Eleven

I'm not sure how I got back to my room. The halls were winding and too bright, I shattered the bulbs out of more than a few sconces. My room is too stuffy, someone must have come in to close the windows against the autumn chill while I was at dinner, and I struggle too long to admit opening one of them. I slump down the wall to sit under the window sill on the floor, legs splayed out before me, the room beginning to spin. I down the last of my glass, hoping it will ease the breaking, burning feeling in my chest. It doesn't, I still feel everything.

I received ten minutes of blissful silence before he burst into the room like a man on fire. I guess, in a way, he is. His heat ripples across the room as if I opened an oven. Again I wish I could bottle this feeling and keep it with me, I fight the urge to close my eyes and bask in it. Instead I glare at him from my haphazard seat on the floor.

"What is wrong with you?" He growls, his hands on his hips. He's angry. Good. I'm angry too.

I almost laugh out loud at him, "Too many things." I mutter under my breath, pulling my legs under me in a hurry to stand. I wobble a bit, the room tilting to the right. "And I could ask you the same thing. Why'd you bring your girlfriend to dinner? Are you just trying to hurt me?" I immediately regret it. I shouldn't have said that, I'm too drunk and I can hear my words slurring.

He watches me try and right myself, an almost pained expression on his face, as if I had slapped him. I want to. He takes stock of my form, his eyes blazing from my legs to my torso and finally my face. He doesn't say anything for a long time and neither do I. I'm afraid if I move he'll disappear. I wish I had more wine.

Finally, he sits on the arm of an overstuffed chair, running a hand down his face. "Did you read them?" He sounds tired, exhausted by the prospect of the impending conversation.

"Yes," I answer defiantly. I really wish I had more wine.

"All of them?" He clarifies and I purse my lips refusing to answer. He knows me too well. He sighs deep, "Well maybe you should before you short out all the wiring. Lightbulbs aren't cheap."

I don't say anything. I'm still seething and my tongue feels too fat to make any sense. He looks thinner with dark circles under his eyes. He never wore exhaustion well. Did I do this to him? "You look tired." I know it's not what he wants to hear and it's not what I was planning to say.

"I am." He responds not elaborating. From his tone I can tell it's more than one thing. But also me. Always me.

"You didn't answer my question." My voice shakes as I speak. I wish I wasn't like this. I wish I could tell him that I missed him, that I love him. But my mouth won't say them out loud. The only question my broken, jaded heart wants to know is why she is here.

"I'm not going to."

I can feel my blood boiling, "You took her for a ride on your cycle!" It's not a question, I shout my voice climbing. If Farley's in her room, I'm sure she can hear me. I feel as if my chest is exploding and caving in with pain.

He stands and starts walking to the door, "Read them, Mare." Is all he says, his back turned to me.

I don't even remember letting the wine glass go before I see it shattering against the wall by the door. Cal stops but he doesn't turn around.

"I'm going to assume," He says slowly without turning around, "that was because you are drunk and this is…" I can see his shoulders heave a breath, "very hard-"

I don't let him finish. I will not be scolded by him. "You said you loved me." My voice sounds pitiful even to my own ears. "You promised." It sounds like I'm begging. I feel tears track down my face and I brush at them angrily. "You promised me." I say much quieter.

I can see his fists clench and unclench at his sides and he hangs his head. "This was your choice." I think I hear him say but my rage is too loud and he is too quiet. Still he will not look at me. "Mare, please, read them." He says louder. "Read them and come find me when you're ready. You know where." And then he leaves.

I want to rage, I want to burn, I want to scream and throw more glass against the wall to watch it shatter like my heart is. I want him to come back and I want more wine.

I'm not sure how long it is until Farley's at my door. The sun has long gone down and the salon is dark, I burnt out the lights not long after Cal left. The memory of him telling me the cost of lightbulbs making me want to pop them all out of spite. "Mare," I hear her voice from the other side of the door. "It's me. I'm coming in." She pushes the door open, her feet clad only in socks, legs in a soft cotton. She wraps a gray sweater tighter around her middle as she enters the room.

I haven't moved from my spot on the floor under the window, laying on my side with my cheek pressed against the cold oak floor.

"It's freezing in here." She says as she quickly leans over me to the window to shut it. She looks down at me, "I heard…" She trails off, "Are you okay?"

I shake my head trying to sit up and Farley puts out her hands to help me stand.

"Come on, little lightening girl." She says and the nickname doesn't sting. It's sweet when she says it, enduring like an older sister. "Let's get you to bed."

At the thought of sleeping alone, my face snaps to her.

She points to the bed, eyebrows raised. "I'm not going anywhere." She says. This isn't the first night that Farley has slept with me in my room. I never even asked, she just knew that without Gisa or Cal, I would need her. "Now get in there." She pulls back the blankets gesturing for me to get under them. Once I'm in bed she crawls in after me. "Do you want me to do anything for you?" She asks gently.

I nod, "Can you read to me?"

"Read to you?" Her brow scrunches in confusion. I point to the letters on the bedside table behind her. She looks over her shoulder at them and then back at me. "Are you sure?"

I smirk at her, "You already read the most private one any way. And…" I trail off gathering my courage, the wine has worn off and my head pounds. "I don't have any secrets from you." I never thought it before, but it's true all the same. Farley knows everything.

"Okay," She says and she turns reaching for the letters. "This one?" She asks holding up the letter I have not read yet. I nod and she opens the letter.

"We hired a teacher's assistant last week. Her name is Natasa and she's from the Stilts. She knows Trammy, fought with him in the army.

She's nice and smart, Julian loves her. She's good at her job, great with children. She grew up with a lot of siblings so she has a bunch of practice.

I'm glad she's here because it is more work than I ever thought it would be. She's helpful, always attentive and ready to work.

And she has made it uncomfortably clear she would like to be more than co-workers. I gave her a ride home one day, and all I had was the cycle, and it was a mistake. I'm trying to be nice, but it is getting difficult.

I am not interested in the slightest. Whenever I look at her, I see you. I see the thief I met outside of a tavern. I see you in the way she straightens her back. I see you in everything really. She will never be you. Not even a cloud of the storm that is you. You are what I want, what I need, what I will ever need. I know she's coming to the wedding, she has already requested a dance from me. It's a month away and I am counting the days. Julian said that you will be here and I hope against everything I know, that you will. I hope so many things. Maybe I'll have Farley teach me a prayer. Because I certainly pray you come home. I miss you. I love you. I will wait until my last breath.

Always waiting,

Cal"

Farley reaches for the last letter and I stop her. "I'll read that one tomorrow." I tell her.

"Do you feel better?" She asks as she settles back into the blankets next to me.

I shake my head putting a hand to my mouth, the contents of my stomach roiling and looking for an exit. I race to the bathroom with Farley laughing heartily behind me.

Besides the fact that I just emptied the contents of my stomach, I do feel a bit better. I might still be drunk but hearing his words, seeing them written on paper, relieves a bit of the dread that had pooled around me like silence.

When I return back to the bedroom, Farley is already a sleep. I don't know what time it is, but it must be close to midnight, the moon high and bright like a midday sun casting a strange white glow on the world below. I pick up the last letter from the bedside table and go to sit on myside of the bed, careful not to wake Farley. I can just make out the words by moonlight.

"I feel as if my soul is constantly ripped in half. One part remaining here with me, the other with you. I want you to know this is the last letter I will write. The wedding is two weeks away and you will be arriving here in a weeks' time. At least I hope you will. I'm giving Julian this letter today before he leaves.

When you get here, I won't ask you to stay. I know what the chances are if I do and I can't give myself the hope. I don't think I could bare it if you left me again and I know that I am needed here, I can't leave the children. I have purpose here and a country to help heal.

Three times you have walked away from me and three times I have let you. I don't know if I could do it a fourth, I don't know if I could live through it a fourth time. I'll only ask two things of you, if you feel an inch of the pain that I do, please make it stop. Come and tell me you've made a decision, that you've chosen a path and if that path includes me or not. The choice is yours, the decision in your hands. It has always been in your hands, just as my heart has. As it always will be. I'm trying to give you time and space and I feel as if I'm failing at even that simple task.

The second thing is simple and something that I've asked before with little victory. Choose me. Choose us. Choose to keep us together above all else. Need me like I need you.

Please choose me.

Cal"

This one ends differently than the others. He didn't say he loved me or he missed me or that he was going to wait for me. Not like the other five, the reassuring lines are missing from this one. It makes me feel colder and emptier than I have felt in months. I must still have some liquid courage left in me because I rush from the room following the familiar path in long determined strides. A small voice keeps telling me to turn around, but it gets quieter the closer I get, my alcohol fueled rage getting louder with every step.

I don't bother knocking and I push the door open, the letter still gripped in my claw of a hand. I stride through the large salon and into the bedroom. There's candle light instead of electricity, a fire roaring in the grand hearth, it bathes the room in an orange glow. Cal sits at his desk, leaned back in his chair, heels resting on his desk, an old book in his lap. His mother's diary, I think as I notice the faded gold cover.

"I read them." I say, the words spitting from my mouth.

"Are you sober now?" He says not looking up from the book.

I can feel the buzz of the alcohol in my veins. The correct answer is no, but I'm a liar. "Yes."

Cal looks up at me not buying the lie. He turns back down to the book, not saying anything.

"I read them." I repeat, "And now I'm here."

"For what, Mare?" He asks and I almost stumble.

"What?" Why am I here? What was my plan in barging in here? I have no idea, all I know is that I needed to be near him. My body reacting faster than my brain.

"What are you here for?" He clips each word looking up at me he closes the book and stands from his chair. "Are you here to tell me you're not going to stay? Or that you need more time?" I can feel the heat rising in the room.

I don't know why I'm here. I don't know if I'll stay. My family is in Montfort but Cal… Cal is here, right in front of me and I can't seem to move any closer. "This was stupid." I mutter, my shoulders slump and I turn back to the door. Nothing is going to change. I haven't changed. How could he want me so much? All I do is hurt him.

I take a step and I hear him speak, "Four."

The rage builds up in me is hot and quick. This time is not like the others. Not even close, and he knows that.

I spin on my heel fast, "What do you want from me?" Rips out of my throat as I turn to him. "Do you want me to abandon my family? Stay here in this palace with you? Stop fighting? What?!"

I see flame in his bronze eyes and the fire in the hearth grows with his anger. "I want you!" He has never risen his voice to me. Not like this. "I want you and that is all I have ever wanted. I want you to choose me, to be with me. I want you to tell me you love me still, that you've missed me. Fuck, I want you to fight for me like you do everyone else." He runs his hands through his hair and it sticks up on end.

I glare at him, my jaw locked. I will not break first. I can't, I know what he wants and I just can't make a decision.

He sighs, hanging his head. "This is going nowhere." He turns to his desk, moving papers around, anything to not look at me. "Don't worry, you won't be getting any more letters from me to ignore."

I can feel my rage dying in my chest, replaced with the cold longing of heartbreak that I'm used to. The bloom of an inferno quickly extinguished to a flame in a snow storm. "I read them." I repeat again as if this conversation will start over.

"I know." He says softly but he doesn't look up from the desk. "It didn't change anything, did it?"

Some, yes, others, no. "I don't know." I answer honestly.

He looks over his shoulder at me for a moment and then back at his desk. "That makes two of us."

The pounding in my head is back and I wish I could lay down.

"Have you made a decision?" He asks, hands braced, palms down on the desk.

"No," I answer sullenly. I would die for the man in front of me, so why is it so hard to be so close to him. To stay here with him and live happily ever after. Maven still sits between us. I'm sure he's laughing in his grave.

"Then why'd you come?"

"I needed to."

"Why?"

"Because I –" I stop myself, why did I need to? I wanted to see him, feel him, of course, but need? He turns to look at me and bronze eyes meet mine and the answer is so simple. I need him. I just need him. I thought this whole time that I could get through this, start a revolution in countries I know nothing about, get over Maven, Maven's death at my hands, get over all the horror and torment we have put each other through for the past year and a half. But I've lived a half-life without him. I know that now, but how would this work? He would stay here and I would go back to Montfort? After this week, nothing would change and he would be right, I would walk away for a fourth time. "I don't know." I bow my head trying to hide the lie with my hair. I think of Davidson and Carmadon, silver and newblood, married and in love. Carmadon waiting for Davidson to return from wars and death, I know Cal couldn't and wouldn't stay behind.

He's quiet for a while, knowing I'm lying. I know he does, he doesn't push all the same. "I'm leaving for Archeon in the morning." He says with no preamble and I fear the worst. He's trying to get as far from me as he can. "I have classes with the children in the morning." He explains, "I'll return with you and Farley after the tour of the capital." His eyes boring into mine, this is not goodbye and this is not over.

I nod sullenly, "Okay." He turns back to his work, twisting his fire maker bracelets around his wrist. When he doesn't look back up, I leave the room quietly. I close the door behind me and whisper to the empty hallway and the moon, "I love you Cal."