The War of Ares (manxman) (boxyboy)

Chapter Fourteen - I never spoke to him again

Aristides

“What is it with everyone and their fucking secrets?” I asked myself when my frustration with everything and everyone had finally boiled over.

With Koa gone, I was really struggling with everything that was going on in my head. I wasn’t willing to admit, no matter how true it was, that I felt something for the other man. So I ended up pacing around my room, like a lost child, trying to clear my thoughts of anything to do with the beauty that was Koa. But it was harder than I would have ever anticipated because no matter how hard I tried, he always managed to worm his way into my thoughts. And there was no distraction good enough to stop them.

I stopped in front of the window as the sound of warriors training in the courtyard sounded through. Glancing out, I saw that most of the men had paired up and were battling amongst themselves. I had told them earlier to train until sunset.

That gives me a lot of time with fuck all to do; I thought. I was slowly going mad and I didn’t like it. He hadn’t been gone very long and I was already missing his presence. It had never been like that for me. When my brother died… I can’t really remember the aftermath of his death, if I’m honest, but I know it didn’t feel like this. And his death was a permanent thing. He was gone, never to return. But Koa was alive and still breathing. He wasn’t here, though. He wasn’t in front of me where I could see him. And I really didn’t want to think about why that bothered me as much as it did.

“There’s got to be a way of getting him out of my head,” I cursed. I found myself in front of the window I had watched the warriors from just minutes ago. So I turned and stepped out onto the balcony beside the window and leaned against the railing. I wasn’t able to see as much up here as I would have down there, but it was something to look at--for a while at least.

There was something strange happening and I couldn’t say what it was, I couldn’t even describe it. But it felt like something about to happen, something earth shattering but not necessarily bad. It was just a feeling I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried. And it was weighing me down.

It was unsettling to think about Koa so much, not to mention predicting things before they even happened because of a feeling I had. Emotion was not something I listened to very often, if ever. I thought: It didn’t make an awful lot of sense. Sane people never predict things like I was.

My eyes darted over to the woods directly in front of me when I thought I saw something moving there. It was the place Koa and I had trained long and hard, day after day, hour after hour. My chest ached with his loss, a loss that wasn’t even real. He was never mine and I didn’t want him to be either. I couldn’t want that. It was just so damn hard to get that across to myself.

The top of a man’s head appeared amongst the trees. He was moving slowly with careful precision, as if trying to stay hidden. I saw that he was wearing good robes and wondered if he was from the south palace. But when I looked lower, I noticed quite a substantial tear in them and quickly dismissed that thought. I doubted King Ambrose--that was his name, apparently--would allow someone dressed in such a messy manner to represent him anywhere. I’d heard stories earlier when I got back to the palace. The more I heard about him, the more I thought he sounded more like his father than his brother. His father had not been a strong man, unless you count wealth and position, he wasn’t very powerful. But the brother had been a great warrior, a feared one. And he had been smarter than both men put together. And while I could only assume the new king had some sort of intelligence, it would never live up to his brothers. Still, I thought, it had to take a certain amount to do away with both, especially when so many people had wanted the brother dead.

I zoned back in on the man whose face I still couldn’t see. He was competent to have gotten so close without being seen by someone down there. If I gave him nothing else, I had to give him that. It was more than most warriors got. I watched him until he stopped behind a sheltered area in the trees and he surveyed his surroundings. Once he finished, he just stood there and watched the men. I wondered if he was looking for someone, if he was spy, or if there was something else he could be doing.