by Amy Little
Annika shot him a quick glance and then stepped inside. She held on to the door. “No… yes… I don’t know. Surprised, maybe.”
“Will you invite me in?”
“Why?” she demanded, her tone flaring. “Do you have more lies to tell me?” She regretted her words almost as soon as they had left her lips. It took her a few moments to compose herself.
She felt a sense of relief when he ignored her jibe. Then the relief became concern, for Zak shifted his feet with a wince and a limp that he tried to hide by covering his leg wit the folds of his cloak. “Are you unwell?”
“It hasn’t been easy getting into this castle,” he replied. “Your guard was at the entrance to this wing, and it has been many years since I have scaled a wall as high as that to the back courtyard. Slipping and falling midway down was not the highlight of my evening.”
Annika swiftly embraced the power and as soon as it raced through her she directed it towards him. She could soon sense the hairline fracture in his shin bone. Flushed with concern, she let him in.
He limped to the bed, the tightness around his eyes betraying some of the pain he felt.
Trying not to blush, she sat next to him, taking his hands into hers, and focused on the act of healing. When she opened her eyes sometime later, he was looking at her, firmly, unsmilingly, seriously. She tried to move away but he held on to her hands.
“Stay.”
“Why did you come?”
“I needed to see you. Just to see you.”
“Now you have.”
“Now I have,” he said. There was a note of sadness in his voice that she had never heard before.
She steeled her heart. “I want you to leave,” she said.
The sadness was replaced with a flash of anger. “Why do you keep pushing me away from you!”
“Because… because I don’t want to be hurt, again!” she exclaimed. “How could you have lied to me, Zak?”
“I swear I knew nothing of our father’s wishes!”
“Yet your father continues to plan, for you, for us!”
“Let him. What does he have to do with anything?”
“Your House wants to manipulate us, manipulate me,” she said, feeling less certain. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, and stood up from the bed and walked away from him. “Besides, if our two Houses are seen to come together, will not the Emperor seek to…” she paused, looking around.
“I’m tired of hiding!” he said, fervently. He followed her, walking without pain now, and on catching up with her he took her hands again. “To hell with it! Our Houses will take care of themselves. I want you, Annika. That is all.”
They looked at each other, unable to let go.
Annika was not sure of what she felt but it seemed more anger than any other emotion. She grasped at the anger. “I don’t want to see you again,” she said.
“I want you, Annika. Without you, I can’t live.”
“Life goes on,” she said, trying to be deliberately cruel. “You’ll find someone else.”
“Someone else!” he exploded. “What do you mean?”
“Someone else whom you can calculatedly decide to pursue, as you did to me!” Annika was breathing heavily and in the void left by the power that she had let go she found herself on the brink of tears. The truth she felt in the words that she had spoken hurt almost too much to bear.
“Annika,” he said. His voice was filled with controlled fury and the deep lines that formed around his pursed lips were white.
Annika backed away, feeling a sliver of fear, for she had never seen him so consumed with anger.
“How can you say that, Annika? I am willing to give up all that I have, for you. My House, my academy, my life. What else do I need to do to make up for what was not my decision, not my intent, not my fault! I have never deceived you.” He gripped her by the shoulders. “I love you, Annika. Do you not get that?”
Instinctively, she tried to step back. He was too strong.
His mouth pressed to hers, feeling like a cascade of melting lava.
Annika pushed him away with a strangled cry. “I can’t. There are things that I need to do… for myself, for my sister. We don’t know yet… she may still be alive. I want to continue looking for her….”
“I can help you. You don’t have to do this alone.”
Annika forced herself to meet his burning gaze.
For the first time, as she spoke, her voice was firm: “How do I know if I truly love you? That I can trust you? How do I know if you truly love me? That you won’t leave me one day like everyone else in my life has? I’ve gone from hope to nothing, once. To suffer that, again… I can’t. I just can’t.”
“There is no certainty in life, Annika! But I am certain of my feelings for you.”
“As am I,” she quietly said, not realizing that she spoke aloud.
In the silence that followed, they stared at one another, consumed by the other’s presence, each afraid to make the first move.
“You don’t have to choose, Annika,” he finally said. “I will be there for you, with you, whatever path you choose.”
“It is Queen Annika,” she said, keeping her voice and gaze as cold and firm as she could. “Please do not forget that, henceforth.”
He looked at her for what seemed like years. In that time, his face faded.
Annika felt his hurt.
She told herself to be strong. She had no choice but to be strong, if she did not want to be consumed by this… madness.
He bowed to her stiffly, his rigid movements conveying more pain and rage than a thousand screamed imprecations could, and left.
Annika slammed the door after him and collapsed against it. Only now did she realize that until the very last she was expecting him to stay – to protest, to say something, to reach out to her, to….
The tears that she had tried to stifle burst forth.
She was still sobbing sometime later when she heard what sounded like a scratch at the door.
Chapter Twelve
Annika tensed. A ray of hope surged through her. Could it be Zak?
Forgetting to wipe the tears from her face she flung the door open.
Before her stood the girl from the library, Josephine.
The girl cowed before Annika. “I am sorry,” the girl said.
Suddenly seeming to lose confidence, the girl looked ready to slink off before Annika stopped her and, trying to not think about Zak, brought the girl in.
The girl walked inside, looking around with a mixture of curiosity and alarm, which only seemed to grow as Annika invited her to sit down. The girl dropped to the bed where she sat in a frozen, hunched posture.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Josephine shook her head. “I’m not.” She dared to peer around and then returned her gaze to Annika. “Were you crying, my Queen?”
“Just something in my eye.” Annika went to the fireplace, where she stood with her back to the girl until she could compose herself, and then went to the door to close it again.
“Your room is so plain, my Queen.”
“Does that surprise you?” asked Annika. She looked down the hallway. There was no sight of Zak. Pressing her lips together, grimly, she closed the door.
“People said things,” said Josephine, seeming to regain her self-possession and looking around with quick, bird-like movements.
Annika waited for her to continue, but when she did not, prompted. “What did they say?”
“That you liked gold and diamonds and that the reason you were banished is that you wanted the inheritance to the exclusion of…,” Josephine abruptly stopped on realizing what she was saying. Her face grew white.
“People can say what they wish,” Annika said. It took her some effort to keep her voice soft. “Who said this?”
“Mostly those from other clans, my Queen,” said Josephine. She looked relieved at Annika’s mild reaction.
“The House of the Wolf?” asked Annika, darkly, not
bothering to hide her irritation this time.
“No, never them!” Josephine quickly exclaimed. “All the others, yes. But never the Wolves.”
The response mollified Annika somewhat. She observed the girl for a few seconds. The girl squirmed.
The girl’s reaction reminded Annika of her own fears on returning to Karrum a few months earlier, though it now seemed so much longer than that! The thought softened Annika’s expression and she sat next to Josephine. “Have you spent much time with Cara?” she asked.
At the mention of Cara’s name, the girl fell to her knees. “I beg your forgiveness, my Queen!” she exclaimed. “I was so scared to come and see you, but on meeting you at the library… well, you’re not as scary as everyone said! I mean some people said…. I mean….” the girl stopped, exasperated at her inability to express herself.
“Why did you want to see me?” asked Annika, kindly.
“It was because of Princess Cara. Sometimes, the Princess would so kind as to speak to me in the library. Once, she even asked me for my help. That was why I have come here today.”
Annika’s curiosity was spiked. “How so?”
“A few weeks ago the Princess had asked me if I can sew her some curtains.”
“For the windows in her room?” Annika asked, remembering the brown velvet.
“I measured the windows, found the materials, and sewed them for Princess Cara,” said Josephine. She looked proud. “The Princess was very happy with the result. She even asked me to make sure that you saw it and that you look at it with great care.”
“I?” asked Annika thoughtfully. “And why with care?”
“Perhaps she thought you may like it as well, my Queen?” the girl chirped.
“Did she say anything else?”
The girl shook her head and seeming to have spent all of her enthusiasm for explanations froze again.
Annika showed her out, with kindness that only seemed to inhibit poor Josephine all the more, and then paced the room for a few minutes, with a deep frown. It was inconceivable that this was not a message from Cara. But was the message in what the girl had just told her? Or was the message perhaps in the curtain itself?
Her sister’s room seemed just as Annika had left it earlier. The candle that Annika held in her hands threw a shimmering light against the dark walls. The shadows that danced around her looked like drawn-out sinuous shapes with dangerously curved daggers in their long limbs.
Annika shuddered, then quickly walked to the window.
The curtains were drawn.
Annika could not remember if they were drawn when she last was in there. She hesitated for just a moment, then reached for them, running her hands along the material, which felt thick and lumpy under her fingers. She felt the front and then the back, traced the outlines of the seams. The seams at the bottom of the curtain seemed longer, less expertly done.
Feeling her heart quicken, Anika felt along the folds. There was something there. First with her fingernails and then working furiously with her teeth, Annika unpicked a couple of the stitches. The rest came apart and within seconds in her hands she had a long piece of folded paper.
Her hands shaking slightly, she opened it. It was a letter, from Cara to her.
The letter began, “My sister Annika! If you are reading this, then you have kept safe, for now. Know that I am safe also. …”
Annika ran her eyes over the text that covered the rest of the paper quickly, then slower, then again.
The candle was guttering by the time she finished.
She sighed deeply. She felt the tension that had been with her those last few weeks drain from her body, replaced by a sense of elation and hope, and above all joy. Her sister was alive. Alive!
She folded the letter and was about to place it in her pocket when she hesitated, took it out again, and lit it at the candle stub.
The paper, which she flung in the hearth, burned in a matter of seconds.
No one can know, she said to herself. Now, no one will.
Late the following day, with the dusk already casting its mournful light over the city, for it had taken her a long time and much ingenuity to give her honor guard a slip, Annika hurried through a rapidly emptying street down a steep hill that led to a small plaza. She kept to the center of the street, away from the grimy, dark alleys.
A pie-seller on the corner of a small plaza paused packing his stall when she approached. He looked her over and shook his head. “Not safe now for a young woman like you to be out,” he said. Then, having spent what pleasantness he had to spare, the man’s face became blank and hard again as he hastened to shut up shop.
Annika had to admit the sense in the man’s words. The city had become dirtier and meaner, even just in the preceding few weeks. Many shops were boarded up. The people looked underfed and angry. And the shadows seemed to take on a life of their own, congealing and shifting on the peripheries of her sight.
Annika shuddered and hurried along.
A splotch of dark seemed to persistently trail her.
She could almost feel its presence behind her.
A bare, shadowy stretch of a street drew near.
Annika broke in sweat. She was ready to run, but only the thought that her destination was somewhere nearby let her keep what was left of her cool.
Suddenly the door to the Academy appeared on her left.
Unable to hold back a cry of relief, Annika darted towards it.
The door was unlocked and swung open.
Annika closed the gate to the side-garden behind herself, and then slid the rusty bolt in to close it.
Sly footsteps sounded on the street outside, then all was quiet.
Annika went inside the building.
The building seemed deserted. The front desk, where the old woman had sat the first time Annika was at the Academy, was empty. There were dark stains here and there on the floors.
Feeling a dark sense of foreboding, Annika hurried up the stairs in the semi-gloom.
Zak was in the upstairs room. He sat on the bench by the unlit fireplace, his head bent low.
Annika stood by the door observing him for a few moments.
He was lost in thought. His face was hard and drawn. There were shadows under his eyes.
Annika felt her chest flood with a warm feeling that made it hard for her to breathe. She slowly walked towards him, feeling torn between the happiness of seeing him and the cold realization that this could be the last time that she does.
He turned away slightly, as though undecided whether or not he would welcome her.
Annika lay her hands on his shoulders, and he placed his on top of hers before letting go. Annika took her hands off also.
“Where is everyone?” Annika softly asked. “Where is the nice old woman whom I met downstairs?”
“Cynthia.”
“Yes,” she said, aware of the grief in his voice.
“She is dead.” Zak spoke slowly. “Seven snakes came here looking for me. Cynthia dealt with two of them, three of my fighters who were training in the yard dispatched the others. They accounted well for themselves, but at what cost! I got here in time to see them die. I could do nothing for them. Nothing, but to hold their cold hands. I buried them that evening.” He finally lifted his head. His eyes were cold, blank with suppressed grief.
Her sadness for Cynthia and his men was overwhelmed by her feelings for him. She could not deny it. When did she start loving him, she asked herself, and how could she stop? Her hands softly brushed his shoulders, then returned awkwardly to her sides again. “It’s so quiet here,” she said. “And cold.”
He did not answer.
“I could not leave without saying good bye.”
He nodded.
She bit her lip to stop herself from verbalizing the pain that she felt. His voice stopped her when she had reached the doorway.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
“I’ve found something that gives me hope,” she said. She thought f
or a moment, then discarded caution. “A message from Cara. She is alive.”
“Are you certain?”
Her eyes flashed. “Yes!”
“I am pleased,” he said. “While there was nothing between Cara and me, Annika, I loved her like a sister.”
“So you say,” she said, the thought of Zak and Cara together making her blood run hot and cold.
“Yes,” he said, through gritted teeth. “It is the truth.”
She nodded.
“I will help you find her, Annika.”
“I did not come seeking help,” she said, feeling momentarily at a loss as she wondered what power it was that drove her there.
“Then what?”
“To say good bye,” she said, with certainty she did not feel. “I felt I owe you that much.”
She did not want him, Zak said to himself: she had made that clear before. Pursuing her, wanting her, loving her was madness. She was right. Whatever there had been between them, they weren’t ready; the world wasn’t ready. It was time for him to move on.
But no matter how much he wanted to cut the cord of feelings between them, Zak felt he could not.
With her standing so close, all he had to do was to cover the few steps between them and he could take her in her hands, feel her softness beneath his fingers, taste her on his lips, have her breath mingle with his.
Yet he could not do that either. She did not want him; was that not clear enough?
All that was left to him now was to say good bye. “Will you go alone… Queen Annika?”
“Yes… Prince Zak.”
The silence dragged a few moments before he broke it by saying, “Then farewell!”
His eyes burned. But he could not force himself to speak the other words he knew were true, for that would mean rejection, again.
She blinked as though to drive away the tears.
She opened her mouth, then when the words would not come closed and opened it again, “Farewell….”
Then she added, almost inaudibly, speaking as though in a fog, “I love you,” and not waiting for nor wanting his response quickly hurried down the stairs, before the pain would overcome her.