The Captive and the Gift
Summary: An ache so profound she could barely breathe. A love so strong she found the courage to try. / The conflicted musings of a former Calipha. WATD/RATD interlude. One shot.
Disclaimer: I am just playing in Renee Ahdieh's sandbox; everything recognizable belongs to her.
A/N: Written pre-RATD. I actually started this months ago…. The release of the sequel is actually what prompted me to finish. Had to find some way to distract myself while I wait for my copy to come in the mail…. Enjoy!
Sixty-seven.
It had been sixty-seven days since the reigning Calipha had become a fugitive. Since she had heard the sounds of her chambermaid's incessant chatter, the gruff tones of her murdered bodyguard, and the whispered promises in the dark that spoke of a lifetime ago.
Sixty-seven days since she had gone without the scent of sandalwood and sunlight.
Sixty-seven dawns she had witnessed without the one who gave them life.
The night she had fled the crumbling palace, the sky weeping the tears she dared not show her rescuers, she left pieces of herself behind, buried beneath a mountain of rubble. Among the ripped gossamer trappings of her bed, the wilted rose petals at her floor—the scattered remnants of a broken heart.
No, not broken. Full. Overflowing, practically bursting with unchecked emotion. Strange, that the piece of her that truly belonged somewhere else, with someone else, far, far away—
Was the piece trapped inside, railing against her newfound freedom.
Her hand flew to her chest, desperate to tame the unruly little beast, but to no avail. She had languished in grief long enough to know that she was past denial, past waiting for her mind to catch up to what her soul understood long before. She wasn't where she was supposed to be. She wasn't home. It was that simple.
But only to her.
Tariq and the others had, understandably, not been able to make sense of her melancholy, and she was not at all eager to enlighten them on the details. How did one begin to explain a sudden, irrevocable attachment to a monster—the very one she'd sworn to slay? A man who had cut short so many young lives, left so many families broken…
Shiva.
Her chest tightened.
Would you have understood?
There were moments when she would swear that she had her answer—that a heart as warm and loving as her best friend's could have reconciled the monster everyone saw with the man she knew beneath it all.
But no heart could match Shiva's in pure goodness. And no one who had had her torn from them could ever be expected to forgive.
She hardly blamed those who swore vengeance with blind hatred; it was not that long ago that she had counted herself among them. But no one else had the luxury of insight that she did now—and that would remain hers and hers alone. There was no explanation that could mitigate such hatred, no justification that could wash away the sins of a bride-killer in the eyes of those who had paid the ultimate price, and she would not insult their grief by explaining hers. One swayed heart was enough of a miracle.
So she said nothing. To anyone. She kept mostly to herself, wearing her sorrow like a shroud; a shield against the questions she could not answer.
Without warning, a wave of wounded laughter washed over her.
How many times had she herself levelled accusations against walls of ice and stone? Against locks to which she was repeatedly denied keys?
As though she needed further proof that her husband was never her lesser, but her equal.
She was all fire, unmatched, unchecked, burning everything around her. He was the air, everywhere, everything, lending her life. Capable of snuffing it out. A combination as intoxicating as it was dangerous.
For everyone.
Her laughter stopped cold, caught on a sob she dammed behind locked doors.
She was sorry for every ounce of pain they had caused—more sorry than anyone would ever know. But she would never apologize for the rest.
Her hand, still clamped to her chest, sought yet again to quell the unruly beast caged inside. Yes, her husband had made her heart a captive, but what he gave her in return—a gift beyond compare, beyond words—he acquitted himself a thousand times over.
An ache so profound she could barely breathe—
Once again she was flooded with images of ripped gossamer and rose petals as her hand travelled south to rest on the ridge of her abdomen, subtly swelling with new life… and a heart beating as true as her own.
—A love so strong she found the courage to try.
Fin