Page 77 of Veil of Vasara (Fate of the Five #1)

CHAPTER 77- LORIA

E liel’s room was at least three times the size of any I had ever seen.

Not his, it was our room now.

He came around to stand in front of me, as I observed the furniture, the curtains, the bedsheets red as blood.

If one night, I slit his throat, it would only blend in with the material.

“Loria." The King’s voice shook me from my dark thoughts.

I watched him curiously. I realised it was the first time he had said my name, without any titles or addresses. My name. Alone.

“Your…" I stopped myself. “Eliel,” I said instead.

He smiled, his face becoming even more beautiful as he did.

“It pleases me to hear you say that.”

“It pleases me to hear you say my name as well.”

The unspoken assumption of the night hung in the air.

Eliel turned around, and removed some of his outer clothing, placing it neatly folded on a table. He was left in a golden undershirt, against which his pale skin looked utterly white. It was like regarding the sun embracing the moon.

As his long fingers lifted from the final garment he placed down, he turned to me, his back to the window.

“For this night at least, I have no expectations of you.”

But I had expectations, of myself, and perhaps, a curiosity about this man I loathed. It hurt me that I had wondered about him as a person far too often. It frightened me. I knew it was foolish. I knew it was wrong.

“Loria?” His voice lilted in a questioning tone as I fell silent.

“Which night?” I asked.

Eliel tilted his head. “This—"

“Which night will you?”

Eliel, understanding my meaning, raised his chin and sighed, looking over to the side of the vast space.

“Only when you wish for it.”

I wished for it. I wished for this to be over, as Nathon had said it would be.

Father would not be satisfied until this had been done. Sacrifice or no, he would expect me to be sure. He would expect me to do this. He would wish for it.

There was a fragment of my soul, quiet and persistent I knew, that wished for it myself, because there was perhaps, a small part of me that wanted to.

But a larger part that did not wish for it, because as soon as it was done, Eliel's death would follow.

I wasn’t sure, as I had told Eliel, what I wanted, what I desired. I had never had the chance to think about it.

If in another time, in another life, if I had been sent here, under different circumstances would I wish for it? Would I wish for him?

“And if…I do not," I uttered.

Eliel laughed. It was the first time I had heard him genuinely do so. His laugh was airy and light, as if it were the embodiment of a fresh breeze, of cool raindrops that slid along the leaves of the tree, falling onto your face, and trickling down your skin.

He shrugged. “No-one would know.”

“You’re not…displeased?”

Eliel shook his head and took several steps towards me. He cautiously reached out for my arm, but his hand hovered in the air, unsure. I didn’t move. He took that as a sign to place his hand on my shoulder, the thumb and forefinger of it slightly cupping my neck.

His thumb moved back and forth, tracing slow and careful lines along my collar bone. “How could I be displeased?”

My mouth felt dry, I swallowed to no avail.

“But I—"

“The sacrifice served several purposes. One would be that no-one would know…if you did not wish it.”

“But don’t you want—"

“Very much so.” His voice had dropped. “But not when someone is unwilling. Never then.”

The brush of his finger sent ripples of tingling currents down my arms, into my neck.

“And if that means never…then it shall be never,” he finished.

“I do not…wish for it…to be never,” I whispered.

I placed my hand over his, gently holding it. His thumb stopped moving.

His hand travelled up my neck and rested on my jaw, his thumb on my chin.

He came closer, towering over me, looking down at me tenderly.

Our chests were pressed together. I could feel my heart slamming against my ribcage, his ribcage as well. He must have felt it too.

His right hand reached out, brushing strands of hair away from my face, and as he did, with his left, he brought my face to his.

I let him place his right arm around my back and draw me even closer still.

He enfolded me into himself, into his embrace and I sunk into it, like a waterfall that had reached its brink. Like one that had been waiting for the edge with nervous anticipation, only to plunge off it so ferociously, to fall so fast nothing could stop it.

And then there was a touch against my lips. Barely perceptible, like the whisper of air against water of a lake. His mouth had met mine with painfully soft tenderness.

And yet, with that touch as light as a breeze, was a flame, was a fire that seared with an insistent, yet tender urgency.

There was no time. There was nothing but this. Everything around had melted under that blaze, reduced to ash at my feet. And I was basking in it, the flames crashing in my lungs, screaming at the seams, ready to burst, to come undone. I let the heat through my veins, I let it be my blood. His hands became my home. His faintest touch became my harbour, vanquishing all storms. A flickering light in a dark tempest of a world.

It was the first time I had felt adequate.

The first time I was something . The first time I had longed to be anything at all.

It would be tonight. It would have to be.

And then I could say that I had done my part.

But I could not say that I had hated it.

That I hated him.

I made to move into him, but just as I did, he pulled away, the echoes of his weightless touch still lingering on my lips. His hands were still around my face, his gaze still full of softness as he spoke.

“But it will be.”

I frowned, confused, slowly recalling the words I had uttered before that fire had lit. I was still locked in a trance, dazed by the brightness of those flames.

He moved forwards. His lips hovered at my ear, his hushed voice sounding inside it. “It will be never.” His left hand trailed down my arm, stroking the skin as he spoke.

Until he reached my fingers and grasped at the ring placed around one. The ring he had wedded me with.

My eyes travelled towards my hand. The ring was alight, engraved with a mark brandished into the band. I did not recognise, only for one thing.

That it was sorcery.

Like the shackles used to bind Vessels, the ones used to subdue creatures of magic.

Eliel had seen to it, that this ring would be imbued with a curse.

I couldn’t move.

He backed away from me but remained close. He watched the ring do its work as his gaze trailed up and down my body.

“I did not lie, when I said I wished for it.”

My lips quivered. My eyes were wide.

“That I wished for you…” he continued, his tone tinged with regret.

“I…” I tried to speak but only a small crackle emerged from my lips.

“I wish…” Eliel shook his head and looked down at his feet. “I wish I had been wrong.”

He met my eyes again, my eyes full of bewilderment.

“There were several purposes to my sacrifice. But the main purpose was to ensure that nobody could achieve what they wanted. What you wanted.”

“I…didn’t…” I managed to croak out the two words.

Eliel sighed, disappointed.

“An heir that bore my blood, and the blood of another, that child could be a weapon. I would rather have no children, than one that was to be used in that regard.” His voice grew colder, more certain.

“I wasn’t sure at first, if my assumptions were correct, but I received the confirmation that I needed not too long ago.”

I trembled.

“Better to let you believe you had fulfilled your plan, to bind and keep you here, than let you go.”

Tears pooled in my eyes. I wanted to explain I had not wished for this, that I had only agreed to it in fear of my own life, that I too wished things could be different. That the conversations we had shared, had not meant nothing, they had not left me untouched.

But I could feel, could sense, that it would be pointless.

I managed to shake my head slightly.

“I do not know what the nature of your plan is,” Eliel resumed, “But there are several who plot against me, who wish to take my life, and replace me with another.”

Eliel’s eyelids flickered to the ground. “I am sorry Loria…but I cannot let that happen. I cannot let you, or anyone else succeed.”

A tear escaped my right eye, instantly dropping to the floor.

Eliel watched me shed it and winced.

“I have no intention of harming you.”

I thought about the entirety of events that had transpired over the past few weeks. How many of them had been influenced by Eliel’s manoeuvres? By his assumptions. By his dedication to survive?

Eliel noticed my expression of thought.

“You may or may not have come to suspect it…but there is no reason to withhold it from you now.” His eyes flickered to my ring. “The poisoning of Kalnasa’s candidate was my doing.”

If I had not already been utterly still, I would have been rendered immobile at his confession.

My eyebrows raised, my jaw tightened, my fingers shook even more violently.

“It had to be done.”

It had to be done? Why?

My mind was a torrent of a thousand thoughts.

Nathon and the Captain, had their collusion been related to this?

Had the Captain, had Kalnasa designed similar attempts on Eliel’s life?

But Dyna, she had wanted to marry him, I was sure, she had known nothing.

Nathon would not have revealed our plans to anyone, there was no possibility, no circumstance where he would have done so.

Nathon.

What…what would happen to him now?

“Her death had never been my intention,” Eliel was gazing at the floor, brows furrowed. His voice was distant, as if he were not here but far away, retreated somewhere inside himself. “I needed to see how Kalnasa would react, and…”

He cut himself off. He raised his head suddenly, meeting my eyes directly. “So many times I have been let down, by the base selfishness of others. It is…the only thing I have found reliable, in all the years I have lived.”

Silence brewed between us, a thick and vicious tension, tangible. Ossifying in my bones.

“I truly hoped you would be…an exception.”

Inside, desperation sweltered within me. I wanted to respond but I could not speak.

He came towards me and crouched. With one arm under my legs, and another behind my shoulders, he carried me in his arms, and placed me on the bed, his bed, horizontally.

As he placed me down, my hair slapped against my face. He leant forwards and gently brushed it to the side. Tears still fell from my eyes. He wiped them away from my cheeks softly. His eyes searched my face.

“Foolish,” he whispered.

The word mingled in the air between us. Was it I he called foolish?

Or himself?

I tried to speak, to tell him he was no fool. But it was only a small breathy noise that emerged from my lips.

Eliel watched my efforts. His face a picture of reluctant sorrow. He bit the inside of his own cheek, then sighed deeply, lowering his own head, glancing at the bedding.

He hovered there for a few moments, before standing up, turning away, and leaving me immobilised in the room.