Page 25 of Veil of Vasara (Fate of the Five #1)

CHAPTER 25 - LORIA

I hadn’t seen Nathon for two days.

He had informed me to stay away from his room. He told me I shouldn’t approach him and only ever wait for him to approach me.

But tomorrow, it would have been three days, and I was growing increasingly anxious. I knew the most likely reason for his absence was to do with the gathering of information but still, I was growing tired of being left in the dark. And truthfully, I wanted to speak to him, I needed his advice on recent events.

As much as I loathed the side to Nathon that could plan, manipulate, and deceive, I needed it now, I needed to learn from him.

I stood and resolutely walked to my door, crossing the hall to his room. I was the key to this plan, and the key I thought, should know which doors to open, not be stranded in the hallway, alone.

I knocked.

There was no sound.

I knocked again, this time, I said “Nathon?”

Nothing.

I was in a nightgown, but I had covered myself with one of the cloaks that had been provided for me when I first arrived here. I shook my head. This tradition of being barely clothed within these Palace walls was becoming almost comical.

So was my decision, I realised, this was a mistake.

A hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside the room.

Nathon shut the door quietly and sighed. He sounded exasperated and turned towards me slowly.

He didn’t say anything, only looked at me with a silent reproach.

I ran my fingers through my hair. “Where have you been?” I whispered as loudly as possible.

Nathon’s hand slid down the door. He straightened up and looked at me as if glancing at a crushed insect, or a piece of rotten food.

“It’s been days, Nathon. We aren’t in a position to go days at a time without speaking to each other. I need to know what you know, and you need to know what I know.”

Nathon slowly smiled, then slowly blinked. What was wrong with him?

“Why aren’t you speaking? Did the Nine Gods finally grant me my most desired wish of removing your ability to talk?”

“You’re still just as foolish as ever, Loria,” he finally spoke. “The Nine Gods would never be so generous.”

His face fell after his quip. “You don’t come to my room, I told you that.”

“You haven’t given me much of a choice. Do you expect me to sit around and wait for you all day and all night?”

“Do you have anything better to do?”

“I would, if we could actually converse and decide what those things should be.”

Nathon widened his eyes. “Are you asking me to dictate your every action?”

“Stop it,” I bit.

Nathon raised a brow as if to ask - Stop what? As he did, he strolled past me towards a table, opposite the door.

“Being intentionally obtuse,” I clarified.

“Unfortunately, you’re going to have to use something called initiative and figure out certain parts…” Nathon paused for a moment, swallowing, and seemingly taking a deep breath, “Figure out certain parts for yourself,” he finished.

I looked to the side. “I want to make sure I’m not doing anything…wrong.”

“Oh, it’s almost guaranteed you will do something wrong, and I will do something wrong. But that doesn’t matter… as long as we make it out in the end.”

“How can you be so calm?” I asked him. “You heard what he said, if we fail, your life is effectively finished.”

Nathon chuckled at that. His laugh tolled through the dark like an ode to the stars, to the night.

“Is it?” he mused. He turned around, crossing his arms. “The Zeimans want us to dine with them.”

“What? When? This is why you should have come to visit me,” I reminded him, pointing at the floor as I spoke.

“It’s hardly an urgent matter, but I’ll make the arrangements and inform you of them soon.”

“Anything else?” I asked him, knowing full well the likelihood of him answering that question truthfully was miniscule.

Nathon’s eyes searched my face, and I could tell he was aware of my distrust.

“No. But the King’s recent injury is rather interesting and probably not the fall from his horse he claims it to be.”

“You don’t believe him?”

Nathon looked, once again, appalled by my existence. “He’s an expert rider by reputation. It’s true there are very few potential plausible causes for such an injury, but the fact he resorted to such a lousy lie, only makes it more obvious that whatever he is hiding, is something extremely important.”

“Do you think it will be relevant to us?”

“Well, I hear he’s left-handed, meaning that if it isn’t fully healed by the time the Courting Season is over, killing him will be much easier.” He grinned, ironically, the smile falling from his face almost instantly.

“But if it wasn’t a fall then it might mean—" I began.

“That another person made an attempt on his life. That our father isn’t the only one making a move to seize power here.” Nathon’s fingers tapped against his upper arms.

“So, we are not only trying to kill him, but we are trying to make sure we kill him first,” I said, despondently, looking at my feet.

“Precisely,” Nathon said, with irritation.

“What do we do?”

“You do nothing. I will find out whoever is making the attempt on his life and kill them.” He said it so easily, as softly as wind moving through air.

My gaze fell over him with undisguised confusion, perhaps admiration as well. I was unsure.

“How will you find them?” I asked meekly.

“Would you like a detailed lesson on tracking, following, watching, drawing out, and eliminating targets Loria?”

I scowled.

“Don’t ask such questions. I will do as I always do. You should leave now.” Nathon suddenly became colder.

Suddenly? I caught myself surprised at my own thoughts. Nathon had always been cold.

These past few days, these flickers, and fleeting moments of warmth from him should not have been enough to convince me otherwise.

“Did you find out who Fargreaves was?” I asked.

“Not yet,” he turned away from me.

“But you expect to find the elusive assassins who tried to kill the Prince?” I replied sneeringly.

“Would you like to ask someone else to try and gather this information? I’m sure father would be happy to send out Giro perhaps. Or Mathias?”

“Why are you always so cold?” I asked bitterly.

Nathon leant forwards, smiling serenely as he answered.

“Because the world is a raging inferno, and it’s the only thing that stops me from being consumed by the flames.”

Silence.

We both stood there, so close together, and yet it felt as if there was an ocean between us, an ocean no ship could cross, no bridge, no tunnel. Just water, ready to swallow and fill the lungs of anyone who dared to walk across its waves.

“He asked to see what I…was wearing,” I said, timidly.

Nathon turned around, leaning against the table now. “Interesting.”

“He thought so too…about my attire, I mean.”

“Not in the way we might wish him to find you interesting, I assume.”

“No.”

I noticed it then, a dark stain on his upper arm, he had been concealing it…intentionally with the hands of his crossed arms.

I took a step towards him, staring at the patch.

Nathon turned back around. I walked faster, reaching his side.

“What’s wrong with your arm?”

“Go back to sleep, Loria.”

I don’t know what made me think I could swim in the ocean I was now stuck in. I grabbed his arm hard. Nathon was good at hiding his pain, which did not surprise me, but even he could not conceal the spasm that spread across his jaw.

He slapped my hand away instantly.

“You’re wounded,” I stated.

“Was there a need to confirm that?” Nathon said, his lip upturned in a scowl.

“Why isn’t it closing?”

Nathon rubbed his hands over his face quickly. “Loria. Leave.”

“What happened? Why are you keeping so much from me?”

“Because it’s safer that way!” His voice rose slightly, he stepped towards me as he said it.

“For whom?” I asked. “I am already unsafe, I am already at risk, we both are. What use is keeping me in the dark?”

“I don’t trust you,” he snapped.

Those four words. I had told Nathon the same ones many times. But for some unknown reason to me, hearing them from his lips was hurtful.

“Why? I have never given you a reason to doubt me.”

“Or one to confide in you,” he said.

“You don’t confide in anyone.”

“Do you?”

“If given the opportunity, I would.”

“Then you are as foolish as I said you were. Do not come to my room again. I will find a place for us to meet, and I will tell you when to meet me there. I will tell you what you need to know. No more. No less. If you listen to me, we will have a much better chance of fulfilling this task.”

“Are they dead?”

Nathon appeared confused.

“The person who did that,” I looked at his wound. “Did you kill them?”

Nathon took a few steps back. “What do you think?”

“I think…that you should use the Glavdian plant, create a poultice from it, mix it with honey and Riggon, and cover the wound with it. It should…help it close. I can make it for you.”

“How charming. Do you have a recipe for a broken clavicle you might like to share with His Highness? Perhaps you could wander to his chambers in the middle of the night and deliver it to him?”

“I’m leaving now,” I grumbled discontentedly.

I turned around and walked towards the door. My hand was outstretched, hovering over the handle.

A thought struck me, as sharply and quickly as a slash of a blade, as bright and reflective as one, as if this very conclusion should have been obvious some time ago.

“What if they’re the same?” I murmured. “The people who attacked you…and him.”

Nathon’s silence rather than immediate dismissal was telling.

“They’re not dead, are they?” I asked. “You didn’t kill them. You would have just dismissed my idea otherwise.”

Nathon rubbed his eyebrow with his thumb. “You know I’m starting to think I prefer it when you act oblivious.”

“Nathon—"

“They could have been working together. Or it could be a complete coincidence. Like I said, I will find out.”

“Are they dead?”

A long stretch of silence.

“Yes,” he finally said.

I shook my head in disappointment. “If you couldn’t kill them, and they attacked the Prince. I think we’ll all be burning in those flames before too long.”

Nathon didn’t bother to deny their death for a third time.

“No need to worry, Loria. I’ve got enough ice to stave them off.”

I gripped the door handle and bent my chin slightly over my shoulder. “If you get Mathias to come here, I will personally ensure the flames consume you first.”

“If Mathias is sent here, I’ll jump into them before you can even think to push me,” Nathon replied with a slight laugh.

A hint of a smile played at the corner of my lips, and his.

And just as swiftly as it had appeared, it died, drowned in the ocean between us, scorched by the flames enveloping us.

We could never be anything other than two strangers who trusted each other little and trusted the world even less so. We could never know one another in the way perhaps, some small part of us yearned too, and some larger part of us feared to.

We could only ever be this, I realised, in order to be at all.