Kingdom's Vice Series: Journey to Alleria ( #1 2014) #Wattys2015

Chapter Fifteen

For a moment, I cut off all the feelings I can have. I refuse to feel anything, afraid that if I feel something, it will slip out of my control and be the end of me. My mouth goes dry as I look into Alec’s eyes. The anger that was once inside them is gone, all I see now is remorse. But, remorse is not enough. I want to see more.

I stand firm on the ground, but my fists shake as the rage channels through me like a fire. I look to Uncle, and I know he’s reading me already. He reads the lines on my face like he always does. He knows what I’m about to do. I’m not really thinking, but it’s already started. I start running towards Alec, my fingernails ready to scratch his eyes out like a savage beast.

‘Skaya,’ Alec breathes in a pathetic, pleading voice. He holds up his hands in surrender and backs away from me, intending to retreat to the little shrubbery, but I grab him by the collar of his shirt and yank him backward, until he falls to the ground. I hover over him, and kneel over his body. I dig my fingernails into his arms as I pin him there.

‘You despise me for hiding the truth from you,’ I hiss, ‘When you’re no better! You killed my mother! My mother. She’s dead because of you! Because of you!’

Uncle seizes my wrists and tries to pull me away. ‘Skaya, that’s enough! Stop this now.’

‘He needs to be punished!’ I yell back through gritted teeth. I’ve come to far to stop now. The rage is fighting against my feelings for Alec. It’s meaningless now.

‘He will be.’ Uncle assured me, ‘Just let him go. This is not the place or the time to punish him. I will deal with him myself when the time is right and the moon shines in our favour again.’

I shrug his hand off of me roughly. I stare Alec down, ‘We’re not in the arena anymore, Alec. There’s no champion, but you and I both know who would win out of the two of us!’

He chuckles and blood spurts out from his mouth and a gurgling sound follows. I stalk off as quickly as I can, while Uncle removes his robe and tosses it to him.

‘For the sake of vanity,’ he says to him, ‘Keep yourself covered—or you’ll scare the children for the rest of their lives. They come here with their parents often to gaze at the Tree. I pray you leave before then.’

~.~.~.~

I sit in the Tale Room, letting all the words I have and have not said swim around my mind some more. Some of them I should have said, others not.

It isn’t long before Duhamas finds me. He knocks, but he knows I know he’s there before he comes into my line of sight.

‘Come in,’ I say softly, ‘Though I warn you I’m in no mood for a lecture.’

My sarcasm comes out harsher than I intend, it sounds more like a threat than a gentle warning. But he doesn’t seem to care too much about any warnings I might give him. He sits beside me, grabs a dusty book off the shelf, and opens it to the first page it lands on.

‘There’s a mess in the courtyard,’ he says, not taking his eyes of the page. His voice is casual, but is laced with knowing.

I clear my throat. ‘Oh?’ is all I can manage.

‘Didn’t have anything to do with that did you?’ he asks me, his eyes finally peeling away from the page. I look at him, and the concern in his eyes scares me.

I swallow. ‘I may have done something...or maybe it was a act of inelegance on his part.’ I say, ‘The shrubs tend to stick to everything.’

He stares at me in disbelief.

‘What?’ I snap, not wanting to drag on any more of this charade. ‘What do you want me to say, Duhamas?’

He shakes his head, sighs and lets the book slip from his fingers. ‘One minute you’re weeping like a child, thinking you’ve lost him forever, and now you’re leaving him bleeding in the courtyard!’

I bite my lip. ‘You would have done the same, had you been in my position.’ I snarl. ‘I don’t regret doing it, not a single second of it.’

He stands up suddenly in a sharp, swift movement. ‘You’re not yourself. Something is wrong.’

I laugh. ‘Everything is wrong, Duhamas! Everything!’ I yell at him, shaking. ‘You want to know what I did it? He killed my mother when I was little. He never told me, I found out from my Uncle. It makes what I did to him seem like a minor fault.’

He shakes his head and backs away. ‘No, it can’t be true. Alec...he’s a good man. I never thought he’d...Even for a Kennah-born, I thought he would have had a conscience...’

I cut him off. ‘So did I.’ I say in a grim voice. ‘Perhaps it is best if he was on that ship back to Kennah after all.’

He stands in the doorway now, preparing to leave me with my books. ‘I never thought he would be capable of such an act as killing another person, let alone your mother, Skaya. I am not favouring him, but I do think there are always two sides to every story.’ He tells me in a big-brother way, the way Redermarke should have spoken to me when we were younger. ‘Did he say anything to you when you found him?’

I shake my head. ‘Just my name. Nothing more.’

With a single nod he leaves.