Their lips were still locked. Their fingers entwined. Their bodies were merely an inch apart from each other while their heart was miles.
Slowly, almost too slowly, Kanitha pulls away. She looks down at him with the same face, the same eyes from five centuries ago.
Her bracelet, The Strange, glimmers the same way it had behind the snow. Ralph knew better than anyone that she could kill him right here, right now, and he can't, and he won't do anything about it. He owes her.
"I won't hurt you," she whispers quietly. "Whales taught me that I should never kill of hatred." The Strange quivered slightly on her wrist as she pushed away from Ralph.
"Who is he?" Ralph asks.
"My father."
Ralph blinked in confusion.
"Then... Who's Monk?"
Kanitha paused for a beat of silence.
"You met Monk? Well, the truth is, I don't really have parents. It would be a bit too long to explain, but for now, I was teleported back eight centuries earlier, at the start of Tsana's reign, to return a debt my tribe had owed. It was Monk who sent me back, and my age was frozen at six. At the end of the three centuries Tsana's reign ended, and I was sent back just before the Great Raid started."
She sat back in her seat, regarding Ralph with her sharp eyes.
"I knew it was you the moment I saw you in the dungeon, Ralph. I thought you were so different. For a moment I couldn't associate you with the cold-blooded murderer five centuries ago, until your massacre in the prison."
Ralph remained silent. Anything that comes out of his mouth right now would be an excuse. There's no other reason for it, he just can't control it. The kill that flows in his blood had been long engraved into his bones and brain.
"After being with you for two weeks, though, I should admit there's a part of you, the better part, that I still don't know of. But you've seen the things that you've done. Therefore I hope you understand when I say I could never love you."
Ralph nodded. He wouldn't have expected more. If he was Kanitha, he wasn't even sure he could forgive himself. It's terrifying, to think that thousands of people that are like Kanitha, are dead, unforgiving, loathing him.
It's his sin. It's the thing he could never free himself from.
She strode over to the edge of the boat with her hair flying behind her. Ralph didn't know if the next thing he is going to do would be unnecessary or even make Kanitha dislike him more, but that's the only thing he could think of for a moment.
He jumped off his seat and wrapped his arms around her. He felt the tenseness of her body, and quickly produced a small piece of crystal in his palm before she can push him away.
The crystal in his hand caught Kanitha's attention. She turns to look up at him in incomprehension.
"What's this?" She demanded.
"You must know what's this," Ralph handed the crystal, not without a shudder, not without a stream of cold down his spine, over to Kanitha. "The double of my Stone. I beg of you, please keep it."
"The double..." She picks it up with two fingers, twisting it in front of her eyes as if she's inspecting a gem. "Meaning if I get hurt, you will too. If I die, you will too." Her eyes snap up. "So why do you want me alive so bad?"
"Because of you," Ralph said firmly. "I would be able to repay you everything I've taken from you one day."
The corner of her mouth twitched. She swung one leg over the ship.
"You should know, Ralph, that you've already taken away everything I have five centuries ago. Including my life."
But the double of his Stone was still safely tucked away as she drops over the ship into the dark surge of the sea.
YOU ARE READING
Alasla: The New Age
Fantasy"What killed him isn't me. It's the world." Ralph had never asked for much. Not even his own identity. But when his best and only friend got murdered by the man he calls father, he was forced to set off on an expedition to unravel the truth of this...
