Iris

Chapter Nine

“Then I discovered that being related is no guarantee of love!”

~Stieg Larsson

***

I awoke the next morning to Debussy. It streamed through the rooms and filled my mind before I even opened my eyes. I could feel the notes rubbing against my skin like a thousand fingertips smoothing against me. When I did open my eyes, I only saw the bland neutral coloring of a hotel room, the sort of color they paint so no one’s offended.

Clair de Lune was playing somewhere in the suite. I raised myself up on my elbows in bed, swallowing hard as closed my eyes to really hear the music. It was calming, sliding into my lungs and making me feel as if life was once again growing.

The floor was cold underneath my naked feet, but I padded towards the bathroom anyway, ignoring the tingling the wooden floor was giving off. The bathroom was dim but I didn’t turn on the light, just shut the door. With the light from the hallway cut off, the room was now cool and grey, and easy on my senses. My head was buzzing with stimuli still, and even though I was safely locked away in the bathroom, I was still seeing flashes of sweat-slicked, sparkling bodies, shimmering, taunting eyes, and swirling, deafening liquor. As I breathed in, it filled me, until I stood with my arms around myself, hunched over, feeling as if someone had socked me in the gut.

I reached down for the hem of my shirt, which I pulled up. I kept my lids shut; I didn’t want to see, not until the very last moment, not until I had to. Tugging the shirt over my head I let it float to the floor, pooling against my left ankle. I ran my hand up my side, but, of course, could feel nothing. Opening my eyes, I saw that still the dove was chained to me, eyes wide with petrification and utter terror.

“You'll let him go? You'll break all ties with Phoenyx?”

“He will walk away and I won't look back at him.”

Pressing the heels of my hands in my eyes, I whispered, “You bitch . . .”

The tattoo started to burn, and I felt like punching something, or someone, very hard. I just wanted to feel my fist impact, bounce away, and my knuckles fracture into millions of pieces. I wanted my hands ripped to shreds and my eyes gouged from my face. I wanted to stop feeling and feel everything so I wouldn’t have to linger on any one particular feeling.

Turning away from the image in the mirror, I walked to the shower, pulling aside slowly the curtain and reaching in to turn it on. Water splatted against the bottom of the shower as a cascade of liquid arched through the cool air. I hooked my thumbs in the back of my jeans and slid them down, stepping inside and pulling the curtain securely across.

The steam crawled around my body like a sticky embrace and I instantly pushed the temperature. Icy water lashed my back as I stared across the darkness. I don’t mind showering in the darkness; it feels more comforting, as if no one in the world can see me and I can finally be not Canem or man but Phoenyx. That I wasn’t Prince of pauper but Phoenyx.

I just want to be Phoenyx. Who wants to be a prince when all you have is not yours?

***

I was walking back from Aphrodite’s one day, passing through the palace’s courtyard on the way to my room, when Sabina finally found me once more.

“Phoenyx,” She whispered, “it’s me.”I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at one of the willow trees dominating the space. Sabina parted the curtain of branches, beckoning to me, “Quickly, Phoenyx, quickly! I have to talk to you.”

“My father-.”

“To hell with your father! Get over here!” Sabina reached a pale hand out.