Divided

by Rae Brooks

  Her tone was contrite, and Calis knew she was only venturing into conversation for the sake of her children. If Claudia wasn’t a lovely wife to Lavus, she did love the children he had given her. Just the same, she did pretend to be a loving and respectful wife. If Calis hadn’t seen those daggers in her eyes when she thought no one was looking, he’d never have expected how deeply the hatred ran.

  The house was full of madness and corruption, and his deceptively unfortunate birth trapped him behind its walls. He was desperate for any other life, even one of the other noble houses would have been more tolerable, certainly. Surely, the heads of those homes weren’t such unkind brutes. Lavus was staring at Claudia, as if deciding whether or not he ought to speak. “Of course I did,” he answered simply.

  “Lovely,” she answered, without the tiniest hint of the dryness that she no doubt wanted to convey. She was probably wishing in her heart of hearts that he’d irritated the Ukars or Tarons so that they would feel the same need to run a dagger through his heart that she felt.

  What a morbid place this was.

  “I noticed you don’t seem particularly interested in any of the women at court, son,” Lavus finally initiated conversation after a few more cold seconds. Calis was all too wary when he realized that the words were directed at him.

  Though, when he thought about it, he was the one that Lavus bestowed with conversation most frequently. Calis would never understand why, but the older he got, the less he liked it. As a child, Calis had enjoyed being Lavus’s favorite—but now the idea was horrifying. For being the favorite of someone who did not have favor was little more than being last in line for an execution.

  Not to mention, now he was being called out for one of the things that he had not done a fair job at disguising. Lavus would no doubt have some rather insulting words on this matter for him. He couldn’t lie, either, or the conversation would only deteriorate more rapidly. “I do not find any of the women particularly pleasing,” Calis said. “Apologies.”

  “Do not apologize,” Lavus said with a far more merciful tone than Calis had expected. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the disappointment flicker across Tareth’s face. Calis’s younger brother had been desperate to see Calis humiliated for once. Though Calis could hardly see how he could be insulted too harshly for rejecting the women with which he was presented. They were, after all, interested enough in being with him. Even if they didn’t like him, they didn’t hate him—they wanted to marry him.

  Calis wasn’t sure how to proceed with this conversation. He thought it possible this was an elaborately set trap so that he wouldn’t apologize and be insulted more later. “I had thought that you wanted me to take one of them as a wife,” Calis said, “or rather, you had wanted me to take Lady Avyon as a wife.”

  Lavus let a wicked smile move across his lips. Calis thought for a moment that the man might be planning to murder him, but then the smile subsided and he was staring at Calis with those hard eyes again. “I do, and you will,” he said without question. As Calis had always expected, he had no say in who he married.

  “As I thought,” Calis said flatly, “but I assumed you would have wanted me to enjoy her company if I am to marry her. The marriage may be more convincing that way.”

  The moment passed, and the feeling that he was going to be humiliated rose again in Calis’s chest. Not that he cared what his family thought of him, as he was fairly certain none of them cared for him, anyway—except maybe Claudia and she would not hold Lavus’s disfavor against him. She had never held it against Tareth. “Quite the contrary,” Lavus said with conviction, “enjoying a woman’s company can be dangerous.”

  Well, that had not been at all what Calis had expected. The words were simple, as though Lavus had just explained a critical point of battle. In fact, his voice sounded remarkably like the one he’d used when training Calis during earlier times. “And, my son, I have seen how well you can deceive when you feel the need to. The marriage will be as convincing as it needs to be,” Lavus added.

  The thought reassured and infuriated Calis. On the one hand, Lavus had not brought this up to tell his son that he needed to like Lady Avyon, but on the other, Lavus wanted Calis to live perpetually with a woman for whom he had no desire. “I feel as though I should at least have some sort of desire, my lord,” Calis said warily. He should probably just nod, but the entire concept seemed so foreign that he asked anyway.

  Claudia was clearly not enjoying this conversation, and Tareth seemed a little stricken by it as well. Lavus had never gone so far as to say that marriage should not involve any sort of love—he had only not demonstrated it. “Desire for her will come when the time is right. She is a woman, and therefore she will be able to satisfy you and bear children, and that is all that truly matters beyond her noble birth.”

  Calis’s jaw clenched and he worked to ease it before he opened his mouth and shouted at his father. He had never anticipated falling in love, but the idea of purposefully avoiding it was disgusting. This world was more than what his father made of it. Yet, saying so would do nothing for Calis now. “That is not… I was not seeing it that way, Father,” Calis said.

  “Of course you weren’t,” Lavus said, as gently as he knew how to speak. “You felt as though you should feel for these women, and the idea frightened you because you did not—as you should not—unlike your brother who chases them like a dog chases geese. You are a smart boy, and you are not so foolish as to fall for some woman.”

  Smart? Calis thought sardonically. Perhaps socially isolated and unable to interact well with others, but I wouldn’t contribute that to my being smart. My being smart consists of getting Dokak to trust your pathetic name when you have not earned any such trust. Clearly, his father believed that emotions destroyed logic. Lee may have agreed with the idea, if Lee had been a coward and a fool.

  Without being able to agree or disagree properly with his father, Calis just nodded his head in acceptance of the idea. There was not a damn thing he could do to sway his father, and there wasn’t anything he could do to convince himself that his father was right. “Very well,” he said, “perhaps I will view court more lightly, then.”

  “I hardly think court is necessary anymore,” his father said decisively.

  Calis flinched. Here it was—something far worse than the humiliation he had anticipated. The one thing he had been dreading since he’d returned from Dokak, and the one thing that would never leave him, was upon him. “Why not, Father?” he asked when his father’s pause merited it.

  “I believe you should propose to Lady Avyon whenever you see fit, and I will let her family—and the families of the others know.”

  Calis had to work to restrain his sigh. He had seen this coming, and he thought he was prepared for it, but the emotional shock that came with being forced into a marriage was suffocating him. He wished fervently that the meal was over, but he still had a course to go before he would be allowed to leave.

  “And without knowledge or understanding, the boy left his home, and all that he had to fulfill his promise.”

  -A Hero’s Peace v.ii

  Chapter xiii

  Calis Tsrali

  Calis kept up a quick pace, with Lee following behind. The journey to Dark District had never been so filled with unhappiness. “He truly told me that I was not supposed to desire the woman I married!” he spat. “What nonsense is that?”

  “Lavus’s,” Lee answered helpfully. Calis had been venting for the past few shifts, and Lee had handled it all very well. Though, even Calis’s advisor had been a little surprised when he’d been told about Lavus’s view on marriage.

  Passing over the wall was easier with the burst of strength that came with his anger. He swallowed as he landed in the dirt patch, and he smirked cruelly at how pathetically the guards watched the walls. If a commoner was smart enough, he could easily have made his way into Shining District without trouble.

  Lee landed beside Calis a few moments later, and his gree
n eyes watched the blond for some sign of insanity. “You are angrier than your father normally makes you,” Lee said. “I understand why, but I think you ought to watch yourself—don’t do anything rash.”

  “Are you implying that I might take out my frustrations on the commoners like my pathetic excuse for a brother?” Calis asked flatly. Lee flushed and then looked away. Apparently, he had thought Calis just angry enough to try it. “Though, seeing our little vigilante friend might be worth pretending,” he said. “But, I’m dressed as a commoner, and so that might be a bit odd. I doubt the Phantom Blade interferes much in the business of commoners fighting with commoners.”

  Lee nodded his head, as if he’d already thought about and confirmed this for himself. Calis had no doubt that he had. They were both in unexciting brown colors. Calis’s boots had torn in his last visit to the district, and they were a might uncomfortable, which was unfortunate because this outfit was one of the few in which he’d found himself comfortable. A simple brown tunic and pants were far more fitting for a man than all that shining nonsense that he was forced to wear to be considered a well-off noble. Lee looked better in the brown, as well, though Lee’s nobleman outfit was far less elaborate than Calis’s. “If your theory is correct, I think even if you were dressed as the truth, then picking a pretend fight would be a mistake.”

  “Right you are,” Calis agreed. He doubted he’d have much success in explaining to The Phantom Blade, or to Kilik, that he’d simply been toying with the commoner so as to see him. The story would not have been a very believable one, and Kilik seemed very much too modest to listen to any silliness such as that.

  But it would be true, Calis thought amusingly.

  As they moved into the flow of the people, men hurrying by on their carts and women oohing over the few pieces of clothing that were in the market eased into their vision and overcame them. Calis could instantly feel his uneasiness slipping from him, and he wished fervently that he’d been born a commoner.

  If people like Kilik were commoners, then he was sure that his life would have been much more filled with friends. Once their path reached the middle of the market, Lee spoke. “I ought to go see one of my sources at the inn. I think I’d like to know a bit more about the inner workings without actually having to ask him,” he said.

  Calis didn’t bother trying to keep Lee with him, as he’d discovered that he was just as comfortable on his own as with Lee in Dark District. As Lee walked off, Calis started in a different direction and let his mind begin to wonder.

  Truly his father had told him that not only love—but desire and happiness—should not accompany a marriage, and that Calis would be expected to propose and become married very shortly. Why would Calis ever want that—and why would Lavus be so soulless as to expect him to? The strange part was that he seemed to think that Calis felt the same.

  Perhaps Calis had given that impression though, with his disinterest in everyone at court. He had never been one to enjoy events like that, and now that the court was his own, he hated it even more. Lavus could easily have misconstrued it as superiority and hunger for power. Calis could only imagine Lavus’s horror if he knew that his favored son had simply been daydreaming about trips to Dark District to mingle with the commoners. That would certainly give Lavus the shock enough to kill him for which Claudia seemed so desperate.

  “You look a little dazed, sir,” someone near to him said. Calis nearly jumped at being addressed so suddenly. When he searched for whom had spoken, he found the sandy haired boy that had been out front of the healer’s house when Lee and he had gone there a few cycles prior. “My mother is a healer if you aren’t feeling well.”

  The kind heartedness of the offer made Calis smile, but he simply shook his head. As much as he might like to go back to Kilik’s home and see the boy again—he knew that Kilik would certainly be wary of that situation. “I was simply thinking—I feel fine.” Though, he didn’t know if fine was the right term.

  He thought about asking the boy if his mother could do anything about being forced into a hapless and loveless marriage, but that might frighten the poor child. “Well, you don’t look happy,” the boy informed him cheerily.

  The boy was just reaching his growth spurt, with a tuft of blond hair on top of his head. His eyes were a pale blue, and his smile was missing a few teeth. A cute child, to be certain. “I appreciate your concern,” Calis said, “but whatever my unhappiness is, rest assured that it will pass.”

  The child didn’t seem entirely convinced, and he frowned a puzzled little frown at Calis. “You look familiar. Have you come to see my mother for healing?”

  “I was there a few cycles ago,” Calis answered truthfully. There was no sense lying to the poor kid, and if he told the truth, the child might lose interest and leave him to his wanderings. For as cute as the kid was, Calis was not overly interested in his conversation.

  The boy’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s right—you’re that guy who Kilik was trying to find!” he said.

  Now he was interested very much in the boy’s conversation. In fact, he tilted his head and quirked an eyebrow at his small conversationalist friend. “Why was he looking for me?”

  The boy grinned wolfishly and then let out a quick little laugh. “He was very angry with you for not keeping your coins. He looked for you everywhere, but no one had seen you—I think he finally gave up. Should I not tell him I saw you?”

  That sort of request would have been quite shady, Calis thought, and he certainly didn’t want Kilik thinking him shady. “Why would I not want you to tell him?” Calis asked thoughtfully.

  “Well, I thought you were hiding from him—since no one had seen you, and he couldn’t find you. Kilik is very good at finding people usually.”

  “Is he?” Calis asked. “I was not hiding from Kilik. I was just busy with my own affairs.” There was a pang of regret when he thought of Kilik searching for him. Maybe the young man had thought that he’d finally left, which would not have looked good the sun after helping with the unloading. “Maybe I will go look for him,” he concluded.

  The boy shrugged his shoulders, and Calis could see that now he was the one losing interest in the conversation. “I doubt you will find him,” he said.

  That was a strange thing to say. Truly, the boy didn’t seem to be paying attention, but the words had been sincere enough. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I just doubt it,” the kid said absently.

  After a moment of hesitation, Calis decided to change the course of the conversation to bring the child back into it. “What is your name, child?” he asked.

  “Oh!” the boy said with a start, and Calis’s attempt to draw him back in had succeeded. Children were very easy to manipulate, he though wanly. “My name is Aitken Amaral,” he answered dutifully.

  “Nice to meet you, Aitken, thanks for the information.”

  Another less than toothy grin greeted Calis at that. “It was awfully nice of you to help Kilik out like that, sir, not many people do here in Dark District.”

  Calis forced the frown from his face at the remark. Despite everything, people in Dark District seemed to have a reputation of being just as selfish as the nobles from which Calis wanted so desperately to escape. “That is surprising,” Calis said, “Kilik seems like a nice guy, and the people in Dark District don’t seem overly mean.”

  “They aren’t,” Aitken answered. “And they all like Kilik very much. The problem is—and I don’t think my mother sees it this way—but Kilik doesn’t accept help very well. He is always telling people he doesn’t need them. I’ve never seen anyone insist on it as much as you did. People offer to help him, but when he tells them not to—well, they have their own stuff to do, so they go away.”

  It would have been easy, Calis thought, to simply leave Kilik be after the boy had refused his help so vehemently. If he had been less… drawn to Kilik, he would certainly have left. “I enjoyed it, regardless,” Calis said. “And you can tell Kilik that as well.” />
  “You must really like him. My sister said that you must because you were so set on helping him. Do you like Kilik?”

  The question was meant to be innocent enough. Clearly the boy was not asking Calis for intimate personal details, but the attachment of Calis to Kilik was already personal. He blushed and nodded his head. “Well, I—yes, I do. Why wouldn’t I?” he asked, a little more defensively than he should have.

  Aitken frowned. “I don’t know. But my sister seemed to think it was worthy of whispering to her friends when she thought I wasn’t listening,” he said. This meant that Alyx, the healer’s daughter, thought that he more than liked Kilik. Nevertheless, Calis was sure that was positively nonsensical. Kilik was everything that he was never permitted to like, let alone have romantic feelings for.

  “Your sister is odd,” Calis told the boy. Aitken grinned and nodded his head in certain agreement.

  “Kilik thinks so too.”

  The sound of hooves beating against the dirt sparked Calis’s attention. His head lifted, and he glanced through a few of the buildings. “Horses?” Calis asked the boy before him. He quirked an eyebrow. He was sure that he’d only seen mules in Dark District.

  Aitken’s eyes were sparkling with excitement, and the boy jerked his head quickly. “I bet it’s nobles! Come on!” he said and headed off towards one of the alleys.

  Calis hadn’t the slightest idea why the boy would want to be near the nobles—unless he expected what Calis was beginning to expect as they neared another of the streets between the two buildings. Though, they could hardly be classified as streets at all. Sure enough, when they were in view, Calis recognized the black horses of the Ukar family.

  Pretending to slip in the dirt, Calis found an excuse to dirty his face a little. The last thing he needed was the son of the Ukar family recognizing him—especially after Calis had just been unknowingly responsible for rejecting his sister.