Fantasy of Fire (The Tainted Accords Book 3) (13 page)

“No, listen. You’re torn between a life without discrimination and a life without secrecy. It’s the most difficult choice you’ll ever make. Whatever my personal desires, I want you to do what you believe will make you happy. If you’re doing this for any other reason than that, you need to rethink your next move.”

I release a slow breath when he takes his finger away, surprised to feel tears balancing in both eyes. Maybe I needed to hear those words. I needed someone to recognize how hard this was going to be and to absolve me of selfishness. “Thank you,” I whisper.

Silence settles over us, and I shift onto my side, lying down.

“If I couldn’t sleep back on Osolis, I’d just go to the springs under the palace,” I say in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“What are they like?” he asks softly. I untangle my hand and tuck it under my head. His hand curls into a tight fist.

“There are dark tunnels, weaving underneath where we sleep. The fires in the Fourth keep the water warm throughout Osolis. It gets too hot to bathe in once you reach the Third Rotation, but I bathe daily in the First and Second.” I sigh at the memory. “I had my own private bath. I know it was to keep me separate from the others, in case they saw my face, but I loved it. The other caverns are split into a roster, or if you’re positioned highly you get designated a bath.” I close my eyes and rest my head back.

“You miss it.”

“I do,” I say. I open my eyes as I realize that’s not completely true. Sometimes I miss my twin brothers so much I think it will crush me, and I worry for Aquin. I miss galloping on my favorite Dromeda and running through the long grass before harvest. I wish I could sprint to training or down to the orphanage, leaping over vines before they’ve dried and fallen off in the Second Rotation.

I correct myself. “I do.
Sometimes
. Little things mostly. And my twin brothers. I wish to see them every day.”

His voice remains like stone. “You’ve been here a long time now. Longer that any Solati in history.” I turn toward him and see he’s looking at me. I have nothing to say in return, so I try to be circumspect as I memorize his face with half-open eyes. He isn’t fooled; he’s always seen straight through me. I rely on him to do so.

I was a fool not to recognize what that meant when I first met him.

“Why did you tell me all of these things tonight?” I ask quietly. I close my eyes so I don’t have to see his reaction.

His answer is immediate. “I’ve wanted to tell you for some time. They are things the future queen should know.”

I smile. “Tatum, Jovan.”

I crack open my eyes to see him once more. Just one last time. He’s deciding what to say, I know that much. But I see so many things: vulnerability, gentleness, impatience and fear. There isn’t a single emotion I can think of which combines all of these.

I must be out of practice.

He leans forward slowly, letting me know at every moment what he’s about to do. It’s how I’d approach untamed Dromeda. I tell myself I’m too tired to move as his face nears mine, but in truth I’m desperate to confirm what I discovered that night of the ball.

His lips touch mine.

It’s just as I remember: soft and unyielding. How can one kiss feel so good? The intimate gesture is unconditional, but it’s reinforced by the thought bouncing around my mind. Jovan’s touch is better than anything I’ve felt in my life. What if no one else can make me feel this way? And if there isn’t anyone else, can I live without it?

I gasp, and he jerks back, eyes piercing through the dim light, pinning me in place. After living on Osolis, I’d never have described blue as the color of fire. But that simple knowledge dissolves as I meet his heated gaze. I wonder if my own are burning back, or if he knows I’m hanging on to a single tendril of awareness which prevents me from closing the gap between us.

And the thought which pulls my world apart just as it’s beginning to build again: what if I don’t
want
to live without this?

* * *

I squeeze Landon’s hand reassuringly as light knock comes from my door. A light knock doesn’t necessarily mean the news is good. In fact, I’ve learned the opposite is usually true. It means they don’t want to cause a scene. My room is secluded in a tower. Avoided. But the court loved to gossip and went out of their way for any fresh talk.

Olandon clings to me with desperate hands. He’s three revolutions old and too young for this kind of fear. Yet, the guilt I feel for sharing this terror with him is overridden by my need to lessen my burden. He’s my only friend. The only one she’ll let me have.

“Hide under the bed, Lina,” he cries. He always pleads. I let him do it because it’s normal, but I’ve learned begging makes things worse. It doesn’t prevent them from giving you the bruises in the first places. And if you beg, then you lose your pride.

Pride is all I have left.

I straighten the veil my mother makes me wear as the light knock comes again. The same sound, the same pattern. Three soft raps from one of the Elite’s knuckles.

I peek underneath the material over my face to make sure my robes and sandals are immaculate. Mother doesn’t like me untidy. She says she wants the court to forget how ugly I am. If I’m tidy, she says maybe one day, someone will like me. She says that in the Fifth Rotation there are some nearly as grotesque as I. I wonder if they wear veils too. I think she’s lying to get my hopes up, but I cling to the thought that someday I’ll meet other ugly people. Maybe they won’t hurt me all the time.

I pull open the door and peer up at a woman. There are six Elite today. I must have done something really bad; my usual escort is three or four. Despite the regularity of my beatings, I have to swallow a lump of fear. The urge to crawl under the bed, or into the wardrobe nearly overwhelms me. But Olandon is behind me, preventing me from going back inside.

I slip out and shut the door quickly, starting in the direction of the balcony room. It’s where the guards hit me while my mother and uncle watch. I’ve been trying to think of a name for it. I heard Aquin use the word “torture” the other day, just before he showed Landon and me how to inflict pain for answers. I think Torture Room might do. Though, mother doesn’t ask me questions at all. I wish she would. Sometimes their kicking hurts so much, I’d tell her anything.

I only have one secret I’ll never tell.

Heads poke out of doorways as we travel through the twisting black hallways. I roll my eyes at the court. They don’t even bother to hide their snooping.

The front two Elite move ahead and swing the double doors open. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop a whimper as I see the inside of the room. It’s all polished darkness. That’s not what bothers me, though. It’s that the walls always start moving when I step inside. They throb like an injured ankle I once had after training. Sometimes I think the walls will close over me and confine me in the tiniest of spaces, like the time Uncle Cassius locked me in a trunk for two days. It was one of the worst things ever done to me.

Then there are the blood spatters.

I know they’re not really there. But it doesn’t mean I can’t see them. The blood is there and all of it is mine. I look around this room and remember every single hit, kick, smash, and break I’ve earned. One pace from my left is where they peeled my right thumbnail off, and two paces to my right was where I jumped on the spot for three hours. That one wasn’t so bad. I pretended I was at training and eventually the Elite got bored and let me go.

I wonder where I’ll bleed today.

I look up in the direction of the balcony. Usually there’s a little speech about some transgression. A transgression must be something bad because they always seem to be saying it right before my face is split open.

My mother doesn’t look down from her conversation with my monstrous uncle. She waves a regal hand in the air. There’s no speech today.

“Begin,” she commands.

* * *

I don’t eat breakfast, still shaking from the most realistic nightmare I’ve had in a long time. I fell asleep to tales of Jovan’s childhood, and when I woke he was gone. I’m glad he hadn’t seen the effect my past terrors still had on me. I’d thought I was past being haunted by mother—at night, anyway.

Olandon finds me, informing me the king is rounding up those I wish to tell. I begin to wish Jovan was keeping me company, leaving my brother to the task of collecting everyone. Olandon seems determined to voice every doubt and concern about revealing my secret I’ve silently had in the last week.

“You know if news gets out about your eyes there will be much trouble becoming Tatum. I don’t understand why you’re facilitating its discovery,” he whispers in furious tones. I don’t bother answering. I’ve wasted my breath for the last two hours while pacing my room. Instead, I focus on convincing myself not to back out.

“I have trouble understanding, and I am your brother.” He grips my shoulders, stopping me mid-pace. “You have a death wish.”

It infuriates me that he’ll be able to see the panic on my face. I wish my veil was on.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this! You clearly don’t
want
to. It’s that king,” he hisses. “He’s making you do this.” His dislike breaks through my fear. I snort, and then snort again at the disgust on his face at the sound.

I hug my brother around the waist. He’s much taller than me now. I wish he’d grow in other ways.

“Wait here,” I say. I turn to the long seat at the foot of the bed and pick up my veil. I return to my brother.

“You’ve struggled to learn how to understand the feelings of others. You seem to have gained some measure of empathy in your journeys around Osolis, and I can’t wait for the day when you come into your full potential. I know you’ll find it in your own time.” I can see my words hurt him; my frayed temper has made me blunt. “Perhaps, until then, you’ll better understand if you experience my life for yourself,” I say.

I catch his expression as he eyes the veil in my hands. Terror. It stuns me. He’s afraid of the veil? He watches it like it’s about to explode in his face.

“I don’t think I’ve ever realized the pain
you’ve
gone through, Landon.” Tears choke my voice. His eyes begin to shimmer as I speak. I grip his forearm with my free hand. I finally understand what this material has meant to his life. All the times he cried because I was dragged away, or beaten bloody and left broken on the floor. Every time he had to sneak around to help me, or was prevented from a normal upbringing because of his forbidden sister. All of it was because of the cloth in my hand.

My voice is hoarse. “I’ll share something with you. I didn’t believe it the first time, but I’ve come to be convinced of it.” I hold up the veil. “This is just material. It does what we tell it to do,” I say and feel my face hardening. “It’s the symbol of our mother. And it does not control us anymore.” Something passes between us: wordless, a shift within—an unbreakable determination that our mother will never regain that power. We won’t allow ourselves to be oppressed like that ever again. He nods and I place the veil over his head. The wooden band doesn’t fit him, so I toss it aside.

Olandon takes a few experimental steps and knocks his shin against the long seat. I know exactly what he’s feeling.

“Veni,” he curses, stumbling back in pain. I place a hand on his back when he nears me and he jumps, whirling around.

“I can’t see anything.” He rips it off his head and the material drifts to the ground. “How? How have you done that? How have you even walked?”

I stare down at the veil. “You may have been too young to remember, but I had a very hard time when I was first let out of my room. I only knew the layout of my room, and then the way to Aquin’s, when mother first started allowing me to watch your trainings.”

I don’t think I’ve ever spoken of this. It’s like rubbing at a newly healed cut.

“When I fell for the first time on the very first day outside and heard their laughter and comments, I understood they were my mother’s people. They’d never be mine. I’d hoped to find friends waiting just outside my door once I was freed. Dreams of this kept me sane for years. You can imagine my utter devastation when I learned this wouldn’t happen.”

“I know you memorized the castle,” Olandon says.

I dip my head in acknowledgement. “Yes, I did. After my first humiliation, I’d go out at night to practice. And with time I managed to survive by paying attention to slight movements of people’s bodies: to light disappearing between their fingers, the slightest turning away, or shrug of the shoulders. Anything to make up for being unable to see their facial expressions.” I look over at my younger brother and smile. “I only knew your face because I’d been so close to you, so often. Even now, there are new things I see when I look at you with the veil off.”

Olandon crouches before the veil, not touching it. “I’ve grown up with your promises, your plans for Osolis. Where some children had lullabies, I held on to your words like they were a prophecy that would eventually come to pass. At times I feel betrayed. What has changed that you will not give up everything to see your plans eventuate?”

I jerk at his vehemence. He thinks I’ve given up? That I’ve let go of my hopes and dreams? It’s true they’re not in my every thought. Just as finding Kedrick’s killer is no longer in my every thought. It doesn’t mean I feel the urgency of either any less.