The Tangled Tree

by S. K Munt

  I smirked, then wrote: ‘I’ll bet I can make you feel better.’

  Kohén raised an eyebrow. ‘What are the stakes? Because it would take me a hell of a lot to make me feel better about anything right now.’

  I wrote: ‘If I win… I want to see your bedroom.’

  Kohén eyebrows shot up. ‘What? Why?’

  It was a point that had been bugging me for years, and as I’d been trying to sleep the night before, I’d realised that it was bugging me even more now that we’d been intimate. I had to stay in Eden- I had no choice- and that meant that I’d have to put up with being intimate with Kohén for God knew how long? It was going to be a miserable experience on many levels, but for some reason, I knew I’d feel better about one of those levels, if at least one door was unlocked between us, however briefly.

  So I wrote: ‘In books, best friends hang out in each others bedrooms. Though you’ve been in mine plenty, all we’ve done in here is, well… things that have ruined our friendship. If you want to salvage any of it, then I’m gonna need to be let into your life the way you’ve forced yourself into mine, and seeing your bedroom will make me feel better. Then, next time you stomp off and leave me here so that you can sulk in there, at least I will be able to imagine what you’re doing, and where you are.’ I flipped the page around and Kohén read it, eyebrows shooting up.

  ‘That’s a big ask, Larkin. For starters, it’s not safe for you to leave this room and secondly, you’re not technically allowed into our wing.’ I glared at him and he cringed, holding up his hands. ‘Okay, okay… we have a deal. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get you in there, but if you can cheer me up now, I’ll do it.’

  I smiled, put the book on the end of my bed and then slowly began to lift my nightgown over my head. I heard Kohén’s breathing hitch as I bared my breasts to his gaze, but after I tossed it off, he sighed and said: ‘That’s it? They’re the most beautiful breasts that God has ever created Larkin… but it’s my ego that’s aching right now, not that.’ He frowned and shifted beneath me, and I felt him stiffening a little more. ‘Okay that’s gonna be aching in about thirty seconds, but you’re only compounding my troubles, not alleviating them!’ I reached for the notebook on my bed and wrote on the page before holding back to him:

  ‘I was trying to demonstrate which of us is the girl, and which of us is the man.’ I wriggled on his hips, and his eyes rolled back into his head. ‘Don’t the sight of my breasts remind you of who is who?’

  Kohén grunted and bucked beneath me. ‘Point taken, but still… it doesn’t help me shake the feeling that if I hadn’t acted quickly, you would have done this willingly for Kohl some day- not for me just because you feel as though you don’t have a choice in the matter.’ He pouted, and it was disarming.

  I bit my lip, thought it over and then leaned down, touching lips against his in a kiss that was soft at first, but quickly grew tentative and breathless. And as I kissed him I caught his hand and pressed it not onto my breast but my heart so that he could feel how it was pounding, before steering it down into my panties, so he could feel how they were soaking.

  ‘Oh sweet Jesus…’ Kohén breathed, straining up off the floor to kiss me back. He pulled on my braid and leaned back to look into my eyes. ‘You want me?’

  I leaned over and scribbled on the paper while he caressed my lower back, and held it up so he could see me printing: ‘I’ve made my peace with the fact that Kohl and I will never go to bed together already, believe it or not. Perhaps that is spurned by concern for him, I don’t know… but I do know that I’ve gone only one day without making love to you, and I’m certain that I won’t last another. If you wanted to punish me for hurting you- it has been done. Please Kohén… forgive me? And take me because I cannot beg for it without a voice!’

  Kohén’s eyes sparked, turning neon blue as he wrenched me off the floor and pulled me to my feet before making a beeline for my closet. I had no idea what he was doing, but when he returned from my closet he had a toga in his hands- and a very prominent erection in his silk night slacks. ‘Put this on- now!’ he hissed, glancing at the clock on the wall. ‘We have minutes to make this happen, possibly less before…’

  Before...? I gave him a confused look, but he huffed and looped the open end of the toga over my head before yanking it down, holding out the single side strap so that I could get my hand in.

  ‘Before the castle wakes up, and catches us!’ he said, and I felt my breath rush out of me. We were leaving the harem?

  ‘Only if you act fast!’ Kohén said, and that was all it took to get my heart pounding, my mind racing- and my feet moving.

  *

  Leaving the harem stressed me out more than I cared to acknowledge, and the sight of the burly and shocked-looking guard that was standing by the exterior door startled me (I’d never seen anyone so big!) but there was no time to stop and gape, because Kohén’s fear of what might become of me if I left the harem had become my own. What if I ran into Constance, or Karol? What if she caused a scene? What if one of the guests called out to me, drawing everyone’s attention to the fact that the prized, grief-stricken whore was finally out and about? They’d have questions for me and I wouldn’t know how to answer them, even if I did decide to speak.

  ‘I haven’t the time to explain,’ Kohén said quickly as we passed the guard. ‘But no one aside from father, Resonah and Rosina are permitted in while we are gone, and no one is to know that we have left Larkin’s room, all right?’ The guard nodded and shot me a quizzical look, but Kohén was already pulling me away and leading me up the stairs to our right, which I already knew led up to his family’s wing because I had sneaked up there once before on the day after my sixteenth birthday.

  Remembering how scared I’d been when I’d gone to make that deal with Karol that morning- and how much of the suffering I’d experienced since as a result of that deal since- made me feel sick, but the castle was still dark enough to suggest that it wasn’t yet five a.m., and so I knew that there was a good chance that no one was going to see us at all, which made it easier to breathe. I was still full of anxiety as Kohén turned his winged ring in the locked door, but to my relief, the interior hall of the royal wing was as dark and silent as the exterior hall had been. I pretended to look around me with wide, awed eyes as though I’d never seen any of this before, but when Kohén quickly beckoned me into the very first door on the left after using his ring to unlock it again, my feigned awe became genuine awe, because I was in Kohén Barachiel’s bedroom at long last- and it was nothing like how I’d expected it to be.

  ‘I apologise for the mess…’ Kohén whispered, taking my hand as he led me into the centre of his room. ‘I did not expect a visitor- least of all- one as important as you, so it’s still in the state I left it in when I came back to your room this morning.’

  I snorted, for the mess he’d referenced was non-existent. I remembered that Karol’s study had been in disarray that time I’d visited him, with books and luggage and papers tossed about, but Kohén’s room was spacious and uncluttered, and the colour palette that he’d chosen to decorate it in made the room seem more vibrant than the rest of the castle did. Several things in there caught my eye immediately, but it was the stained glass window above his bed that snared my attention. It was the exact width and length of the massive bed beneath it, and four thick brown posts extended from all four corners of the bed to meet the corners of the window, making the mural above a canopy of sorts even though there weren’t any drapes to complete the look. It was stunning, and I envied Kohén for growing up with a bed that would allow him to experience every one of the sky’s moods like that without having to go outside.

  I want a bed like that one day! I thought, soul lifting in response to the beauty. But no glass! Just the open sky above me!

  The dull morning light glowed gently through that window from above, casting green prisms over his navy-blue comforter and the floor, which was carpeted in that same navy blue. His featured c
olour should have given the room a dark, shadowy and melancholy vibe, and yet he had a crisp white fur rug in the centre of it all, and white linen sheets and cushion covers peeking out from beneath all of that blue, which set it off crisply. He’d used a second contrasting colour- a bright sea-glass green- here and there in the trims and curtains and a few knick-knacks, and because his massive bed, roll top desk and chaise lounge were all crafted from a dark, heavy timber, I couldn’t help but conjure up images of an old ship ploughing through a bright ocean.

  It was lovely- too elegant to be thought of as a boy’s room, but too bright and cheerful to belong to a grown man, and I thought it captured him perfectly. And as I’d always assumed, being allowed in there made me feel less like an accessory to his life, and more of a part of it. I supposed that was why Companions were never allowed in to their master’s chambers- for it gave us a false sense of belonging that could prove to be problematic for their future brides.

  But Kohén wanted me to feel as though I were the focal point of his life and not a hand-maiden, and although I’d been rebelling against that for so many years now for fear that it would raise my hopes for a future with him to a level that it would never be able to live up to, I’d decided in the middle of the night to let that intimacy back in, if he’d still allow it. What was the harm? My hopes had already been dashed- might as well allow myself to go on believing that he was mine and mine alone for as long as I could if that inspired him to go on treating me like a princess rather than a slave. It wasn’t him I’d do it for, but me.

  Sooner or later our bubble would be burst and he’d be forced to take a bride and I’d either be released as a common prostitute or kept on as his side-piece, and that was going to hurt me if I allowed myself to feel like a lover now. But if I treated him like a lover too- adored him, doted on him and made his body bend to my will then hopefully, it would hurt him more. Hell, maybe, it’d hurt him enough to put an end to the Given caste forever, to spare his own future son the same anguish.

  Tell yourself that… the thought sneaked into my head unbidden. You know, if it helps you sleep at night when you don’t have another one of those pills.

  Kohén released my hand to go turn on a lamp by his bed, which had an emerald and royal blue stained glass shade over it that was a replica of an old-time globe, and when it began to glow, I saw that though all of his walls had been painted that same dark blue with white trim, the one across from his desk and behind his bed had been painted with a mural of white-watered waves, similar to those depicted in the old-time Japanese art. Stunned by its beauty and the intricate detail, and free to do as I pleased as Kohén hurried to straighten up his comforter and pillows, I moved to the wall and touched my fingertips to it, certain that I could feel those waves rolling beneath my hand.

  ‘I had ocean envy growing up,’ Kohén said softly, and then came up beside me, pointing to his surfboard in the corner. ‘Strange isn’t it? Almost like the wrong twin was born second. Were it not for your presence here, I think I could have been okay with Kohl’s lot in life, you know?’

  Tears stung my eyes- he had no idea how right he was, or how close he’d come to being the prince sent to Pacifica, and he could never know. To distract myself from that painful secret, I moved to look more closely at the few books lined up on the top shelf of his open desk, but that was when I noticed the picture frames on the opposite wall. Curious to see which moments of his life he’d chosen to keep on display, I moved towards them- and promptly froze when I saw that the first one was a picture us.

  Oh my gosh! How does he have this?

  Kohén and I couldn’t have been more than six in the picture, but we were sitting on a two-person swing, our shoulders pressing together- our heads thrown back with laughter, and it was so beautiful that the tears in my eyes began to form little pools that I could barely see through. I wasn’t pretty in that photo- I looked pale and scrawny, like a plucked chicken, and yet Kohén had wanted to look at it every day anyway. How curious!

  ‘Um… yeah…’ Kohén cleared his throat. ‘Once again, I didn’t know you’d become up here so… I’m embarrassed.’ He snorted softly as I moved from the first photo to the second- one that had been captured of he and I hiding under the pristine white skirt of a table at a ball- laughing again as we spied on the adults from our little hidey-hole. We were older then, possibly ten, and because I’d been forbidden from going in, Kohén had had to sneak me in so that we could eat some of Constance’s birthday cake. We thought we’d been so clever, but evidently at least one adult had seen us- the photographer- and had captured the moment perfectly in black and white with shades of grey.

  There were more photos than that- photos that spanned across the width of the wall, artfully arranged in matching dark timber frames around the fireplace that documented our friendship from the beginning, right up until our trip to Pacifica. The most recent one was of us posed on either side of his surfboard, and it was the only posed photograph in the whole lot. In it we looked carefree and happy and I had to admit, pretty damn good together, but resting on the ground beneath that photo was a whole stack of frames that had been turned around to face the wall, and they caught my attention immediately- especially when I realised that there were empty picture hooks jutting out from the walls between the photos of Kohén and I. Were these pictures of him and the other Companions? Had he taken them down since he’d released them? My heart sank. I knelt to peer at one, but only caught a glimpse of two identical, gappy Barachiel smiles before Kohén pulled me back up to my feet.

  ‘Don’t turn those over, please?’ he asked, sounding choked up. ‘I can’t bear to look at them Larkin- that’s why they’re there. I… I took them down after…’

  After you took my virginity, fearing that Kohl had gotten there first? Oh God! Oh… poor Kohl… he’s been written out of the story of Kohén’s childhood, just as that duchess was written out of Cadence Verity’s book! I felt a lump form in my throat, but when I turned to look at Kohén, the anguish in his eyes was so clear that my empathy swished his way instead.

  ‘He knew, you know?’ he stared forlornly at the stack of discarded photographs. ‘He knew that I loved you more than anyone else did- he knew that my life would become meaningless if I lost you… and yet he tried to take you anyway. I…’ he screwed up his face and looked away. ‘I haven’t given up on our bond because I don’t love him anymore- I’ve done it because… because by taking you- he proved that he’d stopped loving me.’ Kohén lifted his knuckle to his eyes and wiped at a tear. ‘I know you think I’m heartless from denying him forgiveness and threatening his life… But Lark, when I read his letters, promising you things that I could not, and asking for the only thing I’ve ever wanted in the world- your love- he sank a knife not only into my back, but into my heart from behind.’ He waved his hand at the pictures. ‘He killed me. My own twin killed me. And now I cannot look at him without remembering that.’

  I pressed my hand to Kohén’s arm, trying to get him to turn to look at me so that I could shake my head and communicate the fact that Kohl had been more loyal to him than he realised, but Kohén shook his head and twisted away, making a hacking cough sound that he’d obviously intended to be a laugh at he wiped at more tears.

  ‘I read the first letter, Larkin! After he left here that first time… one day he knew you for, Lark- one fucking day! That was all it took for him to strike! So don’t tell me what I don’t see-’ he grabbed my arm roughly and walked me closer to the wall, forcing me to stare at the photos. ‘Look at what he blinded you to!’

  I looked at the photos through rivers of tears. The most moving one was of us sitting in ‘our’ tree when we’d been thirteen- just after I’d learned about the role that I was to play in his life, deep in conversation about something, and the most beautiful one was of us racing after a soccer ball. I’d begun to blossom by then, even though I’d only been about fourteen, and although I hadn’t seen it then- I could see it now in the way my long fair hair gleamed in th
e sun. And judging by the look on Kohén’s face in the picture, he’d seen it too. I was the one that had been blinded to the depth of his affection for me, just as he’d said. I didn’t think it was Kohl’s fault, but I couldn’t help but feel like it hadn’t been Kohén’s either.

  ‘I love you, and I always have,’ Kohén whispered, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting my chin on my shoulder. ‘I didn’t want you to be my Companion, Larkin, but he left me no choice, so I will take it, if that’s the only way I get to have you!’ I felt his hot tears on my shoulders. ‘I know that’s selfish, and I will burn in Hell for all eternity for it and gladly if it means that I get to hold you like this for the rest of my life first. I do not belong to my country or my parents, my twin or my God, little swan- I belong to you. How can you look upon that wall, and think that you are the one trapped when it is I that has been on my knees since the first moment we met- begging for you to love me?’

  Tears were streaming down my face, and the pressure in my throat was insane. I was grateful that I had to go on pretending to be speechless, because I knew that only that excuse was standing between me and him- and me admitting that I loved him too in that moment. Because I did. Heaven help me- I loved him more than I could barely stand. I loved him more than I hated him.

  I loved him more than I loved myself. I just wasn’t sure if that meant anything, seeing as how much I currently loathed myself.

  I sniffled, and Kohén’s face lifted. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I know you hate it when I make such promises to you, and in light of how many I’ve broken of late, it’s foolish for me to believe that you’d take me at my word now. But I have a bad habit of speaking my heart when it comes to you, don’t I? And having you in here… Larkin this is where you belong, and I will do everything in my power to see your head rest upon my pillow as my wife one day, and if you don’t believe that-’

  I whirled in his arms and pressed my mouth against his. I didn’t believe it, but I desperately wanted to.