Page 35 of Aubade Rising
I raise my eyes to his, searching for a sign he’s okay. That he’s still in this with me.
“I don’t like using my attitude.” He spits the words out angrily, as if any confession of regret is a weakness but his hands tremble.
“So, you’re saying you’d feel this wretched if you attacked the people in Tanwen or the guards with a blade?” My tone is accusing but I don’t know how else to make him understand. Without his attitude, we’d be prisoners.
He starts, caught off guard.
“Well no. That would have been self-defence.”
“And using your attitude wasn’t?”
“It wasn’t a fair fight.”
I can’t help rolling my eyes at the ridiculous set of principles he’s determined to beat himself up with. “Ah, so it’s perfectly acceptable to skewer someone with a sword, provided they are precisely the same skill level, same ability and have the same experience as you then?”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
“I know you’re being ridiculous. You saved our lives. What’s your problem?” I peer closely at him; his dark eyes are guarded and glint vulnerably. There’s something more, something else is going on.
Stepping closer, he steels himself for another verbal attack, holding his body rigid.
What is driving him to abuse himself every time he uses his attitude?
I think back to the segments of the book Haelyn gave me, and like a piece of a puzzle that’s finally spun round to fit in the right way, it clicks. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”
What little colour remained in his cheeks vanishes.
He freezes and shame floods in as the moment passes and he sinks to his knees, face in his hands.
I watch curiously, not alarmed at his silent admission.
His hands scratch at his arms, leaving shallow red grooves.
Avoiding my eyes, he looks listlessly at the smooth dirt floor.
I sit next to him, providing what little comfort I can, letting him know I’m not judging him.
As the minutes trickle by, I separate my magic from the strand I took from him and pull it outside of my body and into my hands.
It glows faintly, sputtering in the damp mists before extinguishing.
“I’m grateful to your magic – it saved us.
” I choke out those words, knowing it’s what he needs to hear but suppress the dread that rises when I think about what his magic did to me in the dungeons of Chi An Mor.
Sitting in the dirt, Eskar watches my display closely, chin resting on his hands, which lie on his knees. Rising and extending a hand to pull me up, I see he’s avoiding my gaze.
Pulling his face to mine, I feel the pressure of making sure my words come out right, to ease the pain and shame in his caramel eyes and try again.
“It’s okay, it’s natural to enjoy using your attitude, to get satisfaction from how the magic sings.
That doesn’t mean you enjoy the outcome or the pain.
” I chew my lip. “Restraining yourself and then beating yourself up afterwards when you’re forced to use it for work clearly isn’t working anymore.
Let me in so I can help you. Perhaps we can negotiate with the King when we’re back? ”
“It’s no use – I’ve tried.”
“It’s a question of finding the right angle, the right leverage. The King boasts about not being a dictator – not being like his father – yet he forces this on you? He needs to face up to his hypocrisy.”
A fleck of light passes through his eyes, but his brows stay furrowed. Humouring me but not daring to hope? We will get this fixed when we return. I can’t bear to see him broken again and again. “What would you do if you weren’t the King’s Verax? Who would you like to be?”
His answer is instant, as if he pictures the details of this dream often.
“I’d return to Cathair, to be a teacher.
” He looks off to where I imagine a window would be in the classroom he dreams of.
“I’d live in my apartment, teach children at school.
All children. I wouldn’t separate them because of their magic and I’d go fishing on my days off.
” He huffs out a laugh, almost a chuckle, “I’d be a scandal among the Mordros. ”
“What about you? Did you always want to be an academic?” He turns the question back to me.
I pause. Being an academic was the most success I was permitted to ask for, even then many would say I’ve pushed too far.
I should retreat into the background, quietly move on with my life and settle somewhere out of the spotlight.
I’m tempted to be honest with him, to tell him that being an academic is a means to an end; it doesn’t fulfil or satisfy me the way teaching would him.
I have bigger, grander dreams and more ambition than I know what to do with.
I’m not wholesome and selfless. I want power and I think our world could be so much better if I had more of it.
But that’s not what Eskar wants to hear right now. Not what he needs. So, I tuck that private, ambitious part of me away, no longer smothering it but not letting it grow and respond, “It was always my dream growing up but I suppose sometimes we outgrow our dreams.”