Chapter Thirteen
I returned from the ambassador’s reading to find Damara and Johai awaiting me. The pair of them sat side by side, and from the scowl on Johai’s face, I knew they had discovered my attempt at freedom.
“Welcome back, dear,” Damara greeted me. She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes.
They know! I panicked, and words tumbled from my mouth unbidden. “I am sorry I delayed. I met Sabine for a moment after Duke Sixton’s—he’s inherited the duchy—and well, I thought Earvin might want some time off, and I did not think you would mind.” I clamped down on the streaming nonsense that escaped from my mouth.
Johai, arms crossed over his chest, glared intensely enough to leave a brand across my forehead. Damara’s brows pinched together in thought, and her hands lay folded in her lap. She clutched bits of fabric between her fingers, running them across her thumb as I spoke. I focused on the action so I would not have to meet either one of their gazes and have my disobedience discovered.
Damara spoke after a lengthened silence. “Duke Sixton sent a message while you were out.”
My heart sank. I had nearly forgotten about Jon’s proposal.
Let it not be to their benefit! I prayed. Goddess knows I do not love the man, and I cannot stand the thought of my life yoked to his.
Silence reigned. I considered telling them about my appointment with the ambassador to change the subject. Though I knew it would not change anything, I would not mind some time to process the day’s proceedings. The tension in the room was palpable, and on foolish impulse, I looked into Johai’s eyes. They were a burning blue and trained on me.
Damara stood and walked over to a window across the room. She placed her hands flat against the sill. “He says you are aware of what he is offering, and I will admit, it is a tempting proposition.”
Johai shot to his feet, and my voice overlapped his.
“You cannot be serious!” We spoke in unison. His reaction stunned me to silence. He continued to be an enigma. Though I had heard him speak of me with regret and tenderness, I could not believe he cared for me. There had to be something in my past that linked us together, and I was not sure I wanted to find out. It was easier to hate him and not know why than to face the likely fact that he cared for me and had betrayed me.
It was a foolish thing to do, but I goaded him. It was easier than facing the truth. “You disapprove, Johai? Surely you’d jump at the chance to spy on Adair.”
For a moment, he appeared as if I had struck him. Then just as quickly as he had revealed his hurt, he snapped closed the lid on his emotions, and his usual impassive expression replaced it.
“Not at this cost.”
I laughed bitterly. An overpowering emotion bubbled up inside me. How could he say those things and then use me like this? Anger made my tongue loose. “You would hate to lose your tool to another man, wouldn’t you, Johai?”
He balled his fists at his sides as if he were trying to stop himself from striking me.
I stood my ground and gazed into his bottomless blue eyes. A myriad of emotions flickered across their surface, anger, fear, sadness and, most surprising of all, regret.
“You are not just a tool to me. You mean much more to me than that,” he said in a soft tone so different from his usual cutting manner.
Pain bloomed inside my skull, and I struggled to concentrate on his face. I dropped my gaze. The room span, and my thoughts were muddled. I leaned on a chair for support, trying to keep my feet from tumbling beneath me. My breathing came short and ragged.
“What am I to you exactly, Johai?”
I could feel his gaze on me. Without looking up, I knew he was watching me. I always knew when his eyes were on me as if we were connected by an invisible thread.
“Maea, perhaps now is not a good time,” Damara interjected. “You should rest. You’re still recovering—”
I held up my hand to halt her. “No, let him answer me.”
I was wroth with the situation. He pretended to care and yet continued to keep me in a gilded cage. Now I feared I would be given to a man I did not love, as if I were a coin to be bartered, and he would stand by and let it happen, I knew it.
The troublesome voice at the back of my mind disagreed. What if they do care? What if you are wrong? They’d said nothing yet about accepting the duke’s proposal.
Neither of them answered me, and I let my anger speak in their stead. “I am not a mare for you to choose a stallion to mount me. I am a woman, and it’s time you both realized that!”
Johai grabbed my arm, but there was tenderness in the gesture. It forced me to look at him. Though the pain redoubled, I could not look away. “Don’t you think I know that, Maea? I have watched you grow from a spirited youth to a beautiful woman. I, too, have watched you pull away from me, and I cannot stop you. Your life is your choice, and I have never been able to control the decisions you make. No matter how much I wish I could.”
The drumming filled my ears once more, and it seemed to rattle inside my skull.
“What do you mean, watched me grow…?” I swayed on my feet, and a flash of pain ricocheted behind my eyes. I grasped at his lapel in an attempt to keep my feet. “What does it mean? Who are you to me?”
He helped me to a chair, and Damara hovered at his shoulder. My vision blurred, and I could not make out their features clearly, though from the restless way she paced, I knew she was agitated.
“I warned you to hold your tongue. You’ve said too much,” she hissed.
My brain attempted to make a connection, but the pain prevented it. My body screamed for me to take hold of the necklace to let the pain ease away into oblivion.
“What have you done to me?”
His face swam in and out of focus in front of me. The drumming drowned out their conversation but for snatches.
“… had… she… much… me…” Johai spoke in a low tone to Damara. He turned back to me, and I could see the pain written on his expression. I concentrated on his face, the contours of his nose and brows. A memory tickled at my brain; the small voice at the back of my head told me it was important. His hands brushed against my neck, and a shiver crawled down my spine.
Remember, a voice whispered in my ear before the vision swallowed his face.
I stood on a cobbled street. Upturned stones littered the ground, and debris overflowed vacant doorways with missing hinges and doors propped against their jams. The air smelt of illness and death. Seawater gathered in puddles along the long-neglected road. A man stumbled by, grasping at walls for imaginary handholds. He tottered as his hands fumbled for purchase before tumbling over and collapsing face down.
Out of the shadows, a slight figure emerged. A child with matted black hair cautiously approached the man. She, for I assumed she was a girl, leaned over the man and fumbled about his neck. The man gurgled and turned his head, spitting out a mouthful of water. He spasmed, and the girl jumped back to avoid his flailing limbs. He grew still, and then a rattling snore emitted from him. The girl heaved a sigh of relief before proceeding to rummage through his pockets.
A shadow loomed over her. She scuttled back and ran down a nearby alleyway. A hooded figure followed her.
I pursued them; I felt compelled to protect the girl. When I reached them, she had backed into a wall, baring her teeth like a rabid dog. Her luminous violet eyes peered out from beneath her tangled hair. The child was me.
The figure pulled back his cloak, revealing hair whiter than fallen snow. His youthful face was juxtaposed with his silvery hair. I gasped, but they did not hear me; it was only a memory. Johai offered a chunk of bread, steaming slightly as it cooled, to the child. This is the day he found me. I remembered. He took me off the streets. If only I had known, I would have rather stayed there and starved.
The child version of myself crept forward, hunching low to the ground. She waited for him to make the slightest move to trap her. He waited as she snatched the bread from his hand. She retreated to the wall, lick
ing the crumbs from her fingers, and stuffed the leftovers into a pocket in her filthy dress.
“Beautiful eyes…” he muttered, as if to himself.
I wanted to scream and shout, tell her to run to get away, but my attempts were futile. I could not change the past, my past.
The vision contorted and blurred. When it came back into focus, Johai—younger than I knew him, not quite a man—sat, head bent over an old tome and writing on pieces of parchment. He wore his hair loose, and it spilled onto the lacquered desk, pooling like white silk. As he worked, a young girl sat by the fireplace, an open book on her lap.
Her violet eyes flickered in his direction every so often, watching him as his pale brows would pull together in concentration.
He shifted in his seat, and she half-rose, her book gripped loosely in her hand. He sighed and then returned to his work. She sat back down, but her eyes continued to flicker in his direction. Johai continued on, unaware of the adoration in her gaze. He never noticed me. I would do anything for him. I worshiped him for saving me, and it was as if I were not there, I recalled.
Had I the ability to weep within the vision, I would have. What a fool I had been!
Despite my bitter analysis, those unrequited feelings swelled my chest and threatened my ability to judge the vision subjectively. Let it be a manifestation of my dreams, I prayed, though I knew the truth. With the memories, those feelings were also returning. I walked up to his desk and let my hands trail across the papers scattered there. They were cold to the touch and melted in my hands like vapor. A complex series of symbols, neatly written in rows, covered his parchments. I glanced down at the younger Johai; he never once turned his grave expression to the young me.
“What did you do to me?” I whispered, but there was no answer. Did you use my love for you to your own ends? What are you after?
The scene blurred before coming back into sharp focus. Johai, closer to how I remembered him, sat at the same desk, head bent in a familiar fashion. The room had grown cluttered. Stacks of tomes filled every spare inch of the room. The fire had gone cold, and there was no me to watch him like a faithful dog from beside the fire.
A knock echoed through the chamber, and Johai glanced up to issue a command to enter. The door swung open, and I stared at my reflection. She hung back in the doorway as if hesitant to enter. He turned towards her, and for a moment, his expression softened before he directed his attention back to the parchment on which he was studying.
“You should be abed,” he said as she entered.
She took a step forward and halted.
“You’ve been avoiding me, why?”
He did not look up as he replied, “You’re imagining things. There’s a lot to prepare for a journey to Keisan. I’ve just been getting household affairs in order.”
“You’re lying. You’ve been avoiding me since I had the dream. Are you afraid?”
He scoffed. “What do I have left to lose?”
She inched closer, as did I, hanging on every word. I wished I had the ability to question them, to try to understand what the vision was trying to tell me other than taunting me with these snatches of memories.
“You have me,” she said.
I stood over her shoulder and studied his face. He raised his brows as he upturned his face towards her.
“Maea, if this goes awry—”
“Sh.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “I didn’t come here tonight for a lecture, Johai.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Before—before we leave, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What is it? Have you had another vision?”
She shook her head. My heart constricted. Please do not say the words! I thought. “No, it’s much more important than that.” She leaned in, and the curtain of her ebony hair obscured their features, but I knew by the thudding of my heart that our lips met, and I could feel how my veins sang as if I were kissing him again. The ecstasy of the moment stole my breath.
I loved him. I had loved him all of my life. From the moment he plucked me from that hovel, I had loved him. And yet, despite that, I could not shake the feeling of betrayal, the sense of wrongness about the scene. He used me. He knew how I felt, and he used it to his own ends. Anything he feels now must be guilt for his actions. What else could it be?
The scene shifted a final time. She sat by a window, staring out onto the rolling fields. A flock of sheep meandered about in a far-off pasture just past a gray, crumbling wall. The night had settled in, and the darkness crept about the corners of the room. The door at the far end of the room swung open.
Johai entered, and a scowl turned his features sour. She rose to greet him, but he waved off her sentiment. He motioned for her to sit. The muted silence stirred the hairs on the back of my neck. The moment I both feared and desired had arrived, the moment he had betrayed me. She took a seat back in the chair, a dreamy faraway look in her eye. Johai fiddled with something, his back turned to her.
She rose and tried to peer over his shoulder, but he pushed her hands away as if dealing with a child. She beamed at him guilelessly.
He finished what he was doing and hung his head. His chest heaved with a tremendous sigh before he turned back towards her. He gathered her hands in his, and she grinned at him.
He tilted her chin up and kissed her. I could not watch and turned away. The drumming had resumed and echoed through the silence of the scene playing out before me. They pulled apart, and then he directed her to sit with a swing of his arm. He pulled out something from a box on the table on which he had been working, a long silver chain with a filigree of metalwork surrounding an amethyst pendant.
I gasped, for that necklace was at my throat, the one that calmed me when I was anxious. The necklace they used to control me.
“No!” I shouted. I knew better than to try to change the past, but I called out anyway.
I ran over to the dream version of me and tried to shake her. My fingers slipped through her and sank into her flesh, pulling me into my past self.
I turned to Johai and threw my hand out in a futile attempt to stop him. He walked through me as easily as walking through a fog. The past pulled me in and became trapped within the helpless form of my past self. I could hear each footstep as it echoed on the floor. I tried to move my body but could not; it refused to respond to my commands. I shouted in my head, Don’t do this. It’s not too late!
Johai leaned over me. His hands reached around my neck and hooked the necklace. It had been him all along. The man who had stolen my past was Johai. I stared into his blue eyes before the darkness of oblivion overwhelmed me, and in them, I saw despair.