I frowned and shook my head.
“My uncle ruled here once,” Kaldur told me, beginning to pace a little, as if he couldn’t keep still with the memory. “But no one ever took him seriously, even though he was a fair leader. Ilearned a great deal from him. But his affairs, his parties, his excess were well known throughout the Kaalium. He had affairs with his keepers, and one in particular he thought himself in love with.”
A familiar tale,I thought.
“Many have always compared me to him. They think it’s a compliment because he’d been well-liked once, but I never took it as one,” Kaldur admitted. “I had my wild years, but when I took over Vyaan, I took my responsibility and my pledge to my people seriously. So it always cut deeply when they made their jokes about how similar we were.”
“What happened to your uncle?” I couldn’t help but ask, wrapping my arms around myself.
“He announced his mistress publicly, humiliating his wife, my aunt, in the process. Soon, he broke their marriage too because he wanted to wed his mistress instead. But my aunt got her revenge,” he said. “She stripped him of nearly everything and dragged him over the spikes within the noble Houses, sowing discord and mistrust. Soon not even the nobles respected him. They laughed at him behind his back. The moment he fell in love with his keeper, he lost control of his territory.”
Realization slowly began to bloom as I listened to the story. I realized this was one of Kaldur’s greatest fears…to end up like his uncle. Bound to repeat history, especiallyhere, where it had happened in recent memory.
“I had to take over the territory sooner than expected, perhaps even before I was ready to,” he admitted. “And it took me a long time to gain the respect of the nobles here, especially since I was young.”
“And…your uncle?”
His expression was unreadable when he told me, “When the nobles turned on him, his new wife did too. She’d only truly wanted all the luxuries that came with her position, and she received none of it. She took another lover, another noble. Andmy uncle…he eventually took his own life, driven mad by heartbreak and his own failing as aKyzaire.”
I nearly gasped. A tragic tale. A tragicwarning, I realized. One Kaldur had apparently taken to heart.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking to the ground briefly, unable to meet his eyes quite yet. “I didn’t know.”
Not even the keepers had spoken of it. Though maybe the majority were too young to remember, like me. I hadn’t heard of this, though I’d grown up on the outskirts of Vyaan, where news hardly ever reached.
“So it wasn’tyouspecifically, Erina,” Kaldur finally finished, frustration evident on his features. “I’ve just always had to be more careful in Vyaan. I’ve never once gone near one of my keepers—the thought only made me remember the consequences of it. But then…you cut your hand in the sitting room that day. And suddenly all my fears that I would follow in my uncle’s footsteps, when everyone already expected me to, started keeping me up at night.”
I felt like he was only admitting a portion of the worries he’d carried.
“It doesn’t make it acceptable,” Kaldur finally finished, “but it was a decision I’d knowingly made…trying to keep you in the dark and at arm’s length. I thought I could fight this.” He laughed, the sound bitter. “But I was wrong. I’ve never been more wrong in my entire life, and I’ve made some pretty spectacular fuckups—believe me. And I regret it. I wish I could go back to that afternoon in the sitting room because I would change everything. But I can’t.”
We regarded one another in the rising sunlight of the morning as the icicles dripped off flower petals and a hint of warmth began to burn off the chill from the night.
“It’s not quite a truce, is it?” he asked.
“No, it’s not,” I said quietly.
Then again, Iunderstoodnow. That didn’t erase the hurt and anger, however. I didn’t know what could.
Kaldur inclined his head.
“Come,” he said, drawing my hand into his. He pulled me back toward the keep. “I have a healer on the way. And you need to eat, not stand in the chill.”
“A healer?”
“Ekor,” he said. “The best in Vyaan. He’ll attend to you during the pregnancy and check in regularly to make sure both of you are healthy.”
“Oh,” I said softly. “All right.”
That was…thoughtful.
“But before you see him, I want you to eat. You look like you haven’t been,” came his gruff grumble.
“I could say the same about you,” I mumbled. He looked better this morning but not quite the Kaldur I remembered. My blood had helped last night, but…if what he’d said was true, that he hadn’t fed from another, then it had beenweekssince his last true feeding.
I knew that Kylorr could survive off food alone, but blood was still a vital part of their nutrition, particularly for full-blooded Kylorr.
Kaldur pulled up short. “It was difficult when you were gone, Erina,” he admitted quietly. “But my appetite will return now that you’re here. I hope yours does too.”
