The Tangled Tree

by S. K Munt

  ‘Whatever you want, Kohl,’ I said softly, smiling at him. ‘And knowing you, it will be something wonderful.’

  Kohl’s face softened. ‘You still have faith in me being able to do this? To be a prince… maybe one day a king?’

  ‘Of course! You’ll always count on my support, no matter what, Kohl, I swear it,’ I said, helping Kohén up onto the edge of the pool so that he could sit. ‘But what you need most of all is to have faith in yourself-’ the doors started rattling in the distance and all of our heads whipped around to stare down the misty corridor.

  Oh God! Time’s Up!

  ‘Shit!’ Constance said, moving to pick up the scattered parts of the brand bags. ‘This is going to get ugly before it gets prettier. Kohl, help me hide the branding gear until I’ve talked sense into your father, okay? We can’t remove the barricade until this is hidden- just in case he does something rash in the heat of the moment.’

  ‘Something else I’d suffer for seventeen years more, no doubt,’ Kohl grumbled, but he moved to pick up the still-glowing stick anyway. ‘Larkin, perhaps we should hide you too, just for a few minutes.’

  ‘If you think that’s wise,’ I said, smoothing my dress and then touching my hands to my face and pulled them back, expecting to see them blurred with paint, but to my surprise, my mask had either remained intact or had already been completely washed off by my tears.

  ‘Good idea,’ Constance said, bending to put the jar back into the bag. ‘Is there anywhere in here that we can take her, where your father’s key won’t work?’

  My heart contracted- if someone suggested the dungeon than I’d scream!

  ‘There is,’ and then Kohl lifted his hand and backhanded his mother so hard that she didn’t even have the chance to scream before she was thrown into the side of the pool- but I did, and I screamed loud and hard.

  Still, my hysteria was not enough to mask the crescendo of sickening cracking sounds that her bones made as they snapped and splintered against the hard marble, and the tears that flooded my eyes were not yet thick enough to spare me the sight of the blood that exploded from the side of her beautiful head as it split against the stone wall. Kohén let out an all-mighty shout and jumped to his feet, but he and I never had the chance to fend off what came next, for we had been too naïve, both of us, to understand just how much damage we had done to Kohl’s once pristine soul. ‘And that’s where we will be locking up your body, you heartless, conniving tramp!’ Kohl finished, and then turned to me, gripped my wrist and yanked me to him. ‘I’m sorry, Larkin,’ he whispered, ‘but mother has left me no choice!’

  And then the red-hot brand was being forced into my shoulder- at the hands of the angel that I had been too distracted to see plummet to earth and directly into Satan’s embrace. She’d warned me about it though, hadn’t she? She’d said it was too late to save Kohl.

  I thought she’d meant his life but clearly, she’d been referring to his soul.

  24.

  I fell to my knees, so overcome by the pain that my vision blurred and my mind spun in erratic circles, but Kohl was grasping my elbow painfully and holding me up so that my shoulder would not lose contact with the instrument searing into my flesh, so I pressed my hand to my thrashing heart and screamed as I never had before.

  ‘Have faith in me, like you swore you would!’ Kohl rasped, ‘and I swear this will get us both to where we need to be!’

  Constance! Kohl! NO! No this has to be a nightmare! I prayed to wake up but the burning went on as it had in my fever dreams, incinerating me from the inside out. I ran out of breath to scream with and yet my mouth remained open in a howl of despair and just before I reached the point where I knew the agony would make my heart fail, the brand lifted and I was released.

  Kohl branded me! Not the corrupted twin, but the angelic one! Oh GOD!

  I fell hard, crumpled and straining away from the inescapable pain, and though I could hear shouting, I could not make out a word of it for the way the blood was rushing around inside my head. I opened my eyes though, and when I found myself staring at Constance’s slackened, blood-streaked features, immediately wished that I hadn’t.

  ‘No!’ I whimpered, straining for her. ‘Please, no…’ I squirmed closer but my arm throbbed at the movement and I rolled onto my other side, howling in agony- both from the pain in my shoulder and the pain in my heart that I knew would never abate now that my mother was gone. The brand wasn’t pressing against me anymore, and yet now it felt like it was being shoved more forcefully into my flesh, and little circles of blistering heat were radiating out from the injury point in ripples now, ripples so intense that they made every muscle in my body seize up as they washed over them. How had Emmerly withstood even a moment of this? How had Kohén taken it in such a tender area? They were braver and stronger than I! I loathed Karol and yet I would have wept for joy to see him saunter into that room now if it meant the end of the pain! Or Dulcie!

  But you won’t see him or Dulcie sauntering to your rescue, because that door has been barricaded, remember?

  There was a sudden movement then and I cried out when someone stepped on my open palm. My eyes flew open, first so I could see the mural painted on the ceiling above me, then so I could see and Indian-Brave, bloody and red-faced hurl himself at his Roman reflection and smash him to the ground, just above my head and beside Constance’s corpse. I twisted and felt a surge of hope when I saw Kohén straddle his brother, pull back his fist and then strike the boy beneath him hard and sharply across the jaw, but the movement must have agitated the wound on his own chest because he curled up slightly, groaning after he’d thumped his target only once.

  Kohl had not been trained to fight as Kohén had, but he had learned how to fight dirty evidently, because he struck out, jabbing two fingers directly at Kohén’s chest. I could not see where they hit him, but Kohén’s roar of pain was a good indication that he’d found the only weakness his brother had and I winced in sympathy. Then before he could recover from that, Kohl sat up and threw a clumsy punch into Kohén’s face, sending his brother toppling to the side. Kohl had a line of blood trickling from his nose and his upper lip where Kohén had split it, and although Kohén did not bear similar injuries, he looked pale and sweaty and almost out of his mind with horror as he thrashed, trying to sit up but sliding in a pool of his mother’s blood.

  ‘You killed her!’ Kohén got onto all fours and crawled to his mother, taking her hand but it was limp and sitting at a strange angle and his face crumpled as he bowed to kiss it. ‘Mom… mom I’m so sorry! I’m sorry I wasn’t enough for you! I tried mom!’ he howled and buried his face in her splayed dark hair, sobbing. ‘I loved her… I loved her because you told me that was important, once! To love! To love with all your heart…’ he twisted back to his brother, face unrecognisable in his grief. ‘What have you done, Kohl? What have you done?’

  ‘Kohén…’ I croaked his name and pushed up, but I wasn’t strong enough and a fresh wave of throbbing almost had my face smashing into the marble floor. I managed to land with my head on my forehead, but before I could push up again, I sensed movement beside me. The same hand that had dropped me so unceremoniously before now coaxed my up gently from the floor using my good arm, and I sobbed when Kohl wrapped himself around me and kissed me so sweetly that it was like Kohén had actually knocked the evil straight out of him. Kohén looked up and saw us and his face spasmed with rage but I lost sight of him in that same beat.

  ‘I’m sorry, I do mean that- I never wanted to do this to you….’ Kohl kissed my blubbering lips again and then cupped my injured shoulder with his other arm- and suddenly it felt like he’d put out the flames with acid. ‘But it’s the only way we can be together now, Lark.’

  I twisted my head to the side, screamed, and then looked down at his hand and saw the golden powder spilling from his palm and over my ruptured skin. All at once I hated Kohl Barachiel as intensely as I had once admired him. And what was worse- I remembered that he too had war
ned me that this might happen, just four nights ago.

  ‘But I can promise you, that you would have been the only one, and that I would have spent the rest of my life making it up to you-you and your golden brand.’

  ‘You would have…?’

  ‘On the night of my sixteenth? The way you looked under those lights darling… I would have trapped you like the firefly that you are, and would never have let you go, even after just that one kiss. I’m sorry, but it’s true.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry-that was sort of romantic.’

  ‘But mostly psychotic,’ he’d smiled tearfully then, ‘and it speaks volumes about a Barachiel man’s sense of entitlement...’

  Indeed it did, and yet, I’d convinced myself that he’d been exaggerating- to my own detriment. I’d even called it romantic! So close! Once again I’d been so close to escaping this place- this life- and once again I’d had a door locked and slammed in my face only this time, that door would lock me away from the world!

  Though I was used to growing angry with myself for doing stupid things that led to me being cornered, I was unprepared for how volatile my anger would feel when the cornering had been done by somebody else. If I could move, I would have clawed his face to shreds!

  ‘No!’ I cried, and my knees went weak again as the pain flattened me. I’d always dreaded what this moment would be like and was dismayed to discover that it was infinitely worse than I had feared. The pain was intolerable in itself, but the betrayal cut me like a blade. ‘Kohl no! And why?’

  ‘Because I-’

  ‘Let her go!’ Kohén suddenly smashed us apart and though I knew he’d meant well, he only agitated the agony further with his rough intervention. I screamed again and then bit into my own fist, staring down at the brand on my arm with absolute horror. It had mystical properties that powder, and as I watched, fascinated and horrified, the excess powder fell away from my healthy skin but melded to my still-searing scar, hiding the blood and gore and char and leaving a glistening, metallic insignia on my flesh. It was as three dimensional, hard and shining and perfectly engraved as a gold coin- which seemed fitting, because it was a kind of currency unto itself. But unlike a pouch of gold coins or my necklace, this could not be traded or sold- I’d been deemed invaluable and worthless, all at once. That, I knew and understood, but what I did not know was who I belonged to now?

  Not to yourself! My sub-conscious cried as I collapsed in every way. Never again to yourself!

  ‘Larkin!’ Kohén had sent Kohl staggering backwards against with another punch and now he tenderly grasped the elbow of my burned arm while tightly grasping the other and gaped at the brand, looking as lost as I felt. ‘Oh… baby! I can’t believe he did this to you!’

  I would have agreed but could not open my mouth for fear that I would start screaming again and never stop. The powder sizzled against my wound as it sealed it with the potency of acid.

  ‘What you were about to do to her, you mean?’ Kohl snarled, swaggering back while spitting out blood. He saw the bottle of champagne that Constance had brought in with her, paused to rip off the foil top and then popped it across the room, missing Kohén by one premeditated inch. ‘I guess identical minds think alike!’

  ‘I was going to brand her because I thought I had no choice!’ Kohén growled, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘But as soon as I was cast off my throne, this palace lost any right to hold her here, you idiot! Didn’t you hear a word that mother said? She was going to get her freed!’ He wiped tears from under his eyes, smearing his dramatic make-up further and then looked over at his mother’s body again with a desolate expression. ‘Before you killed her, that is. I think I must be in shock, because if I actually believed that what just happened actually happened…’ he turned back to his brother with slitted eyes. ‘You’d be dead.’

  ‘Well I don’t have any intention of killing you, so dial back the psychotic rage a bit while I organise my thoughts, okay?’ Kohl held the champagne bottle to his eye and squinted. ‘I had my ducks in a row a minute ago, but now you’ve gone and scattered ‘em. Damn, you can throw a hook! I can barely see out of this eye now. Not that that’ anything new...’

  Another wave of pain crashed over me and as I doubled over and was caught by Kohén, I managed to catch a look at Kohl’s face and was amazed by how unconcerned he looked. Who was this sinister, carefree man? Where had my angel gone?

  ‘I forgot that you missed out on self defence classes…and I officially don’t care anymore,’ Kohén drawled, ‘but if you’re feeling off balance, I’ll happily even the other eye up for you so you don’t have to go back on the patch? I’m going to roast you from the inside out once Larkin’s safe from you anyway but-’

  ‘Shut up, and listen to your big brother, okay little Kahuna?’ Kohl closed his eyes and chuckled, while Kohén crackled around me. I had a feeling that he was crackling hard enough for it to be stinging me and yet the pain still radiating down my arm and through the rest of me was still too overwhelming for my senses to hone in on anything else. ‘Huh, little Kahuna. That’s going to take some getting used to...’

  ‘I’m not listening to another second of your psychotic blather!’ Kohén exclaimed, scooping me up in my arms. ‘If you’re going to try and kill us then go right ahead and-

  ‘I told you, that’s not my intention! But I will if you take another step towards that door before hearing what I have to propose!’

  ‘Fuck you and your proposals-’

  ‘No fuck YOU!’ Kohl thundered. ‘Electricity and water don’t mix, remember? I’d hate to see you swept away by a wave of my generated anger, while crackling with the girl we love in your arms! Talk about a waste!’

  Kohén had been stalking towards the door with me in his arms but now he froze and I sobbed. How could this not be over yet? How could one corridor continue to be the difference between joy and desolation for me?

  ‘Thank you,’ Kohl cleared his throat as Kohén slowly began to turn back around. I felt him straining to get his surge under control, but he was trembling with far too many emotions for him to be able to do that anytime soon. ‘Now, Mother said that she was going to try to get Lark free, yes? But I think we both know she was going to fail.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to think! You haven’t been promoted above me yet, insane Kahuna!’

  ‘And I don’t plan on being promoted above you…’ Kohl said casually, and even I flinched in surprise at that. ‘That’s the whole point.’

  ‘What’s the whole point?’ Kohén was trying to sound like he didn’t care, but I could feel his heart pounding against my good arm, and saw the triumph in Kohl’s eyes as I was rotated to face him again.

  Oh what? What now?

  But Kohl wasn’t looking at my eyes- he was looking at every part of me but my eyes, and his gaze was a heated one. ‘She’s in high demand, our Larkin, in Eden and outside of it…’ He paused to take a swig of champagne and then began to saunter towards us. ‘If I hadn’t branded her just now, father would have done it anyway and would have snapped mother’s spine as I had if she’d tried to straighten it against him, regardless of what she thought! And don’t give me grief about disposing of that heartless nitwit- you think she would have shed a tear if you’d died tonight? Damn, she almost exterminated you herself! Calls herself a mother, she’s a son of a bitch if I ever met one- and I’ve met plenty.’ Kohl tilted back the champagne, took another mouthful, gargled it and then spat it out on the floor near his feet in a spray that was tinged pink by his blood. ‘Nice,’ he looked at the label. ‘This is the good stuff, isn’t it? I suppose you’ve come accustomed to gargling with it, while I’ve had to do the same with seawater?’

  ‘I’d take seawater in my mouth over champagne every day and don’t try to play your tiny violin for yourself now!’ Kohén snapped, while I gritted my teeth and wondered if I had a chance of wriggling out of Kohén’s grasp and making it to the front door so that I could let Karol in before I fainted. I didn’t know how it was possible
but instead of ebbing away, the pain from my brand was increasing! So much so that I could barely focus on anything but it, and what Kohén said next sounded like it was being babbled underwater:

  ‘You’ve had my sympathy since the minute I was old enough to understand what would happen to you when you turned five, but that’s done with now. Larkin’s desirable yes and her future was sketchy at best a few moments ago, but you branding her won’t improve her life, only ruin it further, and mother...’ He guided me further back, sitting me on the edge of the pool. ‘What the fuck, Kohl? No really: what the fuck?’

  ‘She had to go!’ Kohl reached out and pressed the bottle of champagne to my wound and even though I bucked and squealed at the pressure, I understood that he’d done so to help me when Kohén kissed my forehead, told me that the frosted glass would take the edge off the pain, and then held me more tightly so that I could not struggle against it. ‘You heard her- she was going to scream the truth about our birth rights for everyone to hear and she wasn’t going to be talked out of it!’

  ‘Why would you want to talk her out of it? It makes no sense! All you’ve ever wanted was to trade places with me and now that my life is handed to you on a silver platter, you expect me to believe that you’d turn it down?’

  ‘I would, and I will!’ Kohén snorted and made to leave again but Kohl’s voice became insistent as he stepped forward: ‘I don’t want to be the second-in-line in a monarchy, Kohén! I want to be the general of Isthmus! I don’t want to answer to father, I want to work with someone that I actually respect, like Atticus! I know how to organise men and get work done and oversee large projects and deal with islanders and Blue-Collars and God, even criminals, but after spending three days with Amelia-Rose I can tell you that I couldn’t take a week in your stiff, polished shoes in the noble circles! And even if I wanted to I’m not being close to ready yet, and I won’t be thought of as the inept twin that was handed a title that he cannot handle-Ssh…’ Kohl whispered as I mewled, and then I felt the champagne bubbling and spilling down my skin and I shrieked. ‘It’s almost over, Larkin, I promise.’