The Fallen Throne

Chapter 19.2 ✦ Nightmares

When she finds Kai's cheeks turning red, she realises she's been staring too long with such little distance between them.

"What are you doing?" She repeats her question, taking a few steps back, flushing slightly herself.

"How did you know it was me?" He repeats his very own question, too.

Alaina rolls her eyes, crossing her arms. "Fireflies don't make clumsy sounds."

As if he's reacting to her deliberately, Kai falls from the tree in a few clumsy movements, unlike his usual swift self at all. "That's why I'm no firefly."

"I don't care."

Kai moves to sit beside her. "What are you doing, princess?" He adds a tone to his voice, and says the word 'princess' just as how she would say the world 'firefly'.

"That's my question, and you haven't answered it."

He shrugs. "Sleep is for the weak." He turns to look at her. "Now, what are you doing this late at night?"

There's always the casual way Kai talks to her like she isn't the princess. Perhaps he's never known her for what she was, but she's rather grateful they talk like normal friends despite statuses. She's always convinced Lancaster and Lloyd not to, but it's difficult for them, considering they work in the royal palace.

"I couldn't sleep," Alaina admits. "Nightmares." She shudders at the thought of it, and shakes her head to get rid of the memory. Even so, she still shudders from the low temperature of their surroundings. She rubs her hands on both her arms. "And please, 'sleep is for the weak'? That's not an answer. When will you stop fooling around and be honest with me?"

"We are made of layers of lies."

Alaina sighs. "You're full of indecipherable layers."

Kai glances sideways to take a look at her. She has her eyes fixed over the horizon. "You're the same."

"Am I?"

The way she asks is as if she is merely throwing the question immediately, desperate yet casual and mindless, but she does contemplate the matter. She gives a thought about it, and her actions give her away: the way she twirls her finger around her hair, staring at it blankly – her mind isn't there at all but instead it is busy searching for an answer to her own question.

But she doesn't get a reply. Yet only after snapping out of her thoughts does she finally realise his silence. When she turns to him, she finds that he's staring at her.

Alaina's sudden instinct is to jerk backwards, but she only does so with her head, an inch or less. Only then does she realise how close he's sitting next to her – his fingers on the ground are so close to hers that one would think they're already in contact, except she herself doesn't feel his touch on her.

And she would know of his touch. His, of all people – not because they've actually touched each other before and so often that they know it just by the slight brush of each other's presence, but because of his uniqueness. As simple as that.

"What?" she demands, staring back at him incredulously, feeling heat in her cheeks.

Kai doesn't advert his eyes. He furrows his brows when he looks at her, as if scrutinizing her. "Have we met before?"

Alaina frowns. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean before the tavern, before the forest. Long before. Have we ever crossed paths before?" His hand twitches; there's a point where he lifts his hand and brings it near her cheek, and her heart beats so fast it's impossible. The heat in her cheeks she feels in this intensity between them is potentially even warmer than Kai's touch. She's no longer shivering from the cold atmosphere.