Looking down at my hands, I can barely make out their shapes in the dark but I know what they could do if only they had thechance. I won't always be here. I won't always be trapped and the King will meet his end. By my hand if not someone else's. He threw me at his son, only for his son to fall in love, but I made the choice to use the feelings between us.
I smile as I remember my first time with Ereon. His face still had a boyish look to it. I close my eyes, letting the memory take hold, giving me a reprieve from the hell I'm in.
Seven Lunar Years Ago
“Can you stop moving so much?” I push him again to turn around so I can put the salve on the marks across his ribs. The ones his father made with a heated iron this time. For six months now, Ereon's had me. For six months, I've been engaged in a dangerous game with the King. For six months, we've been each other's reprieve from the horrors of this world. I expected him to take me by force but he never did. In the beginning, I fought off even the smallest tokens of kindness. I would accept nothing until that first night his father's guards dropped him off at his door. They brought me through the “whore road” and told me to be ready for him. I wasn't prepared for the shattered body that was delivered that night, expected to clean the mess his father made.
“It fucking hurts!” he hisses through clenched teeth as I put more ointment on.
“I’m trying to be as gentle as I can.” I run my hands along the burns, touching softly. “The stiller you are, the quicker I can get this finished.”
“For a tiny person, your hands feel like they are the weight of a boulder. I think you are pushing down for fun to make thishurt worse.” He chuckles softly to himself. “I think you are a demon in disguise sometimes. Something here to torture me.”
Distraction with humor, I smirk. He always does this. It’s our routine. He bears the pain but tries to joke it away anyway. My hands linger on his side, grazing the muscles there. Heat blooms inside of me as I long to be touched by him, but that would make things worse. Make it worse when he finds out who – what – I am.
Smiling up at him, I tell him, “I'm a myach myomi. Tiny demon. That's what you would say in my home.”
He turns his head from me and I gather the gauze to wrap his wounds.
“I'm sorry you are here.”
I nod my head, I know he is. He's told me time and time again. The chains that bound my hands strike together, a reminder that I am not here by choice. Finishing with the gauze, I go to stand up but let my fingers linger longer than they should on his skin. It's enough for him to notice my hesitancy.
He grabs my fingers with his calloused hand, pulling me back down beside him. “Anara,” he says my name like a prayer, a wish that the world was different. That we met through different circumstances. His eyes show the longing behind them. I don't miss the way he looks at me when he doesn't know I'm watching or the bulge in his pants when I'm around. His eyes now seek permission, he wants me to say yes. But I can't. He's not the only one who carries secrets.
“Don't.” I turn away from him but he doesn't release me. Tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Don't make it more complicated. Don't pretend I have an option here.”
He grunts, pulling his hand from mine and standing, groaning in pain as he does. He grabs his ribs.
“If you didn't have an option, I would have taken you already. I haven't done that. I won't.” He walks barefoot across the stone floor throwing on his black robe.
I stand up, the chains jingle again and I hold them up showing him. “What do you think we can accomplish here, Ereon?” I scream at him, “I am in chains! I am away from my home! I can't … ” Tears of rage and despair slip down my cheeks. “I can't fall in love with you because then … ” he turns back toward me and crosses the distance between us. I promised myself I wouldn't love him. “Because then I won't leave if I get the chance.” And you'll hate me even more when you know the truth.
Before I can blink his body is pressed against mine, pushing me into the wall behind us. He runs his hand across my cheek and into my hair. His lips push against mine igniting the fire inside me, one I haven't felt in so long even if it is useless. I run my hands up his chest, the chains keeping me from doing more.
I want him. Great God, or maybe Goddess, whoever listens to the prayers of the broken, I want him. He pulls his hand from my hair before kneeling before me. His mouth leaves a trail of sparks along the waistband of my skirt, his eyes looking back up at me. He's once again asking permission and this time I give it with a nod and a smile.
He reaches up, grabs hold of the chains on my wrist, and kisses the inside of my wrist. “I promise you, myach myomi, I will find a way out of these for you. I will find a way to get you out of Shaston.”
He pulls down my skirt, his eyes never leaving mine as he does. He puts his hands behind my thighs, lifts me up and I wrap my legs around his waist. His bandages brush against the underside of my knee.
“What about your ribs?” My hands are in between us awkwardly, but he never lets me go, never lets me fall.
He looks down while walking me to his bed before he growls, “If they hurt more than my want for you, I'll let you know.”
Present
The rest of that night was when I knew I would forever stay where he was. I will endure him being married to someone else and I will do what is needed because my heart belongs to a prince. We just have to find a way to escape his father.
It’s still day out, just barely, the sun slowly sinking into the horizon and my room becoming filled with shadows once again. As I start to prepare for the night, the moonlight catches my attention, slipping through the paltry window. The full moon shouldn’t be so high up this early in the evening, brighter than it naturally should be, warring with the sun as bringer of light. It shouldn’t be up, not at this hour. It’s far too soon and much too bright. If I was outside these walls I imagine I could reach up and touch it. I smile slightly as my mother’s words come to mind, a story shared among our people. A story that got me out of one type of trouble, only to find myself in another. Tilting my head to get a better look outside, I start to speak the words, “Upon the day the moon turns bright …” Before I can finish I lose my breath and crumble to my knees.
Pain emits from inside me, my heart quickening in a way I haven't felt since I was five. The long-dormant fire surges through my veins, the obsidian chains combating what they can. I roll to my side, clutching at the pain that spreads from my heart. Everything feels as if I'm burning and I roll harder on myself needing to scream out. And I do. I scream so loud, I know any guards must hear me but no one comes running. I scream as everything flashes through my mind. The memories of the past and images of the present and visions of what's to come. Mymother's smile, my father's sneer. The way he looked when I first found my true form. The happiness I felt when I would run in the flames.
I breathe through my nose as best as I can, trying to remember how to control what I feel, but the darkness is trying to grab me, but I won't let it. I won't let it take this from me – not again. The pain rages inside my head, songs and words fusing and my ears pounding.
Suddenly it stops. Everything is quiet. Everyone is quiet.
Still shaking, I sit back up. And for the first time in a long time, I smile. I look up at the torch’s flame and move my fingers, the chains cutting me deeper, a fail-safe the King placed on me years ago. At first, the fire does nothing, but then, ever so slowly, it sways the way I command it. I flick my wrist and the flame grows brighter.
My laughter fills the room. I don't care who hears me. I don't care if the whole castle can. Because I am one of the few who knows exactly what has happened. The Antalian of prophecy has touched Shaston's sand.
Magic is awake.
To Be Continued …
