The Wildest Woods

by S. K Munt

  Martya’s face softened a little, and she looked down at her hands. ‘Sometimes,’ she confessed quietly. ‘But it’s not enough, Lark. Earlier last winter I was determined to kiss him, just to see what happened because it really felt like we were sparking.’ She sighed. ‘But then you walked in and-’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ I cried. ‘I’ll never interrupt you two again ever, I swear it!’

  But she glowered at me. ‘Being interrupted isn’t the issue hon. It’s the way he forgets that I exist when you walk into the room that bothers me because it’s like me and my spark completely vanish.’ She looked me up and down. ‘If you don’t believe me, just watch his face when you enter the ballroom tonight, all right? Then you’ll see what the rest of us do- and what you’ve been trying to ignore for so long- his utter enchantment.’

  I crossed my arms across my chest, feeling naked in the dress now. How was I going to be able to look at Sam to assess his reaction towards me while I was fairly certain that I was never going to be able to look him in the eye again after this conversation? ‘If you’re right- and I’m not saying you are- enchantment is all it is, Martya. He can’t possibly be in love with me so when he gets his soul back, everything he thinks he feels now will change- including the value he puts on all of this,’ I gestured to myself. ‘Just like I’m sure Kohén, Kohl and Karol snapped out of their supposed infatuations the moment that I stepped out of their sights.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right, because I know the fact that Sam thinks of your personal aversion to love as something that the two of you have in common,’ Martya said, picking up my champagne flute and coming over to hand it to me, and I took it eagerly, suddenly desperate to be drunk. But the glass was halfway towards my lips before I remembered how drinking had unravelled my life in the past and I lowered it reluctantly, opting to hold onto the glass for dear life instead. My best friend was in pain and numbing myself to that in order to make myself feel less uncomfortable was wrong and foolish. ‘Or maybe when he gets his soul back, all of the things that he likes about you now will simply be amplified, you know? And why shouldn’t they be? I adore you and not only do I dislike most people, but I’m not attracted to you at all so that’s saying a lot.’

  I looked down at my glass, shaking my head. ‘I’ll still be barren when Sam gets his soul back.’ I lifted my eyes. ‘Perhaps I tick a lot of shallow boxes, like you said… but not the one that counts the most when it comes to men choosing a mate.’

  Martya rolled her eyes. ‘You don’t know that your infertility is permanent-’

  ‘I haven’t bled for two years!’

  ‘That’s not so long.’

  ‘Maybe it doesn’t seem that way to you, but it feels like an eternity to me!’ I snapped, turning away from her as tears filled my eyes, clouding the sight of the Fallen Forest out my window. I didn’t want to be having this stupid fertility conversation, not today! I wanted to tell Cairo that I was falling in love with him and I wanted to start contemplating a future with him the way he daydreamed about sharing one with me… but we had to have a discussion about my infertility before that happened, and I was so afraid that he was going to turn on his heel and run when he learned that I probably wouldn’t be able to give him a Kingslater heir to carry on his father’s impressive legacy that I couldn’t stand it.

  I wanted to convince Martya that Sam would lose interest in me the moment he started thinking about having a family, but by doing that, I was also talking myself into believing that Cairo would do the same thing because unlike Sam, I knew for a fact that Cairo wanted a lot of kids and would jump at the chance to start right now. That was only a given considering what had happened to his first child in utero, wasn’t it?

  I knew I should have had that conversation with Cairo a long time ago, or had at least clarified the fact that not only had I had the poison in my bloodstream, but that I’d taken a knife to my womb in order to cut it out and had most likely done a lot more damage in there than good… but Satan had asked me to lead him on initially and I had assumed that hell would freeze over before I imagined sharing a life with a man again, so my awful little secret had stayed a secret this whole time. Cairo knew that there was a very good chance that I wouldn’t be able to have kids for awhile, but I had been convinced by other people’s stories that it was pretty much impossible and because I truly did care for him, I knew he deserved to know the truth before things got too serious.

  I was now just afraid that they’d gotten too serious already and once my truth was out, there would be no coming back from it.

  33.

  Libertie City, Raphael

  Larkin Aztaroth

  Martya rested her hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me from my Cairo worries. ‘I’m sorry Lark,’ she said softly, sighing. ‘I knew this was a bad day to have this talk- I could kill Quilline for running her mouth and forcing us to have it.’

  ‘It’s not her fault,’ I sniffled, wiping at my eyes so I wouldn’t wreck my own base make-up, which Quilline had already done. ‘Apparently everyone in the kingdom knew that Sam…’ I groaned, I couldn’t even say it! He was my best friend! ‘God, I feel so stupid.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re stupid,’ Martya said loyally, squeezing my shoulder. ‘I think you knew all along, and you just pretended you didn’t because it was easier to stick your head in the sand then to deal. Besides, it’s not like Sam follows you around reciting sonnets and showering you with rose petals, is it? His idea of flirting seems to be telling you what a pain in the ass you are, warning you off Cairo and occasionally suggesting that you accompany him to an orgy, so it would be pretty difficult to take him seriously.’

  I turned around, raising an eyebrow at her. ‘Wait- so he doesn’t even jokingly invite you to those rituals?’

  ‘Never,’ Martya said sadly, going back over to my vanity while taking a long sip from his champagne. ‘I wish he would though- my answer might just take him by surprise.’

  I sucked in my breath. I’d never been to one of the orgies but I’d snuck up to take a peek at one once, and it had been like watching an erotic nightmare. The darkness, the firelight, the drumming, the frenzied dancing… I’d not been surprised to see some of the women from the coven there, Lady Lucida and her girls or most of the single men that hung out at the The Lady Inn because they were all very open about their sex drives- but if I’d recognised my sweet, sensible Martya in the crowd I probably would have fainted from shock like a scandalized little old lady in need of smelling salts.

  However, that would have been a knee-jerk reflex, because there was more to Martya than met the eye, and this was not the first time I’d glimpsed a sliver of her wild side. I wouldn’t have imagined her participating in an orgy prior to today, no, but I wouldn’t have imagined her demanding her release by bribing the king or faking her own death after having formed an alliance with bloody Satan either, but she’d done both of those thing which meant that she was capable of almost anything- maybe even of making good on her threat to switch teams. That darker Martya was unpredictable, unapologetic- and very much in tune with her wants and needs (even if she did do a good job of hiding it) and she was not to be underestimated. Sure, she’d rebelled against the entire Companion Caste as I had, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t sexual or that she was a shrinking violet, did it? It just meant that she wanted to be in control of her own destiny, like I did, and was smart enough to keep her cards close to her chest.

  ‘Are you saying that you’d…? Even if he can’t make a commitment-’

  ‘I don’t care if he never gets his soul back and I don’t care if he never loves me in return,’ Martya walked over to where her dress had been laid over the armrest of my reading chair by the window and picked it up, hugging it to her chest as she stared out my window. ‘All I know is that when I’m around him, I feel like stars are exploding inside me. I want his hands on me, Lark, his mouth…’ she closed her eyes and sighed, leaning back against the wall. ‘And I want him to feel the same way abou
t me- even if it only is for a few minutes.’ She opened her eyes, cheeks colouring. ‘Is that so wrong?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not wrong, no. Just a little surprising.’

  ‘Because I’m not sexy, I know-’

  ‘That’s not what I said,’ I exclaimed, horrified by the way the glow had suddenly faded from her face. I teetered towards her, trying not to step on my pins or all of Riesling’s sewing stuff that was scattered across my floor. ‘And how can you even think that? You’re beautiful, Martya!’

  ‘Oh I am not- I’m ordinary and I always have been. In fact, after how awkward I looked in my teen years, I’m grateful to qualify as merely ordinary now.’

  ‘You are NOT ordinary!’ I exclaimed, stunned that she would think that of herself, and she blinked a little. ‘You’re tall and fit- way fitter than any other girl around here and not in a gross muscly way either but long and lean! Your hair falls so straight that you always look like you’ve just brushed it, and just look at your complexion!’ I reached out and traced the back of her creamy hand. ‘You were so worried about acne and cellulite when we were younger but that’s all gone now and I envy your skin every day!’ I held my arm against hers. ‘I have to go out into the sun at least ten minutes a day or my arms look like they’re made of rice paper, but yours is creamy and even all the time, just like Adeline’s always was- and it’s lovely.’

  Martya bit her lip. ‘Really?’

  I nodded and touched her nose. ‘See these freckles? Cairo told me that one of his astronomy-obsessed crew members swears you have a constellation in those freckles, but he won’t tell Cairo which one it is, so the man I have a crush on actually spends a lot of time studying your nose- which he says is perfect in its symmetry.’

  Martya covered her nose and her eyes crinkled up. ‘That’s why he stares? Heaven’s grief, I’ve always worried that he was counting blackheads or something!’

  ‘Well he wasn’t,’ I raised my eyebrows, ‘and he’s not the only one that finds your face fascinating, by the way. I already know what constellation the sailor was talking about, because Kohén spotted it years ago: it’s the astrological sign Cancer, right here…’ I reached out and quickly touched the corresponding stars, pushing back memories of Kohén pointing them out to me in the pool room in Eden. ‘And they’re beautiful.’

  Martya wrinkled up her nose. ‘That’s not my sign.’

  I shrugged. ‘You can get crabby though, so it’s not without relevance.’ Martya giggled, blushing further, and I caught her hands, squeezing them, finally allowing myself to smile again. ‘See? You’re worth staring at, Martya, and I’ll bet Sam thinks so too.’

  ‘Maybe some people think I’m pretty and a lot think I’m smart- but I’m not sexy Larkin, and you know it- not the way you are, or in the way I need to be to get Sam’s attention. My mind is in the gutter every second that I spend with him, but when I open my mouth to say something forward or flirty, I get shy and end up relaying a fact about a dung beetle or something stupid like that and it just kills the mood.’

  I shrugged. ‘Sam babbles when he’s over stimulated too, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ Martya scowled at me, ‘because he does that when you’re around and I’ve witnessed it more times than I care to count, including right through brunch this morning.’ She took another drink from her wine and began waving around her other hand while I internally writhed in discomfort. Dammit Sam! Why hadn’t he just been more upfront about everything to begin with? It would have saved them both years of frustration and me a lot of awkward conversations now! ‘There’s other stuff too, you know. I end up debating stuff with him and that’s the exact opposite of what we were taught to do in the harem-’

  ‘So do I!’ I pointed out.

  ‘But you’re sexy so it doesn’t matter! I know you don’t mean to flirt with Sam, but you just have this teasing way of conversing with men that’s utterly beguiling and contrary, and that comes across as flirting because even if they don’t agree with you in the end, they wish they did. Whereas when I debate people I’m blunt and inflexible so although I win the argument- I do it by acting like a know it all and scaring them off!’ She walked out from between the wall, and me getting all worked up now. ‘And the way you hold yourself and dress… ugh! Do you know I could primp for three hours and still not come off looking half as good as you do after ten minutes of running through a fucking paddock after Inoborna?’ She whirled around and held out her hands in exasperation. ‘And you’re so graceful and commanding that you always end up being the centre of attention without even trying to be! When you walk into a room it’s like a dance, but when I do it’s like playing musical chairs, and don’t shake your head at me your highness, because I have proof of how tragic it is!’ She gestured to the empty space beside her, going into pantomime mode now. ‘At my birthday banquet last year, Sam pulled out a chair for me, but when I sat down and said thank you, you walked in and he was so busy running over to greet you that he forgot to push me back in! He just left me sitting there like, three feet out from the table! It was mortifying!’

  I gasped. ‘He didn’t!’

  ‘He did!’ Martya insisted, bringing her empty glass to her mouth again. ‘And what was worse was no one else even noticed so birthday girl or not, I had to drag myself over to the table with the fucking chair!’

  ‘I would have told him off,’ I said, pissed off on her behalf, and ashamed to think that I’d inadvertently stolen that moment from her, ‘and you ought to have done the same. Maybe you’re not getting Sam’s attention because you don’t demand it the way you do everything else.’

  ‘Or maybe I’m not getting Sam’s attention because there’s this bright big fucking halo shining off you that the rest of us get hidden behind,’ she groused, sinking down onto my bed and looking crabby again. ‘So until you find a way to dim your light, the rest of us are fucked. Or not fucked, I should say- not by him, anyway.’

  I snorted. ‘That’s not a halo- it’s Companion training. Would you go back in time and trade your freedom for the chance to learn how to walk in six inch heels without hunching your shoulders for balance, and how to make eye contact with a man even when they’re trying their hardest to ignore you just to score Sam’s attention now?’ I struck a pose in the middle of the room, holding out my wine flute delicately. ‘Would you have liked to learn how to drink from crystal ware without accidentally allowing your company to see your magnified mouth through the base of it?’

  Martya looked horrified. ‘They did not teach you how to do that!’

  ‘Oh, but they did!’ I turned my profile to the side and made my free hand hover prettily while I ducked my face to the glass as I recited in a parody of Maryah’s voice: ‘A lady will never lift her glass above her jaw, for fear that her lips and teeth will show through the bottom. Instead, you should angle your face down to the glass and ever so slightly tilt the flute up so that a trickle of wine will pass slowly over your lower lip-’

  ‘Okay stop!’ Martya cried out, laughing. ‘That’s ridiculous! What a waste of perfectly good memory space!’

  ‘No, it’s pretty and feminine,’ I corrected her, sliding my eyes to her and winking. ‘And if done right, enchanting- apparently.’ I leaned back against my jasmine-wrapped bedpost and threw the glass back, drinking from it the way a man would and Martya giggled as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and burped. ‘This way’s a lot easier though.’

  ‘Okay, okay… I see what you’re saying. You actually did look a lot more graceful the other way, and the smouldering eyes thing was sexy too.’ She made a face. ‘I just didn’t realise that you walk and talk and stand that way because of all of those stupid classes. Weren’t you supposed to be rebelling against by blocking it all out it like I was?’

  ‘I tried to,’ I admitted, ‘but I guess a lot of it stuck anyhow, especially towards the end when I was trying my hardest to blend in so no one would work out that Constance and I were plotting my escape. Don’t get me wrong- I’m not ab
out to scarf dance to impress Cairo or anything, but for the life of me I can’t wear underwear that doesn’t match, pass gas in front of a man or bring myself to eat with my fingers and I’ll bet that’s the stuff that I do that makes me stick out that little bit more. I mean, I know I’m always struck dumb by how graceful the correctly trained companions are, and why shouldn’t we be? They’re the Geishas of the new world for a damned good reason.’

  ‘God I wish I could stick out to Sam- just once, you know? To walk into a room and feel his eyes on me the way he usually looks at you…’ her voice trailed off, and she looked at me sadly. ‘I wanted to get dressed up to the nines tonight in a costume that made him go: ‘Wow!’ but now that I’ve seen yours, I know it’s hopeless. I also know that Quilline’s right about him and Cairo too- you may have been oblivious to Sam’s lust for you but Captain Kingslater isn’t and they’ve been on the brink of throwing punches over you for awhile. If Sam gets to thinking that tonight might be his last chance to bed you…’

  ‘Don’t,’ I groaned, pressing my hands to my scaly stomach, feeling sick when I imagined Sam cornering me to make some big move. ‘This is Cairo’s birthday party- I can’t have him getting into a punch up with anyone, let alone poor Sam! And I certainly don’t want you suffering either!’

  Martya shrugged. ‘What can you do? Nothing short of you going as a dung-covered bag of wheat is going to change the fact that you’re gorgeous, and nothing short of a lobotomy is going to change the fact that I’m flirtatiously-challenged, so the way I see it- you should probably just let them duke it out. Then, when Sam’s unconscious and Cairo is slightly bruised-’ she smirked when I snorted, ‘-we could play nursemaid respectively and get them alone that way.’

  ‘Dung covered bag of wheat, hmm?’ I asked weakly. ‘I guess I could rustle up a costume like that if it saves Cairo one or two bruises and Sam from certain death.’

  Martya laughed. ‘And waste Riesling’s dress? That’ll go over well… it’s not like she’s almost gone blind trying to sew it by flickering light this week or anything!’