I whip my head around to face him. “Absolutely not. There is no need.”
“Don’t be prideful, Shivaria.”
I pinch my mouth shut, unsure if I am more offended by the implication that I am too prideful or the fact that he used my full name.
“You don’t simply walk into the north and find yourself accepted into the king’s presence. It could take weeks or even months before you are accepted to court and if anyone witnesses this in the meantime—”
“You think a fitful sleep will disqualify me?” I challenge weakly, knowing the answer.
“A fitful sleep?” he balks, and when I roll my eyes, he grabs my arm and brings me to face him fully. “A fitful sleep?” he repeats in a harsh whisper. “Call it what you want but remember thatIhave seen for myself what you call a fitful sleep. You might have gone unnoticed if you only woke fearful, but you wake as if you are in the middle of an eternal battle raging around you, ready to send haliel every soul within reach.”
“I can control it,” I lie.
“How?” he demands but he does not wait for an answer before holding up a finger. “Fighting, which you willnotbe doing in A’kori.” He holds up a second finger. “Drinking, and while I don’t altogether disagree with an occasional numbing of the senses, you can’t go to bed drunk every night and expect to be considered suitable for society.” He holds up a third finger, faltering, and I quirk a brow.
“Focing?”
He swallows a lump in his throat and his face falls into a perfectly placid mask.
“Also, not an option,” he says lamely.
The child in me wants to argue about perceived moral virtue but I understand why he protests. If it comes to it, the king will find me more appealing with the assurance of my virginity. Though, I have no doubt I will have to find another way to end the male. Falling far from the standard of beauty does not lend me any favors as Fea Dien.
Frustrated, my eyes shift back to the sea, the edges of the water now barely contrasted by the grey light of early dawn. I push off the bow and take myself below deck into my cramped quarters. Vakesh follows closing the door behind us before leaning against the wall to observe me.
“I’m not abandoning my mission,” I insist, pacing the small space.
“I am not asking you to abandon it, Vari. I am simply suggesting that you delay it. I, more than anyone, want to see you on the shores of A’kori, accepted into the presence of the king so that all of this might end.”
“You know as well as I do that a delay could set us back years. Help me find another way,” I beg.
“Other ways are not for you,” he says.
“But there are other ways?” I stop my pacing and sit on the edge of my cot, looking to him for the answers I desperately seek.
“Pitch.” He shrugs. “But it would take too long to find you a supply and even then, if you were caught…”
Pitch. The drug is illegal on the whole of the southern continent and widely used by battle worn Drakai to assist in a dreamless sleep. It is highly addictive, and I have known more than one who died after overindulging in the teeth blackening substance. Though the more common death associated with the drug is starvation. While oblivion has its appeal, it can quickly become all-consuming. Hours on the drug can easily turn into days or weeks of caring for nothing but the promise of the void.
“The fact that you are actually considering pitch concerns me,” he says, pulling me back into the conversation with a worried frown.
“A small amount, to sleep through the night,” I argue.
“Put it out of your mind. I shouldn’t have suggested it.”
“If not pitch, then what else?”
His eyes survey the floor, and he clears his throat. “Pitch, drinking, fighting, they all offer a similarrelease,” he nearly chokes on the last word, “an oblivion that all Drakai come to desperately crave. Can you think of nothing else that might offer you the same … reprieve?”
I think for a moment before answering. “No. Nothing. What else is there?”
He curses and rubs the back of his neck. Squeezing his eyes shut, his head falls back against the wall with a thud. “Leanna should have been the one to teach you.”
“Teach me what?” I laugh uncomfortably at the uneasiness he is so obviously feeling.
It has never been this way between us, and I do not care for his parsing of words or the invisible wall he’s built with the mask he wears. He eyes me from across the room, exhales sharply, and turns to go, stopping just before his hand grasps the lever on the door. His hand flexes and he spins on his heel, striding back across the room and pulling the chair to the edge of the bed before depositing himself in it.
“Surely,” he says, running his fingers through his hair, “Leanna taught you something of what to expect should you find yourself alone with a man in his chambers?”
