I have no idea what I’m trying to say. Preparations for the funeral? For her new reign? Both twist a serpent around my heart and I’m surprised I can still breathe through this moment. Haki doesn’t question it, however, and simply shrugs.
“Whatever my lady the princess desires, it shall be done. There’s a side room over there, just off the courtyard. Will that do?”
I nod stupidly. I realize I’ve got no idea what I’m doing. I don’t even have a measuring tape to give my disguise a bit of credibility. I seize a length of rope from a nearby hay bale and hide it beneath my cloak, hoping that my prop will help me a little bit.
Haki leads me to the side room and, without warning, begins to take off his armor. I realise that he’s expecting me to measure his body, after all, and do my best not to blush.
“I haven’t seen you around before,” he says, looking at me closely as he undoes the straps of his leather breastplate. I wonder whether I should take his question as a cue to discard the pretense and do my best to convince him to turn away from Shar, but it feels too soon. I need to tread carefully. Earn their trust. Give them time to recognize me for who I truly am. Rushing things can lead to another loss and I can’t have Shar be up 3:0 in this stupid game she’s playing.
“I’m from the north of the country,” I say, pushing a few loose strands of hair away from my face. “I’m new to these parts.”
Haki is still looking at me intently, bending down to remove the leather plates that cover his shins. “So what brings you here?”
“Just the search for a place to do my work,” I say. It sounds okay, so I continue. “There are not so many opportunities in the north of the country.”
Haki grins and shakes his head. “Always the same story.” He is now wearing nothing but his plain under-tunic, which has faded to a creamy off-white. Without any of his armor on his face is different - even more boyish, though just as handsome. I realize that I’m staring, and start fussing around with my length of rope as if I’m about to make measurements. God knows that if I stare at him for too long, I’ll have a line of drool slipping from my chin to my shoes.
I place the rope on Haki’s his broad back, spanning the width of his shoulders and it takes everything in me to save myself from tracing my fingers over the spot. Haki stiffens, as if he’s been shocked and that caused me to stiffen too, wondering if I’d actually followed through with touching him the way I want to.
“Is there something wrong?” I ask tentatively.
He shakes his head. “No, no… nothing.” I can see from the muscles on the back of his neck that he’s doing his best to relax, but can’t quite pretend that everything’s normal. I continue fiddling with the piece of rope, making occasional ‘hmm’ noises.
“Where exactly was it that you said you were from?” he asks suddenly. I do my best not to tense up, and reply breezily, “Oh, just a very small village. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
“And what did you say your name was?”
“Rhea.” The word leaps out of me before I can even consider whether it would have been smarter to lie. I can see the borders of Haki’s face screwing up into a frown. He swings around and studies my face the way one would study a textbook about string theory or the beginning of the world.
“Rhea,” he murmurs, very softly. “Rhea. I feel like I know that name.”
“Hmm.” I make the sounds again as it’s the only sound that’s capable of leaving my mouth right now.
“I feel like I know you, Rhea,” he says quietly, mostly to himself.
“Perhaps we’ve met before,” I reply. I desperately want to tell him the truth, but I know I shouldn’t. Not yet.
He does not acknowledge that I have spoken, but just continues staring. I stare back, not knowing what else I can do.
“Do you have everything you need?” he asks abruptly. I’m caught off-guard.
“Er… yes…” I stammer. He nods curtly, the cool look alien on his usually-cheerful face, gathers up his loose armor in his bare arms, and turns around, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t step away from me. After what feels like a million eternities, his gaze finds mine again. The passion in his eyes is so thick, so raw, one could cut it with a knife.
“Is something wrong?” I dare to ask.
I don’t expect an answer. Even more, I don’t expect the words that leave his lips. “Everything about you feels too right. So yes, something is wrong.”
I’m left standing there, that stupid piece of rope still hanging in my hands. I don’t know what to do next. I realize that the plan half-forming in my mind was to get Eirik alone and try to talk to him. I don’t know why Eirik. But something in my bones told me he was the one I needed to see. I can only hope that some part of him, some whisper at the back of his mind, will let him remember me, even in this strange version of the world in which we’ve never met. I think back to that moment where I felt like I really understood the paths of time, when I knew with all certainty that some things were fixed, meant to be.
I felt that with Eirik. Maybe he would feel it too, even more than Haki did. Maybe…
I have nothing to do but to sink down onto a bale of hay and stare at my hands, but before I can formulate a clear plan in my mind, a shadow falls across the threshold. I look up sharply.
Karsi is standing there now, staring at me with the same intense expression that I’ve always seen on his face. He comes in wordlessly, and even though he’s standing a few feet away I somehow feel that his face is barely an inch from mine.
What’s he going to do?
“Oh… hello,” I say. He doesn’t reply, but wordlessly starts to remove his armor, his eyes never leaving mine.
So we’re keeping up the pretense, I guess. I know that he doesn’t believe a word about who I am, but he seems happy to play along. For now, anyway.
He stands in front of me, feet planted, arms spread out so that his full wingspan almost fills the small room. I step up behind him, breathing in the deep animal scent of his skin - horses, furs, woodsmoke.
He doesn’t jerk when I touch him. Instead he becomes even stiller. I have placed one hand lightly on his back, and it feels like all the energy in both our bodies is concentrated on that one point.
Slowly, he turns his head to look at me.
That eye contact, combined with the touch, seems to explode into a whole-body sensation. It fills my mind and sets my nerves on fire. I feel a sense of perfect recognition, a sense of at last. I never knew before how much I had been longing for him, and in this moment I can see into his heart and know that he longs for me too.
The pressure is building and building and the feeling in my heart is too much, is taking over me. I know that I cannot keep up the contact, know that it will burn us both, and yet I cannot bear the idea of taking my hand away, not when I can feel the heat of his skin through the thin tunic.
Then he turns and steps just one step closer and his lips are on mine, his hands roaming all over me like I’m the last breath he’ll ever take. I kiss him back just as fervently feeling the heat of passion travel from high to low. His teeth gently graze my lips and a low growl escapes his throat before he pulls back and all that’s left his the taste of him on my tongue and an ache of longing where his hands once we’re.
We’re staring at each other now, breathing heavily. His usual expression is gone and his eyes are wide with shock, his chest heaving as he snatches one breath after the other. I want to reach out for him, I want to say - wait, please. No - not please. I want to say wait, I order you. I order you to be with me. I order you to let me bathe in the sensation of your skin on mine.
But I say nothing, and before I’ve even got my breath back, Karsi is gone.
I drop back to the bale of hay. The piece of rope has fallen to the straw-covered floor, forgotten. Surely neither of them can really believe that I’m just here to do some sewing. Do they recognize me? Even if they don’t, there’s no doubt in my mind that the thing that draws us together is as real as the drea
d I feel now that Karsi is no longer in the room.
I think about that dire need I have to go see Eirik. Despite the weight I feel pushing down on me, I push my feet forward. Not before long, I come to another halt. It’s not Eirik that is standing in front of me, but Johan.
He wastes no time.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Rhea,” I reply. What else is there to say?
“What is it that you want from me and my brother warriors?”
“Nothing.” The way he says it makes it sound like I want something from the Warriors, or that I want to hurt them. The truth is that right now all I want to do, all I can even imagine asking from them, is simply to be close to one another, to feel their gaze held in mine and to sense their skin on my skin. I know beyond all doubt now that we are part of one another, that we need each other in a way that I have never needed anyone before. I know that they recognize me - they have to.
Johan comes closer. I catch my breath. Slowly, deliberate, he reaches out his hand and takes mine, holding my gaze the whole time.
It’s the same feeling that I felt with Karsi - yet different. Contained, somehow, as if we both know what we’re doing this time. My chest is heaving, yet by some miracle I manage to keep my breath quiet and even.
“Yes,” he says, very softly, the sound of his voice rumbling through my body. “Yes, Rhea. That’s who you are.”
His hand is moving from my hand to my elbow, impossibly warm and charged with some invisible electricity. I cannot bring myself to look away from him - my gaze is magnetised.
He leans down and brushes his lips across mine, as if testing the taste of my mouth. For a second, I wonder if he can taste Karsi on my lips. I wonder if that matters. Just how okay they are with sharing me or if sharing isn’t really a thing that ignites any form of jealousy in them. Some instinct in me rears up and I take charge of the kiss, inviting him closer to me, reaching up to wrap my arms around his neck. His lips are different from Karsi’s, bigger, smoother, but the one thing that has no contrast is the eroticism those lips are capable of.
“…Brother!”
We break apart. The electricity between us crackles and dies.
Eirik - my Eirik - is standing in the doorway, aghast.
“How could you?” he demands of Johan. “We are bound in love and in service to the queen of this land! How could you think of touching another?”
Johan manages to stay calm, despite the fury of Eirik’s words. “There is something about her, brother,” he says, gesturing to me. Not in a way that would make me think he’s trying to cast blame. No. It’s as though he wants Eirik to understand. Wants to force him to open his mind in order to feel just what he feels. “Something draws me to her. A connection - deeper than anything I’ve ever known before. Karsi and Haki felt it too. Some… magic.”
“A connection deeper than your bondage to the Princess Shar?” Eirik snarls. He hasn’t even looked at me, carefully avoiding my gaze and focusing instead solely on Johan. “Is it not obvious, brother? She’s a mere enchantress! A witch sent to test our loyalty on the eve of the king’s death! And clearly…” he looks at Johan with outright contempt, “You have failed the test.”
The eve of the king’s death.
The eve of the king’s death.
The eve of the king’s death.
It’s all I hear in the moments that pass next. A larger part of me than I know exists wants me to run. To meet the father I have no recollection of. To hug him and hold him and ensure he feels all the love his heart can hold. But I know better. If my father is anything like the man Ysulte described then he won’t fault me for not showing up. He’d put his people before himself, always.
“You have all disappointed me,” a voice behind him says.
Oh god. I know that voice. Not again.
Johan and Erik immediately fall to their knees, keeping their eyes fixed on the floor.
“You will explain yourselves later,” she says to them coldly. Then she looks back at me.
“What kind of cheap trickster are you?” she drawls, entering the little room and taking me by the arm, her nails sinking into me like claws. “What kind of depraved arts have you used to seduce the Queen’s Warriors?”
I say nothing as she leads me out. I can’t bear to look back at Johan and Eirik, nor can I bring myself to look at Karsi and Haki, who are both kneeling in the courtyard, their heads bowed, leaning on the handles of their broadswords.
Shar leads me out. I don’t know whether it’s the strength of her grip or some deeper magic, but I feel frozen into her command, able to do nothing but to obey her.
She marches me away from the armory and towards the main castle, through a door and into a corridor. Then, without warning, she seizes me by the hair. I yelp out in pain as she hurls me to the floor.
“What is it about you, Rhea?” she demands. Her voice is filled with fury, but somewhere deeper in it I can hear genuine confusion, almost hurt. “I do my best to get you out of the way without hurting you. I send you to a different place, to a different time. Don’t you know how much easier it would have been just to kill you? But no. Some foolish part of me thinks ‘I cannot hurt my sister. No, I’ll just send her away, to a place where she won’t remember any of this. It’s far kinder.’ It’s what you always said you wanted.” She crouches down to the stone floor where I’m lying, and I can see actual tears. Angry tears. Shar always cries when she’s angry- I know this without having to be told. “We both always knew that I would be a better queen than you. That I have a much more natural affinity for power. And yet here you are!” She gives a great sigh, and her rage seems to poison the very air. “Not just interfering, but actually seducing my Warriors. Have you no imagination? Don’t you know that there are other men in the world?”
Her choice of words - seduction - stings me unexpectedly. I feel the falseness of it keenly. How I’m realizing I feel towards the warriors is nothing to do with mere lust, no cheap seduction. It’s a far deeper connection than that. It’s a feeling that I now realize has always been part of me, long before I’d ever met Ysulte, ever seen their faces, ever even heard the name ‘Shar’.
“They’ll never be truly loyal to you,” I hear myself saying. My voice sounds a lot more confident than I feel.
Shar gives a little cry of rage and aims a kick at my stomach. Before she can make contact, I manage to scramble away and get to my feet. Now we’re standing, equal, exactly the same height, looking at each other eye-to-eye. “No matter how many enchantments you cast, no matter how much you try to hide, they will always be destined for me. I understand that now, Shar. I wish you would accept it too, so that we could end all this.”
“Never!” Shar hisses. “You underestimate my power, sister. If they’re bound to you, destined to serve you, why exactly is it that you stand before me now, alone and defenseless? Without the men you claim are your own. Where are they now, Rhea, when you need them the most? Why aren’t they defending you now, Rhea, when you need them the most?” There’s cruelness etched in her tone, unmistakable, unshakeable.
Her words stick in my ears. Alone and defenseless. Does this mean that she intends to kill me now? That she won’t make the mistake of banishing me twice?
I’m all alone, it’s true. No Ysulte, no Warriors to protect me. Shar is still staring at me, her face ice-cold.
“Our fool of a father has almost drawn his last breath,” she says evenly. Her words sting me. Our father…
“I do not have long to wait before I am queen, and have power over who lives and who dies,” she continues. “Perhaps…” her eyes narrow, her voice becomes dead, “…Perhaps I do have it in me to put you to death, after all. Besides, you were never really born. Not in this world.”
She advances to where I stand frozen to the spot. “Nothing will get in my way, sister,” she hisses.
She snaps her fingers, and two armor-clad guards appear. For a second, I think that maybe they’re my Warriors, that they’re here to interv
ene and protect me. But these men are shorter than my Warriors, and their armor is not so finely made. They’re just men, and it seems like they’ll do whatever my sister says.
“Take her to the dungeon. When the time is right, perhaps she can stand trial,” Shar drawls. “Or…” she smiles. “Perhaps not.”
“Shar…”
“Oh, and don’t even think of trying to get my warriors on your side with whatever infantile mind games you might have up your sleeve,” she says, smirking. “I will order them to be given herbal draughts that will cleanse their minds of your encounter. In a few minutes, they won’t even have a memory of you.”
My heart feels like it’s going to split in two. I am led away.
I have never felt so alone in my life.
I have already paced out the length and breadth of this cell. Ten feet by ten feet, and I’d guess another ten feet high. A perfect cube of imprisonment, hewn out of the same cliff that I climbed with Eirik not so long ago.
I’m afraid, it’s true. I’m afraid that I’m going to die here. I’m afraid that I’m going to lose my Warriors and my kingdom forever.
But there’s another emotion playing around inside my chest, too. Her choice of words - cheap seduction - has made me realize how deeply I love all four of my Warriors, and the word love confuses me. I’d known since that first attempt in the castle that I felt something for Eirik, something extraordinarily strong and deep that stretched at my heart and infused my mind. The rejection by him - the way he hadn’t even looked at me when he was urging Johan to turn away from me - had been almost more than I could bear.
My love for each of my four warriors came from the same place within me, and yet it was divided into four different beams of light, different but occasionally overlapping.
I long for all four of them. I fear for my life. I fear that I will never be in their presence again, never take joy in the strength of their connection to me.
“What should I do?” I say out loud. I don’t want to leave - leaving will take me away from my warriors. But I know that I can’t stay here in this cell. If Shar is successful in having me executed then there will be nothing standing in her way, and that idea is far more than I can bear.
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