Fragile Chaos

by Amber R. Duell

  “How would I know? If I had, I never would’ve gone near the temple.” She wipes her forehead with the sleeve of her sweater. “I feel naïve for ever believing things would get better after the war.”

  Not as naïve as I was for stopping to talk to her. Maybe if I kept walking, she wouldn’t be here. “I was helping the Kiskens the night we met. Getting them weapons.”

  She shrugs. “They aren’t my problem anymore. The zealots made sure of that when they murdered me.”

  I wince. “It was a sacrifice, not a murder. They knew you would be safe.”

  “Safe?” She laughs bitterly. “Either way, I’m dead.”

  “Not yet.” I scratch at the back of my neck. She should be. She almost was. “Not until Leander helps you cross through the arch in the Netherworld. The believers weren’t wrong; you’re safe here.” For now. I swat the thought away. As long as she’s here, she’s safe. But eventually she’ll have to leave. It will be better for both of us if she crosses the arch and finds her family.

  “You told me yourself I was already dead.” She sighs, resigned. “It was one of the first things you said to me after Goran pulled me from the pit.” When I’m quiet too long, she adds, “It’s not fair.”

  I can’t help collateral damage; it’s impossible. Campaigns requires months, sometimes years, of preparation. Pieces need to be moved and align with the right situation. It revolves around things my siblings are in charge of: the death of a king without the gift of an heir, a loved one being stolen away, trade routes over calmer waters. It’s a waiting game I’ve played a million times. If Cassia’s brother hadn’t done his part, she would still be alive but the West would remain stagnate. I’m not only creating war, but instigating change.

  “War isn’t meant to be fair,” I say quietly.

  “Not when one man is running everything.” She turns to face me, her chin held high. “What’s the point? Do you know the outcome before the war starts?”

  I curl my fingers into a fist, fill my lungs, and exhale. It had to come sooner or later. The questions. The demands. Everyone makes them. “You don’t understand,” I say in a hard voice.

  “You’re right. I don’t.” She glares. “Explain it.”

  “I don’t have to explain anything to you,” I snap. “Nothing is ever black and white, Cassia. Every country thinks they’re doing the right thing—that they’re fighting as heroes instead of villains. You don’t know the layers of deceit involved.”

  “Please.” She bites off the word. “Invading another country is never a good thing.”

  “Isn’t it?” I lean closer and bury my hands deeper into my pockets. “There are a dozen reasons I can think of right now that would justify it. It’s my job to remain neutral; I need to understand the motives from all sides.”

  “What could possibly be justifiable about Asgya invading Kisk? We were allies.”

  “Layers and layers of deceit,” I say slowly, enunciating each word. “But I thought it didn’t matter.”

  Her face turns stony, her fire dying, trampled by new thoughts. Finally, she whispers, “It doesn’t.”

  The silence pounds in my ears. This is why I shouldn’t have agreed to keep her away from the house. Nearly everything she says is a challenge. She’s so confident about each word that comes out of her mouth. It’s infuriating. My body itches to end her, my muscles aching to swing the sword, but my brain is in revolt. No, it screams. Wait. Stop. Don’t.

  “Sorry.” Her voice is so quiet I almost miss it. “It’s none of my business.”

  No, it’s not.

  “I forgot the bucket,” she says.

  She turns and her sweater brushes my bare skin. Before I realize I’m moving, I’ve grabbed her hand. Heat explodes at the connection. It travels up my arm and my breath hitches. We’re locked in that moment for what seems like forever before I find the strength to break the connection.

  This isn’t right.

  Low bramble catches my jeans as I storm back into the woods alone. I’m too afraid of what will come out of my mouth if I open it. I ball the fabric of my shirt in a fist over my diaphragm. I’m no closer to understanding what’s between us, but, for the briefest of seconds, I didn’t care.

  Splotchy black ink blurs on yellowing paper. Light filters into the freshly painted bedroom—a calming Wedgewood blue—through sheer curtains as the sun inches its way into the sky. I drag heavy limbs onto a mattress so soft it feels as if I’m floating, and lug the book I’ve been reading along with me, my retinas burning. It was tucked under a pile of decorative throw pillows when I got back from the waterfall fiasco at dusk. An anonymous note between the pages read, For a more insightful read, and then exhaustion gave way to curiosity.

  That was nine hours ago.

  I should have slammed the thing shut and tossed it into a fire as soon as I read Ostran War inside the cover. Everyone knows that war—it forever changed the face of the East. My stomach churns as I skim over numbers reaching into the hundreds of thousands. So far, it doesn’t seem different than the other volumes I’ve gone over in the archives. Larger numbers, but equally dry and tedious. I keep going though, waiting for something to catch my attention. Anything.

  I shift into the dusky rose duvet and rub my eyes. The words fade in and out of focus, my brain registering every other line. “Arrows.” My voice is hoarse. “Bows.” My head bobs and I jerk myself awake. “Catapults.”

  I fight a yawn. Without military training I could be wrong, but the war seems to be petering out. The countries allied against Ostra have more weapons and more men, but I’m only halfway through the tome. I have to keep going, though; it was left here for a reason. There has to be something…Something…

  A steady knock tugs me from deep sleep. I fight against it, landing somewhere in the hazy place between reality and dreams. The knock comes again, and the breeze from the open window carries a hint of fresh paint too real to pretend it’s my imagination. I choke on a gasp as I land solidly in the present and spring off the bed onto a thick beige carpet. My head throbs with the last remnants of sleep. Three more knocks rattle the door. I shake the sleepiness away. “Yes?” I call. I snatch the open book off the bed and shove it under the pillows.

  There was a long pause. “It’s me.”

  Theo?

  I cringe. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut yesterday. It doesn’t matter if Theo planned the war that ruined my life. It’s his job; he didn’t set out to destroy me personally. I’m not sure about my brother; maybe he set Oren up to become a traitor, maybe he didn’t. I can’t ask without telling him how connected my family is to the war, and the last thing I should do is give him a reason to doubt me. At least not until I find a Plan B for his Plan A.

  It takes a minute before I’m able to move toward the door. When I do, my feet are lead, weighed down with uncertainty. Theo stands outside my room, his pupils dilated, one hand behind his back and the other clutching something to his chest. I take my obligatory glance at his hip and, for a second, I forget to breathe. There’s no sword. I stare at the blank space beside his thigh a moment too long and Theo shifts in the doorway.

  “I left it in the war room.”

  I blink. “Oh.”

  “I got you something,” he says in a gruff voice. “Goran says you like reading, and I thought…”

  A black, hardcover book with a blazing foil sun lands in the crook of my elbow before I can lift my arms to take it. The Gods: A Complete Collection of Tales. Electricity zips up my spine. This is either a kind gesture or a passive-aggressive slap in the face. If it weren’t for the missing sword and his obvious discomfort, I would know the answer.

  “Do you like the room?” he asks.

  “It’s great.” I turn to follow his gaze around the room. Everything from the simple iron chandelier to the antiqued furniture is strangely perfect. Not to mention the wardrobe full of clothes. “You didn’t have to.”

  His eyebrows rise and fall in sarcastic agreement. “Astra didn’t exac
tly ask my opinion.”

  Of course not; he would’ve said no. Some of the weight settles back on my shoulders. “I suppose I should thank her then. Any idea when she’ll be back?”

  A muscle jumps in his jaw. “Sooner than I want her to.”

  The sooner the better. And with Cy, so I can corner him the way he cornered me. Only this time it will go my way. An aching heat seeps into my muscles the longer we stand there. I eye the bedroom, the hall, anything but him. We can’t pretend like the other doesn’t exist when we’re three feet apart. I sigh. “Well—”

  “About yesterday.” Theo squeezes whatever is in his palm and looks down the hallway. “I may have overreacted.”

  My lips part as I inhale. That’s the closest I’ll come to an apology from him and much more than I expected. Silence stretches between us until the shock ebbs away. A flush creeps across his cheeks, and I realize I’m staring. “It’s fine,” I say. “I should have minded my own business.”

  His Adam’s Apple bobs and he extends his fist. “Here.”

  For a moment, I consider slamming the door shut so I don’t have to deal with the fallout of whatever is in his hand, but something stops me. The hope I had after our confrontation in the entryway flutters, trying desperately to resurrect itself. The possibility of living together but separate without all the tension might be a pipe dream, but I don’t want to wonder what if. Especially if I don’t find anything useful in the archives.

  I reach out my hand and my muscles tighten against the movement. Two heavy dice land in my palm, hot with his body heat. I’m torn between dropping them to the floor and clutching them tight. I can still trace the exact line over my temple where he moved my hair yesterday, and my fingers remember the steady grip of his before he left me at the waterfall.

  I blink rapidly. “Fate?”

  “I thought we could have a rematch.” He rubs at the slight stubble on his cheek “Winner gets answers again.”

  I must be imaging things—I swear he asked me to play Fate. Again. Only this time, it’s different. I’m not simply a random mortal that caught his eye; he can’t get up and disappear without a second thought. I suppose I was the one that disappeared that night, but it’s what he would’ve done. It’s what they all did when they won what they wanted from me. What possible outcome could he want? What questions does he want answered?

  “All right,” I say carefully.

  He turns on his heel and is halfway to the stairs before I remember I’m supposed to be following him.

  Two chairs grate against the sitting room floor as Theo pulls them closer to the coffee table. I wince away from it even though it isn’t that loud. Theo lowers himself onto the first, his back to me, and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. His shirt stretches against his muscles, showing each taught line. I hesitate near the door and try to look anywhere but the perfect rise of his shoulder blades. He turns his head to the side enough that I see his hair fall forward, skimming his eyebrows.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks when I don’t join him.

  “Nothing.” I move slowly into the room and perch on the edge of the second seat. I make a silent plea for Goran to come running through the open door with urgent news. Or maybe I’m hoping that he doesn’t. “Three rolls?” I ask.

  “Until we run out of questions.” Theo’s hand unfurls between us, but I cling to both dice. “Unless you have something else planned for the day.”

  Flustered, my hand darts out and drops one of the die into his waiting palm. “Playing for answers didn’t end very well last time. Maybe we should play for something else.”

  An uneasy smirk lifts one corner of his mouth. “I’m sure you have questions to ask this time.”

  “I had questions in Kisk; I just didn’t ask them,” I admit. I will this time. After what Cy told me, I’m not sure I can believe anything he says, but it won’t stop me from hearing his answers. “What happens if I ask something you don’t want to answer?”

  He takes a slow, thoughtful breath. “We all have our secrets, don’t we?”

  “Some more than others.” I think back to the pages I read before I fell asleep, racing to pull something of importance from them.

  Theo holds himself rigid, his thumb picking at the vined edges of the die. “Cassia.” The last time he said my name it was with venom, but now it’s almost as if he’s savoring it. He cracks his wrist. “It would be nice not to hate each other,” he says.

  I suck in a breath, ready to be the voice of reason. I can’t possibly not hate him because he tried to kill me, and he can’t possibly not hate me because I’m a threat to his lifestyle. But I already don’t hate him, and he looks like maybe he doesn’t want to hate me anymore either.

  “I want to believe you mean that,” I say.

  He inhales as if he’s about to speak, but drops the iron piece instead. War. I hesitate before letting mine fall beside his. Death.

  He looks up at me through his lashes with an unreadable look. “Go ahead.”

  I bite my lip. I have a million important questions, but it doesn’t feel right to lead with them out the gate. Maybe if we warm up to them, I’ll have better odds of getting an answer. “What do you do when you’re not planning wars?” I ask.

  “I’m always planning wars.” He shrugs one shoulder. “I plan thousands of scenarios and wait for one of them to fit the circumstances.”

  My stomach twists. What scenario did Kisk fit into? I’m not sure I want to know.

  “You?” He picks up his die but doesn’t throw it. “What did you like to do…before?”

  Before my life fell apart? I pick up my piece and consider dropping it without answering. I don’t know why he wanted to play this game, but it’s not to learn about my hobbies. If he wanted to do that, he could have come out and asked. Besides, it’s not his turn, but in the spirit of playing nice—even if it’s a ruse—I say, “Scavenger hunts.”

  His brows rise. “Scavenger hunts?”

  “There was a club at school. We had to figure out clues, puzzles, and things like that to find a prize.” There’s a dull pang in my chest remembering it, and I take my second roll before he can ask more.

  King. His follows. Love.

  My loss.

  “Tell me about your family,” he says.

  My throat constricts. Does he know about Oren? Is he trying to get me to admit to something? I won’t. He already doesn’t want me here, and harboring the sister of a traitor wouldn’t exactly be keeping with his so-called neutral stance. “That’s not a question.”

  “Okay.” His nostrils flare. “Where is your family?”

  “Why are you asking something you know the answer to?” I shift uncomfortably on the edge of the chair. He studies my face, his expression curious. Careful. This could be a trap. “My parents were killed in the bombings,” I say. “My brother is dead too.”

  He blinks once. “Not in the bombings?”

  “Before.” I fight against the vortex that threatens to suck me into that chasm of sorrow I escaped over a year ago. I snatch my die and let it fall again.

  King.

  Water. He rolls again. Life.

  My leg bounces as I consider my options. “Why did you give Goran your ring in the temple?”

  “It…” Theo spins the band around his finger. “This is what’s left of my power. Without it, all I can do is travel back and forth between your realm and my own.”

  “And with it?”

  His lips curl into a sneer, but it seems directed at some faraway place instead of me. “With it, Goran can travel too.”

  I’m nowhere near brave enough to clarify, but something tells me he knows what I meant. I can’t help wondering if it would work the same way with me. Cy’s warning is still fresh in my mind, contradicting Theo’s promise of safety yesterday. But stealing from a god won’t do me any good. Even if I could get the ring and make it home, Theo probably wouldn’t have any trouble finding me.

  “Yesterday you said I was safe here.�
�� I pause. The words flow out before I can change my mind. “Did you mean it?”

  Theo sits up, his expression tight, and grips his knees. “I haven’t threatened you again.”

  A breath falls from my lips in the form of a laugh. I try to keep my voice light as I say, “Once was enough.”

  “Is this about the men? Goran spoke to them after you arrived. They won’t bother you.”

  “They take off running at the mere sight of me,” I grumble. It’s incredibly irritating, actually. Having someone else to talk to would be a nice change of pace. I’m beginning to feel like a leper.

  “I’m not sure I understand where this is coming from,” he says.

  Cy. It’s coming from Cy. “Can I trust you?”

  His eyes fall in increments from my eyes, to my nose, my lips, my chin, the pink scar on my neck, then back up. “You’ll believe what you want, no matter what my answer is.”

  “Nevermind. Forget I asked.” I reach for the die to throw again, praying I lose, but his hand pins mine to the table. While his touch is gentle, it sends shock waves crashing over my body.

  “Did someone do something?” he asks.

  I don’t know. That’s the problem. I don’t know anything. “No.”

  The muscles in his jaw twitch. I school my expression into what I hope is indifference, but my heart hammers so hard I swear he can feel each beat. When he eases pressure from my hand, he doesn’t take his fingers away. Instead, they linger there, lifting slightly so they graze my knuckles, then trail toward my nails before falling away.

  The lack of contact is jarring, and I whip my hand back. It must be the lack of sleep, because there’s no way I’m disappointed. Touching hands isn’t a big deal. People do it all the time in greeting or helping someone up. It happens every day for a million different reasons. Theo did it yesterday too. That was less provoked than this, but the spike of adrenaline is so much more powerful today.

  “Theo—”

  “We’ll play again another time,” he says in a rush.

  He doesn’t look at me before he rushes out the door. I clutch my hand to my chest and rub the skin until the entire back of my hand burns from the friction. My head spins. I flop against the back of the chair and roll the Fate die between my fingers.