Sorrows of Adoration

by Kimberly Chapman

  It was several hours before the swelling in my throat and tongue subsided sufficiently to allow Tash to remove the tube and then dress the wound he had made in my throat. Jarik and Kurit remained by my bedside the entire time, and Leiset was there as well when not sent on an errand by Tash.

  The next morning, Tash told them that he feared he might have only prolonged the inevitable. He pointed out that I was not in the best physical health to begin with—Jarik confirmed that I had neither slept nor eaten well while I was away—and there had been sufficient poison to kill me. He said it was a blessing of the Gods that he had arrived quickly enough to wash some of it away, but that it might have been too late.

  “I fear that she shall die in the next day or so,” he told Kurit grimly. Kurit says he shall never forget the horror of those words. Tash said I was likely too weak to recover soon enough before I would suffer from starvation. All attempts to feed me had apparently failed.

  Tash left me alone with Jarik, Kurit, and Leiset. Leiset says she could not help but weep to see how the men that I loved looked upon me with great anguish. They just stared at me in silence for some time as Leiset wept quietly in the corner of the room.

  Then Kurit said, “I need to speak with you in my chambers, Jarik.” He rose, opened the door between our rooms, and waited until Jarik joined him a moment later.

  Leiset says that she was able to hear most of their conversation because they left the door partially open and instructed her to call to them immediately if I moved at all. I have asked Kurit about this conversation many times as well, and between the two accounts, I believe that I can paint an accurate portrait of what was said.

  When Jarik joined Kurit, the latter was staring out of the windowed balcony doors. Kurit did not turn around but said, “I just got her back, and again she is being taken from me.”

  “Forgive me, for I have failed her,” Jarik said. “I should have removed either Aenna or Kasha from the room immediately. I cannot fathom why I was so foolish as to not keep them apart.”

  Kurit did not respond to Jarik’s apology. Instead, he asked, “Did she really suffer so terribly, with the sleeplessness and lack of appetite? Was it really that awful?”

  Jarik replied, “She had many difficulties to work through.”

  Kurit turned finally to face his cousin and said, “I think you had better tell me all that occurred.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Why?”

  “I do not wish to speak of things that Aenna may not wish me to speak of.”

  Kurit regarded Jarik in silence for a moment and then asked, “What happened that makes you so ashamed to speak?”

  “Leave it alone, Kurit. Go back to her now. Hold her hand and pray that she lives. Do not ask to hear things that you will wish you did not know.”

  After another long pause, Kurit bluntly asked, “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you intimate with her?” Kurit asked without anger or sadness. Leiset says he asked it as flatly as though he were asking someone idly about the weather. When Jarik did not respond, Kurit asked in the same flat tone, “Did you take my wife to your bed?”

  “No,” Jarik said.

  “But something did happen.”

  “Kurit, just leave the issue in the past.” Leiset says my Champion’s deep voice broke as he said sadly, “She’s dying in there!”

  “Which is why I need to know these things,” Kurit insisted. “What happened between you and Aenna while you were gone?”

  “She loves you. She married you, Kurit,” came Jarik’s reply.

  “And you wish otherwise.”

  “No,” said Jarik quickly. Then he paused a moment and said, “Not necessarily. I wish many things had been otherwise. I wish that you had both been happy.”

  “And you could have made her happy,” Kurit stated flatly.

  “I did not say that.”

  “But you know it in your heart, don’t you? You could have made Aenna happy.”

  Jarik rose as if he were about to storm out of the room but halted himself at the door. He sighed and, without turning to face Kurit, said, “What of it? She married you, and you are my friend, my cousin, and my King.”

  “Yet she was unhappy with me.”

  Kurit says Jarik spun around in fury and shouted, “No, Kurit, she loved you! That’s the problem. She loved you so dearly that your abuse broke her heart.”

  Kurit sank into a chair and ran his hands through his hair. Then he looked at Jarik’s accusing eyes and said, “I know. And I mean this truthfully and without malice, cousin, that I think that you would have been a better husband to her than I have been.”

  Jarik mumbled something so low that even Kurit did not hear it.

  “What was that?” Kurit asked.

  Jarik glared at Kurit and said, “I certainly never would have struck her.”

  Kurit nodded slowly. “You’re furious with me for that, and rightly so. I am furious with myself.” He looked at Jarik for some time, then said, “I see the vehemence in your eyes. Do you despise me for what I have done to her?”

  Jarik regarded Kurit coldly for a few moments and then turned his face away, sat back down, and said, “I did that night.”

  “What would you have done, had I come to you both as you left?”

  “Kurit, why do you ask? What good is it to hear of terrible things?”

  Leiset says Kurit’s voice was pained as he said, “Because this is entirely my fault. I took a beautiful flower, pulled it from its home, and let it be trampled on, even trampled it myself, and neglected it until now there she lies dying, and I can do nothing.” Kurit has told me that he had to fight to not weep as he spoke. “I need to know what she suffered. I need to hear how despicable I was, that I might carry the pain of that in my heart as punishment for my crimes against her. So I ask again, what would you have done if I had tried to prevent her from leaving?”

  Jarik coldly replied, “I’d have cut you down in a heartbeat.”

  “So you do despise me. I suppose I deserve that.”

  Jarik sighed and said, “Kurit, you were a different man that night. When you came to the cottage to seek her, I saw that you were no longer that drunken wretch but again becoming the good man we once knew. I was actually surprised you didn’t destroy yourself once you had realized what you had done.”

  Kurit nodded slowly as he admitted, “The thought crossed my mind, but to be truthful, I lacked the courage to take the notion seriously.”

  “Aenna did not lack that courage.”

  Kurit says his heart froze when he realized what Jarik meant by that. “She didn’t … are you telling me she tried to kill herself?”

  “I had to forcibly restrain her from hurling herself off the bluffs.”

  In shock and horror, Kurit said, “By the Gods themselves. I had no idea that … I knew she was angry and guessed that she was hurt, but to go that far …” He put his head in his hands and said sadly, “I had no idea that I had done such damage.”

  Jarik relentlessly went on with the awful facts of what had occurred. “She almost went mad from the attempt. For several days she could neither speak nor move of her own accord. She was as the dead, waking from her reverie only long enough to occasionally weep pitifully.”

  “How did she come out of that?”

  “She found reason to laugh.”

  “To laugh?”

  “At me,” Jarik said bluntly. “Leiset was in danger of becoming ill with exhaustion and worry, and so one afternoon I tried to put Aenna’s hair up myself. We didn’t know if she was aware of anything, but if she was we didn’t want her to feel unkempt. I couldn’t do it, though—the hair kept falling from the pins and sticking out from her head absurdly, and she saw it in the mirror, and it made her laugh.”

  “Was she better after that?”

  “At times. When she was with Raelik.”

  “And the rest of the time?”

  “She was lonel
y. Desperately sad and lonely. And she begged—” Jarik cut himself off.

  “For what?”

  Kurit says Jarik looked away and whispered sadly, “She would beg to be held.”

  “Did you hold her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Often?”

  “Yes.”

  “While she slept?”

  “Not all night. When she asked me to hold her at night, I would until she slept, and then I would leave, lest someone enter and suspect impropriety.”

  “So you did not make love with her.”

  “No.”

  “Did she ask you to?”

  Jarik slammed his fist on the chair and then pointed a threatening finger at Kurit. “Don’t you dare ask that! Don’t you make her out to be some kind of trollop!”

  “I need to know if she loved you as you loved her.”

  “It doesn’t matter!”

  “It does. Did she ask you to bed her?”

  “I will not answer,” Jarik grumbled.

  “Jarik, did Aenna wish you to love her intimately?” Kurit insisted, in his typical way of driving people mad until they would finally just answer his question to make him stop asking.

  “Don’t ask that, Kurit. She loved you, she was loyal to you—”

  “In body, but was she loyal in her heart?”

  Kurit says Jarik rose so quickly from the chair that it fell backwards in a clatter of noise. Jarik then began to shout angrily, “How can you ask that? How dare you ask that? She loved you, and you broke her heart! How dare you ask whether or not that broken heart sought comfort elsewhere? Have you no mercy? How dare you condemn her for desires you left unfulfilled?”

  “I don’t condemn her for it!” Kurit cried out in anguish. “I know that I quite likely drove her into your arms! That’s why I want to know! I want to know if my mistakes cost me that, too. She did ask you, didn’t she?”

  “Fine, then, yes! She was so empty inside! What’s the matter with you, that you would have such a treasure to love and you would cast her aside? She longed for your touch, but you were too drunk or too angry to give it.”

  “And yet you say you did not make love with her, even when she asked,” Kurit said softly.

  “I would not betray you, nor would I take advantage of a lonely woman whom I am forsworn to protect, who turns to me for comfort,” said Jarik, still with an edge of anger but no longer yelling.

  “Even though you loved her.”

  “Yes,” said Jarik sadly.

  “You’re a better man than I,” Kurit grumbled.

  “Are you accusing me of lying?” Jarik snarled.

  “No! I mean what I say. I don’t know that, were I in your place, I could have been so strong.”

  “Strength had nothing to do with it. I admit I was often weak and kissed her.” There was another pause, and then Jarik asked, “Does that anger you?”

  “I would challenge any other man for having done so, but I cannot find it in my heart to hate you. Not for loving her,” Kurit said sadly. “I could not begrudge you for loving that which I also love. Not you, my dearest friend and kin.”

  “And yet I did betray you, and that weight does not rest easily upon me,” Jarik admitted.

  “I betrayed her. You brought her back to me anyway. Again, you have returned her to me. I know that you loved her before all of this. I have known it for a long time. You could have taken her for yourself when you found her in Mikilrun. You could have taken her from me this time. But you didn’t. I thank you for that. I owe you for that.”

  “All that you owe is as nothing, now that she is dying because I failed to protect her.”

  “No more than I did by allowing my mother to stay in the palace when I knew that I had incensed her.”

  “I have failed to protect her too many times. She has suffered wounds, abduction, and far too many sorrows. I have not been able to protect her from any of those things. Her only true Champion has ever been herself. Her own strength and intellect saved her each time, not those us who have loved her,” Jarik said. “You’re wrong that I could have taken her for myself. She is not like the women of the court. She does not wait for directions, instructions, and orders. She acts of her own accord. I have never returned her to you. She has always returned herself. She does not wait for a Champion to protect her.”

  “Except when you stopped her from taking her own life. You saved her life then. You were her Champion then,” Kurit pointed out.

  “No. That was the horrible thing, the way she fought me. She wasn’t walking to the bluffs in daylight expecting to be rescued. She crept out in the middle of the night, walked there on her own, proudly, not knowing I had been on my balcony unable to sleep and had seen her leave, not knowing that I was following her. She didn’t want to be saved. When I saw what she was about to do and called to her, she didn’t even turn around but walked faster, intent on destroying herself. Never have I run so fast. I had to drag her to the ground to stop her, and even then she clawed at the ground, trying to pull herself to the edge. I was not saving her life. I was condemning her to it. I very much believe that the only thing that prevented her from trying again was guilt over leaving her son motherless.”

  “Even still? Do you think she wishes to die even now?”

  “I don’t know. She seemed to improve her outlook over time. I think she regained some hope. She has had brief moments of happiness recently. I don’t know if she is happy, though. She was hopeful things had improved for you but was nervous on our return,” Jarik said. “You have gone pale. Did your conversation with her not go well?”

  “No, it went quite well, actually. She let me hold her and kiss her once. She even favoured me with a smile and some laughter. But hearing all of this … I had hoped that Tash was being dramatic. I couldn’t imagine that she could truly die. Not strong Aenna. But if her will to live is as drained as you say …”

  “You fear that she will allow herself to slip away,” said Jarik bluntly.

  “Don’t say it. Don’t breathe the words. I can’t let that happen.”

  “You have not heard my message. Nobody controls Aenna’s will but Aenna. Her love for either of us didn’t stop her desire to die that night. You broke her heart. Loving me is morally and legally wrong and causes her guilt and pain. Only love for her child is untainted. She is dying whether we approve or not.”

  “Stop saying that,” Kurit pleaded.

  “You know as well as I that Tash would not make such a proclamation of doom without reason.”

  “No. She’s survived through hardships before. She’s strong.”

  “Was strong. My failure to protect her and your failure to treat her as she deserved sapped that strength. She’s dying, Kurit. And we all had a hand in killing her. Now go and be with her in her last hours. Let Raelik say goodbye.”

  “You give up on her too easily.”

  “Never. But I understand why she would give up on us.” Jarik went to the door to Kurit’s receiving room.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To seek the last vestige of my honour,” Jarik said quietly and then left.

  Kurit remained in his chambers quietly for some time and then returned to my bedside. After kissing my forehead, he said to Leiset, “I must find a way to explain this to my son. I’ll return with Raelik shortly, but I want you to summon me immediately if there is any change.”

  Leiset says Kurit left, and she stayed with me in silence for about half an hour. Then Jarik entered, dressed in his finest ceremonial armour, the crest of the Queen’s Champion upon his breastplate. He knelt at the side of my bed and bowed his head in silence for a few minutes. When he looked up, Leiset tells me that his eyes were brimming with tears.

  My beloved Champion took my hand, kissed it, and then turned it over and pressed my palm to his cheek. His tears rolled onto my hand as he said, “Forgive me, my Queen, for failing you yet again.”

  Then he rose, handed Leiset a sealed letter, and asked that she put it in my han
ds when I would soon be laid to rest. Then he left quickly, leaving Leiset behind to cry for us both as she tucked the letter away in one of my drawers.

  Chapter 25

  I HEARD NOTHING THAT was said to me whilst unconscious. I wish dearly that I had felt Jarik’s touch or Kurit’s words of love, but I recall nothing. But three days after Tash had proclaimed me to be on the edge of death, I became conscious enough to feel that someone was holding my right hand and that my throat was quite sore.

  I could not open my eyes, so I tried instead to squeeze the hand that I felt. I wasn’t sure if that had even worked until I heard Kurit’s voice close to me but muffled as though he were speaking through a pillow. He was calling to me, begging me to show a sign of life. He asked frantically if I could feel his hand touching my cheek, and I could.

  Still, my eyes would not open. I heard other voices and became confused with the cacophony about me. Had it not been for Kurit’s hand still clenching my own, I would have been frightened by the chaos.

  I tried to speak but my dry, aching throat wouldn’t allow it. To be honest, I don’t think that I could have managed to be coherent anyway. The voices around me made little sense, though I could tell that they were speaking words I ought to have understood.

  Finally, someone put water to my lips, and I tried to gulp at it, desperate for the cold liquid to soothe my throat. Through the other sounds, I heard Tash’s distinct voice order me not to drink quickly and not to speak at all.

  The soothing effect of the cold water must have relaxed me, for I fell back into my deep sleep. The voices faded out entirely, and I was glad of it.

  My next memory is of waking to feel something warm cuddled against my right side. I knew in an instant it was my son with his head nestled into my shoulder, for the scent of his hair brought forth every maternal memory and instinct. Though I was not feeling quite right and still confused as to where I was and what had happened, feeling him breathing in sleep against me was great comfort. I think I may have smiled.

  I soon found the strength to open my eyes and look at Raelik. I felt such joy at seeing him there that I almost wept. I was filled with a rush of wordless love for my darling child.