The Tangled Tree

by S. K Munt

‘What did you hear?’ I asked, alarmed.

  Kohén smiled. ‘That you fought with the skill of a trained soldier and did your part to defend the castle… that you saw Cherry getting attacked and screamed, finding your voice at last. That she saw that my mother had struck you, quit her job, denounced us all and begged you to run away with her…’ he moved in closer and cupped my chin, tilting my face up to his. ‘That you stayed. Not only that you stayed but that you bolted back in here when you had the perfect opportunity to flee out the front door.’ He kissed my wobbling lower lip gently. ‘I’m so proud of you, sweetheart- proud and relieved.’ My fluffy hair was plastered to my cheeks but he raked his fingers through it and pulled it away before cupping my face. ‘You love me. You won’t admit it yet, but I know it’s true. And so long as you love me… anything is possible.’

  He kissed me softly then and though I allowed it to happen for a moment or two, I could not shake my ill-feelings towards the room we were in and so, I broke the kiss off. ‘Where’s Karol?’ I asked quickly, bending to pick up the whip again, which Kohén took from me with a lip curled in disgust. ‘Kohén he saw me- he chased me-’

  ‘He saw mother as soon as he got near to where you’d been standing, and changed tactics the moment he realised that you were safe again, and that she and T’are were practically surrounded.’ Kohén said quickly, wrapping his arm around my waist and angling me towards the door as he tossed the whip onto the table. ‘So don’t worry, he’s got far too much to deal with to justify coming in to check up on you, and because mother won’t stop singing your praises, you won’t have to worry about father paying us a visit to see through those whippings that he was threatening earlier either.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked weakly, and Kohén nodded, kissing the side of my head.

  ‘Really. You raced to her defence today, darling, even after she’d apparently struck you, so I don’t think you could have garnered better publicity if you’d tried-or a better good deed to perform to balance out the rule we broke together earlier.’ He paused directly beneath the chandelier, scanning the side of my face as he tilted it towards the light. ‘Speaking of which- remind me to trip her over in public at some point in repayment for that slap! What on earth brought that on? Not that I’m surprised but...’

  My stomach rolled as I tried to dream up a quick lie. ‘Nothing really- it was the first thing she did after your father left. I suppose she was mostly embarrassed over us having been caught in such a compromising position in front of such pious witnesses. And I couldn’t respond to any of her questions so I guess she just lost it...’ I touched the side of my face and winced when I felt the tender spot where her diamond had cut into me. ‘To be fair she apologised almost immediately after, and I know she didn’t mean to hit me as hard as she did. Most of the damage was caused when I rebounded onto the bedpost, not by her hand.’

  ‘Don’t make excuses for her Larkin,’ Kohén said coldly, leaning in to kiss my throbbing head better. ‘The duchess hasn’t the right to lay a hand on a Companion, no matter what the circumstances are. You are my property and mine to manage- not hers.’ I raised an eyebrow at him, non-plussed by all he’d just said and he made a face and blushed scarlet. ‘I mean… you know what I mean. I don’t think of you as my property- I just meant that if she has a jurisdiction here, disciplining you certainly doesn’t fall under it...’

  ‘Hmm…’ was all I responded with, letting him know that he was on wafer-thin ice without actually saying it. I’d gladly stir Kohén in any room of the castle- but not this one! ‘Anyway… I wish Cherry hadn’t made such a fuss over it but she saw my eye and flipped out completely- in front of everyone! Your mother didn’t have the presence of mind to explain herself or point out that I’d broken a serious rule, and even if she had- Cherry didn’t give us a second to react before she flew off the handle and started accusing your mother of turning out just like your father…’ I was rambling and I knew it, and because I knew I’d be able to plea hysterical babbling later, I decided to take the opportunity to clear up one of Satan’s other inferences while we were on a related subject anyway. ‘...among other things. Hey- why is it that women are unable to birth live daughters with Barachiel men again?’ I was trying so hard to sound relaxed and only mildly curious, and yet every muscle in my body grew rigid with tension as I watched his expression change. ‘I’m sure it’s been explained before but-

  ‘What?!’ Kohén demanded, eyes widening. ‘Did Cherry say that? That’s ludicrous!’

  I gave him a chatoyant look. ‘Ludicrous is a strong word. Has it escaped your notice that there’s never been a Barachiel daughter? Because it certainly hasn’t escaped mine.’

  Kohén frowned at me. ‘Well, I know that we’ve never had one before, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we cannot, does it?’

  ‘But the high mortality rate with the females stillborn into this family suggests otherwise,’ I pointed out, and the V between Kohén’s brows deepened. ‘It might have seemed sort of normal to the former kings but come on… we’re twenty-one generations in now. Doesn’t it trouble you to know that there’s never been a princess of Arcadia? Especially when so many males have been born via multiple pregnancies that were fatal to the female infants?’

  ‘What mortality rate? What stillborns?’ Kohén looked anxious. ‘Larkin… what exactly did Cherry say? I’m getting very confused. It almost sounds like you’re saying that a bunch of female infants have been born to the men in my family... but that they all died? If you are, you should know that it’s an awful accusation to make- awful and utterly fictional.’

  I scanned Kohén’s eyes for signs that he was withholding information, but they were as clear as ever- pinched only by his sudden distress. I sighed and waved my hand, realising that I’d been foolish to not only allow Satan to make me paranoid about more than I already had to feel paranoid about- but to raise such a scandalous subject while I was in a room that had been built in order to discipline people. There could very likely be a secret graveyard of Barachiel stillborns somewhere… but I was fairly certain that Kohén was innocent of any knowledge of it, and that was all that mattered for now.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said quickly, scratching my head and looking away. ‘Oh… I guess you’re right… maybe I am confused...’ I closed my eyes and pretended to shake it all off. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t know if Cherry said anything on that subject at all. I had strange dreams last night- perhaps I have confused something that was said to me in one of them with something that was actually said by Cherry when she was scolding your mother…?’

  Or perhaps Satan forged those entries in that book to waste my time! Argh!

  Some of the light came back into Kohén’s eyes. ‘Ahh… yes well if you had nightmares about the subject than I’m not surprised to think that you’d confuse reality with fantasy, especially in light of Cherry’s ranting.’ He pulled me in and kissed me again. ‘But as far as I know, there is nothing to stop us Barachiel men from having a daughter, and the only reason why we haven’t, I’ve been told, has something to do with how stunted breeding was for us all back in the beginning.’ He pushed my hair out of my eyes further. ‘The men before me didn’t have many options to choose from and everyone had been poisoned in some way during Armageddon. Satan reversed the damage done to the earth, but not its inhabitants, and we are still trying to evolve out of that.’ He shrugged. ‘Most families have a similar issue to ours. Some are too fertile, some are infertile, some cannot seem to make a baby without a massive nose or southern colouring, some cannot carry a specific gender, some simply have dominant male ones and in Amelia-Rose’s case, I suspect one of her ancestors bred with a dog at some point, which explains why she is the way she is today.’ He paused to grin winsomely me as I giggled. ‘I love that sound!’ he kissed me quickly. ‘Everything’s recessive though… sooner or later this particular defect will be weeded out too… it’s just a matter of a Barachiel man to finding the right woman to impregnate, I think, and we might be close
now, you know?’

  ‘How so?’ I asked, prodding him to start moving towards the door again. God, how many years was it going to take for me to wipe Satan’s access from my mind so I’d be able to be in a room with mirrors again and not quake in fear?

  ‘I don’t know what Karol’s intentions are as far as Ora is concerned exactly, but he’s made it very clear over the past few days that he will not settle for a joined union or an arranged one- he’s in this for love and nothing short of it!’ I raised an eyebrow and he chuckled. ‘Well, that’s what he says, anyway, but I don’t care how genuine his sentiments on the subject are so long as he weds someone and soon.’

  I frowned at him. ‘Why would Karol marrying for love affect his chances of having a girl?’

  ‘Because he’s cast a wider net in his search for his perfect bride than any prince before him has had the luxury of doing, of course,’ Kohén said simply. ‘I think something like ninety-eight percent of Barachiel unions have been arranged in the past, and those matches have been made only with women from the noble Caste which is pretty limiting, wouldn’t you say? They make up twelve percent of our population, and the women within it only account for four percent, so it’s no wonder that none of us have found a woman to marry out of love, is it?’

  ‘But Ora’s noble,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but she’s a noble from another continent entirely, and that has to be a game changer.’ Kohén shrugged again. ‘And even if it’s not, I think it’s a great sign of what’s to come. Things are changing in the world, Larkin- I think most of the customs we embrace today will be obsolete in twenty or thirty years, as will our fertility issues.’

  My heart began to race again. ‘Like… the Given custom?’

  Kohén paused on the threshold and pulled me into his arms, kissing the tip of my nose. ‘Especially that one. Once we have had a third-born queen…’

  I sighed and turned my face away. ‘Please, don’t start that up again… I was rather enjoying your company, for once.’

  ‘Hey, you’re under my jurisdiction, remember? And seeing as how I’m not taking the opportunity to put you over my knee in here, I think it’s only fair that I put my foot down on this matter: I’m marrying you, Larkin of Eden. I don’t know how or when or how it will be received… but I’m going to make it happen, and you are no longer permitted to scoff when I raise the subject, all right? Not if you don’t want to end up with my handprint on your delicious bottom.’

  I wrangled my way out of his hold. ‘Don’t joke about that,’ I said sourly, ‘it’s not funny. This room ought to be burned to the ground.’

  Kohén sighed. ‘Oh come on… it’s not so bad. Most of the people that have ever been brought here agreed to come here, and apparently enjoyed all that transpired.’

  I looked at him sharply. ‘And how do you know this?’

  Kohén reddened. ‘I… I’ve discussed it with Karol before, all right? And a few of the guys on Pacifica once when we were drinking and the conversation turned to sex. It’s not my thing- I love feeling your hands on me and hearing you cry out my name and would never limit your ability to do either… but some men simply enjoy dominating women, and some women enjoy being dominated.’

  ‘Is your father very into it?’ I asked, feeling chilled inside.

  ‘Not anymore. He says it was a fleeting phase of his- one that he outgrew long before he procreated.’ Kohén paused. ‘I think he liked using the crop and from what I’ve heart, Resonah was the one that liked taking it, more so than Rosina.’

  ‘Stop!’ I covered my ears, thoroughly disgusted. ‘The mental images will haunt me worse than the stillborn thing will!’

  Kohén chuckled as he took my hands off my head. ‘Well like I said, it was a long time ago. Karol’s the only one that uses it now, and his tastes are apparently pretty specific…’

  I shuddered. ‘Let me guess- that awful mouth gag thing paired with a whip?’

  ‘No. He once told me that he really enjoys, uh, the same thing that I do…’ Kohén jogged his eyebrows and drew a line from my belly-button down to my pubic bone. ‘Explorations... of this part of a woman…’

  I batted his hand away. ‘Stop that! And don’t let me hear you say that you two have anything sexually deviated in common or I shall chase after Cherry after all!’

  But Kohén pulled my hair. ‘Not in the same way. I like to taste you and only you, but he’s sort of fascinated by how female anatomy works in general, which explains while he looks at every woman he meets like she’s a meal-’

  ‘Ew!’ I whimpered.

  ‘It’s definitely a fixation of his,’ Kohén agreed, glancing across the room now too. ‘He likes to use his fingers, his mouth and, um, other things to bring a woman to a climax- repeatedly. And when I say repeatedly I don’t mean once or twice, you know? I remember he vanished with Adeline for a day and a half once and when they re-emerged, she was wearing twenty or thirty pieces of gold more than she’d had before and was grinning like…’ he chuckled and looked away. ‘He’s addicted to the power trip and likes teasing… well he used the word deprivation a lot, so I guess he brings them to the edge and backs off so that it’s like torture after awhile, understand? Gives him a kick or something.’

  ‘If that’s all he’s into then why does he need this room to do it in?’ I asked, still convinced that it had been used for darker purposes than the ones he’d outlined for me.

  ‘Those rack things apparently have things to attach bindings to, and he says that once they’re bound spread-eagled, or bent over that other thing, then they’ve got no way of controlling their reactions to him and-’

  ‘Enough!’ My face was so hot I thought my features were going to melt off. I didn’t want to know such private things about Karol, and I certainly didn’t want to have reacted physically the way I had to Kohén’s explanation, because I’d imagined being the one underneath Karol’s mouth and the idea hadn’t horrified me the way it should have. ‘Seriously- don’t you have a crisis to deal with out there- far away from in here? You know… before I vomit on the floor?’

  Kohén’s expression immediately sobered. ‘Dammit Larkin, you’re right! I completely forgot about all of that because I was so relieved to see you, but I need to get you back to your room and then get out there to help clean up that Banished mess.’ He lead me out the door, flicked off the lights and then closed it behind me with a click that harmonised with my relieved exhalation. ‘They didn’t do anywhere near the amount of damage that they could have done if there had been more people up and about at that hour, but there are eight or nine people hurt, we have a healer on the lamb when we need her the most and a whole bunch of nobles to calm down before they get it in their head that Arcadia’s become the Callielian ghetto and hightail it out of here.’

  ‘Would that be so bad?’ I asked.

  ‘Hey the sooner the festivities end the better as far as I’m concerned, but my father will be intolerable for months if this ball doesn’t happen after how much money he’s parted with in order to make it the biggest party in Eden’s history…’ Kohén took my hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘Anyway the bottom line is that I’m going to be rather busy today and I may not get the chance to visit you for hours. I’d love to have you out and about now that you’ve got that lovely voice back, but thanks to the way Karol shot after you…’

  ‘I’m an indoor kitty again today,’ I finished for him, squeezing his hand back. ‘It’s all right Kohén, I understand. Besides, we don’t have long to go now, right?’

  ‘Less than forty-eight hours,’ Kohén said cheerfully, pausing by my door to unlock it and then grandly swinging it open in front of me. I froze to hear the words- the devil’s words- be repeated in his angelic voice, but Kohén gave me a small pat on the backside, prodding me over the threshold, and when I turned back to hold the door open, panic overwhelming me suddenly, Kohén smiled gently and opened the door all the way- and then stepped away from it, leaving it open, ‘and then you’re free to come and
go as you please- provided that Ora has been successful in domesticating our arrogant crowned-prince, of course.’

  ‘What if she doesn’t?’

  Kohén sighed. ‘Then I guess I will have to have a talk with him, won’t I? Man to man- or sword to sword, if need be.’ He made a face. ‘Then again, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to best him when it comes to combat yet, so I’ll probably step in as Arcadia’s first princess and go running to Shep for help. He can’t do anything to physically prevent Karol from pursuing you of course, but Karol wants every shepherd in Arcadia to think the world of him, and will quake at the idea of me telling one this sort of truth about him.’

  I worried my lower lip with my fingertip. ‘I don’t know, Kohén… the idea of spilling Lindy’s secret to someone else-’

  ‘Do you want a brand or not, Larkin?’ Kohén asked me quickly, and my eyes popped open.

  ‘No! I told you, if you burn me, it’ll be the last time you touch me- while I’m alive, anyway.’ I hugged myself. ‘And I meant it, Kohén. People that love other people can not press smouldering iron to their flesh, mark them forever as a whore and expect to use the word ‘love’ again after.’

  Kohén sighed. ‘Well that’s the only thing I can do to guarantee that Karol will not chance touching you outside of marriage, so if you truly hate the idea of getting one as you say you do, then you’re going to have to consider some other courses of action.’

  ‘I’ll consider it, okay?’ I said quickly, looking around at the open door with renewed unease. ‘But if you’re still this wary of what Karol might do as far as I’m concerned, then is this wise? Your elder brother can still get into the harem, can’t he?’

  ‘The guard will still be there so officially, no, but there is a chance so… so I ask you to decide for yourself.’ His eyes darkened, but remained gentle. ‘Larkin if you fear Karol coming after you, or if you do not feel up for my company, then you may close the door and lock it from the inside whenever the urge to do so overwhelms you from now on.’ He lifted my hand and kissed it sweetly. ‘But after the kisses I received this morning, and the butterflies that are still fluttering about in my belly now, I no longer fear what will happen if you are not locked in, and trust that you will not lock me out. Not of this room, and not from your heart.’