King of the Darkest Stars (EXO Kai ff)

Chapter Twenty Four

The next two days were blurred into one.

The men were vulgar and spat as they passed, murmuring dirty words while kicking dirt in my face or splashing the contents of their cups onto me as they passed. They enjoyed jabbing me in the stomach, knowing I couldn't even curl in to protect myself. They seemed to enjoy a lot of it. I felt stiff in every muscle in my body. I had barely been able to sleep and when I did some man would come and wake me again with a kick, a shout, or their new favourite thing -  to sniff my hair.

No one was assigned to give me water and no one had tried to. It had been three days and if someone didn't give me water, I knew I was going to die. I was going to pass out and die. I was starving but my mouth was dry and cracked and I knew water was more important than food.

The women didn't look at me.

I tried to catch their glances but their eyes were dead-set only on their responsibilities. They did and said nothing to the men who came up to me. They did not want to acknowledge my existence in the centre of their life. They wanted to pretend they were serving whatever cause it was these rebels still fought for. I wondered how many of them could actually tell me or if they only clung to the aggression of the war rather than any real cause.

Did they believe their king was a tyrant?

A man walked my way with a large water bottle in his hands. He was the source of my desperation and a smile wiped across his face. I wished I could hide my emotions and convince him to share but I knew my pain would only bring him pleasure and lord it over me.

"Please," my voice was weak and came out in a croaking sound. "Please give me water."

"You sound pretty thirsty now, don't you?" He cackled. I glared up at him, but it quickly melted to hopelessness.

"Please." I begged. He shook his water and stared down at it. Then he smiled back up at me.

"It would be cruel of me not to, wouldn't it?" He kept asking me questions he knew were impossible to answer. My gag had been removed the first night by a man who said hitting me wasn't as fun if he couldn't hear me scream. I had held back my sounds of pain as he had hit me, trying to deny him the satisfaction but he had eventually gotten a sound of pain to rip free from me.

"Please." There was nothing else I could say. There was nothing else I could do to convince him other than beg.

"Open your mouth." His grin was far too wide, but with no other options I obeyed. He took a large mouthful of water and came closer to me. Far too close. He spit the contents into my mouth and I tried my best to swallow the water but my body convulsed and my gag reflex rejected even the thought of it. I threw up on the man and he moved backwards looking down at his uniform with disgust.

"Gah! You'll pay for this!" He raised his water bottle and I squeezed my eyes shut, readying for the inevitable blow.

"Captain!" Someone shouted. "You're dismissed. Please leave me with the prisoner."

I opened my eyes and looked at the man who had protected me. I studied his face for a moment. The features of the older man were familiar. I tried to remember where I thought I had seen him from. Was he one of the men who had attacked me with U-jin and Nari? No.

Suddenly it clicked.

My coachman.

"You..." I felt my throat closing up, already sore from its previous action. "You were dead."

"So, you do remember me." He stared at me for a moment, contemplation stirring in his eyes as he pondered which words he would carve out for me today. Which lies he would feed me. I had a feeling the lies were done with. He had no reason to hide now. He had all the power. "My death was fake, obviously. Yours was supposed to be very real. Your father wanted you dead as soon as possible after you crossed the border. After you survived, the tactic had to change."

"My father?" I felt tears falling across my face and turning my tongue rancid with salt and vomit. I wished I could have said I should have known, but it was too horrible for me to even try to predict. I always knew he didn't care about me. I knew he was willing to hurt me, but I didn't realise he had planned to kill me as part of some twisted war tactic. Was he planning on crying at the funeral? Telling people I was his favourite and that he couldn't live in a world without me?

That infuriated me more.

Not that he would kill me, but that he would use my death to claim he cared at all. It was more and more unsurprising the more I let myself think through the logic and the reason. If I was meant to die, why didn't I? Did they not know about the storm that hit? The mist that had confused me and allowed me to lose my way also saved me and was the reason I was alive.

Kai was never meant to be my husband.

That was a stranger thought to chew on. Everything I had, I had taken against my father's truest wishes. That brought me a subtle joy that was quickly superseded by my realisation that I was once again in his power and waiting for him to make the next move. In what world did I think I would have power over my father?

"What's the tactic now?" I asked.

This man was not the sadistic thing I wanted him to be. His eyes were serious and grave and his mouth didn't slant like the other men, instead it was pressed into a thin line. He pitied me. Somehow this was just as infuriating.

"Draw him out to a small town away from the palace, kidnap you, and completely diverge his energy and resources until your father takes the palace and we stage your death as Kai's fault and then kill him and frame it as suicide. I was told the order of death didn't matter as long as it was the same day and location. Your father will be at the palace by then." He spoke in a monotone voice as if he cut all his emotional ties to the words. His words were flat and to the point. If he had shown cruelty I could hate him more than I did.

My father would not kill Kai and he would certainly not use me to do it. I would fight and I would prove him wrong. Even if I had to tear down my old home and burn it to the ground, I would not let him take Kai.

I couldn't bring myself to put all that hatred on this man.

"Do you have a son?" I asked. He looked at me with surprise, clearly expecting me to be more violent to his words. His words I hated. Him? I wasn't sure how much choice had had in this matter.

"Yes." His voice wavered for a moment, breaking from his monotone and showing a sliver of real emotion. "I'm not a liar."

We watched each other for a moment, then he lifted a water bottle from his bag. He held it to my mouth and poured down the entirety of it. I stopped myself from crying as the cool water rushed past my dry throat. I didn't want to waste any of the water he had given me. When the bottle was empty he fed me bread. We did not speak and I let go of my humiliation in the wake of water and food.

I didn't thank him. We just stared at each other for a moment, then he nodded and walked back to the tent he had come from. The other men stayed away for another hour before returning to their usual behaviour.

I was thankful for the small break from my Hell.

I had to stop my father.

I had to survive.