Page 51 of Veil of Vasara (Fate of the Five #1)

CHAPTER 51- HESTAN

I jerked awake. My face was turned to the right, my eyes quickly found a window.

This wasn’t my window.

I propped myself up on my elbows but found it difficult to move. I looked down at myself. I was in a bed. I was covered in blankets, and near my feet there were two dark boots against the frame.

I sat up slightly, and as I did, turned to the left.

In a chair, with his eyes closed, was Audra’s Prince.

He was clutching a dagger tightly to his chest. He was still wearing the white shirt, but now he had placed a dark jacket over his shoulders as well.

I…couldn’t remember much. I tried to collect my thoughts, staring at the blankets as if they would provide me with the answers.

Fragments of memories returned to me. Fragments of the past.

She had touched my skin, and I had seen it, again, as if I were there, as if I were inside my body, all those years ago. I felt now, the way I had felt immediately afterwards, at the time my village had been attacked.

The years had passed, but the pain had not.

But I was still alive, and so was the Prince. Somehow, he had defeated her. I knew he was an impressive fighter, but still, that woman could have killed us both with ease. It had seemed to me, moments before I lost consciousness, that both mine, and the Prince’s deaths were inevitable.

I turned around, expecting to see him asleep. But the Prince had one eye open, smiling slightly.

“You’re awake.”

I didn’t see the point in confirming that. It seemed to me the Prince had most likely been awake this whole time himself.

He took his boots off the frame and sat forwards in his chair, pulling it closer towards the bed. He reached towards me. I backed away unconsciously.

“What are you so concerned about, Captain? If I’d wanted to kill or hurt you, why let you sleep here?”

“Why did you let me sleep here?” I asked, still keeping myself away from him slightly.

He reached out again insistently. “Because I do not want to kill or hurt you…evidently.”

He pressed his hand against my forehead. It was surprisingly cold.

“You still have a mild fever, but it’s better than before,” he said thoughtfully, leaning back.

I swallowed. “I don’t…understand…”

“The woman touched you, you…saw something, you couldn’t move. That combined with the awful state you were in when you got here meant I had no choice but to let you stay.”

That wasn’t true. The Prince could easily have dragged me back to my room or let me die.

“Where did she go?”

“She left. It seems that touching you affected her as well,” he looked at me cautiously, and I could see the hidden question in his eyes.

“Why did you come here, Captain?”

There it was.

“Why did you break my door down in the middle of the night, while you were clearly unwell, especially if what that woman said is true, and you possessed information that made it seem…as if I bore ill intent towards you?”

I shifted uncomfortably in the bed. It was strange to know I had been lying in the sheets the Prince had been. They even smelt like him faintly, an earthy musk, tinged with sweetness.

“It made no sense to me,” I explained, “that you would sign something so secretive and important with your own initials. I do not know you well but…it struck me as…unlikely.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So, you came here to…?”

“To warn you.”

“You came here to warn me?”

“Yes.” I recalled parts of the conversation between him and the sorcerer. “But it seems as if you already knew about this woman’s…activities.”

“I confess,” the Prince said gently, “that I knew she would be visiting you. It was me who asked her to steal that paper from you. I knew that you had some. Your questions about Noxstone lead me to that conclusion. But I swear, I had no idea of its contents, nor did I ask her to harm you.”

I nodded slowly, believing him for some reason. That did not explain how they had met, however.

“How do you know her, Your Highness?” I remembered to address him by his title, ashamed by the fact I had forgotten up until now, until I was fully awake.

“You’re lying in my bed, in your underclothes. I’ve practically fussed over you like an adoring wife all night. Don’t you think we’re past Your Highness ?” He smirked a little.

“You are still a Prince,” I told him, frowning.

Fussing over me like an adoring wife all night? From a chair? With his eyes closed? Whether he was asleep or awake, that woman could have returned and slit my throat in an instant before he could even react. He hadn’t even closed the window.

He shrugged. “As you wish.” He crossed his left leg over his right knee. “So why did you want to warn me?”

I frowned again. I hadn’t thought too much about that. I’d only had seconds to decide what to do. It was clear to me the sorcerer who had taken and read the message was greatly disturbed by its contents as well, and since anyone would be able to ascertain, or guess what 'N.A.' stood for, warning the Prince that someone might be coming to find or potentially harm him had seemed…

“It seemed like the right thing to do, Your Highness.”

“Are you always guided by your morals, over intelligent reason?”

I said nothing. I was exhausted, from the fighting, and the visions I had seen, and the wound.

The wound.

I looked at him sharply. He raised his eyebrows interested in my sudden change of mood.

“It was you,” I said.

“It was me?” He squinted and placed two hands behind his head.

“My leg,” I replied. I was beginning to find talking more tiring by the minute.

“Yes, it was me that stitched your wound. Who stitched it before by the way? Was it a healer?”

“No,” I spoke over him, raising my voice. “That is not what I meant, Your Highness.”

I had only a faint suspicion before with the lunar, and the familiarity of that figure, but as soon as the Prince had squeezed my shin to keep me awake…it had been confirmed.

“In the alleyway…it was you,” I finished, leaning my head back against the headboard as I did.

The Prince’s face changed in an instant. I had never seen him look so…dejected.

He laughed lightly and closed his eyes, leaning his own head back against the chair. “I hoped that your spell of insanity and unconsciousness might eradicate that particular detail from your memory.”

I said nothing.

The Prince licked his lips slowly, then let out a deep sigh. His eyes were still closed. “Let’s not speak on it.”

“But you—" I started.

“Captain—" he sighed.

“I do not understand, Your Highness. You…you could have stopped him easily yourself.”

The Prince opened his eyes and shrugged, smiling, but there was no smile in his eyes. “Maybe I didn’t want him to.”

I looked at him incredulously. “I was there, Your Highness. I know what I saw.”

The Prince licked his lips again. “Captain… I won’t ask what you saw when that sorcerer touched you, and in return, you will ask me no more about this.” He clasped his hands together in front of him and looked down at the floor.

I thought about it.

“I saw something from my past…but it was…different.”

I had seen that day. The day my family and my village were butchered. I had tasted it, smelt it, felt it. But instead of being a child, I was an adult, as I was now, and as well as the bodies of my family, there had been other bodies as well, the faces of which I could not see.

The Prince laughed. “Captain, that's not fair.”

“You do not have to tell me anything in return. But I saw some of what you wished to remain secret, Your Highness, and so…”

“So, in return you are offering me this piece of information?”

“Yes…if it will help you to feel less…exposed.”

The Prince smiled genuinely this time and shook his head in surprise. Then he smiled with his lips closed. “Captain, for your own safety, you must pretend you did not see what was written on that piece of paper. I read it myself while you were sleeping. I can understand why you would wish to act upon it…but, whether you believe me or not, I had nothing to do with the events and actions that are written upon it and—"

“I do,” I interrupted him.

The Prince looked up at me, in the middle of drawing breath.

“I do believe you, Your Highness,” I told him.

The Prince’s brows relaxed. “And I am grateful for that, but as I was saying, I do not know who is responsible. It is likely that if the person or people who are, discover you read this, you will die.”

“And if I do nothing?” I shook my head, examining the rings on my hand. “I cannot stand by and watch these events unfold, knowing this information, even if it means risking my own life.”

Kalnasa was a target, for something grander than I could probably understand. There were people there, good people, honest people, people I cared for, people I had grown up with. I had already lost so many of them in my youth, on that day. I could not do so again.

The Prince stood, looming over me now, coming closer to the bed. “You don’t understand, Captain. You don’t know these people like I do.”

I thought of the man who had pressed him against that alleyway wall. What kind of people did this Prince know, was he forced to know?

“It doesn’t matter, Your Highness, I must—”

“It doesn’t matter?” He leant forwards, placing his palms on the sheets. “Your life, Captain, it doesn’t matter?”

I gulped, suddenly, inexplicably, unsettled.

“In relation to this, if what is written on that piece of paper holds any truth, then no, my life cannot compare in terms of importance.”

The Prince tutted and lifted his hands off the bed. “You’re too stubborn, Captain. This will be the death of you.”

“With respect, Your Highness, if Kalnasa falls, it will also be the death of me.”

The Prince tilted his head to the window, sighing. “It’s easy to watch those who are undeserving take a path that is damned. It’s easy to turn away when it’s a stranger, but when it’s someone who is deserving, who is not a stranger, it is not…” He trailed off.

I frowned, peering at him curiously. How many people had the Prince watched walk to their own damnation, simply for the fact he had felt them deserving of it? How many had he stopped? Had he ever stood on that path, sheltering another from its cold clutches? What would it take for him to see someone as deserving of that intervention?

Was it not better to save a person, afford them another chance, than to forfeit their life? How many lives were wasted this way? Simply for the fact they had strayed, with no one to guide them back?

But… how many lives were lost, for the saving of those who had never deserved that chance? For the hope of redemption, crushed by the unrelenting nature of another's soul? A soul that would go forth to bring others pain?

It was up to ourselves, to find our way back when we were lost. Salvation in the form of intervention was never guaranteed. And to return, we must be willing to, to claw through the winds to reach the peak, shelter or no.

Could the Prince see then, what I could not? Could he sense whether that desire truly lay in another's heart? Had his time watching from the shadows of those roads, observing passersby, taught him how to notice?

Could anyone truly tell? Even of themselves?

Perhaps it was something one could only know after turning around, to find they were either climbing that mountain, or had slipped down the more alluring paths of darkness.

If I looked over my own shoulder, what would I find?

Did I even wish to look?

“You still look pale,” the Prince declared. “You should rest some more. I’ll find you something to eat. You should drink some water as well.”

Fussing over me like an adoring wife now strangely felt like an accurate statement.

“Your Highness, I don’t wish to trouble you any further, I—"

“Stop talking, Captain.” He had his back turned to me, pouring water into a mug. “I can hear it’s exhausting you. Your breathing has changed.”

It was, and it had, but still, talking was the only thing keeping me from falling asleep, and falling asleep in the Prince’s bed again, was not a part of my plans.

“Someone…ensured that I received the paper.”

The Prince turned back around with the water. “What do you mean?”

“They made sure that only I would know, only I would see. I don’t know who they were, they were cloaked"— I squinted thinking — “in the same way that woman was.”

The Prince reached the chair and passed me the water. I took it from him. My smallest finger grazed his first as I did, where his grip encircled the bottom of the cup. I withdrew my hand quickly, wishing to avoid touching him further. My palms were clammy, I could feel.

The Prince noticed the rapidity of my action. It almost appeared as if he were about to smile but decided against it. His aurous eyes were distant and thoughtful as he leant back again, trained on my face with rapt regard. He sat back in the chair.

I turned away from him, sipping some of the drink, feeling unsettled once again.

The Prince was silent for a moment, before asking. “If it were sorcerers, then why didn’t that one know?”

“She could be acting alone?”

“She definitely isn’t. She had an enolith.”

“An enolith, Your Highness?”

“So, you didn’t know? It’s—"

“No, Your Highness, I do. It’s only that they’re quite rare.”

“Ah.” He flicked his eyebrows up and down.

“You didn’t know what an enolith was, Your Highness?”

The Prince turned to me with a look that said, “ Oh?”

“ It’s stranger that you did, isn’t it?” he asked, neither confirming nor denying his knowledge.

“I couldn’t say, Your Highness,” I replied.

“I’m not sure there’s anything you couldn’t do, Captain.” He pointed to the entrance to his room. “How did you even manage to break that down?”

I looked up at the intact door. I’d assumed I’d imagined taking it off its hinges in my fever induced delirium.

“How did you repair it?”

The Prince winked at me, “I couldn’t say.” He grinned for a moment, watching my reaction, which was non-existent. His face resumed a more serious air as he asked, “So, do you think whoever passed that message onto you knew you?”

“Why do you ask… Your… Highness?” My drowsiness was beginning to increase.

“Because of your…nature.” He waved at me. “The kind of person who won’t give up on seeking justice."

“It’s possible,” I admitted.

“I think it’s highly likely. Someone you knew, who intercepted this information, and believed you would have the means, and will, to act upon it. Somehow who knew you well, it seemed.”

I shook my head in confusion. “I cannot think of anyone like that…Your Highness, and I didn’t recognise her.”

“It was a woman?” He shifted, turning in his seat slightly.

I nodded, to avoid speaking further.

“So, someone, or a group of people in Audra want Kalnasa to fall. I wonder if the riots were initiated by the same people.” The Prince looked at the ceiling.

“The food shortage is real. The Hunt hasn’t been able to find food sources for years.” I thought about those mornings, those people who had fallen in the efforts to feed the hungry. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about them, since I’d heard of the riots.

“Is it?” the Prince asked. “What if…someone was taking that game first, before your Hunt could?” His golden eyes brimmed with thought.

“That…wouldn’t be possible, the terrain is…brutal and difficult.”

The Prince sighed. “Captain, it would not be hard… for people like me... to adapt to it.” He paused between each part of his sentence, as if he regretted uttering the words. “Or sorcerers,” he added.

“People like you, Your Highness?” I asked, but I knew what he meant. Assassins, spies, soldiers who worked in the shadows.

“Audra…Audra hones them, they are… instruments of death.”

“Is that how you would describe yourself?” I peered at him.

The Prince laughed. “I’m the conductor, Captain, of the whole orchestra.”

His nonchalance about the statement, made it far less convincing to me somehow.

“But you saved my life. You can pretend you did not…but” — I swallowed through my dry mouth — “you could easily have let me die. You haven’t saved me for my utility, since you just tried to dissuade me from assisting you, or pursuing this further, Your…Highness.” Breathing was becoming more difficult.

“Don’t make the mistake of believing me a good person, Captain,” the Prince grumbled.

“Not a good person, Your Highness, just… not an evil one,” I sighed out the last words as a weak breath.

The Prince let out a soft huff, studying me carefully.

I had wondered, since the day I had first met the Prince on that riverbank, if he was as cruel, as cold hearted as people claimed. I had certainly received plenty of evidence that he was not a giving, generous, or selfless person. But I had not felt that he was cruel, or craven, or evil, that he enjoyed hurting others, or that he took pleasure in it.

I had sensed that he was dangerous, yes, but not malicious.

“You must be the only soul in Athlion, the Nine Divine Realms, and the Nevultus pits that thinks so.” The Prince chuckled and looked at me again.

“Then I am the only person, Your Highness.”

The Prince squinted then leant forwards again. “You’re ill, I’ve heard that a fever and blood loss can make someone’s cognitive reasoning poorer.”

“My cognitive reasoning is intact.”

“Evidently not,” he replied.

“You restitched my wound—"

“I was the reason you acquired it, as well as the reason you have a fever, and are unwell in the first place,” he said flatly.

“Would an evil person, a conductor of death, particularly care?” I asked, my eyes were growing heavy now.

“Captain?” The Prince noticed my eyes closing.

“Why…why did you want something green?” I asked quietly. I could barely hear my own voice. It was such an insignificant question. I would never have thought to ask it at another time, but now, half conscious, the question burst into my mind, and apparently, straight out of my mouth.

“Do you want it back?” the Prince’s voice was teasing.

“It’s not mine, Your…Highness.” My eyes were fully closed now.

“The King told Loria it was his favourite colour,” the Prince said with a mocking pride.

I laughed, my chest rising and falling in one quick motion.

I opened my eyes, startled. I hadn’t laughed for…years.

The Prince seemed equally surprised. “I didn’t know that you could smile, Captain.”

“It's…I just suspected something more…interesting.”

“It is interesting, isn’t it? Do you remember when he asked her to stay behind at the ceremony? It was, in part, to look at that necklace. It might have seemed insignificant, but such things can capture the attention of others. Necklaces, clothes, bracelets,” he paused. “Rings.” I could hear the smile in his voice on the final word. “Don’t you agree?” he asked.

“They hardly seem…the most interesting things about a person.” I turned my head to face him, opening my eyes again with great effort.

“But they can enhance certain features. A neckline, a waist, legs, wrists… hands.”

“I suppose I’ll trust you, Your Highness.”

“Why do you wear rings if not for that purpose, Captain?”

Is that what he assumed I wore them for?

“They…” I looked down at them. “They mean something. Each one. Some of them belonged to my family, others were gifts, Your Highness.”

“Your family are—"

“Gone.” I was still looking down at my hands.

“I see.” He sounded thoughtful.

“Was it true…that story…about…the…time you…saw…”

I was growing increasingly fatigued, and apparently, increasingly unable to withhold my curiosity. The Prince was probably right, my cognitive reasoning must have been worsening.

“Yes, that was true, and my wish was fulfilled.”

“Your wish? Your… Highness?”

“I got to see you fight, Captain, see how you move, how you wield your weapon, even if it was in that…location.”

“I—" I started trying to speak.

“It was a sight to behold. I doubt I’ll forget it.”

“Your Highness…perhaps I… should return… to—"

“No, Captain. Sleep. Here.”

My eyelids fluttered, desperately trying to remain open.

“I’ll watch over you,” the Prince said to me.

“And who…who… will watch… over you Your… Highness?”

The Prince ignored my question “If you insist on not forgetting what you saw, on taking action…what will you do, Captain?”

I could barely speak now. I was beginning to feel lightheaded and sweaty once again. I tried to formulate a sentence but only managed to blurt out one word.

“You.”

A fragment of the statement I had intended to say.

“You will do…me?” the Prince said, sounding equally concerned and amused at my weak answer.

“Help…you.”

“You want to help me?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmm.” I nodded, closing my eyes again.

A shuffle of feet travelled through the air and then the Prince’s hand was on my forehead. Again.

“It’s getting worse,” he muttered to himself.

His hand was so cool, and my forehead was so warm.

Without thinking, half delirious from the fever again, I raised my hand, and grabbed his wrist, holding his cold hand against my warm, burning skin.

I sighed as his ice-cold fingers touched my face. I could hear the faint sound of a voice in my head telling me I was being audacious and inappropriate. I shot my eyes open, realising my mistake.

I dropped my hand. “Apologies… I…”

But the Prince stayed where he was and left his hand on my forehead. He looked at me strangely, as if he were frightened of me.

“Does it… help?” he asked quietly.

“I…” I was too weak to formulate a reply.

In response, he pressed his hand tighter into my forehead, and placed another one, equally as cold, at the side of my neck. I, inadvertently, let out a relieved sigh. I could hear the blankets move and feel a weight next to me. The Prince had sat down.

“At least there are no rings on my hands.” The voice was much closer to me now, rumbling in my left ear.

I was drifting into sleep.

“Rest, Captain. Nobody will touch you.”

I leant, whether from the sickness, the fatigue, or the fever, into his cold hands, and did as he asked.

And I had a feeling, now that we had survived this night, that we had resolved to uncover the meaning behind those hidden words, that it would not be the last time I did.

As I sank deeper towards sleep, I felt the Prince use one of his hands to remove strands of hair from my face.

And as I slipped into unconsciousness, I heard him whisper, to me, or to himself, I could not tell.

“It does have hues of blue .”