White Quartz | Xaden Riorson | S/H

II

・・・　・・・　・・・

     I throw him out so I can bathe and dress myself. There's a dull pain somewhere deep in my side. The memory of that knife sinking into my flesh plays over and over in my head as my fingers trace its scar in the water.
     My hair is disgusting. There's no blood in it, though, which I'm pretty sure there had been before. My chest aches when I imagine Xaden delicately washing it out in a bucket, trying to get my crown back to white.
     How can he act so sweet after what he did? After questioning me? My whole family? We dedicated our lives to him and his father and his apostasy, and he dares to question my loyalty?

     The wardrobes are full of Xaden's clothes. I'm a little surprised he was able to take over the space.
     I wander around looking through the variety of armoires but there's nothing. I don't want to wear his jacket. Wearing his jacket to Formation was my first mistake. Maybe if I'd had my mother's protection charm, none of us would be here.
     I throw the robe back on and peek out the door. Xaden is leaning on the frame, head whipping in my direction by the time he's in my line of sight.

     "Get me some reasonable clothes." He stares at me for a moment, his shoulders sagging when I speak Navarrian to him, refusing that connection of intimacy we've found ourselves in one too many times.
     Silently, he lifts the outfit already in his hands, and I reach through to grab it. He waits outside for the few moments it takes me to put it on. It's my flight leathers from the fight, a fact that's evident by the poorly patched slit in the side. I'll have to restitch that when we get back to Basgiath.

     He rushes in the second I step back far enough from the door to let him. My anxious hand rakes into the damp hair on the crown of my head, strands of white draped over (H/C) that's much darker when wet.
     "We're in Aretia," I assess. I finally manage to pull my eyes to look at him and I immediately notice how hollow his cheeks look now.
     "Yes."
     "Rebuilt or never burned?" I turn toward the window. It looks out over what used to be pastures, but it's an empty plain now.
     "In the process of rebuilding."

     I find myself walking toward it. Xaden's childhood room is right below this one and a piece of me wonders what's become of it now that he's sleeping up here in the king's keep.
     The mountain extends past the giant windows toward the sky on the left. To the right, I can see trudged-out paths of what used to be established roads.
     "And no one's come to do anything about it?" I question.
     "We haven't gotten their attention yet." I furrow my brows with disappointment and turn around to look at him. "We're not big enough to warrant it."
     "Are you hiding?" I can't tell if it's naivete, stupidity, or something else.
     "No, we're just not advertising our existence," he explains quietly.

     My head rolls against the glass to look back out. Far off, I think I can see the remnants of a cattle fence, but I'm not sure.
     "They'll have your head when they find this," I tell him. My words fog the glass and I let my eyes droop closed.
     I cried the day Aretia was burned to the ground. I wept. It's not like I thought my father was still alive—I couldn't in my right mind convince myself that he would hide from us for a year unless he was too dead to choose not to—but that had squashed any stupid hope.
     "I know." I sigh out, a slow shake rocking my head.
     "You also know I can't let that happen."