Divided (41 page)

“I’m shouting because I just hired this boy, and he’s
already trying to scare off my customers with his clumsiness!” the man
answered.  Nardin.  Aela hadn’t even registered his name until she’d heard it
spoken by that voice.

Her brother—Taeru—laughed.  “You’re the one who is going to
scare off your customers with all your shouting, my friend.”  He sounded as
gentle as he ever had back in Cathalar, always speaking to the most unruly of
people in the friendliest of voices.

“Bah!  I don’t need a barhand!  I knew this was a mistake. 
I need the extra coin, anyway!  Get out of here, boy!” Nardin shouted.  His
eyes were blazing with irritation.

Taeru spoke again, before Aela had a chance to do much other
than squirm beneath the cold reality that she’d been fired.  Then again, no
reality felt truly bothersome when her older brother was standing within arms’
length of her.  Oh, she wanted to hug him!  “Honestly, Nardin, if you keep that
attitude, then you’ll never get any help.  Don’t be so hard on him.  Someone
probably ran into him?”  Taeru’s eyes moved to Aela, and she felt panic
spilling through her.

Actually, no.  What happened was I am actually a princess
who just saw her long lost brother and therefore stopped functioning properly! 
She couldn’t say that, but she certainly thought it as she stared into his
eyes.  He didn’t recognize her, she realized.  Because while he hadn’t changed
much, she had matured much in the last five years—and she was dressed as a
boy.  “I, uh… yes,” she mumbled.

The old man let out a wary sigh.  “Kilik, honestly—that
kindness of yours is going to get you hurt one of these suns.”

“It already has,” Taeru answered softly. 

“Well enough, though, boy—be glad Kilik’s worth something
around here, and that he’s kind enough to interfere.  Clean up this mess, and
then go get me the supplies I asked you for,” Nardin turned his eyes on Aela as
he spoke. 

“Y-yes, sir.”  Wow, she’d only just seen him a moment ago
and already Taeru was taking care of her.  But Kilik?  Why had that man called
him Kilik?  Well, Taeru surely couldn’t go about saying his real name in
Telandus.  But what was he doing here?  How was he getting by—and why couldn’t
she just hug him? 

As Nardin walked away, Aela could feel her heart threatening
to explode out of her chest.  She couldn’t say that she knew who he
was—especially here where they would both surely be overheard by someone who
should not overhear.  “I, ah… thank you…”

“Don’t worry about it.  Try not to get so easily distracted
next time, though,” Taeru offered helpfully.  Now he was lecturing her—after
saving her.  Things had clearly not changed much, or rather, Taeru had not
changed much.  Good—she preferred him the way he had been.  “Do you want help
with this?” Taeru gestured to the floor.

Aela threw her hands up, not wanting to cause herself any
heart attack, and then shook her head.  Nevertheless, though, proving further that
he had not changed, Taeru insisted upon helping her grab the few broken dishes
and bring the rest into the kitchen.  She hadn’t had to report back to the
cellar since very few of the dishes had actually broken.  “Thanks,” she
murmured as he placed the last of the dishes onto the shelf.

“You’ve said that,” he said.  Oh, she just wanted to hug
him, she wanted to leap into his arms, cry hysterically, and tell him about how
often she’d thought about him—and how much she’d worried about him. 

He seemed alright, she thought.  His eyes were a little
worn, as though he hadn’t gotten much sleep lately, but he seemed well enough. 
She wanted to know exactly how he was, though, and she wished that she could
say something to him without compromising both of their positions.  Though,
just as she’d let herself get too comfortable, he paused.  He narrowed his eyes
as if he saw something suspicious and then spoke.  “You look familiar.  Do I
know you?”

“I, um… I…”  All language abandoned her, and she stuttered
pointlessly for another few moments before she collected her thoughts.  She
cleared her throat to buy a few more moments before speaking.  “I… I don’t see
how!  I only just came into town last cycle.  So, I think you probably do not…
know me… that is.”

He pursed his lips.  “I really feel like I’ve seen you
before,” he said decisively.  But, he didn’t pursue the issue beyond that. 
“What is your name?”

“I…” She stammered again for a few moments.  She couldn’t
remember the name that she’d been supposed to give people.  Finally, she found
it.  “I’m Aelic.  Aelic Eirgold.”  There—that sounded good.  She had even given
both names, and she didn’t think it had taken too long to respond.  “You are…
Kilik?” she asked, and the name sounded funny when she applied it to her
brother.

He smiled.  “Yes.”

He wasn’t going to offer his last name—probably because he
was a liar and his name was not at all Kilik.  “Do you often go out of your way
to help clumsy barhands?” she asked warily.  She had her brother here with her,
and she wasn’t about to let him vanish without a trace.  She couldn’t tell him
who she was, but she wanted to hear him speak—to know without a doubt that he
was her brother, and that he was alive. 

Taeru laughed.  “You would be surprised.  But, I saw you
drop the plates, and you looked rather distraught over the whole ordeal.  Not
to mention, Nardin can get a little grumpy when the tavern is as full as it is
this moon.”

“Noted,” she said.  “You are… that was very kind of you.”

All he offered in return was a smile.  Good to know that he
still couldn’t take compliments.  He’d cut his hair so short, she realized. 
There was a faded cut along the side of his cheek, as well.  She spoke before
he had a chance to leave.  “Is your face alright?  You have a cut?”

He raised his hand to investigate it, and then he smiled and
offered a shrug of his shoulders.  “I got that nearly two cycles ago,” he said
thoughtfully.  “I didn’t even remember it was there.  So, yes, my face is
alright.”

She could tell, because even after five years, she knew her
brother well enough to understand his body language, that he was about to
leave.  “I-I…” she spat, “I’m new to this place.  You seem to know your way
around… is there any way you could show me around sometime?” she articulated. 
The excuse was a lame one, but she had to have some reason to see him again.

For a moment, he seemed unsure, and then he offered another
of those smiles so she could just make out the dimples starting to form.  “I
can do that,” he answered easily.  “I’ll meet you outside the tavern two suns
from now,” he said. 

“Yes!” she said, “I mean… that’s… I appreciate it.”  She
would see him again, and better yet, she wouldn’t have to stalk through all of Dark
District to find out where he was.  Perhaps he would even tell her.  “You are
leaving this moon, then—the tavern I mean?” she asked.  She hadn’t meant for
her voice to sound so downtrodden about it.

“I am, well… I’m supposed to meet someone here,” he said
warily.  His voice was suddenly guarded, as if he wasn’t sure that he should be
meeting whoever it was.  Aela felt worry bubble up into her throat.  What had
Taeru gotten himself into?

Aela knew that asking who would only decrease her chances of
actually getting to know him later, so she contented herself with a nod and let
him excuse himself back to the table that he’d been at before the affair had
begun.  Taeru was okay!  And he was here!  Aela wasn’t sure she’d ever been so
happy in all of her life.  In fact, she knew that she never had been.  She
thought she’d never see him again—she’d thought the worst, especially after her
dreams. 

Rather than focusing on her duties for the remainder of the
moon, she watched Taeru at the table.  For a while, he seemed impassive, as
though he wasn’t waiting for anyone at all—but as the shift grew lower, he grew
a little more anxious.  After nearly two shifts had passed, Aela wondered if
whoever it was would show up.  She felt a fury unlike any other at the idea
that anyone would lie to her brother, no matter who they were.

The blond barmaid wandered over to Taeru a few times and
spoke to him as if she knew him very well.  Aela made a note to work to get to
know that particular barmaid a little better, even if her voice did sound like
a girl’s. 

Then, at last, there was someone else.  For a moment, Taeru
looked as though he might leap out of his seat and run from the person who
approached him.  It was another man, and though he didn’t look threatening—he
certainly was nothing to laugh at.  He was very tall, with blond hair, and
strikingly pale skin—very Telandus, Aela thought.  His shoulders weren’t broad,
and he was rather slim, though he was still broader than Aela’s very small
brother.  The two of them would have been polar opposites had the blond man
been just a little bit thicker. 

Aela caught herself thinking about the young man that
approached her brother in a rather inappropriate way.  He was extremely
handsome, with blue-green eyes that could have cut through anything with their
intensity.  The only problem was, that intensity was all directed at Taeru. 
Upon seeing the blond, Taeru got uncertainly to his feet.  They spoke briefly,
and Aela was confident that she saw her brother blushing.

Blushing?  Taeru?  The thought was certainly not unheard of,
but he’d only ever blushed when he’d done something silly.  The blond didn’t
seem very interested in humiliating the smaller boy, either, Aela thought. 
Then, just when her heart had begun to calm down, as everyone had a breaking
point—and she was sure if her poor heart moved any faster that she would surely
die from overexertion—it happened. 

The blond’s movements were not as graceful as Taeru’s, but
there was a fluidity to them so that when he moved Aela felt dizzy and confused
as to what he might be about to do.  That was why when the man’s hand fell on
her brother’s cheek, she hadn’t fully made the connection before their lips
were touching.  Aela felt her face flush at the sight—this incredibly striking blond,
kissing her brother.  She felt simultaneously protective and giddy.  The way he
held Taeru—she’d never seen anyone touch her brother like that—so domineering,
so protective! 

Her heart skipped a few beats.  Taeru was with someone? 
That thought had never occurred to her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about
it.  But she could see the light in those blue-green eyes that belonged to a
man that she didn’t know, and there was a very visceral sense that this man
meant Taeru no harm—on the contrary, he seemed positively engrossed in the Cathalari
prince. 

Taeru certainly had the effect on more than one woman back
in Cathalar, though Taeru had never taken notice.  He had always been far too
nice to worry with pleasing one, single woman, and Aela had always thought that
some part of him was too afraid of romance to let it ever happen to him.  Yet,
as this blond held Taeru now, her brother’s body collapsed into him, as if the blond
had taken some weight from Taeru’s shoulders. 

Finally, the kiss broke, leaving Aela’s—who hadn’t even been
involved in it—heart racing far faster than it had been before.  Those kinds of
kisses were the kind that she’d only read about in books!  Then, the blond
grabbed Taeru’s hand, watching him with a plea in his eyes.  Taeru looked
reluctant for only a moment before he glanced back and the blond eased him,
very gently, but very sternly, towards the door of the tavern.

Aela had never felt so thrilled and worried at the same
time.

“‘Villains always tend to miss the brighter side of
things,’ the Hero thought.”

-A Hero’s Peace v.i

Kilik was reluctant, and Calis could feel the very slight
quiver of the small wrist as he pulled the young man along.  Surely, there were
a million things running through his head—after all, Kilik had already
expressed fear that Calis was secretly trying to murder him, and now the prince
was dragging him away from a well-lit tavern into the darkness of the moon. 
Calis would have felt bad about causing Kilik such worry if he hadn’t been so
sure Kilik would forget it when they reached their destination.

Calis had only seen the place he was taking Kilik a few
times, and that had been before he’d left for Dokak.  He had gone the previous
moon to ensure that it was still there, and once he’d found that it was, he was
insistent on taking Kilik.  But, as they walked, Kilik seemed to become more
and more sure that he was going to die, so Calis spoke aloud.  “You’re
trembling.  What is it going to take for you to trust me?”

“A miracle,” Kilik muttered under his breath.  The words
hurt, but Calis was certain that Kilik did trust him—to a degree.  After all,
the smaller boy had permitted that Calis bring him out here, and
had—unofficially—allowed Calis to court him.  Courting him, though, seemed like
an odd term for what they were doing.

Calis couldn’t keep his mind from Kilik, despite all of its
best efforts, and therefore he had not followed many of the procedures that
would be called flirting.  After all, when Calis wasn’t with Kilik, he spent
every moment of free time watching the boy from afar, and when he had no free
time—he spent all those moments thinking of him.  Kilik had bewitched him, in a
word, and it was frightening and invigorating. 

Calis had tried desperately to figure out what it was about
Kilik that had him so entirely mesmerized.  He had spoken to Lee about it, who
seemed positively stumped over it.  Lee seemed in shock that Calis could put so
much effort into thinking about a single person, and truth be told, this wasn’t
very like him at all.

Though, in the moments when he was with Kilik, even when the
young boy was squirming and uncertain, Calis found that he could worry about it
very little.  No, his more primary concern was not how he felt about Kilik, but
rather—Kilik.  The point was indisputable that Calis was infatuated with the
part-time vigilante, but that had only been part of why Calis’s mind had been
so active recently.

There was something about Kilik—something that he was
desperately trying to hide—that frightened Calis.  Not that Kilik himself was
dangerous, but rather, Kilik seemed afraid of something.  Watching Kilik grind
that stone against his skin had been the most alarming moment Calis had ever
experienced.  And the look in his eyes when he’d opened them—something terrible
had been on Kilik’s mind that sun, and in the cycle since then, Kilik had
refused to discuss it.

He chalked it up to a fever, and yet there was something
more behind that too-brave mask, and Calis would figure out what it was. 
“Where are we going?” Kilik’s voice pierced his thoughts like a knife, and
Calis glanced back at his still-fearful companion.

Calis spoke lowly, and he couldn’t help the way his eyes
hung on to Kilik’s face for longer than necessary.  What was he hiding?  Calis
had already discovered that Kilik was the Phantom Blade, and Calis had made
sure that no one else knew—well, other than Lee, who’d practically already
known anyway.  “We’re leaving the city.”

Panic seeped onto Kilik’s face, and Calis noticed the bronze
color of his skin pale a little in the moonlight.  “I-I can’t…”

Calis laughed.  “We aren’t going to walk by the guards,” he
said, pulling a now more resistant Kilik with him.  “You think my leaving the
city wouldn’t be reported back to my father in a heartbeat if any of those
bumbling guards knew about it?”

This seemed to make Kilik relax just a little, but he was
still not going to fully do so.  In fact, Calis had never seen him fully do
so.  Except perhaps when the two of them were kissing.  And Calis didn’t notice
much of anything, other than the euphoric sensation, when the two of them
kissed.  “How are we going to leave the city without notifying the guards?”

“I used to do it all the time,” Calis answered.  “And the
same way I get into Dark District without notifying the guards.”

They were both whispering, but Calis hardly thought there
was much of a reason for it.  Still—with the Telandan nobles—there was no
telling who was lurking around, looking for a poor girl to grab.  Calis shuddered
at the thought.  “We’re nearly there,” he told Kilik as he pulled him another
little ways and then stopped in front of the wall to the Shining District. 
“You can climb, yes?” 

Calis grinned at the incensed look on Kilik’s face.  Of
course he could climb—his main source of transport were rooftops when he was
masquerading as the Phantom Blade.  “I shouldn’t do this,” Kilik said weakly. 
“You’re bringing me into the Shining District?  What are the odds that fourteen
nobles aren’t waiting for me on the other side of this wall?”

Once again, pain shot through Calis and caused a spasm
through one of his hands.  He stood back and looked into the dimly glowing blue
eyes that watched him.  “You don’t have to go, Kilik,” he promised.  “But…”

“Stop!” Kilik hissed.

As Calis hadn’t the slightest idea what he’d done, he jerked
upright and glanced around, half expecting a mob of nobles to have appeared. 
He hadn’t taken much care to disguise himself this moon—as he still had his
sword—since they would be leaving the city walls.  However, when he looked
around, he saw no one—so his gaze returned to Kilik, perplexed.  “What?”

The smaller male just stared at Calis as though he’d carried
out some terrible deed.  “You look so positively horrified any time I mention
that you might be…”  Kilik’s breath was shallow.  “I don’t mean to…”  He took
another breath, trying desperately to articulate his thoughts.  Kilik was
always so composed when Calis wasn’t involved, and yet in these moments, he
looked like an infant learning to speak for the first time.  Calis smiled at
the thought.  “It is not such a farfetched idea that you might be planning to
kill me.”

“For me it is,” Calis said simply.  Kilik blanched, glaring
towards the ground.  “You can’t imagine how terrifying the idea of anything
happening to you is for me.”  Kilik must think Calis was the single most
theatrical person in Elyst for all the times he’d spent telling the boy just
how crazy he felt for him.  Still, the words just leapt from his mouth before
Calis had time to make sure they didn’t sound—well, silly.

Then again, Kilik hardly ever thought his words sounded
silly, or he didn’t say that he did.  He just seemed in a constant state of
disbelief.  “Why?” Kilik asked.

Calis then shook his head, seeing the trust have returned to
Kilik’s eyes—he didn’t want to waste another second within these walls.  “Come
with me,” he whispered.  Calis began climbing, as he figured that if Kilik
truly didn’t want to come, then he wouldn’t.

The wall was easy to climb, especially since Calis had been
climbing it so frequently lately.  Kilik seemed just as deft at it, moving his
hands to precisely the right locations to make sure that he never ran out of
footholds.  As Calis reached the top first, he glanced over the ledge to ensure
that there were no nobles, and seeing none, he eased himself onto the other
side.

Kilik followed soon after, glancing around warily as they
touched down.  The Shining District, even in the moon shifts, was far different
from the Dark.  The streets were paved in perfectly manicured stone so they
even seemed to glisten in the moonlight.  The buildings were taller, and the
streets were wider.  The entire place was cleaner, though Calis still thought
it was overdone.  “You’ve been here, I know,” he said flatly.

Kilik just nodded his head.  From what Calis had gathered,
Kilik had made his way into the castle at one point to save a young woman. 
That was a feat with which Calis had yet to come to terms.  Brave—but the idea
of Kilik tiptoeing around the likes of his father and brother petrified Calis. 
“Did you just want to show me the pretty streets?” Kilik asked sardonically.

With a grin, Calis took the young boy’s hand in his own
again and pulled him towards the vine-covered wall that he often used to exit
the city.  No other place within the city walls was as easy to exit and enter
from—including the gate, as the guards at the gate gave anyone entering or
leaving quite the interrogation.  “Silly, isn’t it?” Calis asked.  “As the prince,
I ought to have a certain degree of freedom in going and coming as I please,
but there are even more restrictions on what I can do.”

Kilik smiled, in a very knowing way, and Calis could feel
the beginnings of a thought trying to form.  Not wanting to waste time with it,
for in all reality, Calis didn’t think it mattered much—he ignored it.  They
moved through the colorful buildings, and now their way was lit by lanterns on
every street.

At last, after a roundabout way of getting around the
castle, they stood in front of the tall, dark wall that set Telandus apart from
the rest of Elyst.  The ominous wall that gave every traveler pause as they
looked upon it.  “The vines?” Kilik asked.

A grin took hold of Calis’s face at Kilik’s knowledge on the
subject.  Naturally, he ought to expect that someone like Kilik knew how to get
in and out of these places—but Calis found himself constantly impressed.  “Yes,
I’ll go first,” Calis announced.

Calis had been this way the previous moon, making his way up
the vines that—if anyone paid any attention—should have been cut down many,
many moons ago.  Fortunately, as the guards didn’t care much about the few
gates they had to guard, the vines had remained.  They supported Calis’s
weight, so he had no doubt that they would support Kilik’s.  “You would think,”
Kilik muttered as they both moved up the tall structure, “that this would be
considered a hazard.”

“My father may pretend that we are this secure kingdom,”
Calis mused, “but we are not.  Everyone is too busy fighting for power to
bother with the actual security.”  He kept climbing, thinking bitterly of his
father, and of the woman that he was supposed to marry. 

His interactions with them had been numerous in the past few
suns, and Lavus’s pressure was getting impossible to ignore.  Calis just
gritted his teeth and kept climbing.  He would find a way around this—even if
it killed him.  He would not marry someone like Lady Avyon, observant as she
was, when he had such strong feelings for someone else.  Tradition be hanged,
Calis knew precisely what his heart wanted—what his heart needed, and that was
not a noblewoman.

Kilik had not said much after the security comment, perhaps
he was mulling over it.  Or perhaps he didn’t want to have this conversation
while they were still so close to the abhorrent black castle.  That seemed the
most logical of guesses.  So, they climbed in relative silence, and Calis was
not sure his body had ever felt so eager through this climb—even the first
time, he had felt nothing akin to what he felt now, knowing that he would be on
the other side of this wall with Kilik. 

I really ought to try to reign in all these feelings,
he
thought idly.  Not that he hadn’t already tried, but he needed to at least
understand why he felt as strongly as he did.  At last, they reached the top of
the wall and eased their way down the other side.

Calis made sure to turn and help Kilik down the vine the
last couple of paces, just because he had wanted to put his hands on the boy. 
That was not chivalrous at all, his mind informed him.  Kilik made no comment
either way.  When he turned to see the expanding field on the other side of the
wall, the twilight brought a different sort of glow to the surroundings.  The pale
light of the moon reflected off the grass combined with the dark blue of the sunless
sky, and it was a pleasant sight.  Certainly not that impressive, Calis mused,
and then he heard Kilik’s sharp intake of breath. 

“Been a while?” he asked gently, easing his fingers down
Kilik’s side.

“A very long while,” Kilik said softly.  “I just hope that I
will be able to get back in,” he said dismally.  “I was horrified—ah, without
any memories, when I first arrived at the gates of Telandus.”

Calis wondered for a moment if the loss of his memories were
really why Kilik had been so terrified.  There were any number of reasons that
Kilik may have been fearful, and Lavus was a part of every one of them.  Nevertheless,
he wasn’t about to force information from Kilik here.  “We won’t be going near
the gate,” Calis said soothingly.

Odd, Calis thought, how the walls seemed to keep out a
little of the breeze.  Inside of Telandus, he’d always felt stifled by the
heat—but out here, he felt as though a cooling breeze was running through him. 
“Why did you bring me here?” Kilik asked.

Calis turned the smaller boy to face him and then tenderly
placed his lips over the boy’s own.  The kiss was short, chaste, as they were standing
very near the Telandan outer wall, but the electrifying feeling that ran
through Calis at the touch was still present.  “I want to show you something,”
he said, and then he pulled Kilik away from the wall.

The field outside of Telandus was nothing at which to stare. 
Still, there was a serenity, a quietness that the city lacked, that hung over
the area, creating an ambience with the soft light of moon. There were a few
hills in the distance, and aside from that, just a grassy expanse of plain.  An
oasis was past one of the hills to the north, and Calis had gone swimming in
that quite a few times, but that wasn’t where they were going.  No, they were
going towards the large grove of trees that sat nearly a shift’s walk away from
the wall of Telandus.  “It will take a while to get there.  Do you mind?”