Chapter Fourteen: Through Hate's Eyes

 I waited for three things all night.

        One was for me to gather courage to somehow tell Kier that I was from Aynah. Because he seemed to love me, even though I couldn’t be sure considering his story and also because it still has never been vocalized. That was the second thing I waited for all night. And thirdly I waited for a kiss. A couple times I felt like it was close as we spoke (it seemed we never ran out of things to say) but then he would always pull back in some way.

        No truth, no love and no kiss beyond the one we shared among our first encounter. But that kiss, though it still was a dear memory in my head, felt like what it had felt like before wouldn’t feel like anything if we kissed again. Then, I loved him. Now, I can’t breathe without him.

        Why is a kiss so important anyway? Well, with it I could gather the courage to tell him the truth and it, in a way, can substitute for the proclamation of adoration. Words aren’t needed in a kiss because it speaks for itself.

        This time I waited until the sun peaked barely over the mountains. Kier’s skin glowed in the little sunlight there was. 

        I stood up, grabbing my skirts in my hands. “I have to go.”

        Nodding his head he stood up too grabbing both of my hands in his. “Will you come back, thirty days from now?” he whispers.

        “I will,” I promise. “In thirty days I swear to return…”

        Kier nods his head. “Stay with me for the day. Return tomorrow morning.”

        I suddenly got very anxious inside. “No. No I couldn’t, my father would never-”

        “Just one day. He’ll never have to know.”

        In normal circumstances I would easily stay with him- forever, even. But just because Kier did not know who I was doesn’t mean that none of the other people of Kaithron would know who I really was. “I can’t,” I whisper, taking my hands out of his. “I must go.”

        He inhales a deep breath but then nods. “Alright.”

        I stall for just a moment to see if maybe, just maybe he’d kiss me. But when I saw that possibility was not imminent I smiled and turned.

        I was going to see him again in thirty days. Nothing to mope about… 

        *~*~*~*~*~*

        “Paramour.”

        Both my father and Hadrian II turns to look at me, eyes boring into me. I cower a little but I don’t lose my stance, just waiting for them to come to a conclusion and have it done with. 

        “She leaves once every while or so, there’s no use in predicting it because sometimes it’s two weeks and sometimes it once a month and she returns at about the same time,” my father says to him, shaking his head viciously. He wasn’t at all worried about ruining the engagement, so I figured that there were other men lined up for the crown and he had nothing to worry about regardless- the one who could accept all of my many ‘flaws’ would be the rightful king in his mind. 

        “How many times before?” Hadrian II asks, as if I wasn’t standing right there. 

        “Several. Once we found her in town but other times it seems to be a mystery and simply pointless,” my father shakes his head. “Callea, what’s his name?” my father asks, turning to me now.

        “What?” I ask, playing stupid.

        “Don’t do that, you know exactly what I mean. What is the name of the man you are whoring?” he reiterates. My future husband seemed calm in the entire question, not even flinching.

        “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hiss. I most certainly wasn’t ‘whoring’ anything. Kier was above that, far above that.

        “Don’t I? You don’t seem to recall that I was young once too, Callea, I know what you’re sneaking off to for extended periods of time,” my father retorts.

        I roll my eyes. “And that means you must assume that it is a man I am sneaking off to? Perhaps it is not even a human at all, have you considered that I’m just leaving to get away from the confines of this hideous castle that you lock me up in?”

        My father waves that away. “I suppose we’ll find out sooner or later, wont we?” he says to himself mostly. 

        “Excuse me, your highness, but I don’t think it’s healthy to stir the princess up in anger. If you would, allow me to escort her out…” my betrothed states in a calm voice. My father shoots him a quizzical look but then sighs and waves him away with one hand. I hate them.

        “Princess,” he offers me an arm and I garb onto the skirts of my dress but I turn and start walking out the door, with my future husband trudging behind me.

        I walk myself out to the courtyard, sitting myself down on a bench. Hadrian II follows suit by sitting next to me with a nice amount of distance between us. I wasn’t going to marry him, no matter how chivalrous he’d try to be.

        After a few wonderful silent moments, when I had almost forgotten that he was even there, I heard him heave a large sigh. “Ah… I remember my first love. I was so young… so foolishly entranced by her beauty. Not only that but she was wonderfully smart, and passionate about her thoughts. One moment you’re a fool in love and the next instant everything is gone. She died of pneumonia. It wasn’t until years later that I was married and had a son. She died as well. Love is a funny word you see. One day it exists, the next moment it’s all gone.”

        I turn away. It wasn’t going to leave, with Kier. I’m convinced I love him more than any human has ever loved another human before. If that love dies, so will I.

        “Well, I must be off for a while. Please, don’t bother yourself with the things happening. Just go about your life as you will and things will be much easier.”

        How do I not think of the fact that I’m engaged to this old mummy? Nonetheless, he stands up and leaves me alone in the courtyard.

        To think that it was just this morning that I last saw Kier. The drowsiness starts to collapse in on me. It’s not right for a princess to sleep in the middle of the day though. I pull a hand to my head. Who cared. I was hardly of any importance now, anyway. This engagement just destroyed all of the potential for me that would ever exist…

        *~*~*~*~*~*

        The rain was very soft, but also frigidly cold. I ran through the streets, the soaking mud digging into my bare feet and clinging to the bottom of my best Sunday dress. Yet I couldn’t have cared less in that moment. I just kept running. My shoes had been long before abandoned as they stopped me from going where I would.

        The ceremony was not yet ended but I was through with it and that was all that mattered. 

        It wasn’t dark rain which felt so contradicting to how I felt. It was that bright rain from the middle of the day, where the sun was still out, just behind layers of clouds, shedding their tears. It felt to contradict me as well as it was a paradox within itself. 

        The town turned into the farms outside of town and skirting off. I picked one of the fields that were in excessive green and I ran through it until finally I collapsed, the rain washing away the tears that I just wanted to drown in.

        The chants of the crowd still rung in my head, despite how alone I was now. They mocked me, told me I could never become their queen. The more they jeered the more my stomach twisted as Vorion’s voice argued against them in my head.

        “Always stand up for yourself, Callea,” he kept telling me. I tried to keep my composure but it wasn’t until my mother spoke that I knew that everything I believed… everything I ever hoped for was all lost. 

        “You know, they’re right,” and my last loyal companion was gone. I had nobody on my side anymore. I truly was standing on my own, eyes all on me, still jeering and my parents simply allowing it. As if it would get something through my head.

        So I ran like the coward that I am.

        “Why would tears so lovely cry in sadness?” 

        I knew that voice. I knew that voice and I knew the very phrase- I’d heard it exactly like that once before.

        “Just leave,” I pleaded pitifully, angry that he had followed me. I continued to mope, not bothering to regain myself. My dignity didn’t matter at all anyhow.

        “Your highness-”

        I couldn’t stand the sound of his voice though so I stood up, pointing a finger at him and shake my head. “No. I don’t care. You broke my heart once and you lied to me in the most cruel of ways possible. I would just be much happier if you would just leave. Go tell the world what a wreck I am I simply don’t care anymore. I’m nothing.”

        Hadrian advances closer anyway, grabbing firmly onto my chin. “Listen to yourself! I’m one foolish man, one useless man and here you are telling me that I’m the cause of your downfall. I’m the reason your story is ending tragically. I thought you were stronger than that, to let one fool destroy you,” he was yelling at me over the beautiful sound of the rain. I was shocked.

        “How would you know anything about me?” I laugh sarcastically. “I stupidly fell in love with you once and you’re trying to tell me now that I’m stronger than that. Well I hate to inform you, boy, but this is just one more example that the feeling of love isn’t a tale. Someone as heartless as you wouldn’t understand such a thing though.”

        I pull away from him, turning around. Why couldn’t he just leave and let me be alone to cry?

        “And how can you be so blind, then? One moment you let jeers tear you apart without a care but when one person- one fool- your mother says one thing you turn into something else. So we can conclude that against a mob your completely fearless but against one you love you can’t face the contradiction. That is why I don’t believe in love, princess, or at least that any good comes out of it. Love is betrayal, and then it becomes the tragic death of a human being. Screw your petty books you read about happy endings because this is another century completely, princess. And the truth is that love is not a good thing.”

        The knowledge of his words were sinking into me and I bite my lip. I remembered how my love for Vorion betrayed me by killing him, my love for my parents turned them against me and then I thought of Kier, how his love had crushed him as mine had. And Kier, my love now, had never confessed such love which betrayed me too.

        “And what of lies, Hadrian? What of the lies you told? What becomes of them, do they make one?”

        “They burn with the man who spoke them.”

        A part of me hoped that was true, because that means I could be rid of him. But a part of me felt something else, and I couldn’t quite place what exactly it was.

        “But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re letting this silly ‘love’ that you allowed into your life eat at you. You’re letting it make you think twice about what’s correct and what’s good. You’re letting it destroy the only hope that this war has ever had.”

        I swallowed and turned around to face him. His blonde hair clung to his face from the rain as it was starting to let down. I just stared at him. How was any of this coming from his mouth? After all the stupid things he’d done, such as getting himself get kicked out of his town once and proposing to a girl he confessed he’s never love, suddenly brilliance was coming out of him.

        “You agree with me about the war,” I stated, almost choking as I did so.

        Hadrian gives me a quizzical look. “Don’t you know I always have? Why do you think that I refused to fight when every other boy my age were off slaughtering by the time they turned twelve.”

        I couldn’t help what I did next. I flung my arms around his neck, burying my head into his shoulder, crying more. I hated him, but despite that I wanted to worship him at that moment. It was so relieving, so wonderful to know that not every single boy or man believed that the war was correct. Not every one was as bloodthirsty as most of them. It gave me hope for so many things in that moment. Though surprised at first, Hadrian allowed the embrace and returned it, letting me weep onto his shoulder.

        “You can help me,” I muffled into his shirt. “What about your father? Does he agree?”

        “Not quite…” Hadrian admits. “Not exactly… but I promise, without a single lie this time through… if you allow me a second chance to be a friend to you I will loyally help you in any way I can.”