The Present: I get up, go to breakfast finish quickly and intend return to my bed until lunch, but find Genya outside my room holding a garment bag and riding boots.
"May I help you?"
"General Kirigan has invited you to go riding with him this morning."
"Really? Seems more like a demand with how well prepared you came." I slip pass her into my room but before closing the door I say "I made this deal with King Pyotr so I wouldn't have to interact with your General please respect the boundaries I've set and have a good day."
Lunch, dinner, a stroll and bed time but I can't sleep the anxiety of not seeing him at all after I rejected his demand was eating away at me and even though I know I shouldn't go to him I do anyways.
"Miss Starkov." He says when he looks at me in the doorway of his study.
"Am I disturbing you?"
"Not at all." He holds up a glass "Please."
Was that for me because he knew I'd come or for someone else that didn't.
"Thank you." I take a sip of it and set it back down.
"Is this map current?"
"It is?" He looks at me "Our enemies are threatened by your mere existence and we can only fight them off so long as we present a united front."
"General.." I whisper
Moving further around the table away from me "And there is talk of Uprising in the West led by our esteem First Army General. Our own people turning their backs on us.-"
"Well that's not exactly true." I find my voice "They turn their backs on this idea that you and the King both have that you are entitled to anything outside of your own borders. They want to be left in peace as I'm sure you understand I know I do."
"Forgive me." He says sincerely "It was never my intention to bring you unrest as so many others have."
He looks away his posture becoming heavy "I've been fighting this war alone so long. I've buried so many good soldiers-" He pauses "Friends." The room is starting to fill with darkness suffocatingly so "The coffers are running dry.. the noose tightens. And people are turning against Grisha just as their kin once did."
I clasp my hand part way around his and light explodes a protective dome around us chasing away the dark. He looks like he can't believe it.
I tense and release his hand at the realization he planned that ready to explode verbally on him but soften when I see everything about him the second he saw I was about explode reminded me of a child who had gotten the thing they had been wanting for so long taken from them by the person of authority who's yells at them for getting what they told them they couldn't have in the first place.
I simultaneously being the person of authority and the thing he's been wanting "You are not alone."
He relaxes eyes glassy with tears raises his hand pausing debating on whether he should try his luck then deciding he will threads his fingers through my hair pulling me who's looking desperately up at him closer.
"I've been waiting a long time for you."
I blink a couple of times like coming out a haze.
"I need to go."
I pull away glancing at him a couple times as I turn to go making it all the way to the door before stopping my stomach doing back flips. He comes up behind me waiting. I steel myself and forge ahead