by Amanda Daul
If she was going to be completely honest with herself, she realized that she didn’t even miss Cayl. It was clear their relationship was badly damaged, possibly to the point beyond repair, but she couldn’t help that. He had been out of line when he had told her she didn’t care about her family. She had already felt bad enough about being a virtual stranger to Janelle, Cayl had only made her feel worse about it ever since they were reunited. They both changed during the months of their forced separation and ever since, Arissa felt like he was a stranger every time she looked at him. She couldn’t blame either of them, what with everything going on around them. This land was not made for happy endings. Healthy relationships and united families were not possible here, especially with a war threatening to erupt all over again.
It was not the thought of her marriage ending that saddened her. It was knowing that her time was limited and there was no way of knowing exactly what was going to happen at any time. Everything in her just wanted to see her daughter again, regardless of how painful it had been to leave her the first time. She was still furious and lately had felt so detached from Cayl that the thought of not seeing him was a more pleasing thought than confronting him again. Her time was better spent out here rather than arguing a useless, empty fight with Cayl that would lead nowhere and fix nothing.
What was the most annoying was that Arissa had not bothered to contemplate any of this until she had heard Trax’s comment the night before about her decision to marry Cayl in the first place. The weeks surrounding their wedding, including meeting him for the first time, was not a time Arissa liked to recall.
A soft rustle beside her only partially pulled her from her reverie. Her glistening eyes were still fixated into the dark space ahead, not bothering to turn to face her new company. She already knew who it was, but oddly, she wasn’t annoyed. Being around Trax had actually made her relax the night before, maybe his presence would occupy her enough this time to save her from her own misery.
“You know, your silence all day is disturbingly uncharacteristic,” he said so quietly, each word laced heavily with his lilting accent. “I think the others are scared of you.”
This was the worst time he could have chosen to accompany her. All day, she had been able to conceal her battling emotions, but now she felt so tired and weakened by the struggle that all she wanted was to let them break free. However, she had never released her emotions in front of anyone before and she would be damned if she would start now, especially with Trax.
It was taking her longer than she had hoped to swallow the hot lump in her throat and hoped that he hadn’t noticed her cracked moment. Obviously, he had, because his next remark had Arissa’s walls trembling again, threatening to break.
“It’s clear I don’t know a lot about you, Arissa, but you don’t know very much about me, either. So for the sake of the moment, I ask that you look past your aversions and trust that I know what I’m talking about,” he began. The way he sat next to her had Arissa preoccupied enough. He gave her space, close enough to be within reach, but with an evident gap between them. Arissa still had not met his gaze and now with his impending words looming between them, she felt even more encouraged to hide her expression as casually as possible.
“You miss him,” he said simply, neither a question nor a concern. There was actually a thread of envy in his voice and instantly, Arissa felt her walls crack despite her attempts to ignore the comfort that he always seemed to bring with him.
“No,” she answered too quickly. Her eyes were still focused on the empty, dusky air around them. “I don’t miss him.”
Her emphasis on the word told Trax exactly what she was thinking. Truthfully, she didn’t miss Cayl. She felt bad that he had been caught in the middle of something he had nothing to do with and never should have been associated to in the first place, but she couldn’t spend her time worrying about Cayl even if she wanted to. It was Janelle she was aching for. Thinking about her jerked an audible sob from her throat that she had tried so hard to repress, a motion that she didn’t even try to hide. If Arissa allowed herself to feel guilt or remorse or longing for her daughter, she would not survive this and it was for that reason that she had to try her best to sever her heartache.
Whether he understood what was in her mind or he simply didn’t realize the crumbling effect he seemed to have over her, his voice was suddenly present again and Arissa found herself aberrantly clinging to his words. For the moment, she didn’t even mind that is was Trax who was currently serving as a safe zone for her.
“It’s hard leaving behind something you truly care about, no matter what you try to tell yourself. I won’t burden you with specifics, but just know that I have been where you are. In a matter of speaking,” he added. He lacked the tones that usually made their conversations exhausting and tiresome, dragged out by flirtatious comments and innuendos. Every word he spoke was more serious beyond what Arissa previously believed him to be capable of executing. “We aren’t that far from Daer. A few hours away, at best. You should go to them, Arissa. I think the best thing for us to do here is to just monitor the General for a few days. It may be our best chance of finding out where the Lieutenant is. The men and I can handle that, it’s more important that you take care of whatever you need to and put your worries to bed. You have a chance to go and reconcile with him.”
It took Arissa a moment to process, both the sheer urgency of his words and the fact that it was Trax who was speaking them. It was so unlike him to say, it sounded like he was actually concerned for her, like he really wanted to be able to help her deal with the disaster that was her personal life, no matter how unimportant it really was in their present situation.
“I can’t,” she whispered, sadness and despair choking her words.
His reply was more powerful than she expected. “No, you can! You just won’t. Why? If you don’t, you’ll be miserable for the rest of what could very well be your short life. So why then?”
It wasn’t that he was angry with her, but the desperate push in his words finally made Arissa snap from the silent stupor she had been in and for the first time, she turned to glare at him, ignoring the new wetness in her eyes.
“If you must know, I already walked away from my family once! I am not strong enough to do it again.” Her words had started off potent and direct, but as she had went on, they became drier, filled with emotion, and she was suddenly dangerously close to the edge of breaking. Exhaustion was overpowering her quickly and all she wanted was to rest with no thoughts to plague her mind.
Arissa’s eyes had not left Trax’s yet, just visible in the fading daylight. “I can’t go back. When I left Daer the last time, I made it very clear that I had no intentions of returning.”
“Considering your last encounter with the beloved, I can’t help but feel that it wasn’t clear enough for him.”
Reconciling with Cayl was not on her list of present desires, though she still felt as if she owed it to him. The last thing she wanted to do was leave for Daer when they were this close to the General, knowing what was waiting for her. Nothing except a heated argument and more desperate, heartbreaking departures would become of it, but if what Trax had said was true and it would put her preoccupations to rest, perhaps it would be worth it. Then she could fully focus on her true mission.
A part of her overworked mind was preventing her from fully contemplating what to do and coming up with a final decision and the reason for the distraction was still sitting inches away from her. Between Trax’s uncharacteristically serious interference and her own abnormal moment of weakness, she was thoroughly confused.
“Go, Arissa. You’ve trusted me with the camp before, I promise nothing will happen here while you are gone. It could take weeks to find the Lieutenant. One more day isn’t going to change history.”
Her eyes had fallen from his for a few moments, but now she snapped back into focus, watching the depths of his seemingly endless blue eyes lock on hers.
“Why are you
doing this for me?”
Now it was Trax’s turn to finally break their eye contact and clear his throat, somewhat nervously, before replying. His heavy accent was back in place, a smooth and captivating cadence as he spoke. “I’ve noticed you’ve been preoccupied, differently than usual and it wasn’t hard to figure out what it was. I’m guessing it had something to do with our encounter with the General yesterday. In that moment, everything suddenly became too real and you realized that you had things that you needed to accept and resolve before it was too late. At least...that’s how it was for me.”
Narrowing her eyes slightly in curiosity and appreciation, Arissa mused, quietly to match his own tones, “What do you have that you need to accept and resolve?”
“It’s not important. What is important is that you are able to walk away from your family knowing that you’ve done right by them. This time you can work out what it is you need to before returning to whatever is about to happen out here.” He paused for a moment, almost awkwardly, but then blinked slowly, lifting his darkened gaze to meet hers once more. Simultaneously, he reached out and covered her right hand that had been resting on her bent knee with his own palm, absorbing her startled flinch with a firm, warm grasp. “Trust me, Arissa. You don’t want to have to live with knowing you were too late to fix something you could have.”
So naturally and unexpectedly that it almost scared Arissa, she smiled. Through all her pain and anguish, despair and reservations about Trax’s friendship, she actually cracked a wide grin to him, welcoming his own in return. She was suddenly very aware of his hand over her own, but instead of pulling away or snapping a crude insult to him, she let the touch linger an extra moment, revelling in the hot feeling of serenity charging through her that she had never felt before. It was new and foreign and above everything else that she should currently be considering, it thrilled her on an unexplored level that she was tempted to follow.
“Thank you, Trax.”
Chapter Fifteen
All the while that Arissa was riding toward Daer, she was waiting for the logical part of her brain to suddenly wake up and realize that she couldn’t go through with this. Trax had somehow talked her into leaving him with the men for an extra day and she had set out for Daer immediately after rising from her place on the knoll where he had joined her. She wanted to see Janelle, but she was afraid to. The same way she was afraid to face Cayl again, she knew this time would be the hardest departure of all. Saying goodbye for a final time to Janelle and the inevitable fight with Cayl was going to exhaust her and come dangerously close to breaking her, she knew, but whatever hidden tones in Trax’s voice had convinced her, and in no time she had found herself gazing down at the manor that she had once dared to call home, though it had never truly felt like it.
The last time she had seen the oversized house that she and Cayl had lived in for the past ten years was when he was still in the hands of the General. Nearing defeat, she had knowingly walked straight into a deadly trap, her discouragement almost overpowering her and resulted in her near execution before Trax’s militia group had interfered. The incident felt like it had happened months ago.
Her footsteps echoed through the huge opening foyer, empty. She had been torn about what to do. Wanting to prolong the ugly confrontation with her husband as long as possible, Arissa stealthily stole into the nursery. The moment her eyes fell on the sleeping child in the crib lined with crisp white fabric, her chest tightened and her throat jerked, threatening to burst with sobs already.
As much as she was tempted, she didn’t step inside the room to be closer to Janelle. Staring at the sleeping baby wasn’t near enough to quench the longing that was consuming her, but it was all she could allow. She couldn’t make this harder than it had to be. Again.
Unaware of how much time has passed while she studied every smooth plane of the peaceful face of the daughter she never got the chance to know, she knew it had been a while before she finally choked back the last sob blocking her throat. Turning away from the open door, knowing this was probably the last time she would ever see her daughter, Arissa intended to rush down the hall to the grand bedroom she had previously shared with Cayl. She wanted this over as quickly as possible so she could leave once and for all. When she was alone and riding through the forest back to Trax, she could let herself release the tears that were already struggling to escape.
No. I’m not going back for Trax, she mentally corrected herself. The way she had first heard the thought in her mind, it had sounded as if she was returning simply because Trax was there. That was preposterous, absolutely ridiculous. She was returning to their small militia to continue tracking the General. That’s all.
Why she needed to spend an extra moment convincing herself of that was annoyingly unclear to her.
She had only taken a few steps into the hall before she stopped short, her expression falling into one of an emotionless gaze, not physically showing her dread and surprise.
Cayl was standing in the middle of the hall in front of her, his face completely shocked. He wore a dark fitted shirt that was fully buttoned and held a thin book with a weathered cover in his hand. His posture made it clear that the last thing he expected to find standing outside his daughter’s nursery was his wife.
Neither of them said anything for a moment, waiting for the other to speak. In the next moment, Cayl’s perplexed expression melted into a wide grin and he quickly advanced to her. Arissa immediately realized what he thought this was. He thought she had come back to make up with him and apologize for exiling him from her and Trax’s hidden encampment.
Hurt and confusion was just as obvious in his expression when Arissa quickly stepped to the side to dodge his embrace. She wasn’t about to get physical with him now, for the sake of making her departure painfully clear to him. Even if that wasn’t the case, she had no desire to feel closer to Cayl, not after everything she’s been feeling about him lately. She couldn’t exactly put her finger on what it was, but something was telling her that her marriage was as good as over. The really strange part that seemed to bother her the most though, was that she didn’t care. It didn’t upset her that the man who had been with her for ten years no longer held any interest for her, romantic or otherwise. Now it felt as if he was simply there, but everything he did now only irritated or hindered her. A marriage with a person she didn’t care for didn’t have a chance. He had to know how she felt by now, but even if he didn’t, she wouldn’t leave him a choice now but to accept her leaving.
He began to speak, but before he could get any of his long awaited words out, she silenced him, motioning for him to follow her to the grand foyer so as not to wake Janelle. The second the door had closed, Cayl’s angered and distraught shouts filled the room.
“The woman I married would not give up this easily. You’re not even trying, you’re running away!” he spat out furiously, a while later.
It seemed like it had taken hours just to reach this futile point and may have actually been that long, she wasn’t sure. Arissa had barely said anything yet, but now she was beyond annoyed.
“I am not the same woman you married ten years ago! She’s gone, Cayl! We have been through this argument before and I am not going over it again! This isn’t why I came back.”
They barely made eye contact since first meeting in the hall. Arissa was too exhausted and exasperated to spend her energy pacing like Cayl was, and she remained in the middle of the huge, open floor with the straight staircase. He was pacing and fidgeting the whole time, threading his fingers through his already disrupted hair and clenching his hands into tight fists, tense and frustrated. Only after her last statement did he finally stop and meet her eyes. Throwing his hands up in the air, he let them fall at his sides, the sound of them hitting the sides of his legs the only sound in the room for a short moment.
“Then why did you come back? Why are you here, Arissa?” he shouted, spacing his words and glaring at her more fiercely than he ever had. His green eyes were d
arkened and only now did Arissa notice that the heavy drapes had been pulled across the huge windows all around the house, the reason for the limited lighting. She had been in such a hurry to see Janelle that the windows had been the last thing she was paying attention to.
It took her a moment to answer. She was about to blurt out the real reason before she caught herself and stuttered instead, hesitant and awkward. Telling Cayl that Trax was the only reason she was there would not end well, no matter which direction the argument went. The mutual detest between the two men was obvious to Arissa, rivalling even her own disconcerted opinion towards Trax, but she had admitted to herself that he wasn’t entirely who she thought he was. Who he really was had yet to be determined, but for now, she didn’t want to be the one to bring him into the conversation. However, by her delayed response and Cayl’s sudden expression of realization, she knew exactly what he was thinking.
Before he could stop her, she exclaimed suddenly, “He’s not the reason, Cayl. Whatever situation you have going on in your head is wrong.”
“None of this happened until you met him.” His voice was so distorted, but Arissa couldn’t hear a clear emotion. It sounded angry, hurt and desperate all at the same time while his eyes were pleading with her.
“Trax and I...we are working together, Cayl. Right now we are the only ones with an advantage over the General and we have to take it. The world can’t keep going on like this, it needs to end.” Her words sounded unusually monotone, whether it was from her efforts to sound convincing or the heavy dread that weighed on her, begging for this conversation to end.
He wasn’t convinced, she knew. She was also aware of how much time she had spent in this room, listening to the argument basically repeating itself in circles, just as she had predicted it would. Surprised that it had taken this long for him to bring up the one person she did not want to think about right now, Arissa knew she had to find a way to cut their meeting. She had to get back to where she had left the camp, already wasting too much time as it was. Nothing had been fixed between her and Cayl, but she honestly had not expected anything to be mended. At this point, the mistrust was too obvious and they were both better off knowing that the life they had once known was not coming back. She knew he was just delaying saying the words out loud, even though it was clear that he was thinking it.