"If it is any consolation," she said, curling her feet under her as she began unravelling a length of cloth, "I have never been able to open it either, though it is very good company on the days when Opal and the others are busy."
Christopher groaned and collapsed on his bed in the loft. His leg was in her lap, bare to the thigh. Grappling a pillow so it was clenched over his face, he said, muffled, "But I've opened some in Albion already, so why not this one? I thought I've been doing well enough to be considered moral… ouch!" He hissed sharply as Kirvi pressed her fingers into his swollen thigh.
She scoffed and scanned his leg. After being brutally rejected by the local demon door, he had been struggling with the jagged rocks and shifting sand, and tripped. Kirvi and Logie caught up to him after he slammed to a stop on one of the cliffs she and Opal enjoyed as a getaway, and she had helped him limp all the way back to the city and her house with one damaged leg.
The leg in question was in front of her. She was astonished at how hairless he was compared to the men of Aurora. Sure, the curly brown hairs lightly coated his legs from the knee down, but the pasty white thigh she was frowning at was as hairless as his face.
Which had suddenly lost its hair when he was lost in the city earlier that afternoon.
Her frown deepened, but she pushed away the thought. There was no way he could have just disappeared to shave his face and return. Maybe she was imagining things. Maybe he had shaved when she had provided him with the water in the morning.
His knee was bloody and indented with dirt and rocks from his fall, and a long scrape ran down the length of his bony shin. Long slivers from the remains of a scraggly desert bush pierced his thigh, and Kirvi was in the process of removing them before bandaging him up.
Beside her, Logie whined nervously. Smiling absently, she patted the goatdog's head and murmured a consolation before grabbing the forceps she had stolen from her mother's medicine chest. "Bite something, Christopher," she encouraged, then pressed the point of the needles beneath his skin and wrenched out the worst of the slivers.
After the slivers were out, a healing cream was applied, and the leg was wrapped up, Kirvi sat back with her tired hands in her lap and simply watched as Christopher rolled back and forth, clutching the pillow and spewing out what sounded like every swear word he could think of, plus some.
Several minutes passed, and he finally calmed down enough to wipe his face, exhale heavily, and apologize for cursing like a sailor. Kirvi assured him that he was amusing, and he muttered something she barely caught, about how his recent behaviour made him feel like he belonged in Bloodstone instead of Bowerstone Castle.
They sat together in silence for a long time; he was simply resting, occasionally swearing under his breath, and she played silly games with Logie. Finally, after about an hour of this passed, Christopher summoned enough energy to push himself up, and he said, "Is there anything to dull the pain with?"
"Alcohol," she replied without a second thought. "Would you like it?"
He nodded and fell back onto his pillows with a fwump. "Lots."
Kirvi's brows rose, but she didn't question it. Maybe he didn't know…?
She decided, after fetching the alcohol and failing at getting him to take it slowly, that no, he didn't know that Auroran alcohol was very, very strong.
Christopher's eyes crossed and rolled back, and he grimaced until he looked like some horrible demon from a nightmare. "Ooh, that tastes like ass," he grumbled, holding out the earthen jug. Kirvi took it gently and noticed how badly his hand was shaking. "Sorry. But, hey, at least my leg doesn't feel like a hammer smashed it anymore. What—what's in that?"
"I have no idea. I do not know how to make it." She set the jug far away from him so he couldn't knock it over, and folded her hands in her lap to watch as he tried to sit up. And failed. Repeatedly.
"Mm. Can—can I say something, Kirvi?"
"Yes."
He finally gave up and simply sprawled on his back, talking to the ceiling. "This is the first time I've felt good since before Walter and Jasper and I started up this, this revolution. You know? Not that it's because of the drinking—but I guess I haven't done that since Logan was crowned and we both got smashed at his coronation party after. Wait, wait… how long ago was that?" He stuck out his tongue as if it would help him think. Curious, Kirvi scooted forward so she could see his face better. There was a cut on his cheek that hadn't been there that morning. Had he really shaved? "Eight years ago. Holy shit—sorry—I got hammed with my brother when I was twelve."
Kirvi held back a laugh at his expression. He looked lost in a dream; totally blissful, like a child with a new toy. "Congratulations. What about feeling good?"
"Oh. Oh yeah. Um." He managed to roll onto his side and peered up at her with big eyes. His face was flushed, just like it had been when he was badly explaining what Bloodstone blackjack was, only this time she was sure it was because he was very, very drunk. "No, but yeah, like I was saying, I just feel great. Happy, you know. I love Walter and Jasper and Ben, and I still can't believe my own brother had Major Swift killed, and—did you know that I had to hold Ben while he cried?" he blurted, suddenly distracted. "Major Swift was his closest confidante, and he helped Walter and I start organizing the revolution, and he pledged his allegiance and everything—and fucking Logan found out and had him executed. Sorry."
Kirvi waved the curse away. "Ben wept for Major Swift?"
"Um, yeah." Christopher sighed heavily and stuck out an arm. Logie interpreted it and rested his head on his master's side, looking just as sad and lost as the prince. "I don't think Logan saw us at the execution, 'cause it was just the two of us, and Ben was so strong, and I'm sure Swift saw us…" He slowed and blinked furiously. His eyes were bright and wet. "As soon as we were done reporting to Walter and Page, he just broke down. Walter and Page were gone, so it was just us, and he… he said how Swift was the only thing keeping him from going back to who he was, and how he couldn't go on without him, and… I guess that's how I feel about Walter." A small, shiny tear slipped down his nose and hung there for a moment before splashing onto his hand. "And des-despite Walter being sick from the Darkness, and us being shipwrecked here and nearly losing Ben, I just…" He snorted and lightly thudded his forehead against her knee. Kirvi smiled and patted his arm.
"Feel good?" she suggested.
"Yeah. Like, I'm terrified that Walter won't get better, and that I'll have to do this whole overthrow my brother thing without him, and I don't—I don't know if I can do that without him, or if I can, if I can rule Albion without him by my side." His eyes traced a path on the ceiling as though they were following some creature's movement. "He helped guide my father and Logan both as kings. I can't do it without him. I can't.
"But I still feel good. I think it's you," he said, squeezing his eyes shut in a grimace before peering up at her. He squeezed her knee and she flinched, ticklish. He gave a little chuckle, his smile lighting up his face. "See? You're a good distraction. I can just be me here—well, drunk me, I guess—and I don't have to—to worry about you judging me or thinking about everything I do as if I was the king. Like you said, you're Auroran. You do things differently here."
Less than an hour later, she had to console him as he vomited copiously into a bucket she just barely managed to find in time. Luckily, mouth still speckled with splashes of puke and red-faced and ruffled, Christopher collapsed into a loud, snoring sleep only minutes after he stopped bringing up food and alcohol.
Kirvi fell into a restless sleep in the loft, too tired to climb back down and go to the house. Early in the morning, she was awoken when Christopher grabbed at her arm, mumbling that he felt sick. They spent the rest of the morning and partway through the afternoon cleansing the poison from his body.
Finally, as the night was finally descending over Aurora, Christopher felt well enough to eat something and successfully keep it down. Sighing with relief, Kirvi slumped back against the wall and cupped her face in her hands.
"You are like a child," she decided, rubbing her tired eyes.
Christopher laughed from across the loft, then gave a short groan. "Ow, my head. Hey, how was I supposed to know that Auroran alcohol is extremely potent? I'm sorry for anything embarrassing I may have said or done last night, by the way."
"You do not remember?" Kirvi blinked and sat up, grabbing another mango from the basket of fruit she had brought in.
He shook his head as he stuffed his mouth with food. "Not much. I remember throwing up a bit."
Kirvi giggled and covered her mouth to keep from spitting out mango. "A bit? Christopher, even my hair stinks."
A grin stretched his face. "Sorry for that. I hope I wasn't horrifying you too much."
"Not at all. You were funny."
"You sound surprised. Not been around many drunk people?"
"I have never been drunk, Christopher."
"Hm." Christopher stretched leisurely and tossed the core of his fruit into the bucket of stinking vomit in between them. "We will have to rectify that some day. Besides having a headache that could knock Jack of Blades out of commission for a while, I have more energy than I can handle. Is there something active we can do here?" Just after his words left his lips, his face paled several shades and he made a pathetic noise, but Kirvi attributed it to his hangover.
Picking a bruise out of her fruit, she lifted one shoulder. "It is unlikely. We used to hunt and play in Shifting Sands, the desert outside the city, but Kalin discourages us from leaving."
"So?"
Kirvi stared at him. A slight stubble dusted his face once again, and he was hollow-eyed and scruffy from a restless night and hours of vomiting, but a smile stretched across his face, devious and excited all at once. "So?" she repeated.
"Let's go. You can show me the desert."
Horror and curiosity lanced her at the same time, leaving her exhausted in a split second. "What? No. It is too dangerous, Christopher. I understand you are a prince and you are accustomed to getting what you want, but—"
"Is that what you think?" he interrupted. The smile was gone. "You think I'm a spoiled brat who just has to say a word to get what he wants? Because that is nothing like how it is, Kirvi. It used to be that way, back when I lived in the castle, but I left that life behind me when Jasper, Walter and I fled and we decided to dethrone Logan. He's my brother, Kirvi, my own flesh and blood. Do you think I want to do this to him? I have been sleeping wherever I can find a bed ever since I left."
"You left of your own accord," she snapped back. "You could have stayed behind and continued a life of luxury. It is a different world outside your palace, Your Highness. Aurora is not Albion. We have been ravaged for the past five years by a demon that is indestructible, and your brother promised four years ago to help us. Excuse us poor Aurorans if we do not appreciate those with enough money to lose ten grand gambling for fun."
The glower he shot at her was enough to make her feel uneasy, like he was about to lunge at her, weapons bared. She glanced nervously at his long, menacing sword. It was within distance, close enough for him to grab it if he so pleased.
"Kirvi, I am leading this revolution against all better, familial judgment because of that promise! I left it all behind so I could change things for the world, to make it better!"
She felt hot all over, like she was about to burst into flame. Swiping her hair out of her face, she slid across the floor to the ladder and descended heavily. As she turned around and started for the door, she heard Christopher scrabble across the wooden loft to reach the ladder.
"Kirvi, wait!"
"No!" She halted and turned to glare up at him. In the dim firelight of the storehouse, and the red fury blinding her, he suddenly looked much less appealing and friendly as he had before. "I do not care that you intend to change things! The point is that you led a privileged life, Christopher, and you expect others to bow to your every whim! If that was not so, you would not ask me to enter the desert—the place where our people die like rats in gas. You would not ask me to go to that place—to lure the Crawler back here so it can finish off the rest of my family! You have seen the Crawler; that is what killed my father, and it was your brother's selfishness, Christopher, that kept our people poor and starving and dying if we leave our homes. And it is your selfishness that wants me to sacrifice my life and my family so you can have fun in the sand!" Hot tears were streaking down her face; she had not openly discussed her father's death in such a way for years. All her fear of the Crawler and the Darkness and Aurora's impending and inevitable doom seemed to wash over her at once; as soon as he suggested exploring the desert just for fun.
The days of "just for fun" had been over for the past five years.
"But you are from wealthy Albion," she snarled, letting the tears soak her face and hair as she glared up at his pitiful face. "You are the son of a king and Hero. You cannot possibly understand any of this. You do not know suffering."
Without another look at his pleading eyes and hanging jaw, she turned and left the storehouse, letting her tears fall.
—
He found her at a spring just outside the city.
It was an oasis of sorts; hidden away in the cliffs, it was a small pond surrounded by the only green life he had seen since arriving in Aurora. Short tropical trees shaded the area—or would have, had it been daytime—and scrubby bushes and short grass circled the pool.
It could have been anybody, but he knew it was her because of the pile of clothes near his feet. The fiery beading would have been impossible to misplace. That, and Logie followed her scent like the good dog he was.
She was floating on her back, staring up at the sky so the moon and stars illuminated her face and made her and the water around her glow silver. Without the cursed pollution and smog of Reaver's factories blotting out the sky, Christopher was amazed at how beautiful the night sky really was.
He exhaled slowly and crunched loudly toward the oasis to make himself known. The water splashed loudly through the silence as she moved and turned toward him.
"What do you want?" she demanded, but she didn't sound as angry as she had been before.
Christopher crept a little closer, and Logie whined. "To talk, obviously," he replied and stopped at a rock at the pool's edge. Crouching on it, he watched as she swam toward him.
"What more is there to say?" She stopped several feet away and cocked her head to the side. With her long black hair wet and sleek over her small face, she looked like a beautiful water creature. A seal, perhaps, minus the whiskers.
"I want to apologize. And to explain. I understand that it does seem selfish what I said. But I also need to say…" He frowned and picked out the proper words. "You mentioned that my father was a Hero. Did you know that our ancestor was too? As was his? It runs in our family, apparently."
"So?" She treaded water, making the ripples around her glint in the moonlight.
Christopher held up his arm, the one with the gauntlet on it. Kirvi's big eyes followed it, but she said nothing. "One of the reasons I am the only one who can stop Logan, and why I left the castle, is because I am too. I only found out that night. It's the one thing our father gave me that Logan can't take."
Kirvi's brows arched, but in disbelief. "So?" she said again.
Patience was thinning. He snorted and a tuft of hair hanging in front of his face blew upward. "You said I don't know suffering. And that could be true, in some aspects." He had thought out what to say as he sat in the loft, and on the walk to find her, but nothing seemed adequate. "I don't know the suffering you and your people have endured. But I know my own. I am a prince, but it isn't something I've embraced. Had I been crown prince, it might have been different. I was tortured by my brother when we were boys, but that's just sibling stuff. My mother died when I was twelve," he murmured, lowering his gaze to his hands. The gauntlet seemed to glow orange in the night. "My father died right after. My brother began to destroy my country with his rules and laws. I sentenced m-my f-fiancée to death," he stammered, feeling his eyes prickle. Not now. Not here. Memories of that morning surfaced behind his eyelids; watching her pleading eyes and hearing the whimpering of those his brother condemned to death; hearing her soft, sweet voice tell him she loved him and that it had to be here, that there was no need for all those people to die. Only one had to.
Hearing the gunshot.
The water swished closer. He forced open his eyes to see Kirvi resting her arms on the rock he sat on, half-hoisted out of the water so she could see him better.
"I did not know." She whispered. The water beading her arms and face and coating her long ebony hair glowed; she looked as though she was an angel. "I am sorry."
Christopher nodded. His voice was gone; his throat had closed up at the thought of Elise. Since the months that had passed, he had done so well at keeping her pain at bay, but he knew he would have to confront it eventually. He had merely hoped it wouldn't have had to have been so soon. And not while he was in the process of losing Walter as well.
"May I ask you something, Christopher?"
"Of—of course." Just please don't be about Elise.
Kirvi drummed her fingers on the rock and tilted her head to the side. "Can we forget this argument ever happened? I know we have only known each other for three days, but the entirety of those three days has been spent in each other's company. I think I can comfortably call you a friend."
A heavy sigh exploded from his lungs. "Oh, thank Archon," he murmured, choking up. Slipping his feet from the rock, he dumped them, sandals and all, into the pool. It was surprisingly cool and warm all at once—the perfect temperature, and felt like silk as it surrounded his dirty feet. "I expected you to be a lot angrier."
"I was thinking of my own suffering. Forgive me if I come across poorly, but most of us Aurorans think wealthy folk have perfect lives with no wrongdoing. Had I known that you lost your fiancée…"
Christopher clenched his jaw and pulled his feet from the water. Kirvi pushed off the rock and drifted backwards, never taking her penetrating gaze from him. "It's all right. I should go back to the city." He pushed off the rock and made a soft noise to call Logie. The dog jogged up from one of the bushes, snout speckled with dirt.
"Of course. Until tomorrow."
"Yes. Goodnight, Kirvi." After she murmured her own goodnight, he strode away from the pond with Logie on his heels, snuffling behind the dirt on his nose. Once he was behind a rock, he crouched next to his dog, huddled the warm, soft animal to his chest, and summoned a cullis gate around them. Within moments, they arrived on the floor of the Sanctuary; Logie whining and emitting soft, pitiful howls, and Christopher hunched over himself, sobbing as Jasper hurried over and began the necessary consolations.