by A. M. Hudson
“David, you can’t—”
“I can do what I see fit, Emily,” he said through his teeth. “She will suffer the consequences of her actions, and there will be no argument. This meeting is over.”
Everyone stayed put, their mouths hung like frogs waiting for flies.
“And what about Jason?” I asked, turning in my seat to face David. “What are you going to do with him?”
“I said,” David repeated in a clipped tone. “This meeting. Is. Over.”
Forks scraped piercing sounds down china plates, while the gentle clatter of wineglasses and murmured dinner conversations gave the candlelit evening a sort of comfortable, almost homely feel, almost as if I could imagine nothing bad had happened yesterday, or as if weeks had passed instead of only hours since I told David about Jason and I.
At breakfast this morning, Margret and Walt openly discussed David’s move to a new room and how David had laughed it off, said it was nothing but a minor argument between he and I that would resolve itself in a few weeks. And now we sat at dinner, such little time having passed but with so much on my mind, that it felt like I’d never left the table after breakfast.
David chose to avoid me today, even going as far as to miss Court, with a very valid excuse, of course. I’d been looking forward to that moment when I might sit beside him on the throne, though, perhaps gauge his reaction to me, maybe see if there was any hope at all for forgiveness, even one day, years from now. But the way he looked at me as we sat down to dinner killed all that hope. I swallowed each bite of my meal with the massive lump that had formed in my throat, not sure anything of substance was actually hitting my stomach. I felt wildly sick and hungry—about as hungry as a pauper roaming winter streets, and every time I tried to join conversations, either David just flat-out ignored me, or Morgaine cut me off whenever I opened my mouth. She’d taken a side long before this Jason business began, and it clearly wasn’t mine. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I woke to find her leaning over me in the dark with a dagger in her hand.
David looked up from the other end of the table then, and raised his glass, bowing his head as if to say, “I welcome the idea.”
Stay out of my head, I thought.
I’m not there by choice, he thought back. I’d rather lick Walt’s moustache than be forced to listen to anything you have to think.
I slinked lower in my seat, looking to Jason for a single moment of reassurance. But his seat was empty, its occupant now assigned to stable duties until David decided what to do with him. Even Arthur was too distracted to offer a quick smile. In fact, the whole room was full of life and laughter, vampires and Lilithians freely interacting and getting along, but the yellow of candlelight and the peaceful hum of conversation slowly turned into grey clouds and pouring rain above me, spitting my own misery out all over the table—wetting the food and the tablecloth, and flattening the hair to the head of each guest. But none of them noticed.
David performed as his usual kingly self, talking with members of the Upper House, his charming smile and glittering green eyes holding a captive audience as if everything he might say could be of great value. He was glowing, even though the night around us was otherwise shadowed with doom. No one would’ve known by looking at him that he just had his heart ripped out of his chest. And that only made me love him more: he was always so good at playing the game—hiding things away on the inside for the greater good of the world outside. I could learn a thing or two from him. If he’d ever speak to me again which, judging from the last twenty-four hours, I no longer existed as far as he was concerned. Which one would expect, anyway—after what I did. But it still hurt so amazingly bad that everything we had just blew away in the wind, like the flash from a camera. Just gone. Never was. Never will be again.
None of that mattered to me, though, not the way he’d acted today, or anything cruel he’d said to me. I knew, deep in my heart, that love couldn’t die overnight. He still loved me somewhere in that soul of his, and I wasn’t about to give up on him. Not yet. Not while—
“Morgaine?” David said, laying his wineglass on the table just above his plate.
“Yes, Sire?”
“Our queen looks rather ill, wouldn’t you say?”
Morgaine appraised me critically, then nodded in agreement. “I think she does.”
“She looks fine,” Blade cut in.
“No, in fact, I rather think she looks as if she needs to lie down,” David said, and winked at Morg. “See that she makes it safely to her room.”
“Of course, Sire.” Morgaine wiped her mouth and stood, huffing impatiently at me. “Amara?”
I looked at Mike, then at Falcon, who stood and pushed his chair in.
“Oh, you needn’t follow, Falcon.” David said, raising a hand. “Morgaine will attend to the queen.”
“The hell she will,” Falcon snapped, bowing politely after. “Your Majesty.”
The fire of authority flamed in David’s gaze. He practically scorched Falcon with it, clearly plotting a million punishments he could inflict on my overprotective guard for daring to go against him—in public especially. My heart beat so fiercely in my chest I could taste the blood in my throat. I knew David wanted to challenge Falcon, but he calmed himself instead and took a more honourable approach.
“Very well.” He offered me to Falcon. “See that she stays in her room for the remainder of the evening. Wouldn’t want anyone else catching whatever she’s carrying.”
A few dinner guests nodded and chattered in polite agreement, not seeing David’s dismissal for what it was.
“Come on.” Falcon appeared at my side, shoving Morg away as he hauled me gently to stand by my arm.
“No.” I slammed my hands on the table. “I’m not sick, David. And I’m not going to bed.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Ara. You are sick, disgustingly sick. And unless you care to tell our guests what your ailment is, perhaps you should take my advice.” He presented the room full of people, flashing me a grin so smug I wanted to hit him.
I grabbed a potato off my plate instead and ditched it hard toward his head, realising what I’d done only as it left my hand and flew past the stunned guests, making the flames on the candelabra’s flicker momentarily before exploding on the back of David’s chair, right beside his ear.
“How dare you!” He stood up, tossing his napkin down, but before he could storm over here and punish me, Mike, Blade, Quaid, and Ryder stood, too, ready to challenge him.
I eyed my Guard nervously, looking from each one of their stern gazes locked to David, then back at the king. It was a standoff. None of them had the right to challenge him, but all of them were more than willing to. And I loved each of them so dearly in that moment.
“David,” Arthur said softly, wiping his mouth before slowly standing up. “It seems our young queen is overtired. I’ll take her up to bed.”
“Best you do, Uncle,” David said coldly, dusting potato mash off his shoulder. “Before I do.”
“Ara.” Falcon took my arm, leaning in close to whisper, “You better just go.”
I nodded, stepping away from my chair, walking backward a few steps until the guests slowly began their gentle, polite chatter again, acting as if nothing happened, while David stood at the head of the table, his eyes black with fury.
“I won’t say he didn’t deserve it,” Arthur said, catching up on the other side of the doors. “But you should have more self-control.”
“I’m a human-being, Arthur, in part. And I have rights. He can’t order me to bed like some child just because he doesn’t want to listen to my thoughts.” I pointed back toward the Great Hall. “Imagine if I tried to do something like that to him.”
“You’re absolutely right,” he said with a nod. “He was being petty, but you mustn’t stoop to his level.”
“Easier said than done,” I scoffed.
“Besides, I think she went a little below his level, Arthur,” Falcon said, holding back
the obvious humour in his tone. “But she gets points for the look on David’s face when that potato hit the chair.”
Even Arthur laughed then. “It’s safe to say no girl has ever been brave enough to do that before.”
“I feel bad now, though,” I said, hugging myself.
“Don’t.” Falcon guided me along with a hand to my shoulder blade. “He really did have that coming, Ara.”
“If it were me,” Arthur said, “I’d have thrown the steak.”
“Yeah, it was a bit tough tonight, wasn’t it?” Falcon agreed, both of them laughing again. But I couldn’t laugh. I didn’t even want to.
Chapter Twelve
The majesty of life made the ancient trees feel taller, the wind cooler, and the nakedness of my body pure and unsullied. I was never any freer or any more beautiful than when I left the confines of human convention behind and wandered under the great evergreens of the Enchanted Forest. Nothing changed about my physical appearance when I came here: my feet still connected with the earth, my toes sticking to the dewy leaves carpeting the floor, but somehow I just never felt quite as solid.
The night still owned this part of the forest, daylight only showing in small flickers here and there in the distance, or through waving leaves in the canopy above. The sun was well and truly up now, but my heart, I think, kept the forest shadowed, hiding things inside me that I wasn’t ready to awaken. Fears. Worries. Heartache.
I walked on, taking the long way to the stone altar, in no hurry today to get back to my life, but it came into sight up ahead before I expected: a simple grey boulder, seemingly unremarkable, yet as I reached the clearing, the warmth emanating off its surface, rising from the very core, reached out to greet me, healing broken parts of my soul in a way no other living thing could. Ideas and thoughts that had previously only been suspicions felt like shiny marbles behind glass partitions—finally visible. None of it looked as confusing. And while I hadn’t drawn any conclusions about the questions I asked when I came to visit the Mother, I did get the sense that they were leading me down the right track to the answer. Sometimes, Jase had told me once, reaching a conclusion is not so much about seeking the answer, but knowing which questions to ask.
“He always was a smart boy, that Jason.”
I looked down from the treetops to a pair of shiny black eyes, set on the sides of a very scaly face. “You.”
“No. Jason.”
“No, I mean, it’s you: you’re the one who was—”
“Guiding you on your Walk of Faith.”
“Who—” I stepped closer. “Who are you?”
It looked off to one side like it was exasperated, shifting its long body then from where rested on the Stone to an almost standing, kind of human position, changing, reshaping until wings popped out on its back and its body shrunk before my eyes, resembling a butterfly. “I am the mother of earth—of all life, young goddess. You’ve spoken with me many times.”
“But I’ve never seen your face.”
“And you are still yet to be allowed that privilege, Auress,” she said, changing again, her form wavering like heat on pavement at a distance, and when my eyelids shifted up from a blink, a tiny blue bird sat before me. “I have many faces. Some you have seen before, some you will see again.”
“Why have you come here today?” I asked.
“Child, you understand so little of the world you rule.” She looked around. “I have not come here today. I am in all things. I am life, breath, I am the trees and the grass. I am you.”
“Well, yeah, but what I meant is…” I walked a little closer. “Why have you chosen a physical form for me to address?”
“I am here to give an answer.”
“To what?”
“The question you just asked.”
“I asked a question?”
“Yes.” She leaped off the Stone with a graceful flap of her wing and appeared behind me as a butterfly again. “Follow me.”
“Where are we going?”
“To seek the answer.”
“What was the question?”
“When you see the answer, you may remember the question.”
I followed her, walking slowly through this sacred land, both of us greeting the birds and the bugs as we passed. When we came to the border where I left my clothes, the butterfly perched itself on a tree branch.
“Why are we here, Mother?”
“Look beyond the answer to find the question, Auress. You ask yourself this many times a day, and every visit to this forest has had the one question in mind, beneath all others.”
“How will I know if I’m asking the right question to the answer you give? And what is the answer?”
“Look up, Auress. The answer is staring at you.”
“Why do you do that?” Jase asked, leaning on a tree nearby with his arms folded.
“Oh, shit.” I covered my breasts with my hands, squatting down on the spot to hide the other bits I didn’t want him to see.
Jase laughed and appeared behind me, wrapping his over-shirt around my back. “Seriously? Why do you walk naked?”
“It’s. . .” I stood up, closing the shirt across my front. “Clothes are a distraction, sort of. When I’m naked, the, I guess, “voice of Nature” comes through so clearly. It’s almost like I can hear the whispers of the universe.”
“Kind of like why the Walk of Faith was always done naked?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, folding over a bit so the shirt covered any hair I wouldn’t normally show. “It’s out of respect, really, as if to hide your true form is to be ashamed of it.”
He bit his lips together, trying not to laugh. “And now you’ve lost your clothes?”
“Shut up, Jase.” I slapped his chest.
“Relax.” He laughed, jumping back a few steps. “I’ve already seen you naked.”
We stood there then, just looking at each other, and the longer we looked, the less naked I felt. I stood a little bit taller, letting my arms fall loosely to my sides.
Jase took a jagged breath as the shirt parted slightly and showed my milky white skin in places he didn’t usually see—just a thin line down the centre of my body, revealing the bone between my breasts, my belly button, and the apex of my thighs. And he wasn’t strong and noble and wise to me then; he looked scared and young, and so adorably timid I almost laughed.
“It doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to you,” I said.
“What?”
“Nakedness,” I said. “It’s not sexual for me. Not out here.”
He looked around the forest, nodding. “Can’t say I feel the same way.”
I smiled. “I’m sorry. No one was supposed to be around.”
He kept the nod going, clearly suffering under his external cool. “You’re right. I am suffering.” He took a few steps away and started digging under leaves and branches. “Let’s just find your clothes.”
“Jase?”
He looked up, a little shocked that I was suddenly behind him, and closed the shirt as he stood up right in front of me.
“Don’t be nervous around me.”
“Ara, I am in love you. It might not mean anything to you to be naked right in front of my eyes,” he said with a small laugh. “But it just makes me wanna hold you, and I can’t. I know that. I know it’s not right. I—”
“You don’t have to explain, Jase.” I lay my hand over his where it tightly capped the shirt closed. “I know how you feel about me. I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
He nodded, turning away. “Like I said, let’s just find your clothes, because I’m not really sure how much longer I can control myself, Ara.”
I wet my lips, shaking my head. “You don’t need control. You have honour.”
“Honour means nothing when I just wanna slide my hand inside that shirt, all the way along your soft, naked hips, and pull you in close—hold you until all that pain I know you’re feeling goes away or, at least, doesn’t hurt so bad.”
>
My skin practically left my body then and jumped into his arms. I wanted that so badly, too. But more than I wanted Jase, for once, I just wanted him to be David.
“I see.” He nodded, his whole face shadowed with a frown. “I. . .”
“Jase. I’m sorry.”
“It’s never changed, Ara.” He held both hands up when I went reached for him. “And I’m okay. I’m not mad at you, or anything. I just . . . it’s never gonna change, is it? Not even now you’re free to be mine?”
I slowly moved my head from side to side.
“Yeah,” he whispered so low I almost didn’t hear. “Guess I should’ve accepted that a long time ago.”
“Jase, wait,” I called, but he turned and walked away at human pace, without looking back.
The kitchen was quiet. All the staff were having lunch below the manor, my knights were all at training, and all my friends were off doing something of value. I sat at the table in the centre of the room, tapping my fingernails against the ceramic mug to make some noise and maybe blend out the loneliness I felt today, but it didn’t work. Mike’s brownies, however, did. Well, maybe not with the loneliness—I took another bite and closed my eyes to savour the flavour—but they at least gave me a second of joy. Eating something Mike made, I guess, was like going home to visit your parents after growing up and moving out.
“So you’re going to eat your problems,” David said, leaning in the doorway.
I threw the brownie down and wiped my mouth. “I didn’t know anyone was there.”
“Clearly.” He walked in. “That’s the fourth one you’ve eaten.”
I looked at the plate. Sure enough, I’d gobbled up pretty much the whole batch. “Guess I was hungry.”
“No, you weren’t.” He moved over and stood beside me, closer than he’d been to me in days. “You’re eating your problems, and it’s showing.”
“Showing?” I looked down, following his smug stare.
“Do think I’m the only one that’s noticed how fat you’ve gotten?”