by S. K Munt
But the real reason why I am writing is because I have a favour to ask of you. A friend of mine, one of the Given girls, has recently been dismissed from service and is being transferred to St Miguel Corps. I have told her that you are there and that if she can track you down, she should send a letter through to me addressed from you. I know this may be an inconvenience but please, when Martya comes to you, know that I would be eternally grateful if you forwarded any letters that she might write to me in your name. And treat her graciously please for Martya Rice has a brilliant mind and is off to do wonderful things, and I do not doubt that she will become part of the nobility someday soon and see that your kindness is returned.
Regards
Your sister, Larkin.
*
I started training in combat five times a day the morning after Kohén left, determine to be able to kill him if he ever made good on his threat. I alternated classes every day, and with Maryah’s blessing. She still emphasised the importance of me learning how to groom and carry myself and as I’d said to Kohén- roll over when beckoned to, but Karol had actually pulled her aside to tell her that I was the most amusing of all the Given girls that he’d dined with that night, and that I should be encouraged to be my own kind of lady.
Now, thanks to Prince Karol, Maryah had the idea that my tomboyish aspects were going to make me a spectacular Companion if I struck a balance between the things that she wanted me to learn, and the things that I craved to do- one who could read and present herself like a lady, but amuse her suitors by doing something that they’d enjoy, like fencing.
I was supposed to be grateful to hear that I had pleased Karol but I scowled and rolled my eyes, took the proffered make-up palette and sat down in my chair to paint my face with ridiculous metallic effects, as was that day’s lesson. I’d amused Karol the way a clown or village idiot amused slack-jawed gawkers, and suspected that Karol wanted to encourage that to keep dinners from being boring, not his brother’s bed warm. But that was what I wanted too, so I sat like a trained poodle and painted like a two-year old with a crayon. When the class was over, the other girls had clumsy but carefully swirled streaks of gold, silver and bronze around their eyelids, and I had given myself a shiny red nose, blue spokes for eyelashes that bypassed by eyebrows and circles of hot pink on my cheeks. Kelia laughed until she wet herself and had to be excused to get fresh bloomers- Maryah told me I’d just bought myself a private lesson with my tomfoolery. I told her not to try and quash my artistic streak and then walked out to the main bathroom to wash my face.
Naturally, Prince Karol and the senior schoolteacher were in the hall talking quietly. Guessing that they’d come to our wing to talk to the children in the senior class (that was the door they’d paused outside of) and that I was about to make a fool of myself more than I’d expected to, I let out a little squeak and tried to turn around to hide my face.
‘Larkin!’ the teacher snapped, and I cringed. ‘What are you doing?’
I sighed and then turned around, knowing that I couldn’t go that way anyway- the bathroom was past them and there was nothing beyond my end of the hall but a window. ‘Erm…’ I turned around and took a leaf out of Lette’s book, twirling a loose strand of my white hair around my finger and trying to look vacant. ‘Uh… going to wash the make-up off my face?’
Both the teacher’s and Karol’s eyes widened when they saw me.
‘Goodness…! That…’ the teacher frowned and gestured past her, sighing. ‘I don’t even want to know. Just go before you make a spectacle of yourself.’
‘Bit late for that…’ Karol teased as I passed him by. ‘I hope you at least get an A in ridiculousness, Miss Whittaker,’ he paused, ‘and a D in art.’
‘I’ve had straight A’s in the first since I started here, your highness,’ I chirped back, then glanced over my shoulder at him. ‘But I do quite well in art too. Why? Are my eyelashes not symmetrical?’
Karol ran the tip of his tongue along the front of his teeth as he checked my eyelids out. ‘Not quite.’
‘Damn. I’ll have to use a mirror next time.’ I stepped into the bathroom with a racing heart, knowing that I could have gotten in a lot of trouble over that scene, if they’d been more angry than horrified about the wasted paint. But when the door swung shut behind me, I grinned at myself in the mirror- I looked HIDEOUS, like a clown from a nightmare.
Well! No one’s ever going to accuse me of flirting with HIM again!
I smiled as I turned on the faucet, as a good clown should.
*
I received the first of three letters from Kohén three weeks after his departure. The first made me angry. The second made me sad- and the third turned my world upside down and made me miss him desperately for it came back on the boat two months after his departure- the one he should have been on but wasn’t. The king and duchess returned, but not Kohén. Apparently, his parents had decided to leave him there over the winter.
January 12th, AA 643
Dear Larkin,
I am very, very sorry for the things I said to you, but you know I didn’t mean them! I just get crazy when the energy takes me over like that and I lose sight of everyone and everything. If I’m in a good mood, I get giddy and if I’m in a bad mood, I get furious and I can’t control what comes out of my mouth.
But I really don’t mean them- not the crazy things I say when I’m happy and not the awful things I say when I’m mad. But you mean everything you say, and the things YOU said were crude and cruel! When you think about it, you should know damn well that I wouldn’t have tried to do anything else with you, so the way you pushed me off offended me! I am not a man who needs to be pushed off a girl! I am a prince! You had no right to taunt me like that! You may be taught to groan at the right times, but you’re supposed to be taught to keep that to yourself as well!
You would make a horrible Companion so never; EVER insinuate again that I need to remember myself in your company!
Regards,
Prince Kohén of Arcadia.
January 26th, AA643
Dear Prince Kohén of Arcadia,
I thought the Nephilim were supposed to be good with things. However, you’ve made it apparent that words and apologies are not your forte, so please don’t try to combine both ever again.
I spend my days in Martya’s garden in the sun, which continues to thrive- thank you for inquiring, you were so sweet to ask! Yes, we had a productive spring germination and hopes are high for the summer.
As are Emmerly’s own, now that she is eligible to be taken to bed when you are of age, and has a lump in her abdomen to show for it from where they inserted the birth control. Are you too counting the days until you return, so that you can begin to pay those amongst us who you deem valuable? She spent her sweet sixteenth on her bed, waiting for you dutifully and has turned up her nose at all of us since!
I don’t think her fancy new room is anything to be proud of and I doubt that it’s sanitary- but I tend to disagree with popular opinion, don’t I? Just as I disagree with YOUR kingdom’s version of equal rights!
Regards,
Larkin Whittaker
Ugly slut in training
Eden.
P.S- I have been paid for my services, so don’t lower yourself to apologize for doing what your royal self pleases. That’s the deal, remember? I certainly haven’t forgotten!
January 16th, AA643
Larkin,
I very much regret sending off that letter in yet another moment of anger. I’m sorry. I told Kohl about the kiss and how I acted and he got so mad at me for the things I said that I was rather shocked. We’ve never fought before and it drove me nuts that he picked your side over mine, but he’s right… there’s no excuse for the things that I said to you.
I am sorry, and I hope this letter arrives quick enough to counteract the last one before you get too angry with me!
There was no excuse. This is a full apology with no ‘But.’ Please forgive me! And know without a d
oubt that I am relieved to be missing Emmerly’s sixteenth birthday and thank the stars every day that I was born six months later!
-Fondest regards, Kohén
February 9th, AA643
Larkin,
I got your letter! I know you hadn’t gotten my second one yet but you sound so mad! I want to come home with this one, but mother says that I needed to stay and get to know Pacifica better because one day she intends for me to rule it at Kohl’s side but get this- as HIS duke, not his superior! Can you believe that? All of my life I’ve been trained to rule and he to work and yet she thinks I should surrender the chance of a crown to him to be fair! That’s NOT fair, not at all! She just assumes that he’ll qualify for nobility the second that we turn twenty-one and be as capable as me but he can’t even sword fight and has not studied agriculture or trade at all! He is a labourer and he has no ideas of his own! I am the leader! I understand that he lost a lot being born second to me but why should I suffer for it now?
I don’t want to stay here knowing that you were so mad at me but now I see that I have to spend as much time here as possible to convince her that I’m the son who ought to be King of Pacifica, not him! Please understand but getting this sort of power is one of the ways that I can assure that you find your way into the nobility ranks too.
I’m sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me. I miss you so much! So, SO much Larkin! I usually love it here but I hate it right now. We’ve been hit by monsoon after monsoon and everyone’s wet and sick and cold. I can’t believe that my mother wants to leave me here given how protective she’s always been, but if I want dad to listen to me and not her, then I need to prove that I am every bit as tough and independent of them as Kohl has become in the Corps.
I know we have two different dreams for our future and I don’t know how we’re going to get there but… but I want to share our dreams together, little Lark and me getting Pacifica could open the gate for that, don’t you see? And when I return, I hope that we can have an honest conversation about our plans and intentions and feelings knowing that it won’t be intercepted by security personnel, and just clear the air, okay? There are so many things we need to say, I think. Do you?
Please write back and tell me that you’ll talk to me when I return! I’ll probably only just make it home by March when the seasons change and hopefully ease these tumultuous Spring rains, but I’ll be counting the days until I see you again, not Emmerly! Isn’t that plain?
-Love always, your Kohén.
P.S- The book enclosed is from Kohl who wishes you a happy sixteenth birthday in advance.
P.P.S- I didn’t pretend moan when I kissed you. I have been trained in many things, but acting is not one of them. The fact that I’ve fooled you for this long confounds me.
P.P.P.S- Were you truly acting?
P.P.P.S- What on earth does P.S stand for? I have no idea why we write it.
P.P.P.P.S- Throw that coin out- you’ll never have need of it so long as you have need of me.
After I’d read Kohén’s last letter I immediately stuffed it into my pillowcase and ran from the room clutching the paper-wrapped book from Kohl, like I’d committed some crime by reading Kohén’s letters or accepting a birthday gift. Kelia was taking her usual mid-afternoon nap in bed (she’d had no intention of rushing down to meet Kohén) but the other Given had been downstairs since the carriage had pulled up, fawning all over the king and duchess in the throne room, who were regaling some of the castle staff and the nobility with tales from their time away.
I didn’t want to be around anyone- for Kohén’s words were swirling through my head, making it almost impossible for me to think around them. It seemed too impossible to be true but had Kohén actually just hinted that he had feelings for me as more than a friend and a Companion? Had Martya been right in declaring that he was in love with me?
Martya! In my shock over receiving the letter from the prince, I’d completely forgotten to open the one that had arrived from St Miguel with it, addressed to Coaxley, who had gotten it to my hands without it being opened first. Seeing as how everyone in the palace was in the throne room, I found it easy to slip out the back doors and into the light spring rains falling on the palace grounds. I looked around for somewhere to seek shelter, knowing that I’d get in a lot of trouble if a letter from a former Given girl was discovered in my possession, and then caught my breath when I noticed that the rear palace gates were open- the ones that led right to the spout of the tidal fall. The people in Eden could access the beach from there and obviously the staff had driven up that way from the dock with the monarchs’ luggage. Usually, I was not allowed off the grounds unaccompanied, but no one was paying any attention to me, so I ducked my head to the rain and hurried towards the open section in the stone fence, holding my breath until I was on the other side of it and gazing down at the jagged cliff below me.
White water barrelled over the side of the cliff and pounded into the sand and rocks some sixty metres below, and though the other Given girls had always fretted in fear when they’d gotten too close to the cliff’s edge, I was enthralled by the height and the power of nature. The falls were so loud that I couldn’t even hear the blood rushing to my head, but the rain was lighter now that it wasn’t being filtered through Eden’s hemlocks and elms, and so I moved to the flight of stone stairs which led to the beach below and sat to open my friend’s letter with expectant tears forming in my eyes. I leaned over the single piece of paper when I unfolded it, protecting the ink from the rain and frowned when I realised that it was not written in Martya’s hand.
February 18th, AA643
Larkin,
I received your letter some time ago alerting me to the fact that a friend of yours may call on me, but I am writing to inform you that that has not eventuated. Not only has she not contacted me, but also no one visited us from the north from November to last week, due to the fact that the wet weather kept the roads from the north nearly impassable, so you must be mistaken as to her new location.
You would fare better if you extended your search to the regions of Rachiel or Nitika, but please do not write to me again, for we do not have Companions here in St Miguel, and associating with one would surely be frowned upon. And in the future, I ask you to refrain from encouraging any of your friends from contacting me as well, regardless of their potential rank. I am, after all, a married woman now and my husband is a pillar of St Miguel society and I cannot have whores showing up on my doorstep.
I also have no idea how mother and father are, for I have not had any contact with that woman since I turned eighteen and encourage you to do the same from hereon out, because some people are better off left in the past. Please extend that same courtesy to me on your own behalf from hereon out.
-Jaiya Lamb.
I crumpled up the letter and threw it into the falls, and then dropped my head into my hands and wept for my lost friend, my unkind sister and our lying monarchs.
The Creation Story
Book III of VI.
This text is not to be edited, altered, summarised or translated into any language ASIDE FROM ENGLISH. Offenders who attempt to will be charged with treason against Calliel and put to death.
Within a few centuries, Satan grew powerful enough to create eleven Soul Mates of her own, and she called them the Fallen, after the fall of night, for the feathers representing their power were as black as pitch and the opposite to Miguel’s white ones. Satan sent them forth into the world and they bred and spread their powerful seeds just as the original Soul Mates had, and it wasn’t long before the human race and God learned of them and began to fear them and their ability to earn their gratitude and love before God could.
God understood that he’d made a grave mistake by severing himself in two instead of taking the time to create what he could with all he had and practicing patience, and an even graver mistake by allowing people to believe that committing small, inconsequential sins would garner his hatred. He understood that he should have just take
n Satan up with him and allowed her to love Heaven as she had not on earth, and to be healed spiritually that way with forgiveness, instead of casting her aside. After all, Satan had once been even more beautiful and every bit as faithful, loyal and loving as little Heaven had been. And yet she’d made one mistake and he’d disowned her for it, and to show preference to a mortal girl who had been too young to truly be tested the way Satan had been! Who could judge her for hating him, when even with his pure spirit and flawless conscience; he’d found guilt enough to hate himself? And how could he punish those for being shaped by his own flaws while existing within his imperfect design?
Besides, Heaven had grown so expansive that the mortal world was nothing in comparison to it, and certainly not worth suffering over when a mortal life was so fleeting and a Heavenly one, eternal! There was nothing that he did not have the time to forgive, and redemption was offered to all who approached him with love in their hearts, and Satan would have been one of them had he not been so angry with her!
But the mortals did not know this, and so they feared both God and Satan for different reasons. Of course, the stories about Satan had been exaggerated as well, and some people feared her eternal embrace so much that they strove to do what was right in order to avoid it. But as humans multiplied, they began to spread and change and soon, there were too many for the angels to watch over, and God began to feel dozens and then hundreds of mortal spirits slipping into that dark place that was out of his reach.
