The Go-Between (The Nilaruna Cycles Book 1) (17 page)

“I’m sorry,” I say, swiping my eyes and sniffing delicately. “I’m sorry
you had to see that.”

“If I am going to be your
husband,” Kai says, “then I will take any burden you share with me. That is the
way it should be.”

“I’m grateful,” I say.

“None of that. Let me bring you
some tea. Maja left some for us.”

He brings me tea and biscuits. I
feel like royalty already.

“Are you up for traveling today,
or do you need a day of rest?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Actually, my
leg feels quite well. Do we need to wait for Faaris and Manoj? Have you heard
anything?”

Kai shakes his head. “They are
supposed to meet us back at the inn. Or would you prefer to stay with your
parents until we depart for the palace?”

“I’d rather stay at the inn,” I
say, “or even depart today. There’s nothing left for me in Dabani.”

Kai rubs his chin. “I need to
speak with your father. I should ask for your hand. It’s only right.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,”
I say. “My father will be happy because you are the prince. And my mother
said…it doesn’t matter. I’m through with them.”

Kai sips his tea. “What did your
mother say?”

I avert my eyes and concentrate
on not crying. “That we’ve been blessed by the gods. That my death for your
life is a blessing.”

I can hear Kai breathing. He
takes another loud slurp of tea. I finally look at him.

“Damn them,” he says. He closes
his eyes briefly and then opens them. “I do not wish to disparage your parents.
We owe them the debt of your existence. But I will not stand for anyone
treating my bride in such a fashion. It’s decided, then. We’ll go directly to
the inn. I still have to meet with the high priest before we leave. But I
promise to make it as quick as possible.”

“I’m sorry, Kai,” I say. “Sorry
that I’m in love with someone else, sorry I’m an untouchable, sorry you cannot hold
your head up and walk proudly with me down the road. I am handing you a burden,
and that burden is me.”

Kai finishes his tea and pulls up
a cushion beside me. “I don’t know what I can say to that, Nili. You are the
one who is doing me a favor, but even saying that makes your sacrifices sound
trivial, and they are anything but. You are giving up your love and maybe your
life for me and the kingdom. Whatever that brings, whatever hardships I have to
endure…I’ll face it all. It is my duty as prince.”

I am nothing but a duty.

I knew that, and yet to hear it
so bluntly…it stings. It stings a great deal. Still, I have been kicked and
spit on and ignored and dismissed, all because of an accident that wasn’t my
fault. And I asked for truth from Kai. Better the sting of truth than false
promises and pretty words that mean nothing.

“But Nili, that’s not all,” he
says, breaking into my thoughts. “I like you, the person that you are. I won’t
pretend that your appearance is not shocking, because it is. Our society goes
to great lengths to hide those who are not physically perfect, and that makes
your scars all the more shocking. I admit, I’ve never seen someone like you. If
I…if I offended you when first we met, if my reaction to your appearance was
offensive, I apologize. I was unprepared for our meeting, in so many ways…”

Kai chuckles. “Do you remember
one of the first things you said? When you asked if we were going to assault
you?”

I nod.

“I thought Manoj was going to
piss his trousers. Women outside our circle do not speak to us, and if they
manage more than a simpering giggle, they certainly do not speak like that.
You’ve been challenging me from the first.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, cringing.

“Do not apologize!” he yells.
“Heavens, Nili, I’m trying to give you a compliment. You’ve been nothing but
yourself this entire time, and I like it. I value it. I know exactly who you
are, and I like you. I want to be with you. You’re going to be good for me.”

I roll my eyes, and he laughs.

“Okay, that didn’t come out
right. I don’t mean that your purpose here is to be good for me — that’s
just a bonus. I’m hoping I will be good for you, too.”

I rub my scarred eye, which has
begun to twitch. “Kai, in the interest of honesty, I’ll say this: I’d like for
you to be good for me, and to me. I’d like whatever time I have left to
be…pleasant. Hell, if we just had a lot of sweaty sex I’d probably die a happy
woman.”

Kai’s eyes grow wide, and I
laugh.

“Got you.”

He smiles. “You did.”

“But I’m half-serious. Maja has
left me, and he did it with a specific purpose — so that I can have a
happy life. I am going to try to do that, no matter what intrigue plagues us,
no matter what the assassins have planned, even with a veil permanently over my
head. Maja deserves for me to do that.

“But as I said, the obstacles to
my happiness are great. I guess that’s what I was getting at. It won’t be easy
for me.”

Kai stretches out his legs and
leans back on his hands. “When I was ten, my mother fell off her horse. She hit
her head on a rock, and basically became a living vegetable.”

I cannot hide my surprise. “The
queen has been incapacitated for fifteen cycles?”

Kai nods. “No one knows but Manoj
and Faaris and those who take care of her. She hasn’t left her chambers since.
She cannot speak, cannot feed herself, cannot get out of bed.”

“Oh, Kai,” I say, but he remains
stoic.

“When I set off for this journey,
I insisted on seeing her. My father had never let me see her. I hadn’t been in
my mother’s presence since the accident. For me, she’s been dead.”

I reach out and place my hand
above his knee. I squeeze gently, and he gives me a small smile.

“So for cycles and cycles, I
rarely gave her a thought. I loved her, and I mourned her, and I moved on. But
since seeing her, how her muscles had atrophied, and her body was covered in
bedsores, and how pale she was from lack of sunlight and joy…I’ve been sick to
my stomach. I’ve been living my life, playing around, laughing and smiling…and
she’s been a prisoner in the cage of her body. She was literally down the hall
from me all the while. And I can use the excuse that my father refused to let
me see her, but when I pushed the issue, when I put my foot down, my father
relented. I could have been there for her. I should have been there for her.”

“You were just a child, Kai,” I
say. “Your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to mourn her for fifteen cycles. She
would have wanted you to have a happy life. Nothing brings a mother more joy
than the laughter of her children.”

Kai smiles, just a bit. “How many
children do you want, Nili?”

I smile back. “I’ve never thought
about it, at least not since my accident.”

“Well?”

“I…Kai, our marriage is not going
to last long enough for children.”

“Then let’s pretend,” he says.
“Just for a moment. I’d like ten.”

“Ten?” I gasp. “You want an acting
troop!”

He chuckles. “Why not? A few
girls to spoil, and boys to wrestle with and train at swordplay. I didn’t have
that. I had Faaris and Manoj and other nobles’ children to play with, but I
didn’t have that sibling bond. I’d like for my own children to have that.”

“I’d like four,” I say out of
nowhere. “Two boys and two girls. I always wanted a sister, and Peter, my
brother, he said he always wanted a brother.”

“Do you miss him?” Kai asks.

I shrug. “Because of the
circumstances, yes. I would give anything to change my actions that day and to
have him back. But if I really think on it, we weren’t close. He teased me a
lot, and he gave my friends a hard time, particularly Saphala. He hated the
untouchables. He was following in my father’s footsteps, learning to be a
healer, and he refused to work on anyone who was an untouchable. He and my
father had quite a row about it the day before our accident. I always wondered
where his prejudice came from.”

“But we’ve already determined
that he was in love with an untouchable,” Kai reminds me. “So either he was
acting, or someone made him change his mind.”

I get a sudden whiff of the torch
smoke, and the scent reminds me of Peter. I shudder.

Kai sits up suddenly, concern
etched on his face. “Does it trouble you to speak about him?”

“A bit,” I confess. “I’ve never
spoken about him with anyone, not even my parents. They can’t stand to hear his
name. So I just learned not to bring him up.”

“It’s the same with my mother,”
Kai says. “I mean, her condition was explained to me, and every once in a
while, my father would give me a brief and overly positive report, but it was
taboo to bring her up myself. I got either anger or tears, so I learned to
stop.”

“Exactly,” I say.

I meet Kai’s eyes, and he stares
at me. I stare back.

“We do have things in common,” I
finally say.

“We do.”

We spend the next hour packing up
and cleaning the cave. I don’t want any reminders of me here when Maja returns.
If he returns.

Kai grabs the torch off the wall
and looks at me. “Ready?”

I take one final look around. I
thought I’d be spending the rest of my life here.

“Ready.”

I sent one of my servants dressed in my finery and with a cadre of
swordsman to visit the maiden barracks. Kai wanted me to go myself, to avert
the attempt on my life. But since there’s no attempt imminent, I thought I’d
save my strength.

The headaches are getting worse.

I can either spend my day in
pain, tears blurring my vision, or I can take the drugged tea my healer brews
and spend the day in a fog. Most days now, I drink the bitter tea.

The head seamstress makes an
appearance this morning, and she looks good enough to drink.

“King Jagir,” she says, bowing
low on the blood-red carpet of the throne room.

I shakily descend the dais and grasp
her hands. “Mita, my saucy little friend,” I say with a wink. “To what do I owe
the honor?”

She smiles coyly. “I have the
fabric choices for the royal wedding,” she says. “Would Prince Kai like to make
the selection himself?”

I wave a hand in the air. “He’s
far too busy,” I say without further explanation. “I’ll choose myself.”

Mita turns and waves her servants
forward. Their arms are stuffed with cloth, and most of them have trouble
walking. I chuckle to myself, and Mita smiles at me.

“Beautiful, yes?”

“So much red,” I say, thinking of
Silvia’s bedsores. I suddenly have to fight back tears. “I want a brighter
color.”

“But red is traditional,” Mita
says, “and auspicious, as well. Look at this silk. It came from the Isle of
Chin—”

I cut her off with a growl. “No
red. This marriage will be different. Brighter. I want green. Let me look at
that.”

I point to a meek girl in her
early teens. Her arms are shaking from the weight of the cloth.

“Those are intended for the
wedding party, my king. For the bride’s maidens.”

“I don’t care what you intended,”
I say, pulling on the fabric I want. It’s a brilliant emerald green, edged in
gold.

The servant girl gives a small
squeak. The entire pile of fabrics in her arms tumbles at my feet. But I ignore
it and hold up the green silk.

“This for the bride. It’s
perfect.”

Mita is quietly scolding the
girl, gesturing to her to pick up the fabrics before they get dirty.

“My king,” she says, “may I have
a word in private?”

I shrug and go back up the
stairs. I disappear into the back chambers, and I turn around carefully. It
takes me a bit. That infernal tea is messing with my head.

Mita hurries into the room and
closes the door. “Jagir, are you well?”

I rub my forehead. “Is it that
obvious?”

“Only to those who know you
well,” she says diplomatically, guiding me to a chair. She kneels at my feet.
“Shall I pick the fabric?”

“I want the green,” I say
stubbornly. For some reason, this has become very important to me.

She grabs my hand and rubs her
thumb along my knuckles. “Then you shall have it. I hope the poor girl
approves.”

“Use the green for Kai, too,” I
say. “I don’t want to see them in red, Mita. It’s my last wish.”

“Your last?” she says, raising an
eyebrow.

I hedge. “Well, you know…Kai’s
growing up. It may be the last decision I can make for him.”

Mita moves her hand to my thigh.
“Is there anything I can do to make this better? Is Silvia…around?”

I gulp, and the bulge in my
trousers stirs. I’m not sure it will do much more than that, though, with the
drugs in my system.

“Silvia’s not around. No.”

“Good.” Mita smiles at me and
stands. She pulls on my arm and gets me to my feet. “We haven’t done this in
ages,” she says. “Not since…how old was Kai? Ten? I never thought I’d see your
magnificent body again.”

I laugh, and then I sober. My
body is hardly the magnificent thing it was when Mita and I last…when she was
last my mistress and Kai walked in on us.

We walk through the halls to my
private chambers. Mita drops my hand when a servant rounds the corner.

“Did Silvia like the orange sari
I made?” she asks.

I grunt. That sari is hanging
beside the other thousand garments I’ve had commissioned for Silvia over the
last fifteen cycles. “I’m sure she did. Let’s not talk about Silvia.”

“Of course,” she says.

We enter my bedchamber, and I
dismiss my servants.

My head throbs, this time with
guilt.

“Mita, I may be…I’m a little out
of practice.”

She raises an eyebrow at me.

“And I’ve taken some herbs…for my
gout. They’ve made my head a little fuzzy.”

She smiles. “I understand
perfectly.”

She releases the purple sari from
her body with one good twist of her practiced fingers. It slides to the floor,
and Mita is nude.

I lick my lips.

She kneels at my feet and pulls
my trousers down.

She smiles up at me and licks her
lips.