An Ember's Tale

Chapter Forty

Ember sat in a chair with her head resting against the velvet material. She drew a shallow, shaking breath in as her head and her heart pounded against her skull and chest. Her fingers lazily drummed over the armrests while she sighed and looked over at the merchant, watching her closely with a narrowed gaze. She turned her head from him and over to the majority of the room that seemed duller than it had been before. The patterns on the walls seemed less intricate, while the chair under her felt uncomfortable as if it was made of stone as she shifted uncomfortably.

Part of her still just wanted to melt into the chair until she was no more than a puddle. At least a puddle didn't have to deal with everything she had to experience. Her head continued to ache when she thought of all the events that had transpired that day, but Mark's news... that was the icing on top of the already heavily frosted cake.

Mark handed her a clear cup made of crystalized ice. His fingers brushed against hers, setting her heart ablaze while she took the cup from him. Inside was cold water, practically frozen that she just stared at blankly.

"Engaged..." she repeated while she watched the faint ripples in the water. "Engaged... engaged..." the word sounded so weird the more she repeated it until she felt as if she was saying a word from another language. "Engaged."

"Red-"

"Why is there no ring?" Ember looked up at him. "And why couldn't you tell me? If I would have known... I would have never-" she swallowed the lump in her throat as she thought of everything that had transpired between them in the past couple of days. "Things would have been very different."

"Red-"

"I mean, you could have told me something," she exclaimed as her hands gripped the cup harder. "A simple, I am going to get married to someone else would have been enough. Are you trying to make me a horrible person? You are promised to someone else, yet you very clearly led me to believe-"

"Red!" Ember followed his gaze to find the cup beneath her had shattered into shards of ice that dug into her skin until she was bleeding.

Mark grabbed a cloth from the far side of the room before crouching down before her and held her bleeding hand. He carefully picked out the shards from her skin as she pursed her lips with the minor pain radiating throughout her palm. He looked up at her with flashing eyes with his fingers delicately pressing into her hand.

"Just listen," he told her. "We never made promises to one another. The promises were made for us. It was purely political, and we never had rings because both of us didn't want to be married to one another. She is... well, she is more like a sister to me, and I almost forgot I was even engaged when I was with you. I know I should have said something, but when I was next to you, my problems just disappeared."

Ember cursed under her breath.

How did he always know exactly what to say?

"Who is she?" Ember asked when he wrapped her bloody hand with a cloth.

"Akull's daughter."

If her eyes could have popped out of her sockets, they would have. "Akull-" she said in disbelief. "Has a daughter? Who... who is the mother?"

"No one knows," Mark shrugged. "Akull took her the moment she was born."

"And you're engaged to her?"

Mark finished wrapping her hand, but his fingers stayed and lightly traced her skin. "When I was taken to Akull and rose in the ranks... he promised me to his daughter to keep his bloodline pure within the elements. But for me and Rose, Skull's daughter, we have always viewed one another as brother and sister. We were close, but never in a romantic way. Besides, she already loves someone else."