Pena POV
I don't think I'd ever forget that shade of red.
Bloody, gruesome, obnoxiously red. Kado.
Kado; the asinine little prick of a prince who'd come over and 'play' with me when we were young.
He'd grown tall, towering above his brothers in the throne room I'd reluctantly entered. Walking in without any idea of what to expect, my eyes fixed themselves low and to the ground.
Maybe it wasn't very dignified, but it was easier than staring directly at them.
"Make sure you act like normal people do. Always seem interested in what they have to say. Use your beauty to your advantage. Get their attention just enough that they let you stay, but not so much that you stand out." Father's voice resonated in my head as I made my lengthened strides less nervous and small looking.
Calm. Calm. Calm. Calm. I repeated to myself, letting father's voice dissipate, replaced by my own confidence.
Finally able to regain pride in myself despite my image, I caught their eyes.
The smaller blue haired boy, smiled kindly, innocently, the brown haired one next to him more serious looking. All four brothers looked so different, yet so similar with the shape of their defined faces. The second youngest stood at the other end, his hands fidgeting restlessly at his sides. His hair was dark, standing out from his family.
Although if we're talking about standing out...
Kado's intense stare was fixed onto me, making the little pride I'd manage to muster retreat coyly into a corner. He was so much bigger than I remembered. I was tall myself, standing evenly with most men, but not Kado. I had to tilt my head to see those piercing brown eyes void of any warmth.
He was quite rude I might add, barely remembering who I was, grabbing my wrists senselessly whenever I had displeased him, losing his patience at the slightest hum ours comment from me. But I would be lying if I said it wasn't fun to see him so reactive to all I did.
Father said he'd kick me out if I teased him too much, but so far I was safe.
The other girls were kind women, one of them a bit standoffish like me.
Katherine was quite a beautiful girl, the body of a model and the face of one too. Despite her advantage, she didn't seem that interested in the princes. I had yet to figure out what she wanted, but at least she was kind to me.
"You slut!" she yelled walking into my room and catching me out of a trans. Startled, the book I was reading fell out of my hands as I jumped. I panicked until I saw the big smile on her face. Her light brunette strands were tied back in a pony, a style I favored as well. She seemed, giddy, holding a newspaper in her overly long nails.
"Pardon?" I asked, bending down to pick up my novel.
"You seriously weren't going to tell me you went on a date on the first day of the selection?"
"I haven't- I stopped myself, glancing at the paper she was holding.
Oh. My. God.
Snatching it out of her hands, I scurried to better lighting, trying to get a good look at the picture. It was fuzzy at best, but you could see Kado and I together; his fricken coat on my shoulders and a rose in my hand.
"I told you he'd find you sexy in that blouse."
"Kathyyyy," I sighed, rubbing my temples. This wasn't so bad, but it certainly wasn't good. Kado and I were still on shaky ground and this was only going to add to his anxiety.
"Haha and I thought you were gonna be the most difficult girl to get. Tbh; one of the reasons I liked you." She laughed as I threw the paper down and collapsed on the bed behind me.
"Fan. Fucking. Tastic."
"Oh relax babe," she was full of colorful nicknames.
"It's good to set yourself out like this. Kado may be the oldest but he's also the biggest jerk- and everyone knows it. So at least you've marked your territory. " I stared at the ceiling, listening to her uncalming words.
"You make it sound like we're dogs and they're bushes. " I joked, making her chuckle.
"God he really is a jerk," I agreed, my wrists still sore.
"Maybe, but he gave you his jacket. That's one gentlemanly act- Oh! Oh! And the rose!"
"I'm the one who picked the rose."
"Pena. Honey. I'm trying to cheer you up. Give me something to work with please." I smacked my hands on my face.
"I'm sorry Kath, it's just it wasn't really a date is all. I was just um, getting fresh air and he was there too."
"So nothing happened?" I shook my head no.
"We just sat and talked. Actually we kind of just made fun of each other and talked about when we were kids, and he corrected my mannerisms ." I turned my head to look at Kathy who gave a very fake, attempting support, smile.
"That sounds actually awful." She said.
"Actually," I smiled.
"It was pretty nice in the end of it all." I thought of Kado's hand taking my own, pulling it from my face. He smelled like books and expensive colon, those eyes once so empty full with his own vulnerability. I liked how his touch felt on me as hard as it was to admit it when he was lifting me up and getting angry.
Come the next day, the women's parlor was packed with all 35 girls; none eliminated in the past three days.
It was already obvious who Ilea favored; the three prissy girls, Trixxy something, Kasia, and the other one with snowy blonde hair I couldn't remember. They always wore the perfect, poppy dresses with perfect make up, and perfect ways of talking to the press. They said the most important parts of their lives was charity, acting like they'd performed those acts cause they actually cared about people. They said they understood the horrors of war and how helping the children of the country find food and homes would comfort them despite what we faced.
Those girls were children themselves. They couldn't understand the horrors of the war. There's no way they could even imagine it from where they came. No one here understood. Not like me anyway.
"Pena!" Katherine caught me off guard, tugging at the sleeve of my sweater.
"We're trying on dresses, come pick one out." Oh fun. I got to window shop while a hoard of women glared at me.
It's strange really. I'd always wanted girlfriends, but within a few days, it felt so hard to even talk to any of them. Sure, there was Kathy, but honestly I think we just connected from being the two outsiders. We both came from far away places, we were both tall I guess? She was gorgeous though. Any of the girls would love to hang around her just for the publicity.
I gripped her flowery, practically see through shirt right back in a silent demand fueled by anxiety.
"I've never done this before," I whisper, panicked the slightest bit.
Kathy put her hands on her hips and nodded in silent understanding. Then she took both my hands and gave me a patronizing look.
"Hun, I know you're from a different place, a different culture really." Was my accent that bad?
"But look in the mirror. You can walk into a room and own everyone in it. It's all in the way you present yourself." I think she confused confidence with superiority. Nonetheless, the thought made me smile.
"Everyone you say?" I asked, smirking.
"Oh yeah. That blonde hair, those big eyes, dem legs; strut it baby." She said, taking my hand and dragging me through the crowd. I tried walking like her, smiling at how she just went through everyone like they were her subjects. She wasn't destined to be a princess. No, Katherine was born a queen.
"Hello! Hi yes," she addressed a woman tending to the tea sets.
"It's 2 a'clock dear. It's not tea time." She placed a single hand on her hip, pursing her lips.
"Can you bring us some music, actual food that isn't biscuits, and some booze?" The older maiden went to correct her.
"Katherine, I'm sorry my dear but all these girls are under age and we are under strict instructions to not let-
"It's Lady Katherine. We aren't friends. And last time I checked wine is served at all the dinners we attend. Whoever gave you these instruction; they got a problem, they can take it up with me. K? Great, I'll be waiting for those orders, but just remember I'm not patient dear." Alright. I laughed, Katherine spinning on her heels and winking with a little flip of her hair.
"Like I said, we own this place Pena." She wasn't just a queen. She was my idol.
As we walked back to one of the tables together, one of the three public favored girls intercepted Katherine, a big fake smile repulsively splayed on her round, childish face.
"Can we help you?" Please don't start a fight I pleaded in my thoughts. One of Kado's rules was to keep a generally low profile.
Kasia frowned, her jaw loosening as she tilted her shoulders to own side; I called it the brat posture.
"Katherine, we just wanted to ask you if both of you had broken the rules and gone out on dates with the princes." Kasia shot me a glare, the sixteen year old little baby pouting because her little plans hadn't panned out.
"Broken the rules?" Katherine questioned sarcastically, raising a hand in the air to laugh mockingly at the girl before us.
"Oh sweetie. What you call breaking the rules is what I call having better skills. You want a date with Kado? I suggest you become 2 years older over night, get a dress that isn't neon, and maybe shape up that little attitude of yours." God damn. I was sure as hell glad she's on my side.
"Excuse me! the purpose of the selection is to find love and bring well educated, good women together! Not to insult one another in a petty fashion." Kasia tried to educate us.
"There's no reporters around pussycat. You can drop the innocent little girl act. No one finds that attractive anymore." Katherine, held her hand up as Kasia went to speak again.
"No. Don't speak , you're only going to give me a headache." With that we walked past her, Kasia still giving me that catty stare of fury. For a little girl she could sure pack a punch with her glaring.
"Pena?" She called. I looked back unthreateningly, trying to ignore how much I wanted to throw back the breaking rules comment in her face.
"When you asked Kado out did you have to get on your knees or where you already there." Trixxy and Ter covered their mouths, their jaws dropped as they began laughing.
You see, none of these girls knew me very well .
"Neither." I said calmly.
"I'm fond of my knees, I run quite a lot. You see where I come from, if you don't know how to run, well then you didn't know how to survive." I walked forward, watching her step back as she didn't expect me to actually threaten her.
"Surviving is an important skill." I continued.
"A well educated girl such as yourself should know that one of the first rules of survival is knowing how to fight. Well, my dear... I've fought off a lot worse than you. And if you're fond of your knees, I wouldn't talk like that to me ever again." Petrified little eyes looked up at me through a layer of frightful tears and I knew I'd gone too far.
"I'm sorry," I said, admittantly a little bit too late. She was just a girl who didn't know what to do with the world when it didn't go her way.
"That was rude of me," I didn't let her answer, turning to walk to Katherine.
"What a little bitch," she said,
"Those girls really don't know what this it about do they?" I sat next to her and grabbed the wine bottle one of the maids had hesitantly brought in.
"And what is this about again?" I actually couldn't remember why I was here anymore.
Kathy got serious for a moment.
"It can't be a coincidence that the King decided to have the selection right now, when the war is at its worst and before Kine or Harry turn 18. It's a strategy, not a gift to his sons." I nodded along, remembering what Kado had told me.
"I don't know if the boys know that." I found myself hoping Kado knew, but didn't care.
"They're really sweet." She said, actually meaning it.
My thoughts of Kado were interrupted when the doors to the parlor opened wide, silencing all the women in the room. We stared at the entryway, two guards separating and standing like statues against the wall.
Katherine stood, a stern expression on her face.
Then I knew why.
The king entered, wearing his modest grey colors and golden crested crown. I'd never seen him up close, the grey of an unshaven beard spreading to the side burns of his hair. He seemed genuinely exhausted.
"Ladies," He bowed his head, the entirety of the room curtsying to him.
"Please, go back to what you were doing. I don't mean to intrude." Then why did you slam the doors open.
Katherine stayed standing as the rest of the girls hesitantly went back to conversing, their eyes still watching the king and how he surveyed the room.
He walked over to us.
"Lady Katherine, Lady Pena," I wanted to curtsy but didn't really know how, so I placed my hands behind my back and rocked myself forward in a joke of a bow. Hey at least I tried.
He smiled at me, laughing internally.
"My king," Kathy curtsied almost perfectly, her confident gaze fixed on him.
"Lady Pena," he looked to me.
"Would you mind if I borrowed the lady?"
"No. Please go right ahead," And so he took her arm in the crook of his. They seemed strangely familiar, as if they'd met once a long time ago like Kado and I.
As they walked out of the room, I sat... By myself, drinking the glass of wine I desperately hoped would make the world feel like lonesome at the moment.
God I missed home.
Only a few moments after Katherine had left, Kent and Kine entered the room and I swear the tension rose tenfold. All the girls got in a single file, smiling ridiculously and fixing their hair up quickly, patting their dresses down, the works.
Harry followed in, the smallest of the brothers coyly standing just behind his elders. He really was an adorable boy; his youthful air stirring a warmth in whoever he spoke to.
I waited for Kado, expecting him to walk in for the sake of the cameras.
But he didn't. Instead, Kent began talking like an announcer.
"Hello ladies." He welcomed.
"We've been so thrilled to finally be able to meet with all of you." I knew Kent had been on dates with two of the girls already, but they were all short meetings made very publicly known to us... Not late at night with one of the girls in her nightgown.
"I'm sorry Kado won't be able to join us today, he has been indisposed due some issues he must attend with my father." I could just imagine him in the office, chewing his nails, aggressively writing down everything of importance. The ulcers in his stomach churning on enough acid to burn a hole through a ships hull. He was so young to be dealing with the war at this level, but perhaps not from where I stood.
"What issues are those?" I didn't realized I'd actually said that outloud. I was standing at the end of the line.
Kent looked over at me with a patient air.
"I'm sorry Lady Pena, I'm not at liberty to discuss."
"It's very boring stuff anyway," Kine said, winking to Trixxy and the snowy blonde haired Rana.
I nodded, retreated back to my place.
They'd come to get to meet the rest of the women. To my dismay, Kent came up and tried talking to me. I wasn't sure what he wanted, but Kado mentioned the competitive nature of the second eldest.
"You don't like it here do you?" He asked, sitting beside me in one of the sofas I'd found refuge in. Both my arms were crossed loosely over my chest, my knee folded over the over in a relaxed fashion.
"On the contrary," I smiled.
"This is quite a beautiful place." He looked up at the ceilings and nodded.
"When I was little I thought the same thing."
"Not anymore?" I asked. He shook his head.
"I've had the good fortune to see Europe and many other parts of the world. Now that I'm home, this is more of a pretty cage than anything else."
"Aye, a pretty cage." I repeated, tracing the chain like gold patterns on the cushions.
"Not for you though," he reminded me.
"You may not technically be allowed to leave until we all decide it's time for you to go home, but if you ever want to leave, just know I'll allow it ok?" He said, as if this was his selection alone.
Kent confused me, not by his words, but by how he approached everything; like Kado had. Everything was a strategy to him; even finding love.
"What makes you think I want to leave?" He sat back, his arm splayed across the couch's spine.
"For starters you're sitting by yourself." I smiled in regretted admittance.
"I guess it's hard for me to make friends in such a different culture. But I have Katherine." He seemed discontent with my answer, needing more to go on.
"And there's Kado." I said, wishing I hadn't. Kent shrugged and pulled a glass full of champagne to his lips. He was younger than I was by a bit, yet he seemed so much adult in all he did.
"Kado's a good guy- a good brother, but I would hardly call him friend material," playing with a loose thread of my t-shirt in my lap, I thought about it.
A good person isn't necessarily an approachable one.
"I disagree," I said nonetheless.
"He may be a bit harsh, if you don't mind my saying so, but sometimes I think he'd be happier if- I stopped myself, Kent waiting for me to finish my sentence. The chocolate brown hair fell in front of his eyes, eyes he shared with Kado; that warm, inviting color in his irises.
"Happier if what?"
Reluctantly, I finished the though outright, grasping at the pendant on my necklace.
"If he didn't have so much pressure put on him. I know all three of you have so many expectations to live up to, but dealing with all he has to deal with would make me a little snippy too." Kent didn't get angry. Actually, he seemed surprised at my level of insight.
He finished his glass, dropping it back down on the table.
"Kado's always been a little quiet. always kept to himself even when we were kids. He never wanted anything to do with anyone except his family." That wasn't hard to believe.
"But He's going to make a good king because he cares about his people." That wasn't either.
"I know," I said, the words barely audible as I thought of Kado in his crown. I pictured how the crafts of gold would get tangled in his bloody hair.
I didn't think it was possible, but Kent's expression actually stiffened.
" good kings often don't make good husbands." And he was not playing nice anymore.
"Good kings makes good decisions." I replied,
"That is all I care about." To my surprise... He actually smiled.
"Lady Pena." A loud voice from behind the couch called my name and I jumped, Kent catching me as I fell back. Oh how awkward this had become.
The guard who'd called my name, stared down at me, expecting us to stand.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, but his majesty prince Kado requests your presence."
"What?"
"Again?" Kent was just as shocked as I was.
"Did he say why?"
"No my lady, but I have strict instructions to escort you to him."
Proceeding to follow the guard, I stood anxiously, looking back at Kent apologetically.
"Don't worry. Go ahead," He said, grabbing another fancy glass from his table.
"Are you sure?"
He nodded.
"Kado's a prick for not taking this seriously, but hey; if he's contributing I at least have to give him that." I put my hand on his, our exchanged smiles a little goodbye before he raised his glass to me and shot down the golden liquid.
With that, the guard brought me into the hall and down to Kado's chambers.
I'd never seen a chamber. Sure I had a bedroom back home, but mine didn't have two bulletproof white gold embroidered doors and guards posted outside of it.
It made me nervous; the whole invite. Kado and I's agreement was solid and we understood each other, but there was still a side of him that wasn't completely controlled by his senses.
Knocking on the door lightly, I expected a butler or maid to answer, welcome me into his room with a speech about etiquette.
But no one did. Instead I waited there, for a minute, knocking harder.
Was he just trying to play games with me?
Finally one of the heavy doors opened, Kado arm hanging up on the frame.
His face was sullen, dark circles surrounding the veiny whites of his eyes. The bright red of his hair had grown greyer, a few solely lifeless strands hanging on his forehead. He wasn't wearing a shirt, only grey sweatpants that stopped at the v of his hips. He was quite beautiful, even like this, all disheveled; especially, like this, all disheveled. I found myself looking at him up and down. My hands wanted to touch the muscles of his abdomen, see if they felt as sharp as they looked. Perhaps I'd judged him too quickly when I thought him poised and polished.
Careful, Pena. I reminded myself. It's dangerous to play with an untamed horse.
"You know there's pictures of me everywhere," he said, drawing me back to his face.
"Might want to refer to those instead of well, embarrassing yourself," His reference to our first breakfast together made me sneer.
"Don't flatter yourself clown head." I replied, trying to scoop up whatever pride I had left.
"At least I stare in private." He licked his lips to stop himself from smiling. I made my way past him and into the room and he shut the door behind him.
"So why am I here? You wanted a sequel to your newspaper?" His room was a mess, his bed unmade, the balcony windows open, his desk covered in an endless stack of papers. There were small stains of blood on the carpet beneath it.
"Saw that did you?" He asked, one of his hands reaching back behind his head to grab at the extra tufts. The anxiety provoked habit revealed the way his arms moved, a way I'd never noticed. He moved like a soldier, disciplined posture and a physic of a man who trained like one.
"You could have told me there was a reporter hiding in the bushes. I would've worn something less revealing than a nightgown." Sitting in his desk chair he leaned back and immediately started working on other matters.
"Thought you'd be happy to get some publicity. Being seen with my coat on your shoulders. Makes you more likely to fit in right?" That was a low shot; even for him.
Never let people see the hurt in your eyes; I had to remember that more than ever.
Kado waited for me to answer, and when I didn't he looked up. Perhaps he didn't see how the comment got to me, but he knew that part of our agreement included not making fun of things we'd said in confidence.
"I'm sorry," He said.
"I didn't know about the reporter. I promise."
"I believe you," I reassured him, walking to stand by his balcony.
"So why am I here?" I asked.
"My father told me I should start going out with some of the other selected." He crossed out something, rewriting over it, the stress in him beyond apparent.
"But he already thinks you've gone out with me once." I furrowed my brows, confused.
"And?"
"And isn't going on another 'date' with me exactly the opposite of what he's asking?"
"Yup."
"Defying your father wasn't part of our agreement Kado," I reminded, wishing he'd put a fricken shirt on.
"You aren't defying my father." He said, standing up to go to his night table.
"I am." He spoke with a bottle of whiskey in his hand, taking out the cork with his teeth and spitting it onto the floor. And he saw it fit to correct my manners?
"What did I say about wearing dresses?" He warned, grabbing the hem of my shirt in his fingers.
"Some of the girls weren't wearing them today-
"Those girls aren't the ones being seen or associated with me." He was starting to become aggravating.
"Start obeying the rules Pena. This deal won't last if you look like you just got back from a homeless shelter."
"Alright that's enough." I said, watching him gulp down some more of the potent liquid.
"I don't know what happened yesterday but I'm assuming the stick up your ass has something to do with how insufferable you're being."
As I tore his hand off my shirt, the doors to what I assumed was his closet opened, a half naked girl walking out holding a maid's hat and pile of clothes.
"Oh I'm sorry," she said, not realizing what she was interrupting.
"Get dressed and get out Nina." Kado spoke insensitively, the young girl scurrying to dress herself. She was such a tiny woman, skinny and short with Raven black hair and big green eyes.
When she finally left the room, Kado started at me again.
"Do you realize what could've happened to you if she heard you talk like that to me- if she told my father what you just said?" He wasn't going to get off that easy.
"She's shagging the heir to the crown. If she wants to keep her head on her shoulders she'll keep her mouth shut." I whispered, his eyes widening at me in disbelief.
"You actually think I'm that stupid?" The question wasn't rhetorical.
"You actually think I'd fuck a maid? Do you know what my father would do to her?" Maybe he thought I was stupid.
"What else am I supposed to think when a half naked girl walks out of your closet?"
"What do you care if- he stopped himself, licking his lower lip. A glint shinned in the rim of his eyes, a long, sly smirk forming on his face.
"What now?" I asked.
"Nothing, nothing." He assured me.
"It's just that, I get it know," he said, wiping his nose, keeping himself from laughing.
"You're just jealous," He did not just say that.
"You did not just say that." I crossed my arms and side eyed him. Then his laugh erupted, his heavy chest shaking.
"Why else would you be so pissy right now?" He crossed his arms too, the bulk of his biceps flexing against him.
Stop. Looking. At. Him. Like. That. I told myself, snapping out of it.
"I'm 'pissy' because you don't. Tell. Me. Anything." His deception, his lying by omission, the constant game of angel and devil he played.
"Rule number 1; I say everything you tell me to. That doesn't mean I can't ask questions." He didn't like a woman that argued, I could already tell. But he liked a challenge.
"That's not my closet." He said, pointing to the doors.
"Then what is it?" He shook his head, grabbing a white undershirt from his dresser. His back flexed as he stretched the shirt onto his body. Under patting his hands, his hair flattened from the bright, puffy mess it was.
"Are you going to answer me? Or leave me wondering why half naked women wander in and out of it?" He looked at me, silently, up and down. His eyes lingered on me, as if he was trying to figure out something. I uncrossed my arms, not feeling the need to defend myself.
"What's wrong Kade?" Immediately his gaze darted to mine, silently growling a warning with only that look.
"Are you wondering what I'd look like walking out of that room?" I was not so easily discouraged as all the other people in his life.
"Rule number two Pena. Your rule." He winked, going to sit at his desk to work again.
I think I'd finally come to understand what he was doing, all his plans, all his strategies.
His father was a bad king, and even worse father. Kado loved him, I had no doubt, but it's not hard to know when tensions are high in a castle like this.
His whole life he was told this war was his shared responsibility, along with the crown. But that's the problem.
Kings grow to like their power. When they begin to grey and their children become grown, it is hard to accept the reality.
Kado will be king soon. He is competent, serious, dedicated, intelligent, incredibly well minded when it comes to strategy. He will be king because he has better ideas to end the war than his father ever did.
And that's why I'm here.
Whenever Kado gets shot down, under minded, he is a child who does not know how to express his pain.
So, in turn, he defies the one who makes him suffer.
When he is forced to go through the selection, Kado refuses to take the girls seriously.
When he is ordered to broaden options, he remains with me.
"Nina." He said, calling me back, still writing impatiently.
"She's sleeping with my father." Now that, I didn't expect.
"She takes the back hallways to get out of his room so she can't be seen. Unfortunately, that hall ends in my room. So, I let her escape this way." I didn't expect that either.
"Why?" I asked, my voice soft and quiet.
His pen stilled and he swallowed before uttering words he should never utter to anyone in the world.
"It's not her fault her king has no morality." I wasn't looking, but I felt his mind resume to what it was tending to before.
"It's not yours either." I whispered. Again I wasn't looking, but his eyes were on me then. I could feel them.
Kado kept me in his room a little while longer, our 'date' allowing him to do his work while I wandered around the mess. His dresser was scratched, clothes unfolded, books laid about, open to random pages marked with his notes.
His handwriting was quiet messy too, the half cursive half gibberish inky messages barely readable. Still I tried, finding his copy of The Temptress open to a page in which God converses with a man about the evils of the world.
"The devil comes disguised as a beautiful woman." it read, underlined with the words, "But sometimes so does the angel ." Written next to it in blue ink.
I couldn't help but smile at how literary he could be, a talent wasted in the generally boring nature of war.
In the center of his room was a piano, white and shinning, built by artisans and men who mastered the precision of music. As I walked around it, I made my way to Kado's desk, tired of loitering about.
Peaking over his shoulder, I tried to read as much as I could. Nothing of importance was resting on top, only the lists of outgoing battalions and weapon costs.
To his right, I looked at the designs of tanks and guns, ones I wasn't familiar with. Holding my pendant anxiously, I tried to read what he was writing, but without such luck.
Looking all the way to the right, I found something different from the bevy of articulated and numerical violence.
"Watch" it read on the corner of the page and beneath it music notes lined the evenly written words. Beautiful, finely stroked music notes. I could only make out a few words of the actual writing however...
It was a song.
A loud smack interrupted my attempts to read, Kado's hand clamping down over the paper. I jumped, scurrying backwards, almost tripping over myself.
"Rule number 5." He spoke.
"Ever try and spy on me like that again and you won't like what comes next."
I nodded frantically, not afraid of him; just that uncontrolled side that burst out whenever he was angry. He seriously needed to work on that.
"Can you not be annoying for my than a few minutes? Go read a book, take a nap, watch tv, do something other than be a complete pain in my ass." His legs stiffened to the ground as he sat hunched over his desk. What a spiteful little man he was.
"Can I help you with that?" I said, pointing to the paper he was writing.
"With what?"
"Whatever you're doing." I tried to seem confident, acting unsurprised when he denied me.
"Ha! That's a laugh." He said.
"I barely trust women making my meals-
"But not with cleaning your bedchamber?" I teased, not at all pleased with his level of sexism. He still held a certain smugness.
"You forget where I'm from my prince." I reminded.
"I've seen more war than you probably ever will. I've watched my neighbors be shot and buildings get torn down. I've lost more friends to the fighting than I care to admit. I've looked out my window to see the forest burning and the sky fill with smoke." He wasn't completely unsympathetic, giving me the decency to be quiet and remove the smirk from his face.
"I almost lost my brother and father more times can I count. I lost my mother." His eyes drew up directly to mine, that vulnerability, that warmth he'd only revealed to me once before in the garden. It was there, staring into me, a kind of wordless plea shinning in the glassy look he gave.
"Almost lost myself," I whispered.
"That was harder to admit than I thought." I said, licking my lips and looking down at the floor.
I shut my eyes and tried to breath quietly, anxiety twisting my gut into a knot that sent shivers to my spine. I felt all cold, lonely, wishing I could be home in my brother's company listening to my father's lectures. I wanted to feel the warmth of the fire against my skin in the darkness, singing to myself.
Even in the midst of fear, it's better to feel afraid than alone.
Suddenly, i felt warmth around me, not fire, but arms wrapped around me. Opening my eyes, I watched Kado's chest, rising and falling against my head. His hands placed themselves on the cusp of my shoulder blades, both arms holding me tightly against him.
His head rested on top of mine, and for some time we stayed like that, my eyes able to close as I felt comfort in his touch.
"Did they hurt you?" He asked, his arms letting me go as he lightly touched my sleeve to reveal scars up my forearms.
I shook my head no.
"Fire may harm soldiers, but it does not harm your enemy." I said, his pulse quickening on mine.
"Dragons did this to you?"
"Not purposefully, no."
"The barrens is so close to where they lurk. It's not safe for anyone to live there." He said, raising my arm to his face so he could get a closer look.
"They're disgusting, cruel beasts. We'll defeat them though." He uttered, letting my arm go and making fists.
"The other opposing sides despise them just as much as Illeans. The only reason they still exist is because of the men who support them." He was wrong.
"They're menacing because they do not burn, but they're weak in their isolation. They'll fall easily." He assured me. Little did he know how much worse this all made me feel.
"Have you ever seen a dragon?" I asked. He looked a bit confused, but shook his head none the less.
"Then you can't know how strong they are- how powerful they are as one. The people of the world have been trying to extinct them for generations." I said, gripping at the silver pendant.
"They were here before us. They'll be here after us. Neither war nor guns will ever diminish that fact."
The line of his jaw bulged as he bit down on his own teeth, not out of frustration, but rather out of defeat.
"What is it?" I asked.
He smiled.
"I've just been so wrong about you over and over since they day you got here. I'm wondering when you're going to stop surprising me."
"Rule number six." I said
"You're always wrong. Do best to remember that." I winked and he gave a throaty, closed mouth chuckle