calis wondered how he had ever failed to notice them. “What are you doing out so late?” Kilik asked warily. He was trying to disguise his voice. Cute.

  “The same as you, I think,” Calis answered honestly. Their eyes were locked, and Calis willed Kilik to be honest with him with every fiber of his being. But no, the trust wasn’t there, the belief wasn’t there. Kilik wouldn’t be honest with him.

  Yet, as they stood there, looking at each other, Calis could feel his regret at having not kissed those lips—so very distinguishable—when he’d been given the chance. He wanted Kilik, so badly, and the rest of the world be hanged. He hadn’t known that he could feel this—this unending desire for another person.

  A spasm ran through his body as he watched Kilik. This boy stood with such an absurd amount of grace, especially considering his injury was probably burning with pain. Still, as he stood there, before Calis now—he looked so weak, as if one touch might make him crumple to the ground. He was strong—he wasn’t going to crack in front of anyone, and Calis was sure that he’d never been able. Kilik was brave, but he was fragile. “I need to go make sure those men don’t catch up with her again,” Kilik said quickly.

  “Is your leg alright?” Calis asked softly.

  This seemed to take the boy aback a little bit, perhaps he’d expected Calis to ignore what had happened to him. “Fine, thank you.”

  “Who are you?” Calis asked hopefully. He stepped forward, and like a cornered deer, Kilik stepped back.

  Within another moment, Kilik was shaking his head. There was the strangest sense that he was about to break. Calis wanted to hold him, to touch him, to kiss him. He wanted to do whatever Kilik needed in that moment. He wanted Kilik to drop his guard. But, he wouldn’t.

  No, in fact, Kilik ground his teeth together and turned away from Calis. He was going to run. No, no, he was not going to run. He wasn’t going to run back to Alyx, ignore his own problems, and throw himself so deep into the pain of another that his own became irrelevant. He wasn’t going to do that yet. Just as the boy moved his foot forward with incredible quickness, Calis’s hand snaked forward and caught him by the wrist. “Stop!” he demanded.

  Kilik didn’t though, he twisted and fought against Calis’s grip. However, for all Kilik’s skill with a blade, he was little, and Calis was much stronger. The two of them fought, Kilik determined to wriggle free, and Calis determined to keep him there. “Let go!” Kilik cried. “Leave me alone!” His voice dropped into panic.

  Finally, with a definitive tug, Calis brought Kilik back so that they were standing face to face. His hand reached without hesitation and tore the mask from those blue eyes. “Kilik,” he breathed.

  The revelation was not anything that Calis hadn’t already known. The visual affected Calis profoundly, though. It showed him precisely the face about which he had been worried and fantasized endlessly. The entirety of Kilik’s face struck Calis like a blow, the tanned skin, the soft, blue eyes, and the fear and terror of being discovered echoing within them. Then, those lips—those lips. “Please,” Kilik said weakly. No, Calis didn’t care about Lavus, or Lady Avyon, or Tareth, or anything. All he cared about was Kilik. All he wanted was Kilik. All he needed was for Kilik to know that he cared about him above anything else. “Don’t hurt me,” Kilik whimpered, “I just wanted to help them.”

  “Kilik,” Calis whispered again. Then, with another quick movement, his lips found their desire. Kilik’s lips trembled beneath the passionate
touch of Calis’s. They were warm with panic. Calis’s mouth pressed against them with fervor, and as he kissed them—he could feel his desire morphing into something much stronger. A fire ignited within him and burned outward, touching every part of him, consuming him—driving him—owning him.

  In a loss of control, he moved his tongue against Kilik’s mouth in a very light touch. Then, he stopped and held the heated lips with an entranced worship. Pure hunger. Pure joy. Pure happiness. Kilik’s body had gone limp against him, and Calis moved his arms so that one hand was on Kilik’s cheek, and the other held his waist.

  The moment was eternal, and then it seemed to end too quickly. Calis could have remained there, with Kilik, forever. He wanted those lips again, and again, and again—forever. When they pulled apart, Calis’s lips were moist with need and with Kilik’s breath. Kilik was paralyzed, but Calis—in his hypnotized fervor—knew that Kilik had kissed him too. With a final stroke of his thumb over a cut along Kilik’s cheek, Calis stepped back. “I could never hurt you, Kilik. The thought of your suffering causes me a pain that you cannot possibly comprehend.”

  Kilik shook, but some of the guardedness in his eyes had dropped. Now, Calis felt like the vulnerable one. Kilik could run away—away from him—and Calis’s heart would surely burst. The idea of being unable to be with Kilik, or worse, the idea that anything could happen to him, caused Calis such fear and agony that he didn’t know how to go about considering it. The fire that had started during the kiss remained, dimmed, craving more of the boy before him—but he fought it. “I-is that what you wanted? Are you satisfied?” Kilik asked faintly.

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never felt so entirely satisfied and so desperate for more in my life,” Calis said warily.

  Kilik seemed uncertain, worried. “I’m… you’re… why are you doing this? Why are you trying to make me feel like this—when you know this can’t happen? Why? I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not trying to… I’m… I don’t care that it can’t happen. I have thought of nothing but you for cycles—let me make it happen. Let me… have y-…” No, he couldn’t say that. Kilik would certainly be afraid of a statement as bold as that. “I will not hurt you.”

  “I believe you,” Kilik said, as though the words confused him.

  Calis laughed, lowering his head and trying to get a grip on his desire so that he could converse properly with Kilik. Wanting the young man so terribly was making conversation rather difficult, but he also wanted to know more about Kilik, and so he tried to find a balance. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

  Kilik cleared his throat and turned his head away with that familiar, indignant expression. Calis felt it again, that pang of need, and he smiled. He wanted Kilik with everything in him, and his entire soul was reaching out for that desire. Nevertheless, he would make sure that was what Kilik wanted first. “You have your secrets, I have mine,” Kilik told him flatly.

  “You are an enigma, my friend,” Calis whispered.

  This caused the slightest of grimaces on Kilik’s face before he shook his head. “I need to make sure she is alright,” he said. Slowly, he moved his hand upwards to replace the mask. “If your brother finds out. He will not only hang me, but he will hang that entire family.” Kilik spoke the words as though the second part of the statement was more important than the first. Calis narrowed his eyes at the assertion.

  “I will kill Tareth myself before I let him lay a hand on you,” Calis answered. The thought of his pompous brother touching Kilik sent a fire of an entirely different sort burning through Calis’s veins.

  This seemed to strike Kilik as more than a little odd, but he said nothing. Calis had to physically work to keep his sigh from escaping. He hadn’t the slightest clue what Kilik was thinking, and he desperately wanted to know. “You ought to spend more time with your brother,” Kilik offered weakly. “He takes out his anger on the citizens here.”

  “He has taken it out on you?” Calis asked. He was well aware of the answer to the question, but he wanted Kilik to tell him. He had an insatiable desire for Kilik to trust him. Kilik seemed to have a wall between himself and the rest of the world, and Calis, knowing next to nothing about the wall, wanted to tear it down.

  Kilik looked at him for a moment longer than necessary. “Of course,” he said, as if the words were of little consequence. “I am a citizen of Dark District just like everyone else. Not to mention, I bring it on myself with this…” Kilik did a quick gesture to the outfit that he was wearing. When he gestured, the half-cape billowed out like a pair of wings.

  “The first time,” Calis said, “it was intentional.” The matter was a small one, to say the least, but perhaps Kilik would feel a little more at ease knowing that Calis had wanted to help him from the beginning.

  For a moment, Calis thought that Kilik wouldn’t know what he meant. Then, those blue eyes flickered with realization. “You were trying to help me, then? But you knew nothing of me, other than the fact that I was causing your brother trouble.” The majority of the effect the revelation had on Kilik was masked by the black material covering his eyes.

  “You saved that young woman,” Calis pointed out. “I was absolutely fascinated.”

  Kilik ducked his head, which probably meant that his cheeks were red. Calis would have told him that he couldn’t tell the difference with that mask on—but if Kilik wanted to reveal a little more about himself, then Calis wasn’t going to stop him. “Fascinated? I know you say you are not always so dramatic, but the way you speak says otherwise,” Kilik accused.

  Calis tried not to grin. “I’m not,” he promised. Oddly enough, this statement caused Kilik to smile. The smile felt like some treasure that Calis had traveled across the world to find. “I shouldn’t keep you here much longer. Should I help you back? That brute hit your leg precisely where you were injured.”

  “I am the Phantom Blade,” Kilik said dramatically, or he tried to be dramatic—he wasn’t very good at it. “I think I can handle a walk through the dark by myself. With or without an injured leg.”

  Despite the words, Calis found his heart pounding with the thought of Kilik by himself, wandering through the dark. “You are…” No, he was not going to push the issue so early. Whatever relationship he and Kilik had was tentative, and Calis didn’t need to push his boundaries at this juncture. Perhaps he would just follow the young man home without his knowledge.

  That sounded just a tad, more than a tad, obsessive, but Calis couldn’t bring himself to keep from the idea. “Very well, then I implore you to be safe, my friend.”

  With a quick bow, Kilik headed in Alyx’s direction, and Calis went about finding the easiest way to follow his delicate friend through the darkness without being seen.

  “Deciphering the meaning of words spoken will always be a dangerous task to undertake.”

  -A Hero’s Peace v.i

  Chapter xxii

  Tareth Tsrali

  Tareth Tsrali sat comfortably in the room of crimson walls and black carpet. He’d thought it was rather clever to reverse the color scheme of the entire castle. He wouldn’t go so far as to defy the colors of the place, like his overconfident brother had, but he didn’t want to be a mindless puppet to father either.

  Not that Lavus cared what he did. He could probably have slept in Dark District, and Lavus wouldn’t have bothered to notice. Even when his oh-so-perfect brother had been gone for five years, Tareth had been unable to get any favor from Lavus. No, all Lavus cared about was his own power, and Calis—so help him. Tareth had tried to like Calis, truly, he had. But his brother was just as dismissive of him as their father ever was.

  Not only that, but Calis had managed to ruin the one chance that Tareth had to get his hands on that insolent vigilante. Oh, the things he would do to that loathsome, hasty-witted, little knave. Tareth’s blood boiled at the thought of it. And Calis—Magisters damn him—had ruined the one chance in three years that Tareth had at making the rat pay. Oh, how he had searched for
the man behind that wretched mask.

  But this sun was not one that should consist of his worrying. He should not be bothered with thoughts of his brother, his father, or that pathetic varlot. No, he would enjoy this sun—which was the sun of his birth. No one would realize it, surely, except possibly his mother. But his brother was always preoccupied with mysterious business, and Lavus could not be bothered with such nonsense.

  Tareth would award himself by a sun of birth that would please a king—eve Lavus, for that matter. Ordinarily, this sort of thing would constitute an affair, a ball perhaps. Well, not ordinarily, he supposed. But, should it have been Calis’s sun of birth, then Tareth knew that Lavus would not let it go unnoticed. No, Calis would certainly get a lavish celebration, complete with women in those restricting dresses and men with their colorful overcoats. Not Tareth, though, Tareth would have to make his own sun of birth lovely.

  He glanced to the elaborate golden mirror than hung on the wall near to his vanity. His hair was getting long again, he observed. It moved past his shoulders, and currently, it was in disarray. After his wash, he would have it braided, though, so it would be of little consequence.

  There was no sense wasting any more time in his room on this lovely sun unwashed. He headed to the bathroom, calling some pathetic woman servant to make her heat up the bath. The woman fumbled about like a halfwit in his presence, and he didn’t even bother to hit her for it. Instead, he moved straight to the heated water and submerged himself in it.

  He typically spent very much time in the wash. He found something incredibly peaceful about the heated liquid, not having to answer to any of his father’s whims, and not having to see the way the women ogled Calis. Or the way his brother pretended to be blissfully unaware of it all. Not only that, but Calis had been downright neglectful to the woman that he was supposed to marry. Lady Krystal Avyon was the single sexiest woman in all of Telandus—probably all of Elyst, and yet Calis seemed almost disappointed at their marriage.