The Forbidden Fruit

by S. K Munt

  ‘He’s allowed to have an escort for the ball?’ Emmerly asked, surprised. ‘I thought you weren’t permitted to date yet?’

  ‘We’re not allowed to court anybody seriously until we’re twenty-five,’ Kohén said. ‘And not expected to take anyone seriously until we’ve courted a few. But we are allowed to invite dates to important functions in the palace, or attend one as someone else’s escort in another kingdom- if we’re around for it anyway- and Karol’s been an escort to quite a few debutante’s over the years, as was father before him. That’s usually where most future unions stem from.’ He smiled. ‘But, if we have a date, we’re not allowed to dance with our Companions at all, and because you girls are so important to us, we tend to err on your side of things until we’re old enough for there to be a point to it all.’

  ‘As in, you can’t have sex with them, so you keep in the good books with the ones that you can defile?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Kohén chuckled as he said it, and I wanted to slap him. He smiled at Emmerly. ‘Didn’t you notice that father didn’t dance with Resonah at my sixteenth?’

  ‘I was pretty distracted by the exploding ceiling,’ Emmerly pointed out, and Kohén laughed. Kohl and my eyes met and he smiled, his pride clear as we both remembered how he had saved me, Kelia and that other woman.

  ‘Fair enough. But it’s true- he’s never danced with a Companion of his at one of our balls here in Eden, for mother’s sake. But when he travels without her, he takes Resonah along so that they can dance without feelings getting hurt.’

  I pretended to swoon against the seat. ‘Oh! So romantic!’ and Kohén tickled me until I sprung up again. I met Kohl’s eyes and he rolled them, then made a gagging motion over his father’s ‘respect.’

  ‘Shut up you,’ he growled, and then turned back to Emmerly. ‘So anyway, yes we can take dates to these things and have been allowed to since we were thirteen, only Kohl is more restricted where he lives- there are no balls in Pacifica yet- and because he’s in the Corps, he’s not allowed to have a romance at all. Which is why I’m encouraging him to strike while he is on holiday.’

  Emmerly cocked her head at Kohén. ‘Why haven’t you ever taken a real girl to a ball before though? I mean, I get you trying to be considerate of us all this year but let’s face it- we were only, erm, activated a year and a half ago! But there were plenty of New Year’s Eve balls and whatnot before then for you to attend, and we weren’t allowed to be there until you turned sixteen, let alone be in a position to claim hurt feelings!’

  Kohén smiled. ‘Well, I usually spent ten minutes of those New Year’s Eve Balls inside deciding that every single girl in the ballroom was rubbish- and the rest of the night sneaking out cake and treats to Larkin, who I hid in the bushes like a garden gnome.’ He turned and pulled on one of my golden coils. ‘Who for all intents and purposes has always been my ‘real’ girl.’

  I blinked at him, as though rapid movement of my lashes could keep his eyes from penetrating into mine but they could not. I ducked my head when I felt my cheeks heat, and Emmerly expelled a long: ‘Awwwwww!’ Followed by a dry-retch. I felt awful for her and Kohl having to endure this, but my heart felt like a butterfly ready to flutter away and land in Kohén’s lap.

  ‘Honestly, you two were a lot more tolerable together when you were not on speaking terms or kicking around a ball,’ Emmerly said, adjusting the belt around her thicker waist and wincing. ‘Can’t you go back to soccer?’

  ‘Agreed,’ Kohl said, and Kohén rolled his eyes.

  ‘I’d love to go back to kicking around my soccer ball with Kohén,’ I pointed out stonily, feeling my happy bubble busted by the prick of sharp memories. ‘But that was hard to do after you stabbed it to death.’

  Emmerly’s golden-leafed eyebrows shot up. ‘I did what?’

  I waved my hand at her. ‘You don’t remember borrowing my shoes and then replacing them in the box with my brother’s wrecked ball? How much did you have to drink that night?’

  ‘Oh my god!’ Kohl said, looking shocked. ‘Emmerly, what an awful thing to do!’

  ‘I’m not awful. Well, not THAT awful!’ Emmerly sat up taller, her cheeks pink. ‘I didn’t stab any ball AT any ball!’ she cried. ‘I’ll admit that I borrowed the shoes- I loved those shoes and you weren’t even supposed to be going! But I put them back on your bed because I didn’t want to get in trouble after, and would never have touched your filthy old ball.’

  I stared at her. ‘Well, who else would have done it?’

  ‘Probably the same little darling who stabbed my favourite pillow the week she blossomed for the first time,’ Emmerly said, giving me a menacing look. ‘Your other rival, remember? The one who you called your best friend until a few weeks ago?’

  ‘That sounds like the mark of poor-training indeed, Kohén,’ Kohl said as Emmerly and I stared one another down. ‘I think you need to have a chat with little Kelia… and possibly hide all sharp objects from her.’

  ‘I absolutely will,’ Kohén said, kissing my hand but looking very uncomfortable now that Kelia’s name had been raised, and so he should! ‘And I’m sorry. I should have said something months ago when you first made the complaint.’

  I smiled tightly at him. ‘Do not apologise, your highness. I can only imagine how hard it is to juggle so many girls in such a small space while they’re in ecstatic moods, let alone when they’re not playing nice.’

  Kohén winced, but Emmerly giggled. I lifted my eyes to her and smiled faintly. ‘I’m sorry for accusing you of something without proof.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your ball.’ She bit her lip but her grin slipped free. ‘But not for stealing the shoes. I still have dreams about those shoes…’ and I smirked, because I’d never actually worn them. How differently, we valued things- all of us.

  The carriage came to a stop then, and we dutifully filed out. ‘Sit with me today, Larkin?’ Kohén asked, pulling me along by my hand. The duchess was waiting beside her carriage, and her eyes went straight to mine and Kohén’s interlaced fingers, to Kohl as he came out behind us, and then back to me. Her eyes hardened, but I did not let anything inside me harden in response. I had made her a promise to do the right thing by Kohl- to love him- and I was doing that to the best of my capability without Kohén having to pay for it. If she were any mother at all, she’d want not only what was best for one twin, but happiness for the twin that she wrongfully assumed to have enough by default.

  ‘She’s going to sit beside me, actually,’ Kohl said, jumping down to the ground beside me and grinning at me. ‘She has such good taste and judgement- perhaps she can help me select a girl to promise all of my dances to, so father stops nagging me to ask Amelia-Rose Choir when she finally arrives?’

  I lowered my lashes as though that could shield off the discomfort brewing inside me. Kohl and Amelia-Rose? Ick! I’d had a chance to read up on her a little more the evening before when I’d been trying to distract myself from thoughts of ending things with Kohl, and I hadn’t liked what I’d read one little bit. I’d always known, thanks to Kohén’s various anecdotes from when he’d met her over the years, that she was a goody-two shoes who thought that being a shepherd’s daughter (not biologically, though, for Shepherd Choir had adopted her after saving her from a band of pirates) automatically made her some sort of saint/martyr, and I’d known that she was an awful flirt too who tried to cover up her behaviour with demure necklines… but according to her own interviews, Amelia-Rose not only wanted to do away with the Companion Caste (not just the drafting process but believed that sex outside of an actual marriage: joined or not, was sinful), but she wanted third-born laws tightened and made uniform, Calliel-wide regardless of the population of each kingdom! Would she really sniff around Kohl, just because he was the only Barachiel who’d not yet had the chance to turn her down? What a vulgar notion, given that he was a THIRD-BORN and all.

  ‘Then she can sit between both of us, and I’ll help,’ Kohén said, reaching around me to clap his brothe
r on the shoulder. ‘After all, I know most of them.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Kohl said, while I decided that it sounded like a sweaty nightmare. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Larkin!’ Ora Camden trotted out of her carriage and grinned at me, and the fact that she was wearing a pretty sundress in differing shades of purple, like my eyes, made me giggle. We were alike! ‘Hey!’

  ‘Actually guys, I’ve already promised Ora that I will sit with her,’ I stepped out from under Kohén’s arm, leaving him and his identical twin in a Companion-less embrace. ‘And my good judgement begs me to honour that! Perhaps with my help, I’ll be able to ensure that Karol dances with only her this weekend, and that Arcadia gets a queen at last!’ I blew them a kiss- with two hands- and Kohl’s eyes twinkled in understanding and, to my relief- acceptance. He pulled his disappointed-looking brother into his side, and I reached for Emmerly’s hand.

  ‘Come with me?’ I asked her. ‘If you help me manipulate things so that Ora ends up as Karol’s official date this weekend- the crystal shoes are yours.’

  ‘Ooh! Really? Deal!’ Emmerly exclaimed and together, we ran off to be girls for a change, and not enemies.

  *

  The royal party was given a special viewing platform in the centre of the spiral that was Central Arcadia, which afforded us a slightly higher view of the beginning of the parade. It had three rows of chairs, buckets of champagne on ice and was cordoned off from the people lining the sidewalks by golden rope, and yet Emmerly, Ora and I were too excited to actually sit after the first float went by, and ended up getting permission to go stand at the front so we could gawk and jump up and down without getting in anyone’s way.

  ‘What a funny little country you have here!’ Ora exclaimed, waiting to a bunch of Pilgrim-inspired marchers go past with the Janiel float. ‘Such odd customs! It’s positively medieval.’

  ‘You don’t have parades in Rabia?’ I asked her.

  ‘We do. But it’s so different… the music is louder and faster and more synthesised, the floats are motorised and not horse-drawn, and the things you Callielian's wear!’ she motioned to a little girl who was running past in a ruffled dress and apron, and giggled. ‘I don’t know if I’m in a city, or a storybook!’

  Ora had donned a jacket five minutes after getting out of her carriage, while complaining of the bitter chill that I could not feel, and as I assessed her now, I realised that as ‘normal’ as her dress looked next to mine with its revealing, light and sheath-like design- it really was nothing like anything that the Arcadian commoners or members of the nobility wore at all. In fact, almost every woman out and about that day was wearing a full-length dress with a full skirts and long sleeves.

  ‘No one wears aprons in Rabia?’ I asked her. ‘Ruffles?’

  ‘None!’ she said, shaking her head as though that were a crazy notion. ‘Though I suppose the weather makes a difference but still… even in the south back home, men wear jeans, not…’ she glanced over her shoulder at Karol, grinned and then leaned in to me and whispered: ‘Let’s just say that when I tell my friends that I am considering marrying a man who wears a cape and has a harem- they will die laughing.’

  I glanced back at Karol, assessed him- swooned despite my better judgement when he caught me looking and jogged his eyebrows for me- and then turned back. ‘Really?’

  Ora looked back again, grinned and then turned to face the front. ‘Okay they’ll die laughing at the anecdote, then drop dead from over-exposure to sexy once they meet him for themselves.’ She giggled, and then slid her twinkling green eyes to me. ‘But the harem thing is a lot to adjust to, and no, no one wears a cape back home. We did once, but things have changed since we became a republic. This place is another, much older world entirely.’

  I leaned on the golden pole, imaging what Rabia must be like. ‘It sounds fascinating,’ I admitted.

  ‘Oh, no it’s really not. Compared to here, it’s boring and unromantic.’ She linked her arm through mine. ‘Well… the harem thing isn’t romantic.’ She sighed. ‘But I suppose it’s something that I could deal with. You know… until I marry him and force him to burn it to the ground.’

  ‘Please,’ I rested my head on her shoulder. ‘Marry him today then, and save me from growing old inside it!’

  The Arcadian float was the third to pass us by and when it did so, Ora went silent so that she could gawk. It was the most spectacular of all, of course: a mountainous hill covered in real flowers, with a castle on top, rolling past us like a fairy tale in motion. It featured Gabriella and Miguel look-a-likes frolicking in an interpretive dance over it, demonstrating their love, and every time they dipped they came up with a white rose, which they threw to the crowd.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Ora whispered, taking a delicate sniff of the one that she caught. ‘So strongly scented!’

  ‘They are,’ I agreed, thinking of Martya.

  ‘Would you like one Larkin?’ Kohén reached down and tapped my shoulder. ‘I could probably follow the float along to try and catch another.’

  ‘That’s okay, thank you,’ I said, smiling at him, and turning away before Kohl could see my blush. ‘Frangipani’s have spoiled me for other blooms.’

  ‘Then a frangipani it shall be,’ Kohén said, and I imagined Kohl’s face instead of turning, and sighed.

  The Tariel float was the most obvious and gaudy- a depiction of a golden land covered in people sprayed with gold, from their teeth to their eyelashes. On it, Artisans danced in golden costumed versions of their ‘regular’ clothes: miners, kings, nobles, children and elderly all covered in gold as they waltzed together in a perfect synchronised dance, changing partners without losing a step to show that every one there was happy, equal and above all- rich. And that was true- though personally, I wouldn’t have traded all of the pristine streets and battery-powered motor scooters in Tariel, for all of the trees and grass in Arcadia.

  The Rabian float passed us last and Ora laughed at Elfin and my confused expressions, for it was nothing like the other ones- inasmuch that it depicted chaos rather than a scene. The float was covered in Artisans wearing three different sorts of costumes in the three shades of their flag: glittery black to represent coal, silvery white to represent the icy southern tip of the once arid continent, and glittery gold to stand for the sun, the deserts and the sands of the coastline. The platform was a flat black base with a handful of stars cut into it, and the stars were covered in Plexiglas and from beneath, brilliant beams of light shone through brightly enough to stand out and make the dancers on it shimmer, even in the daylight.

  The Artisans on the Rabian float flipped and swung and twirled with streamers in their hands at a breakneck place which implied that a collision was imminent, but nobody ran into anybody; only their ribbons entangled and swirled together, demonstrating the underlying theme, which Ora explained away, was one of controlled chaos.

  And yes, chaos was something that the Rabian Republic was often accused of creating because they were the kingdom most removed from all others and the only one that was not a monarchy anymore. They gave people the right to grapple for political power regardless of what their lineage might be, and there were no major cities aside from the first one that had been built while the monarchy had still been in place. Once upon a time, everyone in Rabia had lived in the city of Miner, but since the president had been elected, people had been granted the freedom to scatter. Miner was still the capital of course and according to Ora, was every bit as picturesque and organised and other-worldly as Arcadia was, but it was no longer the hub of their new world- just the command tower for a dozen or so nobility-funded towns that were itty-bitty kingdoms unto themselves.

  ‘I know that constellation…’ I said to Ora, pointing. ‘It’s the Southern Cross, right? The same one that is on your flag?’

  ‘Clever girl.’ Ora said. ‘You’d be amazed how many people think it’s just a handful of stars.’

  ‘Kohén’s explained the constellations to me over the years,’ I
said, remembering how we’d use to lie beneath the fake starry sky in the poolroom for hours. ‘In fact, he’s taught me everything I know, that I haven’t learned from books.’

  ‘And yet you beat his score?’ she asked, nudging me with her elbow.

  I smiled at her. ‘I’ve read a lot of books.’

  ‘So I’ve heard. I was rather surprised last night when Karol told me that he has become a fan of Gone With The Wind, after seeing you carry it around like a pet for a few years.’

  ‘I saw it in his study once,’ I admitted. ‘But he’s never mentioned reading it to me, aside from hinting to Kohén that he gift me a bonnet for my birthday back in the summer.’ I chuckled. ‘I’m not surprised that he likes it, though, given how much of a scoundrel the male hero is!’

  ‘Hmm…interesting- and troubling- theory,’ Ora said, and I looked at her.

  ‘Why is that?’

  She glanced down at me, and smiled sadly. ‘Last night he said that he’s not surprised that you like it so, given how like Scarlet you are.’

  I made a face. ‘I’m not like Scarlet. She’s a flirt, and a vain one who does what she does to make herself important. And if Karol compared me to her, then he can go to hell…’ I looked away and muttered: ‘Damned Yankee…’

  Ora giggled. ‘I agree that those traits do not describe what I’ve seen of you at all, and yet, I’ve read Gone With The Wind a few times, and I don’t think they are Scarlet’s defining characteristics, do you? She’s gutsy, and strong and manipulates men for the good of the underdog, only because her wiles were the only powers available to women back then.’ She smoothed her pretty black and white flowered day dress. ‘As they are now, for girls like us in a place like this.’

  ‘Those are the things that I like the most about her…’ I agreed carefully, wondering where she was going with this.