Silver King

Chapter 12 - Cal

I wake up at dawn, my arms still wrapped around Mare, my chin now on top of her head. I can smell her hair. I fight the urge to kiss the spot where my chin is resting, I don't want to wake her up. Or to startle her. I don't move a muscle. My torso moves at the same rhythm as her breath echoes through her back. It takes over an hour for her to wake up. Her eyes flutter open, eyelashes long and beautiful. She lets out a small yawn, and I suppress the need to kiss her cheek. I can't breathe when she's this close.

This is torture.

I let my grip loosen, and she stirs in my arms, shaking herself awake. She climbs out, her nightgown undulating with her every movement. I yawn too, stretching, before pulling the cover off and climbing out of the couch. She walks over to the bathroom, and turns around before entering.

" Can I go first?"

" Go ahead. "

She walks in the bathroom, carefully closing the door behind her. I don't hear the lock.

" You forgot to lock it! "

I don't want her to think I would want to enter the bathroom when she's inside. A single misstep could throw off the whimsy balance we've started to set.

" I know, " she calls back, " but if I die I want it to be easy to come get my corpse."

I almost giggle. This situation is absurd. It's like the conversation and its logic, like this whole relationship we're building, is holding up to a cloud that could let out the water it's holding at any moment, sending whatever's attached to it plunging to the ground.

I hear the water running, and I imagine her humming in the shower. I wonder if she still does that.

I groan. This situation is so much more than I deserve at the moment, but I want more. I'm so selfish.

A few moments later, she's out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, and I get inside myself. And we start the day.

During the whole day, we receive dozens of applicants for the council. Some obviously forced by their parents who were too shy to have the gut to come themselves, so they sent their children. Some being there, not really sure why they are, but wanting to help the democracy. I admire them the most. Beside them, members of the Scarlet Guard, Reds and newbloods, who, having fought to overthrow Maven, conclude the council is their rightful belonging. They're not entirely wrong. Then there are Silvers. Most of them, I smother a snigger when I see them. They're obviously only here to overthrow the newborn republic by deracinating its roots. Some seem genuinely interested in changing our system.

All of them have stories, most of them heartbreaking.

I remember a Red woman, she's named Hanni, explaining how she had three sons, triplets, all of them newbloods. Maven found them and killed them, himself. She couldn't do anything. The boys were barely 2 years old.

Another woman, Silver this time, was in love with her servant, a Red man her age. When he caught wind of their relationship, her father assassinated the man. All along before he died, he looked at her pleadingly. When she got in the way, her father shot her in the arm. She still can't use that arm, and her father disowned her.

A man, newblood, accidentally killed his wife because he didn't know he had an ability. He sweats poison.

The stories like that pile up on our desk, and Mare can barely keep her face straight. I can, but that's because I've been raised to. Inside, my heart is ripped, dropping blood drop by drop.

At the end of the day, we've found our council. Out of the 86 applications we got, we kept 17. 4 Silvers, 7 Reds and 6 newbloods. That makes a total of 20, 6 Silvers, 7 Reds and 7 newbloods.

We can start.