Resonant

Chapter 15

Zale

Was it better or worse that I could still sort of feel Fen even though he was avoiding me? I couldn't decide. On one hand, I knew he was okay and there was something nice about the security in knowing he would always be there on the other side of a bond I was just starting to sense. On the other hand, it made his absence sting even more.

Even worse, I realized I wanted someone to talk to and there wasn't a good candidate for that. My mother had more pressing things to worry about than my relationship problems, and anyway, I didn't want her to know just how poorly I had handled things with Fen. I had sisters, but I didn't know Kyra well enough and Astrea was too young and too close to the situation.

What happened to me? I used to have friends. I was never a very social creature, but back in the time before, I had people in my life I could lean on. There had been Harlow, sure, but others, too. People who tried to be there for me when he died, and who must have been pushed away one time too many.

I tried my usual coping mechanism that evening, curling up in my bed and letting time pass around me. It never really made me feel better, but it didn't usually make me feel worse. Not like last night, when my mind was full of ways I could have handled things better.

I could have waited to have my mother send out formal announcements. It would have added more timing pressure to our planning later, but we could have made it work.

I could have told Fen what I was planning to do and why.

I could have actually included him in the decision-making. This was obviously the best course of action, yet somehow, I hadn't. Fen had said this was because I didn't respect him... and it was an uncomfortable thing to realize he was right. I kept him out of important decisions because I took it for granted that someone who so eagerly proclaimed me his soul mate would go along with what I wanted.

My plan was to find Fen and fix things as soon as I could. It was understandable that he wanted some time last night, but I started to get truly anxious when he wasn't in his suite before class in the morning either. When he didn't answer after several minutes of knocking, I looked for him in the dining hall with no luck.

And it struck me, as I stood there in the entrance to the dining hall at a complete loss for where else to look: I didn't really know Fen at all. We had known each other for well over a month now, and I apparently didn't know more about him than where he lived and that he ate sometimes. I had just resolved to try his classroom, though it was too early to reasonably expect him to be there, when someone said, "Oh, thank God," and tugged me toward the hall.

It took a few seconds to register what was happening, and by then, we were already almost out of the building. "What's going on?" I asked Astrea, who seemed to be in a real panic.

We stopped by a stone bench in the middle of an empty garden. It was cold outside, but private. "Dad and Kyra are fighting," Astrea said.

"Okay?" Her words didn't match her urgency. Wasn't it normal for parents to argue with their children sometimes?

"Ugh! You don't get it! It's bad. Like, really bad. Dad's so angry he's trying to convince our mom to make me her heir instead of Kyra." Astrea's wide, troubled eyes watered and her eyebrows drew in so hard I was sure she was going to give herself a tension headache.

I only noticed these things distantly, because mostly I was reeling. "But..."

"Zale, I can't be a ruler. No one would ever accept me. I'd have to pretend I'm a man and marry a woman and I'd never be happy again."