Darkness and Beauty (The Fated Series, #1)

Chapter 41 - Lance - An Anchor

This cycle has been...an emotional war. On one end, I'm worried about my sister and her new powers. On the other, I can feel my adrenaline building up for the Elysian Festival in a cycle. And on a completely unrelated note, I've been happier in the passing days. Siscilla said that Claritia was very close to giving birth, so I've refused to let her go anywhere but inside her chambers. She complains about the boredom - which is making me antsy too - but she knows I'm right.
But she's not the reason for my happiness.
Two days ago, when I looked out the window and found my sister standing on top of a beautiful black Huisne horse and Darius and his cadre running after her, that made my day. They sounded like they were having fun, but I saw the fear in their eyes and how they were near outright sprinting. The mare wasn't even going that fast and they still ran like hell.
The memory still makes me smile to myself, but it's not why I'm smiling now. That reason is trying to beat me in a thumb war. "This isn't fair. You have bigger fingers."
"Which should make your small ones easy to dodge," I counter, swiping my thumb under and around hers to avoid getting pegged.
"Which should make your small ones easy to dodge," she mimics. She tries circling my finger as I did, but I catch it, pinning it down while I count to five. "Fuck you!"
I shake my head, the grin on my face well covered but all too wide to stay hidden. "Such a sore loser." She snatches her hand back in response and I laugh at the frustrating glare she gives me. "Oh come on, you can try again if you like."
"I think the last few hundred tries have been enough to last me two years, thank you very much."
"You're very welcome." I laugh again when she sticks out her tongue.
It's somewhere around midnight and we're sitting on my bed facing each other. I had just walked into my room and relieved myself of weapons when she knocked on my door. Apparently, my sister is a handful. Her monthly cycle returned two days ago - which was sooner than expected thanks to the evolving elemental bodies - and I enjoyed every minute of watching her near rip of Darius's head. He looked mortified about how she'd go to reach for his neck, then two minutes later lay her head on his thigh and do storytime. Then she'd reach for his neck again. It was twelve times better when everyone else but Thomas had just as confused looks on their faces. I didn't tell them about her cycle, just watched and let them try to figure it out.
Kat came in here with frizzy hair and a scowl for days. Now she's pouting because she hasn't won a round yet.
"I have something for you." I slide off the bed and walk to the painting hanging on the wall. It's a simple depiction of a little girl reaching towards the fireflies lighting her dark hair. You can only see the side of her face, but there's no mistaking the glow of her green eye. I believe it's Adeline Rosendal, but I can't be entirely sure.
Smiling at it, I pull the bottom of the painting off the wall and catch the knife that falls from behind it. It's still in its sheath and two straps go over the handles to keep the knife from being removed. There's a trick to getting the blade free, but it's hard to figure out. The straps are sewn into the sheath, so you can't just pull or slide them off the handles. I've been wanting to give her something to protect herself just in case something goes wrong.
I walk back to her, finding her lying down with her head at the foot of the bed. She squints at the leather in my hands. "What is it?"
"A dagger." Her face falls. "Don't worry, it's in the sheath, and it's tricky to get it out. I just wanted you to have an anchor. Something you could use to keep yourself from looking at the high places."
"So you're giving me a knife...so that I'll try and slit my own throat instead." Her brow raises in sarcastic concern.
I always was horrible at expressing sentiment.
"No, I'm giving you the sheath," I sigh, gripping for a better explanation and clearly failing.
"What?"
"To get to the knife, you'll need to figure out how to open the sheath, and the thing is pretty heavy. So put it in your pocket, and when you feel its weight, you'll be reminded that there's still something worth fighting for." I pathetically offer it to her. She hesitates but takes it.
She flips it in her hand, running her fingers over the straps and seamless faces. "Something worth fighting for?"
"Yeah. Like cake. Or nice shoes." I'm trying to get rid of the awkward tension, and it seems to work because she smiles faintly.
I watch her examine it, waiting for a good sign that this wasn't a terrible idea. Her right cheek rises slightly. It's comforting for about two seconds before I realize that it's malicious. "You know, I could end up using the knife to slit your throat."
"I don't think you will," I say, placing my hands on either side of her head and looking down at her.
Her eyes drift to my balaclava as she says, "I'm guessing that trying to get through the cloth will be harder than it looks."
"I suppose you'll just have to take it off then."
She doesn't see what I mean at first, huffing at the joke, but as I keep holding her gaze, she finds the offer I've given her.
I'm losing my mind, let's be honest. For half of my life, I've lived in the shadows behind lies and masks and invisible walls that were put up to protect me, but my dad trained me so that I could protect myself. He trained Fauna to be able to hold her own and we can. We learned our lessons the hard way because they're the ones that you'll always remember. We know which floorboards creek and which ones are safe to step on.
Our father died two cycles ago and I've been letting it eat away at me. I have his legacy to uphold and I was scared - I am scared, but he also said to never live in fear. He told me to trust what my chest and gut feel and that the hardest decisions are always the ones worth making, even when they seem wrong. He taught us to trust carefully and never let hope blind us. He taught us what mom taught him because she couldn't.
Two cycles I've let myself keep things locked away just as I've always had. I tuned things out, dulled the feelings that were sharp and cutting me from the inside out, and kept people at arm's length. Everything that didn't depend on the new title in front of my name, I pushed aside. All except Kat. I don't know what changed or when it changed, but I can feel it now. The shift in the air, the true last rays of dusk, the scent of winter coming from the west and carrying colder winds, and the tilt of the sun that will soon set earlier. Everything feels different. Maybe it's just all off of its axis now that dad is gone. It sure as shit had Fauna making some questionable decisions that I entirely went against when she told me. Nearly eleven years of never lowering our balaclavas for anyone but a select chosen few, and she let the Crown Prince of Vandaria who she adamantly hated upon meeting, of all people, be the first to see what she really looks like. I wanted to scream at her and demand what made her do such an idiotic thing on the same night that our father - who made us swear we'd never reveal our identities - died earlier that same night. But I couldn't blame her for doing it.
I've known for a while now that Kat makes my heart rate skyrocket, feel lighter, and my mouth twitch up at the end all for the right reasons. I know, I know. It's only been a little under a month that we've been within these walls and less than that of actually talking to Kat, but sometimes that's enough for you to know that something - whatever it is - is there.
At first, I thought that I was just jumping to conclusions because I was still hung up on Rose and scared of everything that happened to her repeating over again, but then we kept talking, kept getting to know each other, and became each other's new lifeline, and I played the piano with a new meaning. Like my sister, I'm stupid, but I still remember what made me learn those lessons. I remember the deaths and the consequences of failing. Lives lost, loved ones missing, and memories slowly fading over time. My heart is beating like an unrelenting war drum summoning death because I can't lose someone the way I lost my mother - the way lost Rose and my father, but if my little sister who has spent most of her life believing that no one will see her even when her mask is down, can let someone in so soon after losing another piece of her, then maybe I can take a risk too.
The dagger and sheath weren't entirely for her to use as an anchor, but I hoped that she'd feel it and think of me. It's a sappy reason and I didn't want to get my hopes up by telling her that. Hence my weird reasoning I gave her instead. But when she took it from my hand and smiled, I saw my chance and took it. It's scaring the shit out of me that she hasn't said a word yet. Makes me think that my sister wasn't exaggerating when she said she felt like she was falling and there was no ground or ocean or end of any kind beneath her. She was just falling, and she didn't know where it was taking her.
I don't know if the silence means it's okay or that she'd rather not. I stay quiet though, afraid that if I say something else she'll walk out of the room, and I really don't want her to leave. So many people have left. Could I really handle it happening all over again?
Still not saying anything, she slowly raises her hands up toward me. I hold my breath. I start to think that it's all a terrible, ungodly foolish choice, but then her fingers send sparks through my cheeks as she grabs the edge of the cloth, and that fear skitters away as the fabric lets fresh air skim the bottom half of my face. I watch her carefully, trying to search for any signs of her regretting her choice, but she just - blinks. I want to crack a joke, want to try and get myself to inhale, but my mouth's frozen shut, and my lungs won't inflate. You know how when there are a thousand things you want to say to someone, and they're right in front of you, but you just can't? It's not that you won't, you just can't help but look at them and know that even without you saying it, they already know.
She runs her fingers over the planes of my face, squinting slightly here and there. I can feel the sheets crumbling in my hands to keep me from reaching for her own skin. It's burning me from the inside out to want to feel the small calluses on her own hand again. The thought of them has plagued me ever since I stupidly cut her hand when I tried to cut off Aillard's head.
When her eyes drift back down to mine, all my control fucking plummets. I manage to breathe again, but before I can get it under control I lower my head, stopping close enough that we share breath, but far enough for her to pull away. I wait for her to. I wait for her to be the sensible one and walk out and keep her life safe because with me it most definitely won't be. But she doesn't, and I say, "fuck it," and bring my lips to hers.
I keep it light, trying not to scare her away, but then she kisses me back and my body shudders with the force in it.
Heathens burn me.
This breaks me apart and puts me back together all over again. It's hell because I know that I'll never want to feel anything else again, but it's also the shine of every star in the sky and every space in between where unknown possibilities lie. I won't be the same after this, I can feel it. I can feel her pain and strength of her past echoing to my own, and it's like finally coming back to the surface for air. It's the need and want, the mercy and torture, and it feels like it could shake the earth.
She pulls back, and the sound of our ragged breathing fills my ears where the roaring was.
"Teach me." I push myself up further to put distance between us, because I won't be paying attention to anything if I stay where I can easily lose my damn mind. "Teach me how to defend myself," she explains again. "Please."
I look up at the knife on her stomach, and the memory of Rose with one in her chest flashes through my mind. "Okay."

*****

  "You know she used to climb up to the gargoyles at night with these pieces of cardboard she had cut to look like wings and move them to scare people who would walk out of the taverns."
  "That honestly doesn't surprise me at all."
  The laugh that bubbles up inside of my chest is light, just as all my laughs that come late at night have been for the past six nights have felt. Kat's are softer too, I can tell, but I like it more when she laughs so hard and uncontrollably at another one of my stories about mine and Fauna's childhood adventures, that the cute little snort finds its way out of her nose. She hates the sound of it, but I've come to beg and scrape to hear it again. It's more of a challenge now than it was the first two nights.
  She shifts from where she lays tucked into my side, turning onto her stomach and laying her chin on my chest. One of her shorter face framing hair strands falls forward over her cheek. For once, I don't have to shut down the whispers in my head and lift my hand to brush it back behind her ear. She always lets her hair out when she finds me not so secretly waiting in anticipation out in the foyer of my rooms. I think she took notice of how much I like it when it's down. Not that it was really hard to notice since my fingers tend to find themselves playing with the soft red waves all the time.
  "Of all the stories you tell me," she says, eyes gleaming in a way I know means trouble. "You always seem to be described as the good child."
  "That's because I was."
  "No child is ever a good child unless they want something."
  "And I always wanted my father's approval," I counter. Her eyes dim a little at the mention of my father. It's odd. My body always used to feel heavy when I'd think or talk about him, but now, all I feel is a small weight on my chest that's still sore from the still healing wound, but it's not bleeding anymore. It's not hurting to the point that I just want to sleep through the pain and wake up when it's gone. I miss him, a lot, and sometimes I do end up crying myself to sleep thinking about him, but I haven't been alone these last few nights.
  Kat has been staying here, and nothing has gotten past a few kisses and exploring touches, but I kind of like that it hasn't. I mean, don't get me wrong, I absolutely want to explore much, much more of the fierce woman people have become to pay attention to when she walks the halls, but I need this more. I need the talking until our words slur and our eyes shut. I need the simple presence of her close to not feel alone.
After my sister told me about giving Darius one more piece of her and I gave that same piece of me to Kat, I realized that maybe my sister needed Darius near her too to remind herself that she wasn't alone either. Her rooms have been refurbished for cycles now, waiting for her return, and yet she stayed with him. Sure, the Demoni had a part to play, but after he stopped the attacks there was nothing keeping her up at the top floor of the northwest tower. Nothing but fear of having nothing but the dark and death sitting in the corner to keep you company.
  Looking at Kat and feeling her heartbeat against my ribs, I know my sister has her own reasons she won't even admit to herself for making to cope with what we've felt yet again. We tried the isolation tactic of coping. We tried getting back on our feet and distracting ourselves with missions and training. We tried music and jumping back into our fears that were pitch black and snarling. None of it worked. That hole still felt like a chasm and it swallowed us whole, just more slowly than in one bite. So this time we did what we hadn't yet tried. Vulnerability. The very thing we thought would end up ruining us entirely, has come to make everything ultimately easier.
And that's scarier than anything I could possibly imagine because it can all be gone, and that's the back thought that keeps me and my sister from doing more than what we already are. It's what keeps me from doing more than just kissing Kat and nibbling her neck where I know she's ticklish. It's what has my sister blinking more often when she looks at Darius in a way she knows she shouldn't. She shoves it all down and ignores it, using her masks to cover it up and jokes to distract people from what they might've seen. We don't want to lose again, but we can't help but want more when more seems like a speck in the distance.
I kiss Kat's forehead and pull her closer. She settles against my shoulder and I listen as her breathing slows until she's asleep.
Somewhere below the castle, my sister is still teaching Darius and his guard what she can before the Elysian festival in two days. She added on another hour last cycle, wanting to give them any upper hand she could. I know she's doing it because she doesn't want everything to be left completely up to us. We're two people against Gods know what - and on top of whatever demonic rising star that's now hunting my sister for what runs in her veins, we still have Cressida and Willdred Maron to worry about. She wants to give them what our father gave us, the only difference is we know that it's not always enough. No matter how hard you train or what you give up, sometimes you can't save everyone. So you treasure what you can while you can, and you do what my sister and I struggle to let through our walls.
Pulling Kat closer, I hold on tight to her and feel my chest start to cave as I let that very thing seep through the cracks I've patched up with everything I possibly have within me. I do what I fear the most in this world.
I hope.