by Lisa Daniels
Winifred gave a rather morose stare at Mika, who winked in a roguish manner, before blurring into his gigantic werewolf form—bigger than even Mordred's. Kiara shoved the necklace into the soft ground nearby, the light vanishing forever. She let her shield vanish as well. Mordred hugged her side, helping her to clamber on. Winifred did the same.
“You know,” Kiara said, now feeling herself lurch with Mordred's movements, “we were doing perfectly fine before you two came here. I bet we would have made it back, no problem.”
Mordred let out a bark that sounded a little like laughter, before he lunged forward, forcing Kiara to grip into his fur hard to avoid flying off.
Honestly, the sensation of not being able to see a dark-cursed thing, not the mount she rode nor the ground they rushed past—it sent fingers of terror down her spine.
They really could have done it, though. As long as Winifred kept her illusions going strong, no matter how many creatures they attracted.
The werewolves seemed to know exactly where to step in the darkness. Using senses too weak in humans, along with bodies far stronger and more agile.
It didn't take them long to return to civilization on the fast forms of the werewolves. They took a different path, avoiding the bustle of the city, loping fast through an intricate set of underground tunnels, which led towards the inner workings of the palace. They finally stopped at a set of doors guarded by a brown-furred werewolf, who promptly stood aside, admitting them in. Now they entered the palace, but a different floor to what Kiara was used to.
Corridors that appeared entirely dominated by the “gods” of Kanthus, which made Winifred hide more in Mika's shoulders. Both women needed to slide off, however, and Winifred squeezed her eyes shut again as the werewolves transformed.
“Just wait until I find and punish the miscreants who did this,” Mordred said with a deep snarl. “Thinking that they could get away with such an act. Stealing and trying to kill my wife.” He put emphasis on the last word, which gave Kiara a detached, odd feeling.
Grateful as she might be for the lift back to Kanthus, she still didn't know what to make of the fact she was, well. Married. Without ceremony. Without warning.
Kiara separated from Winifred, but not before the redhead found the time to hand over the book bought earlier. She clutched it in one hand and found herself steered to Mordred's quarters, where he gave her full run of the bathroom, of his bed, attempting to settle her down after her exhausting ordeal.
He really wanted to play the part of husband, it seemed. She placed the book with the others on his ripple-covered bookshelf, though it appeared at odds with the tougher, manlier titles that existed.
“Now,” Mordred said, tossing a blanket over her, offering to make a hot drink, and generally acting like a caring person, “you're going to tell me everything that happened.”
She did.
With a little flair, perhaps, and a cracked voice—but she told him everything, from her market stall adventure that led to the abduction, to using Winifred's cats as a distraction.
Wishing, as well, she hadn't been stupid enough to wander off so far without protection.
When she finished, he rested a soft hand on her shoulder, and she shivered from the touch. Remembering the power of his form, of the darkness rushing by her.
“I'm sorry you had to go through that. Annoyed, as well, because you really shouldn't have gone to the main city without protection.”
“No one,” Kiara said, wringing her hands, “bothers to tell me anything. Winifred didn't think to mention it until too late. Or try to stop me when I ended up going too far off the streets. Or telling me how marriage actually works here. And until someone thinks to tell me, I'm probably going to keep blundering along until I destroy this alliance! I've been here three nights, Mordred. How much longer until I land myself in another situation where there's no way out?” The frustration and fear left her throat, betraying the wish to keep such things secret. Not many things stayed silent when they pushed against her, scraping to be let out.
Being herself just sometimes became too much. If only she didn't have such scattered thoughts. If she could just do things normally, like everyone expected her to. Instead of having some bizarre power that everyone claimed she shouldn't. Of having Winifred's eyes widen, her mouth at a loss for words, and the guarded expressions of the members of court. Of watching their faces cloud over when she tried to entertain them, but risked everything in the process.
It seemed like a great idea at the time.
All her impulses did.
The werewolf now pressed both his hands into her shoulders. She wanted to push him away for a brief moment, to not allow him to touch her in this intimate manner. But, truthfully, she missed such tenderness. She missed the closeness of her friends, her sister, her mother. Though her mother stopped giving out hugs when Fjorn needed to see her as a proper young lady. She missed just being held, and found herself leaning into the touch instead, giving in to her exhaustion.
Mordred gathered her then into his arms, letting her head rest against his chest. “Look,” he said, stroking her hair, “I promise you that you won't need to worry about such things.”
“How can I,” she said, voice cracking, and a few stubborn tears now welling up under her eyes, “when I can't even sleep well at night? I'm just going to mess up again.”
Drat. She didn't usually blub like this, but right now, she just wanted the world to go away. To have all the expectations just stop, just like she had always wanted.
In a way, she grieved for her old life. And feared for her new one. It didn't matter that according to the Kanthians, she was now married. She didn't feel it. The words didn't mean anything. Everything here... just felt like a false life.
Well, aside from the being kidnapped and dumped out in the middle of hostile territory and dancing a little too closely with death. That was pretty real. Also the whole werewolf thing, getting sort of rescued (though she still believed they would have done it alone), and being hugged by Mordred.
The feelings all crashed, confusing, making her unsure whether she needed to cry, scream, or laugh. Maybe a combination of the three.
“You know, if you're having issues sleeping, you can tell us. Any of the servants, me... it's possible to get some help for that.”
“I don't think so.” Kiara decided to settle on a little bit of tears, and then she extricated herself from his arms, dabbing her wet cheeks on her sleeve. “I'm not completely honest about the sleeping thing, either. I usually have issues with it.”
“So how do you deal with it?” He gave her such a serious look then. As if he earnestly wanted to help her. She wiped her nose in an unladylike manner.
Then, shyer than she normally acted, she admitted, “Sometimes with some music playing in the background—the court minstrels would play for me. And sometimes by having someone read a story for me. Having something else going on helps my brain to stop being so... whatever it is. And sleep.”
Mordred nodded. For a person who hid such a monstrous creature under his skin, he acted so, well... considerate. Kiara didn't know what to make of it, except she certainly didn't expect this.
Not from a nation of people about whom she’d heard countless rumors, people who were supposed to practise ritual sacrifice and worship hideous monsters. Mordred might hide something like that in him, but he did have full control of it. And the werewolves like him were worshipped, sure.
Good reason to do so, however. With that kind of power, no wonder Kanthus had protected its borders for so long.
“Tell you what. If you want to sleep here again, I can read to you. I may not have the best reader's voice, but it's a start, right?”
The offer made Kiara's heart pulse in a pathetic, happy way. “Please.”
Mordred gave her a little smile before going to the bookshelf and picking out that terrible romance book bought earlier. “This one? Really?”
“I bet it's a classic,” Kiara said, before being guid
ed to Mordred's bed. He dragged a chair to sit beside her, and his glow-necklace helped illuminate the page perfectly. “It's probably one of the best Kanthian books...” she yawned, “ever written.”
“My heart's desire has always been to be married to a rich man, one who can take care of me until I grow old, and love me always,” Mordred began. “Do you want to retract that ‘best Kanthian book’ statement?”
“Oh no! Keep reading. I bet it gets so much better.” Kiara suppressed a grin, though trying to shut down that unexpected, giddy feeling inside proved difficult.
Because out of all the things she expected from the world—she didn't expect a werewolf to offer to read for her. To help her sleep.
She closed her eyes, listening to his voice, which slowly tumbled over the first few pages of the story. It sounded awful, but that wasn't the point. It helped to have that voice, quiet and soothing, letting her slip off into a pleasant sleep.
Chapter Six
The reading became a habit. A good one, which stopped her from struggling to sleep at night. If Mordred couldn't do it, Winifred took over instead. Both had a different way of delivering the words. Mordred preferred a soft, almost growl to his voice as he read, and he had less expression for the dialogue. Winifred, on the other hand, loved putting on different voices, though it did mean that sometimes Kiara got jerked away when Winifred became too excited over the material in her hands.
She should have known Winifred would like the books, despite her constant complaining about how mushy they were.
With the new pattern in her life, over the course of her next few months staying in the palace, she tried hard to stomp out the debacle of her first few days, and the miseries of her travel when she first realized that her father planned to sell her off to another nation. All for the price of a tenuous alliance, with a high chance of being sabotaged by her. And probably because he intended to marry Bethany off to someone beneficial. Someone whose help they absolutely needed. Kiara to her father was a shot in the dark.
A necessary choice. A disposable princess.
Though she knew it to be the truth, that didn't make it any easier to digest. It made it hard, simply because she didn't like to think of herself as that. Even though, in a way, she'd been working her entire life to be unimportant.
So unimportant, it seemed, that she'd alienated most of the people who should have cared for her.
True to his word, Mordred never pushed her into doing something she didn't want. It allowed her time to adjust to the oddities of Kanthus, to send letters home to her family at last, and to associate more with the servants and the Highborn of the domes. She needed a connection to home, somehow. In the vain hope that she'd discover that people did miss her, that they did care.
People still didn't really like her in Kanthus, though Vasha always made a point to share a little gossip. Vasha and Winifred and Mordred together didn't fill the void inside.
Still, some good things came out of the chaos. The one thing that seemed to baffle absolutely everyone was the fact that Kiara could manifest light into something solid. She still couldn't do any of the other basic stuff, even after a month of Winifred and a few curious lightweavers attempting to teach her—but the oddity of her weaving even attracted attention from one of the most distant human nations in existence—the realm of Nos, a nation mostly comprised of scholars and researchers who enjoyed collecting information about the times before. They had sent her a formal invitation to attend their great kingdom, which Mordred recommended she not take up.
“They just want to find a way to steal the weaving off you. That kind of lightweaving could turn the tide of battle if they discovered how to mass produce it. Speaking of mass producing... how's the weaving going?” At this point, she had been walking with him in the domes, examining each of the unique plant species that grew beyond the rope barriers.
“Badly,” Kiara had admitted. She could only manifest the solid objects for a short amount of time—as long as her concentration permitted. Which meant that she couldn't theoretically produce more of her blobby shields, or any weapons to go with it. Mordred still hadn't found the ones responsible for trying to kill his wife, though he did usher out a decree that if anyone so much as looked at Kiara wrong, they'd incur his wrath. Nice of him, really.
She didn't like the pressure this power of hers placed on herself. People expected her to do amazing things, and acted shocked when they realized she couldn't even manage the basics.
She did, however, like Mordred's attentions. The way he always checked in on her, every single day, making sure everything functioned well. He even helped Kiara get more of those stupid romance books, since the princess had now started reading them in a guilty-pleasure mindset.
He introduced her to his father and mother, both yellow-eyed, intimidating people who looked as if they wanted to eat her up if she so much as said a bad word towards their precious werewolf son. At least due to her quick marriage to Mordred, it encouraged the king to continue forging ahead treaty terms with Fjorn, and soon the main route between their nations began to bristle with trade, bringing much-needed resources into Fjorn. And bringing Fjorn's furs and meats to Kanthus.
Early nights, for sure, but no merchants had ended up mysteriously dead in the gutters as of yet.
Which left Kiara with her books, her rooms, or her husband’s rooms when she stayed over, trying to give herself a lot of excuses to not like Mordred.
Difficult to not like him, really. Especially with the effort he put into her.
The main issue was—even if she did allow herself to tumble into love, a possibility she now admitted, it still didn't change the fact that the people of Kanthus didn't like her. Mordred might flex a few muscles and do everything in his power to protect her, using his status as a god. That didn't mean he could, however.
Which left two choices.
Either she learned to protect herself, so that no one could ever hurt her again... or she became a distant wife. Living in Fjorn and visiting Mordred every now and then. That way, she didn't need to worry about forging heavy diplomatic relations with such a sullen kingdom.
But at the same time, what really awaited her back home? Just the awkward silence that occurred when people want to say something, but don't want to admit it. To say that they didn't want her there. But to never admit that to a princess.
And now she was making herself miserable. Great.
The few months of being read to, however, made it harder to consider the fact that she should go for a distant relationship.
I should try harder to make myself fit in. Difficult when her life had been a habit of never fitting in. Before, she loved dodging her responsibilities, living free. Now she faced the reality that she couldn't just go back to that. Alone in a foreign kingdom, with a power she barely understood, let alone everyone else who said her power shouldn't exist at all. People now expected her to do wonderful things.
And if she wasted whatever impossible power she now wielded, there'd be a lot of disappointed individuals. Including herself.
With all her doubts swirling about her like a thunderstorm, she found it a relief in that darkness to be with Mordred. He helped take away some of the anxiety feeding her insides, and the doubts that existed.
She finished her daily walk with Mordred, mostly to keep up the public appearance that their wife and husband status was still going strong for the other Highborn, and partly because Kiara actually liked spending time with Mordred. She headed to her rooms, because Mordred needed to do patrolling duty by the fens, protecting the farmers there from any potential intrusions. Pushing through the door, she prepared herself for the mind squeeze of practising her odd light ability again, before spotting a letter resting upon the bed.
On the back showed the words: From Bethany Fjorndis.
Suddenly excited, Kiara almost tore the envelope and letter at once, before checking herself and teasing it off in a sensible way. She smoothed out the letter in front of her and stretched out on t
he bed, preparing to read.
Dearest Kiara, it began. I was glad to receive your letter the other day. I had worried about the life you might experience, being thrust into a situation for which you've had no proper training. I know you always wanted to be free, and I half-expected you to just vanish one day into the woods and never return, having chosen for yourself a wilder life, one where people aren't constantly telling you what to do.
Unfortunately, things didn't turn out that way at all. It should have been me, sent in your place. Not you. You should have been allowed to live your dream.
I'm sorry that never worked out.
There's nothing for me here in Fjorn—no useful prospects for marriage, no way to advance further than we already have. I know father thinks otherwise, but he's been training me for years as a diplomat. I'm hardly going to let these powers fester.
From what you've told me, these “gods” of Kanthus, these werewolves—they truly are something we should be focusing on for an alliance. They have a power that we could consider ascertaining and potentially incorporating for ourselves. Imagine if we had such creatures in Fjorn! You can bet the silence from our enemies will be deafening.
I've taken it upon myself to prepare for travel to Kanthus. I'll be of more use there than here. You'll be seeing me soon, little sister. You don't have to worry about being alone.
Your ever-loving sister, Bethany.
Kiara reread the letter. Part of her was delighted at her sister's words, delighted from the warmth the letter gave her. The other part felt slightly offended that Bethany was coming here.
As if she knew Kiara would do so badly here, that she had no choice but to come over and sort out the mess. A stupid assumption, to be sure, but one she made nonetheless.