by Rosette Lex
Crystal cleared her throat. “I’m a little more hung up on the whole ‘kidnapping’ aspect.”
The princess blinked at her. “Oh, right,” she said, with all the wonder of a child discovering something new. “But you’re with my brother,” she pointed out, as if that somehow made the situation any better.
“Gerralt’s just the sweetest, I promise you. You’ll love him, and Kelso’s a bit weird and we lose track of him occasionally because he decides he wants to be blond or a brunet or whatever, but he’s a dear one, too.”
Crystal brought one hand up to cover her mouth and faked a sneeze to keep herself from laughing. The sweetest. The man who had murdered four others, stolen Crystal away from her home, and nonchalantly informed her that they would be mating was apparently the sweetest. Suddenly, she really didn’t want to meet anyone else, if Gerralt passed as sweet.
“I really hope you’re right,” Crystal replied, doing her best to keep all traces of nervous laughter out of her voice.
Mellia patted her shoulder comfortingly. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.” She settled her hands on her hips. “Now, I’m sure you’ve got questions about this place!”
Crystal sighed. She didn’t think she would be getting home again—the odds of any of them helping her seemed slim, and she had no idea how she would work alien technology to get herself home—so she may as well educate herself.
“What’s this place called?” she asked after a moment, gesturing around at the towering walls surrounding the courtyard.
“Castle Trevelyan,” Mellia supplied pleasantly.
“That’s us.” She brought a hand to her chest as she said it. “Me and Gerralt, I mean. We’re clan Trevelyan. Well, we used to be. Clans aren’t really a thing anymore, ever since the populi were all united, but a lot of us still keep track of things like that.”
“Populi?” Crystal wondered. “Is that what your people are called?”
Mellia nodded quickly. “Right.”
“And you all have…gifts.” To say Crystal sounded dubious would perhaps be a bit of an understatement.
“Right!” Mellia confirmed once more.
“A lot of us get sort of generic telekinesis, but some of us get more unique ones.” She looked down at her hands, wiggling her gloved fingers.
“Between you and me, though, I’m pretty sure I’d take the generic gift.” She seemed the slightest bit melancholy as she said it, but only for a moment before she snapped back to normal.
“Anyway!” She curled one hand around Crystal’s elbow.
“You just come with me, and I’ll show you around the castle. Gods know it will never occur to Gerralt to do so, and he never lets me do anything important, anyway.”
It turned into an unexpectedly busy day, considering just how large Castle Trevelyan was. But she didn’t have to spend it with Gerralt, so Crystal would count that as a good thing.
Crystal knew the bed was comfortable. She had woken up on it that morning, after all. But really, she didn’t particularly care.
“I’m not sleeping with you,” she stated flatly, once she had changed into the sleep clothes that had been handed to her by Mellia.
She sat down on the chaise that sat near the window instead. “I’ll sleep over here, if it’s all the same to you.”
“You’re being irrational,” Gerralt groused, his patience almost visibly eroding away.
Crystal laughed sharply before she could help it. “Irrational?” she repeated incredulously. “You fucking kidnapped me, and the fact that I don’t want to cuddle with you is irrational?”
She fell into helpless laughter, bringing her hands up to hide her face, leaning over with her elbows on his knees as her shoulders trembled with her mirth. “Oh, my god,” she managed once the laughter died down.
“Have you ever actually met a woman you weren’t related to? I mean, I have to assume the answer is no, because if you have and this is still what you assume is the proper way to treat people, I’m going to almost feel sorry for you.”
Gerralt bristled like an angry dog as Crystal spoke, and he spat, “I am a king—“
“And you’re a spoiled brat!” Crystal shot back, refusing to let him finish.
“I don’t care if you’re a king, and I don’t care if you actually believe ‘I touched it so it’s mine.’ My body is mine, and you aren’t allowed to touch it, whether I’m awake or asleep.”
Gerralt gaped at her, looking a bit like someone had decided to slap him across the face with a rancid fish. If he had anything to say, though, Crystal wasn’t in the mood to hear it.
She picked up the pillow that was on the chaise, lied down, and rolled over so her back was to Gerralt. Then, just to make sure it was incredibly clear that she was done, she covered her head with the pillow.
She pulled her knees in close and clamped one arm over the pillow, holding it in place over her head. If Gerralt was going to argue before, he evidently decided not to, as he said nothing else, and Crystal could just barely hear his muffled footsteps walking away.
Crystal stared into the darkness past the edge of the pillow. On one hand, sleeping would make time pass faster. On the other hand, who knew what might happen while she was asleep? Perhaps, she would only wake up to find her life back to normal. The nightmare would end and she would be resting in her own home, in her very own planet. But she could only stare at the wall for so long before the room started to grow hazy, and soon enough her eyes were closing.
She dreamed of blood and wolves tearing each other apart, while a deity stood in the middle and laughed. She wasn’t sure if it was a nightmare or not.
Chapter Three
When Crystal woke up, she was alone, and someone had draped a sheet over her. Her purse was still sitting on the vanity, but the crown was gone, so she was going to take that as a sign that Gerralt would be busy for quite a while. Good.
She found clothing sitting on the end of the chaise, and she stripped out of the sleepwear and dressed quickly, pausing for only a moment to look at herself in the mirror. The top was sleeveless, loose, and flowing, with a heavy gold chain in place of any sort of shirt collar. The fabric was pale gold and nearly sheer, though she supposed that made sense, given the heat. The skirt was less transparent, and a darker shade of gold, but no less flow-y. Longer in the back than in the front, it floated dramatically behind her as she moved.
As for the shoes…well, they were less like shoes and more like slip-on slippers. She stepped into them, grabbed her purse, and stepped out of the room.
Servants and workers watched her curiously as she strode through the towering corridors at a brisk walk, following the path as closely as she could remember from the impromptu tour the day before.
By some stroke of luck, they left her alone. Perhaps they didn’t want to risk angering their king, she supposed. It meant her path to the servant’s entrance was mostly clear, and in less than fifteen minutes, she was outside (and most of that time was just spent jogging down flights of stairs).
The air was close and hot, and Crystal paused outside the door and fanned herself with her purse, giving herself a few moments to adjust to the heat at least a little bit. She would probably be sunburned to Hell and back by the time the sun set, but she would tan eventually, and really, she had to assume there were worse things in life than a vague possibility of skin cancer.
She didn’t stop for long. Within a couple minutes, she pushed herself away from the wall and started walking. She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t even know what she was going to find. But wherever she wound up and whatever she stumbled upon, at least she would be away from Gerralt.
Her resolve hardening, she put one foot in front of the other and slowly left the castle and its king behind.
The water flowed calmly, and Crystal sat beside the stream, her feet in the water, her shoes in her lap, and her skirt gathered to keep it dry. She watched Beta Hydri’s reflection on the stream’s surface, occasionally dragging her fingers through
it, as if disrupting the reflection would somehow make it go away, somehow turn it into Sol.
Something similar to a butterfly fluttered past, but with six wings and too many eyes. Its translucent wings cast the stream below in rainbow colors, and at last Crystal looked up to watch it leave, admiring the way it bobbed through the air.
A bird landed on the branch of a tree over Crystal’s head, where it sat and stared at her for a moment before it flapped down to the ground. It settled on the opposite side of the stream, and then it was close enough for Crystal to realize it wasn’t exactly a bird, as she knew.
It had feathers and wings, true, but rather than a beak it had a scaly face and a toothy snout. Small, clawed hands protruded from the joints of its wings, and it had a long, scaly tail with a tuft of feathers at the end. It was also nearly the size of a red tailed hawk. Despite its unsettling teeth and size, though, it was still pretty. It had bright, bead-like eyes and its feathers would put a bird of paradise to shame.
It stared up at her with glittering eyes, and then it chirped and promptly darted its head down into the water, snatching up a small, shimmering fish and devouring it before it flew away. Crystal couldn’t help but think of the gulls that danced in the under toe on the beach, and slowly her eyes began to well up, until the tears spilled over and fell down her cheeks.
She leaned over, her elbows settling on her thighs and her hands hiding her face. She sniffled quietly at first, but within only a couple minutes, she was sobbing into her hands.
She was never going to get home. Earth was light years away, and the friendliest person she had met on this planet didn’t seem to see any issues with Gerralt being a kidnapper.
Crystal was never going to get to see her cottage, her beach, or the bar again. She would never get to talk to her friends again. She didn’t even know what Gerralt was going to do to her, or how long he would humor her saying no before he decided to press matters.
So what was she supposed to do? She didn’t know how to hunt. She didn’t know what plants might make her sick or even kill her. She didn’t know how to ward off heatstroke.
Getting away from the castle was all well and good, but she couldn’t stay gone. Not when she had all the survival skills of a concussed kiwi. She would have to go back to the castle, and soon.
So she did the only thing she could do at that point, that she refused to do in front of Gerralt. She pulled her knees up close to her chest, hid her face against her legs, and wrapped her arms around herself as if to hide, and she sobbed, pouring out her despair where only the trees, the flowers, and the birds could hear her.
The entire world could have broken apart and gone crumbling into the too close, foreign sun and at that point Crystal most likely would not have even noticed (after all, she doubted if it could get much hotter).
She didn’t hear the footsteps behind her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand landed gently on her shoulder. Crystal’s head jerked up from where it was tucked against her knees, and she quickly scrubbed one hand over her eyes.
“I am not Gerralt,” the man informed her, his words stiffer than the king’s and his accent stronger.
Thus appeased (mildly), Crystal looked up into Kelso’s now-red gaze, and she blinked up at him.
“Came to drag me back?” she asked quietly, her voice still soggy.
“Dragging seems drastic,” he replied, “so I think I would prefer to simply escort you.”
Crystal hugged her knees closer to her chest and rested her chin on top of them, her gaze falling back to the stream. “Gerralt sent you, I take it?”
She heard Kelso shift beside her and watched his shadow clasp his hands together behind his back.
“He did ask me to keep an eye on you when I am not otherwise occupied with him, but beyond that, he does not actually know you left,” he replied.
Crystal looked up sharply. “You didn’t tell him?”
“He would have been displeased,” Kelso replied simply. “It would be better for all involved if we were spared one of his temper tantrums.”
Crystal snorted, but there was little humor behind it. “So if you know what he’s like, why not just let me go?” she asked. “It would certainly be better for me.”
He rolled his eyes. “You are foreign here; leaving you in the woods would not benefit you. Besides, I do know what he is like. You do not.” Irritation crept into his voice.
“I acknowledge his temper, but he is a good man. He is the reason I am alive.”
Crystal slapped at the water with one hand, droplets flying up in all directions. Her voice rose sharply as she demanded, “Why doesn’t anyone think it’s wrong that he fucking abducted me? I’m never going to see my home again, and it’s his fault! Is that just how things are done here?”
Kelso sighed, and his tone was softer when he replied.
“He went about it wrong, but no one here is under any sort of misconception that your life on Earth would be better. Familiar, perhaps, but that is not the same.”
“Care to explain why?” Crystal grumbled towards the ground.
“Earth is…simple,” Kelso replied after a moment.
“Riddled with rabid creatures, diseases you have not yet found ways to treat, and monsters that crawl through the night. You would have died had he not found you. You are to be our king’s mate—the one who will complete him—so why would we lament you being taken away from such a place?” He shook his head slightly.
“It should have been handled differently, but I will not say that it should not have happened at all.”
Crystal squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth. So they weren’t just being callous. They truly did believe it was for the best. That…didn’t actually help Crystal’s situation at all. She was still stuck. She was still largely alone. Now she just couldn’t justify hating everyone around her.
“What if I don’t want to be his mate?” she asked, her voice petulant even to her own ears. “Why can’t he just pick someone else?”
“That is not how it works,” Kelso returned gently.
“So explain it to me,” she snapped in reply. “At least tell me why I’m stuck here. I deserve that much.”
“You are familiar with the term ‘mates for life,’ I would assume,” Kelso said. “It is a similar concept, but it does not begin with intercourse. It begins with time; a true mate is destined, and everyone has only one destined mate.”
Crystal was quiet for a moment, before she asked, “What if someone doesn’t find theirs?” If someone’s soul mate could be on a completely different planet, she had to assume there were a lot of populi who had never met theirs.”
“Then they make do with who they have,” Kelso answered simply, “and they ignore the hole in their souls.”
Crystal fell silent once more, staring at the stream, watching the way Beta Hydri’s light reflected off of it. She was a simple girl. She liked simple things. She didn’t want to be as important as these people were making her out to be. She just wanted to live her life and be happy.
But the idea that her version of happiness could directly deprive someone of their own…it didn’t sit well with her. Besides, she could find other ways to be happy. Someone couldn’t just replace a piece of their soul, though.
Maybe the castle would grow on her, eventually, if she gave it time to. Maybe Gerralt would grow on her, if she managed to get him to understand that he couldn’t make decisions about her body. Maybe she could find the man that Kelso and Mellia knew. But that all meant getting up, getting out of the woods, and going back to Castle Trevelyan. She supposed it was time to head back.
As if he had read her mind, Kelso offered her a hand.
“Shall we return?” he wondered. “It will most likely be best if you return before you are too burned.”
Well, that was a good point, at least. Her shoulders were already starting to itch. She accepted his offered hand and let him pull her to her feet, and she fell into step beside him as he began walking back
to the castle.
They walked in silence, Crystal’s mind busy chasing itself in circles. She didn’t know what she was going to do, or even what she wanted to do (well, alright, she wanted to go home, but that option was off the table, for various reasons). Everything was just…wrong.
Chapter Four
When Crystal awoke the next morning, Gerralt was still asleep, his face mashed against his pillow and one arm hanging off of the bed. When he wasn’t awake to glower or furrow his brow, his sharp features softened somewhat.
While he did look a bit silly, Crystal couldn’t help but stare. He really was quite attractive. Soon enough, though, he began to stir, and Crystal pulled her attention away from him before he could catch her staring, to instead focus on getting dressed for the day.
She could feel Gerralt’s eyes on her as she stripped and dressed, but she wasn’t going to hide. Whether she would actually give him a chance or not was up in the air, but she wasn’t going to act as if she was doing something shameful just by going through the day’s motions.
By the time she dressed and turned back around, though, Gerralt was gone, and Mellia was standing by the door. Crystal couldn’t even bring herself to be surprised.
“Where does he go, anyway?” she asked, staring at the empty bed.
“The throne room or the court room, usually,” Mellia answered. She gestured for Crystal to follow her out of the room, and then simply took her by the hand instead.
“It’s a bit odd for anyone to be in there without a specific reason, so I guess you’re stuck with me,” she added cheerfully.
“Let’s go get food!”
Breakfast with Mellia and Kelso was a simple but decadent affair. Colorful, sweet-smelling fruits. Sugar-glazed rolls sprinkled in seeds that tasted like Crystal’s limited experiences with sweet clover. A sweet, crackling beverage that left Crystal feeling as if she would never need to sleep again. She was beginning to assume the entire planet had a massive sweet tooth.
From breakfast, they went out into the courtyard, where Mellia insisted on disappearing into the maze and forcing Crystal and Kelso to track her down. She pouted when they found her surprisingly quickly—left and right were still left and right, regardless of the planet, so the ‘only make left turns’ trick was still valid—and then insisted that Crystal hide.