by S. K Munt
‘So you’re just co-workers, then?’ Karol demanded. ‘Nothing more?’
‘We’re co-workers and friends, your highness,’ I corrected him tersely. ‘And there are thirteen others that I call the same in my division that will attest to that, if need be; including Malry Forsyth. I do not blame you for assuming otherwise because as far as you know, I have done nothing to earn anyone’s trust, but that is not the case in the Third Division, so if you will not take me at my word by all means, seek a second opinion and know that I will welcome an investigation into my sexual conduct with a clear conscience.’
My brother squinted at me as though trying to see through my lies, but everything I said was true so I returned his stare with an unwavering one of my own. Maybe it was unwise to speak to the man that was holding my crown hostage like a brother rather than a king, and perhaps everyone in that kingdom had decided that the only way I was going to earn that crown back was by grovelling to them all... but although I remained a stranger to my old self, I’d become well-acquainted with the new Kohén, and I knew one thing for sure: I was no prince, and I never planned on pretending to be one again. So I didn’t care if in two years, Karol Barachiel returned my crown to me or held onto it out of spite, because I planned on passing it right over to my twin brother as a twenty-first birthday gift, anyway. Then I was going to leave Calliel and my hateful family, and never look back.
And if God didn’t like it, well, he’d better step out of the pearly gates and do something about it, because nothing short of an act of God was going to change my mind about the fact that I’d sooner be alone in the world, then surrounded by my deplorable, and ‘wholly’ shitty family.
24.
Libertie City, Raphael
Larkin Aztaroth
May 4th, AA647
‘Larkin, what in heaven’s name are you doing?’ Miriam Caldwell demanded, lifting her skirts and stepping over one of the steel pipes that were lying scattered across the ground. She bent by the rocks where I’d placed my things, lifted the manuscript that I’d abandoned and shook it at me accusingly. ‘You said you’d get your edits back to me by lunch- that’s an hour away!’
I lifted the protective mask off my face and lowered my flaming hand before stepping away from the pipes. ‘I was working, I promise! But Watt said they were having a problem soldering these joints-’
‘Watt’s the foreman for this site, let him and one of his employees handle it with an actual soldering gun instead of waylaying my copy-editor. Jessley is under the weather and Marlowe is getting ready to leave on a hunting trip, so if you drop the ball too I’ll be trying to fill a library by myself, and I can’t do that!’
‘I’ll bet you could,’ I teased her, wiping my blackened fingers on my pinafore before I headed over to her, leaving the dam constructing to the dam constructers and crossing back to the woman who I knew could read at least three books in one day. Not before I cast one final look back at the two pipes that I’d just joined however, making sure that the metal had been fused where it was needed to, and not melted elsewhere. But it seemed all right, so I waved to Watt when he poked his head out of the office, and then reluctantly moved to take the handwritten pages from Miriam’s hands, hoping that that was all that he had needed me to do. ‘But don’t worry, I only came down here to read in peace and quiet for awhile in the first place, and I only have a few chapters left-’
‘This looks like more than a few chapters, and don’t you dare put your icky fingers on these pages- I can’t produce paper out of thin air you know and while we’re on the subject, what were you thinking, leaving this so close to the river? What if the wind blew the pages right into it while you were off playing Blue Collar? You can get peace and quiet on high, dry ground too, you know!’
I sighed and moved to stuff the rest of my belongings into my straw bag, biting my tongue so I wouldn’t make a crack about how wetting old paper was exactly how we produced new paper, and that I’d personally welcome seeing the manuscript that I was reading ground up into a pulp so that the author could try again. Miriam had a lot of wonderful qualities, but a sense of humour wasn’t one of them, not when it came to work, anyway!
Besides, I knew that I was being a bit harsh on the poor, anonymous writer that had penned ‘The Mistral’s Mistress,’ anyway because really, the story-telling was beautiful. It was just the grammatical errors and the graphic content that bothered me, because it was the first story I’d ever read by a bundle of hormones that obviously hadn’t read many books before, which meant that it was chock-full of heated scenes described by someone that didn’t know how to spell ‘euphemisms,’ but wasn’t shy about using them.
Deep down, I knew that Miriam was right to berate me for taking too long to read it, because really, I had been stalling finishing it on purpose. The characters were wonderful and the story engrossing, but it was borderline erotica and I honestly didn’t know how I was going to get through reading the climax of the story now that the sensuous singing hero had the heroine melting onto a pile of hay in her family’s barn in anticipation of a climax of her own- after chapters and chapters of them ALMOST getting there. I would have put the entire thing on the ‘Pass’ pile the day before, if not for the fact that the author had a way of describing yearning that was poetic without being pretentious or over-wordy. I wanted them to get together, desperately… I just didn’t want to read about the climax they’d experience together once they did.
But I was the only copy-editor that Miriam had, and only twelve manuscripts had been submitted to her publishing house thus far, so I needed to encourage all those that would dare to submit to do exactly that by giving them the best chance I could to see their name in print-and not scare them off because the copy-editor was a prude that had been traumatised as far as intimacy was concerned. It was bad enough that I still hadn’t managed to move on from the wounds that had been inflicted upon me while I’d been in Eden- I wouldn’t make the written word suffer with me by wrinkling my nose up at every love story that passed under it too because whether I liked it or not, love stories still appealed more to readers than every other kind of story did, even to me.
‘I’ll remind you that we’re all expected to help one another when that help is requested,’ I said instead, taking the manuscript out of her hands but keeping my three sooty fingertips curled away from it, wondering how she could be so bothered by fingerprints when the entire thing was covered by notations and ink stains, ‘and that I promised you that I’d have this finished by the end of the day and not by lunch. That leaves me with four hours, you know, not one.’
‘Actually, I know for a fact that you won’t be reading this after lunch, which is precisely why I came down to crack the whip on you,’ Miriam said haughtily as she began to lead be back to the castle like a naughty child. ‘I won’t be waiting another week to see if this is publishable or not-’
‘Why won’t I be reading this after lunch, or for a week hence?’ I demanded, suspicious, surprised and hurt. I would never have backed Miriam’s idea to start a printing press/publishing house of her own if I’d known that I would have been roped into getting the thing off the ground, considered instrumental to the efforts, and more criticised for how I handled my job as copy editor than I was as queen! ‘I’ve never allowed the work that I do for you to fall to the wayside, even in the face of crises, and I’m offended that you would imply otherwise-’
‘Perhaps you have not allowed a crisis to come between you and your day job, but you have allowed Cairo Kingslater to distract you enough to affect the quality of work in the past, so forgive me for saying so, but I will not have his sudden arrival put this novel’s production in jeopardy.’
His name was like the clanging of bells inside my head, and memories of him heated me even more than the most graphic scenes of the manuscript ever had. We were passing the row of stone lakeside cottages that we had built along the northern shore, and I came to a halt right there on the path. ‘What?!’
‘What do yo
u mean, what?’ Miriam rolled her eyes. ‘The last time you were proofreading in the pirate captain’s presence, I was left with an apostrophe apocalypse, remember?’
‘I do not need to be reminded of that matter, for you shamed me well, but I will demand clarification for everything else!’ I all but dropped everything as I clasped her wrist with one of my hands. ‘You speak of Captain Kingslater’s presence here as though it for certain. Does that mean that The Iana has been sighted off the coast this morning? He’s not supposed to come back until next week!’
My boss smiled knowingly before her wispy grey eyebrows lifted. ‘What would you say if I refused to answer that until you’ve finished the book?’
‘I would say that you have forgotten yourself, Lady Caldwell, and the fact that I have wings, and that I will now use them to get to the truth of the matter myself!’ I cried, hugging my belongings to my chest as I began to race along the path that led from the northern rim of Lake Libertie, and back to the village on the East shore. I’d only taken four steps before my wings sprouted and lifted me from the ground, and had only flapped them three times before I was carried over the town square and headed for the city gates.
He’s back! I thought, dizzy with delight. Cairo’s back!
‘Hold onto that book tight and finish it or I’ll demote you to MY position, which believe me, is no fun!’ Lady Caldwell called after me, incensed, but I only laughed as I hugged the novel tightly to my chest and beamed down at the village below me. I always loved soaring over it and seeing all of the progress that we had made in twenty-eight months… but this was the first time that I’d flown above it in the middle of the day in spring since we’d constructed the greenhouses, and the sight of all of that polished glass winking up at me in the midday sun delighted me to no end, because those tiny building sparkled like diamonds but were even more precious to me than diamonds could ever be, because they were what would keep us not only alive but thriving next winter.
We’d survived the last two, yes, because Satan had adjusted the environment around us just enough to take the chill out of our bones if not out of the air between October and February… but the next Winter might just prove to be as pleasant as every spring and summer had been because this time, we would have enough food locked away in the stores to keep our bellies full and our systems nourished, which meant that we wouldn’t almost starve again, even the icy waters prevented The Iana from coming to our aid, like they always did.
Cairo wanted to visit us then anyway of course, and insisted that he’d gotten in once so he could certainly navigate a path through the icebergs again if it meant getting to me when I needed him most, but I’d put my foot down on the matter in order to keep him and his loyal crew alive. It made the winters seem longer than they really were, but daydreams about seeing him again in the spring when it was safe for him to return to us got me through it and luckily, he’d never stayed away for more than four months in a row.
The air was warm but it still had a crisp edge to it, and I loved the way it tingled my nostrils as the smell of lilacs in bloom delighted them. A few people were sword-fighting on the common, partaking in one of the combat classes and though I could not wave back to them when they sighted me without dropping my things, I nodded and smiled, and then shot forward more speedily, heading towards the river’s mouth and towards the harbour that we had constructed for The Iana. The first hydroelectric dam that we had restored was churning thunderously where the river crashed into and over it, but the misted water that sparkled off it was not thick enough to block my view of Cairo’s ship as I passed above, and my entire being lit up at the sight of her: proud and undamaged and headed straight for the docks with the golden dragon’s nose pointed right at the château.
He’s not supposed to be home for another week! I thought, beside myself with excitement, and grateful for the fact that Miriam had let me know that he was docking in private because I would have been mortified by the way I’d reacted to the news if she’d made her announcement publicly. I wanted to do so much before he got here! But… oh well, I’ll take him over anticipation of him, any day!
As embarrassed as I would have been for people to see me, flushed and breathless over a man, I couldn’t help my reaction so I did not try to suppress it. I had not fallen in love with Cairo in the traditional sense- in the all-consuming way that he claimed to love me- but in the two years that I’d known him, my world had opened up like a rose in bloom and I could not deny that for all of the things that he had delivered unto me, the joy that I experienced every time we were reunited, and the faith that he instilled in me was what I had needed the most because it kept me and my people going while he was gone. Though he was still as cocky and lecherous as he had been since the first moment we’d met, Cairo Kingslater had also been my hero, my confidante, my informant, my friend, my champion and my link to the outside world… and though he swore black and blue that I would have been just fine without him and that it was he that was dependent on me and the safe harbour that I had provided him with, I suspected that I would never be able to pay him back for all of the blessings that he had bestowed upon me.
Well, that was what I had been thinking for years, but there had been developments of late and now, I had to admit that I might be able to start repaying my debt to him after all. First, with the treasure that we’d discovered and then, well… my cheeks heated when I spotted The Iana, and then the man standing at the helm of her, blowing me kisses from the deck, and just like that, I went from being delicately offended by the manuscript in my hands to excited. So excited that everything inside my lower stomach suddenly felt warm and gooey.
But despite how beautiful he looked, even from fifty metres away, and despite how my nerve endings had sung the moment that I’d learned of his arrival... the idea of those massive hands clamping tightly around me froze my blood into ice in my veins as soon as I had imagined it. Excitement was replaced by dread and the notion that I couldn’t breathe properly and suddenly, all I could think about was how big Cairo was- how strong he was, and how those massive hands could crush me if I failed to keep up my end of our bargain!
And just like that, I became terrified of the man that kept me safe- the man that I was indebted to once again, due to a bargain that I had made in a moment of desperation. What if I had fallen for someone else, despite the fact that I’d sworn not to? What would he do to me? What could he still do, if he decided that he couldn’t wait another minute longer to find out if we connected as well physically as we had as friends?
The air was always thinner up there when I was flying but suddenly, I couldn’t drag in a breath at all, and my eyes stung with tears that had nothing to do with Cairo, and everything to do with my past. The man, though kind and exciting and generous, was too big and too passionate, the manuscript in my hands was too heavy, I was dirty and damaged and he deserved better than me, and as soon as I remembered that, and as soon as I’d launched myself off the ground, I coiled my body and then turned away from the incoming ship, heading straight back to the castle- to my tower of moss and ruins that I was free to leave whenever I wanted to- but imprisoned within all the same.
*
My ill-feelings, though strong, were only a product of my imagination and rarely lasted very long, so I’d only been back in my private chamber for a few minutes before my breathing evened out and my incendiary panic subsided. I paced the grassy strip at the eastern edge of the top floor, wringing my hands if only to smother the last of my nervous flames, while I muttered to myself about snapping out of it. I didn’t know how much of myself I could offer Cairo this time again, but I knew that he didn’t deserve to find me in this state.
We almost kissed last time… I thought, touching my cheek as I remembered how he’d kissed both of them during our last farewell, but instead of kissing my real cheeks, his lips had glanced off the smile lines on either side of my mouth, teasing me. I’d locked up when he’d done it, terrified that he was going to press his mouth to mine, but s
ince he’d left, I’d often thought of how good it would have felt to turn my face just slightly to the side, offering my lips willingly, instead of fearing that he would clamp his own around them. Would I be able to do it this time? Would he give me the opportunity to, or had I scared him off by stiffening so?
And why was I obsessing more about what displays of affection he would offer me, when what I ought to be thinking about was what news he would bring? I was a queen, for heaven’s sake, not a swooning moron! I ought to be thinking about how his return would affect our lives in the village, not my heartbeat! Had he gotten us any more sheep? What of the books I’d asked for about practicing medicine?
My chamber was technically half of the entire upper floor, only Satan had only restored one side of it to its former glory (apparently, a massive Château had stood here in the time before, and she’d merely recreated then exaggerated its structure to make it more palace-like) so the only enclosed part was the southern corner, which was a tower that she had converted into a bedroom with a private washroom for me. It had an arched door that led out onto the rooftop, but I rarely closed my heavy wooden door or the windows, because the exterior of that bedroom was where I spent most of my time.
Sam called it my landing strip, because I’d used the long, narrow path along the top as a launch-pad for my earlier flying lessons, but it was really just a long, narrow terrace that stretched from one end of the palace to the other, allowing me to remain elevated above people and isolated when required- keeping my claustrophobia at bay- but without actually cutting me off from the outside world. Some of the crumbling, grey brick façade was still standing and there was enough of it left to serve as a perimeter wall, and that kept my klutzier, non-winged friends safe when they visited me, but it was mostly open to the elements and covered with soil, thick, lush grass, crawling vines and flowerbeds in the warmer months- and snow in the winter. As a result, my room was draughtier and a bit less sparkling than the rest of the palace because my grey-brick walls were bare, but I had a giant fireplace in there to keep me warm, and even though two years had passed, I’d yet to be overcome by the urge to move into the main section of the palace where the rooms were twice as large, twice as warm and much more luxurious.