The Tangled Tree

by S. K Munt

  I stood there, gasping and feeling the oxygen tickle my vocal folds and inflate my lungs, and realised that whatever I’d just done had not only booted her out of this realm, but out of my mind- releasing me from her hold. I was shaking from head to toe and my head was pounding from the paranoia that she and her book had instilled in me, but I was alone in my mind, alone in my fear, alone in my cage, alone in my anger… and alone with my conflicted, but still functioning soul.

  ‘She’s gone…’ I whispered, knees weakening beneath me as I sat back down onto the side of the bed and cupped my heavy head in my hands. I’d overcome the temptation to give myself to Satan, even if that could mean saving my life, but instead of feeling stronger for it, I felt only more exhausted than I had before. ‘And I am still here, with…’ I looked over at the book, and felt tears fill my eyes, as though I had a tear for every question that I’d asked since I’d learned to speak that had gone unanswered. I wanted to sob them out so that I could rid myself of them while indulging in self-pity yet again, but instead I rolled over on my bed and plucked a bottle of peach wine out of the ice bucket that Kohén had left for me before he’d gone along with a fruit platter, cracked it open and downed a third of it in one greedy, defeated gulp, letting the few tears that had spilled over to drain back into my hair so that I would not have to taste them again.

  Once I’d fortified myself with alcohol again, I bent down and began to re-stack the books on the shelves, hiding the one that Satan had gifted me in clear view of the others, because I knew that Kohén wasn’t nearly observant enough to see what was in front of his nose. If he had been, I would not be here now, would I? He would have seen the adoration in my eyes for Kohl in Pacifica, and would have raked me across the coals then. People had always said that the safest place to hide a book was in a bookshelf- and I supposed by the same logic, the safest place to hide a whore, was in a harem.

  When I turned my back to that bookshelf, I imagined myself turning my back on everything and everyone, God and Satan, Right and Wrong, Heaven and Hell alike… and it was liberating. Something was wrong in Eden and I couldn’t deny it... but it wasn’t my problem, it never had been, and if I’d gotten into this mess by trying to take responsibility for all that the Barachiel’s had done wrong, then I guessed that the best way to disentangle myself from it all was to stop caring; period.

  Yes there had been a decline in the purity of the Barachiel souls over the last couple of hundred years and the fact that a Barachiel man hadn’t had feathers of his own since King Elijah The First was a testament to that fact. Apparently they’d also somehow managed to procreate twenty-one generations of princes without a princess ever being born alive despite the fact that they’d been conceived, which reeked of foul play, and yes, there was possibly something very wrong with a supportive branch of the family tree… but although some people might have found all I had just learned to be cause for alarm, as far as I was concerned (and as far as I cared to be concerned) the darkening of Barachiel souls probably had less to do with demonic possession… and more to do with evolution, just as Martya had predicted.

  They were weakening- becoming more human than divine, and so long as that evolution continued to level out the balance of presumed piety and power between the Nephilim race and the human one, well, I didn’t see any reason as to why I should fight against it anymore, especially not while so many eyes were watching the kingdom of Arcadia… watching, and waiting for one of them to put a step wrong so that the power could be taken from their entitled hands by force, and handed to someone that had earned it, as it had been in Rabia.

  True, I was a prisoner here, and Kohén couldn’t sugar coat that for me, but that meant that he was going to struggle- and obviously was already struggling- to sugar coat it for others too. Perhaps Cadence Verity’s truths had been swept under the rug, but my life was already more public than hers as a Companion to a prince rather than as a bride, so when I did not show up at that ball, there would be questions. And if Karol changed his mind about marrying Ora or changed his birthday wish because he wasn’t ready to part with his dream of having me then there would be consequences- and I didn’t fear being held accountable for them this time, because I had nothing left to lose now.

  The Barachiel men, on the other hand, had everything to lose, and they were gambling it all away on the utterly male, and utterly human belief that they had the right to take whatever they desired- even the forbidden fruit.

  But they were wrong, and if all I had to do to make that clear was drink wine that I enjoyed, go to bed with someone that I was insatiably attracted to, and accept diamond ropes that were worth more than the treasury of most countries in the world and stop worrying about what was to become of us all, then I would do it.

  I’d be a Companion, if it meant there was a chance that I’d be the last one.

  8.

  The afternoon passed slowly in a blur of champagne and Kohén’s comings and goings after I’d banished Satan from my head, and though I’d regained the ability to speak, I decided to keep that fact to myself for a little while, mostly because I knew that my silence was still weighing on whatever was left of Kohén’s guilty conscience and I rather enjoyed that. Besides, my mouth had been getting me into trouble for years anyway, so I knew it would be easier to lie to him and pretend that I was happier with our arrangement than I truly was when I didn’t have to actually vocalise the falsehood.

  Though Kohén returned to check on me as often as he could that day, he kept his word, and began to make a habit of popping in on his brother’s birthday celebrations to keep up the façade that all was well between the Barachiel brothers, despite the fact that those of us in the know understood that they had never been worse. Family strife aside and insatiability when it came to me aside, the kingdom was full of people that he had to impress while he had the chance, like Shepherd Choir (who’d been a wealthy count before he’d retired to spread God’s love) and the new Baron of Janiel, Alton Breech (a shipping magnate who’d only just recently been titled and was contemplating investing in Pacifica’s future). It was unfortunate timing for the royal family, and it sucked for me to be left alone in there for hours at a time, but Kohén pointed out that if he wanted to work the wonders that he intended to on Caldera and Isthmus in the future- for both of our sakes- then he would need people like them supporting him financially once he’d been crowned. And schmoozing them before his coronation was an integral part of that plan- one that he’d let fallen to the wayside for too many days already while he’d been making me his singular priority, irritating his father and giving his mother an abundance of chances to introduce Kohl to the people that she should have been gushing about Kohén to.

  So though it was clear that it physically pained him to leave my side (once his eyes had glistened with actual tears) as soon as it become apparent that I had been rendered mute, guilt-ridden, cooperative, subdued and decidedly pickled with peach wine, Kohén began to leave me with more regularity.

  The first event that he attended was a basket racket match between Ora and Amelia-Rose earlier that afternoon while I’d been hanging out with Satan (Amelia-Rose had won, to my dismay) and the next was a sunset sail along the coast that evening- one that was cut short by an hour to the unseasonably cold weather. The third was a Shepherd service that had followed the cruise, in the throne room in Shep Choir’s honour, where he’d apparently regaled the people of Arcadia (the service was open to everyone in the kingdom except for me) about what he and his daughter had been up to since he’d visited Eden last. And as he’d talked, the castle staff had handed out warmed cinnamon milk to the assemblage in an attempt to ward off the late-Autumn draft sweeping through the cavernous halls.

  My room was sound-proofed, so I hadn’t been able to hear any of what was going on, but there must have been hundreds of them in there, collectively shivering until the room filled with body heat and laughter- because I could actually feel the buoyant energy swelling within the castle and filtering under the
millimetre-high-gap beneath my door, where it clashed against my fragmented aura. It made me want to cry, but there was nothing that I could do but sit there and wait for it all to be over so I could stop feeling like I was missing out on something, so I picked at my eleventh uneaten meal of the week listlessly while the hours ticked by. I’d promised both myself and Kohén that I would eat something, but like with my temporary loss of voice, I knew that there was no point trying to force my body to do something that it simply was not ready to do yet. Besides, I liked my wine diet- it was keeping me pleasantly numb to things that I knew I wasn’t ready to cope with sober. Like the sight of all of the love bites on my neck, or the fact that Kohén had managed to bird nest the underside of my hair so much that I was probably going to have to shave it all off soon enough. Sober, that would have pissed me off, but drunk- it was all kind of funny. I didn’t know exactly how many Companion rules I’d broken that week, especially when it came to the personal grooming ones, but I knew that if Maryah could see me now, she’d be cooking up some way to punish me even though it was Kohén to blame for it all.

  The alcohol was definitely a crutch that I was leaning heavily upon, but when Kohén returned after the Shepherd service, looking peaceful and bemused and, well- hugged- I’d sobered up quickly, and had made a horrible face at him, seriously considering flinging my now-cold mashed potatoes at his head... while they were still on the plate. He knew that I’d always loved the Shepherd services, and I’d been interested in Shep Choir’s career since I’d read that he was the one who had restored order as resident Shep after the Bastien Birch scandal, many years ago, and was eager to see if he was as gifted when it came to easing people’s restless spirits as I’d heard that he was... but I’d missed my only chance to hear him talk, and why? Because I was the castle’s secret shame! It was humiliating.

  Like a drowning person glimpsing the surface, the urge to rebel- to stick my ruffled feathers in Kohén’s face and cuss him out or break things rose to the surface of my very being along with Kohén’s cheerful smile- as it had earlier that day. But I knew that my violent mood swings and scattered emotional surges were the result of alcohol and lethargy and cabin fever and were more likely to inspire Satan to champion my freedom again then they would inspire Kohén, so I refrained from acting out and listened to Kohén’s recap of the evening’s events while pulling a brush through my hair.

  Remember, you need to start numbing yourself to all that aggrieves you here, and just start being thankful for what isn’t so bad! Okay yeah you’re a prisoner, but it’s not like you’re chained up in a filthy cold cellar and being raped by guards or anything, is it? You’re a white collar captive at best- a palace pet at worst. Hell, you even had to gag and starve yourself because the people around here would polish your fingernails while feeding you peeled grapes before they’d let you go hungry!

  ‘Father hopes that Shep Choir will be able to do something to disperse the outlaws at the fence,’ Kohén said softly, gently tracing patterns on the bared skin of my left shoulder blade while I combed my hair over the other, and I grimaced to think of all of those cold, hungry and scared people out there- then grimaced again to be reminded of how lucky I was to be here despite all of the laws that I’d broken. The temperature in the harem was maintained using heaters that were hooked up to the solar energy source, but I knew from Kohén that the temperature outside had been dropping for days and would soon reach zero and even I with my embarrassed, constantly-flushed face would shiver at zero. ‘But there are already too many do-gooders interfering, and if I know Shep, he won’t go and see them until he’s certain that no one’s watching him, you know? He hates all of that attention.’ Kohén’s finger slipped under the edge of my toga as it outlined a heart, and because I wasn’t in the mood to let it feel good, I began to tear the brush through my hair more vigorously, shaking it off.

  ‘Kohl’s one of the do-gooders, of course…’ Kohén sighed as he lent back against my bed head, looking dejected and fiddling with the cuffs of his shirt now that I’d made it clear that I wasn’t in the mood to be touched. ‘Kohl and Amelia-Rose... they’re quite the pair now. Practically inseparable.’

  What? Kohl and Amelia-Rose? No! Why?

  I dropped the brush and twisted to gape at him, and Kohén smiled a smile that told me that he knew he had me. ‘Oh… haven’t I mentioned that either?’ I shook my head, frowning at him, and Kohén shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. ‘I don’t know how he can tolerate her harping on, or she his sulking- but yeah, Kohl and Amelia-Rose have been as thick as thieves for past few days. I guess they haven’t gotten their way on other matters lately, so they’ve taken up the Banished cause instead… waxing on and on about the value of human kindness and charity and all of that and making themselves ringleaders... it’s so weird. I get that it’s easy to bond with people when you have a cause in mind… but Amelia-Rose Choir isn’t people. I don’t think a lot of Kohl right now, but even I know he can do better than her.’

  I turned away from him again, fiddling with my hair to hide the fact that I wanted to wring them together and pace. I was jealous that Kohl was spending so much time with a girl that wasn’t me, but on the other side of that coin, I was irritated with myself for being jealous of a girl I didn’t like the sound of- on behalf of a boy that I had no right to get jealous over. She-who-would-not-be-named was sure to be laughing at the emotional swamp that I was currently trying to navigate a path through!

  ‘They’re really out of control too,’ Kohén went on, watching my fingers weaving my hair with interest. ‘I mean, Kohl’s always tried to be the champion of the underdogs, but Karol apparently had to talk him out of going out there to shake hands with these people today, and that’s just crazy because the Banished guys that seem to be the ringleaders have already threatened to kidnap someone of import if their demands aren’t met.’ My mouth popped open and Kohén nodded. ‘Mother practically had a stroke when she heard about that, but although Kohl’s never put much stock in mother’s opinion, he’s disrespecting our father now too. Can you believe that he practically ordered father to open the gates and let the huddled masses in before they freeze to death? And Amelia-Rose actually tried to open the gate herself! And the only reason why they backed off was because Shep Choir stepped in and reminded his daughter that he hadn’t raised to her to act so irresponsibly or disrespectfully, and promised to pack up their things and leave Arcadia tonight if she continued to make a nuisance of herself. It’s crazy! All of this fuss over a bunch of heathens.’

  I pursed my lips, irritated with Kohén for the mocking tone of voice he’d used when he’d said: Huddled masses... like people freezing in the northern winter were nothing but a big joke to him! And Heathens- that was one of his mother’s surly words- since when had Kohén started emoting her? I wanted to break my silence just to point out that Kohl would never say anything so cruel or use the word Heathens, but I knew that doing so would only make Kohén resent him more, and the last thing I needed to do was provoke Kohén further on the subject of his brother.

  Kohén tickled beneath the clasp of my necklace. ‘Anyway, they’ve settled down a bit since Shep went off at them, but I know they’re secretly proud of the fuss they’ve made and the attention they’ve brought to the plight of the poor nomads. A lot of people are being charmed by the sight of two noble kids ladling soup into cups to those on the other side of the fence- but anyone smart enough to know it’s all an act is getting incredibly irritated by it- father and Atticus included. And what does Kohl think he’s going to accomplish anyway? Atticus is going to make him a General and Kohl’s apparently over the moon about that, but a General’s primary responsibility is to keep the outlaws under control- not to get them all worked up and not to coddle them when they misbehave! I tell you… if Kohl doesn’t pull it together soon, he’s going to be sailing right back into the Corps on Sunday as an underling, not a bloody leader.’ He shook his head. ‘Actually, I honestly don’t know why Atticus hasn’t rescinded his of
fer already. I get that the whole rain thing will help with the farming industry but when it comes to Kohl’s temper, when it rains it pours. I guess mother’s much better at promoting her son when I’m not around than I thought, for Atticus to be going out on such an unstable limb for him.’

  I turned my face away, pretending to be inspecting my loose when really, I just needed to hide what I knew would be my pink cheeks. I knew why Atticus hadn’t retracted his offer to Kohl yet- because of me. Yes, he’d obviously locked me in via the necklace now that Kohén and I were a package deal, so there really was no chance that I’d get to run off to Yael... but he obviously feared that I’d do as I threatened and spend my time in Pacifica sunbathing instead of helping him build an empire, so he was keeping his promise to keep Kohl on a pedestal in the hopes that it would foster good feelings between us. It did… but I sort of wished that Kohl would get his act together. I wanted him earning the respect of men like Atticus, not their frustration! Like Kohl, I had a soft spot for the underdogs of the world, and I’d be quick to hand anyone cold and hungry hot soup… but I’d certainly think twice- perhaps fifteen times- before I contemplated letting any of them inside the castle’s walls... and I would never ever embarrass myself or my father the monarch by ordering him to do so in front of other people! The discarded third-born children and adulterous women that were stuck on the other side of that fence pulled on my heartstrings of course, but Arcadia didn’t throw people out without just cause, so the ‘huddled masses’ that Kohl was trying to accommodate were likely full of murderers, rapists and thieves, not martyrs. And any one of them could pull Kohl into the electrified portions of that fence in a heartbeat if they thought they could get something out of doing so, even if it was just his coat.