The Never King, page 18
part #1 of Lost Lands Series
“Is that as fast as you can go?!” he mocks.
I giggle, rounding the next flight.
It takes forever to make it to the top. The Arc de Triomphe has two hundred and eighty-four stairs, and I feel every one of them in my thighs by the time it’s over. Bastian catches up to me early on but he slows to walk with me so we don’t die trying to run the whole way. We’re both winded and smiling when we get into the main floor that’s populated with soldiers. They heard us coming but they still look surprised to find us there so late.
Bastian knows a couple of them because Bastian knows everyone in Paris. I’m worried one will be Paul, but I don’t see him. Bastian tells the guys it’s his birthday, they congratulate him, they make some jokes about bringing me up ‘for the view’ but nothing out of line. There’s a guard on every corner watching the roads leading to the heart of the city. They nod when we step out into the cold, windy night. They don’t care about us, though. We’re not a threat to anything.
The moon is small and hidden. It slips behind too many clouds to show us much of anything. The city looks dark and vast in every direction. I feel a little let down and pretty stupid that we didn’t wait until daylight, but when Bastian wraps his arms around me to keep me warm, pulling me to a spot far away from the guards, I feel like maybe it was worth it after all.
“Do you think Jacquard is out there somewhere?” I ask.
It’s a fleeting thought, one I worry I shouldn’t have said out loud. We haven’t talked much about Jacquard since we got here. We can’t ask about him because it’d be a weird thing for Gable to do, and no one has said anything to us about him. We don’t even know who the aristocrats were that Brymer talked about in Braise. We’re getting comfortable here in Paris, but there’s still so much we don’t know. More than once, Bastian has mentioned feeling like a pawn on a chessboard that we can’t see. The powerlessness is maddening for us both.
“I do,” Bastian says, unphased by my random train of thought. He’s used to me blurting out everything that comes to mind. Especially when I’m tired. “I don’t know where, but I know he’s alive.”
“Did you get a letter today?”
“Yeah. From your grandfather. You got one too?”
“From my mother. It’s in the room. Do you want to read it?”
“Give me the highlights.”
I tell him what I told Theresa and Aisling. He listens intently, his hands in his pockets, his stance wide in that way he does when he’s thinking.
“She didn’t say when they want us to come back?” he asks.
“No,” I admit, shivering violently. “She didn’t even mention you. It was weird.”
“They’re trying to keep me a secret. If the letter was intercepted in France, no one would know I’m alive.”
“Didn’t Grandfather call you by name in your letter?”
“No, and he didn’t say anything that would tell someone who I am. They’re being careful, which means they want to use me someday.”
I grimace at the phrasing. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He wraps his arms around me again, tugging me in close where I’m sheltered from the wind. “If it gets me back to Loire, I’ll do anything they want.”
“You’re not in love with Paris?”
Bastian looks down at me, his eyes searching mine. “I’m not not in love with Paris.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I’m not sure either.”
I shiver, tucking in closer to him until my cheek is against his chest and his heartbeat is in my ear. “What else did Grandfather say?”
“A lot of the same stuff your mom did. And that he’ll kill me if I get you pregnant.”
I gag. “He did not!”
“He did,” Bastian chuckles. “In those words. ‘I will kill you if you get Aurelia pregnant’.”
“Oh my God.” I moan, burying my face in his chest. “That is so embarrassing.”
“It’s good advice. I need motivation to keep myself in check.”
“You’ve been very good so far.”
“So far,” he emphasizes.
I smile, leaning back to look up at him. I drink him in like a delicious beer that leaves me woozy and happy. So deliriously happy. “Did you have a good birthday?”
He smiles; brilliant and beautiful. “I had a great birthday.”
“Me too.”
He snickers, shaking his head at me. Slowly, he lowers his lips to mine in a gentle kiss that feels more like a tease. Just a taste that makes me sigh, leaving me warm and happy.
It’s the only kiss he’ll give me tonight. I’m drunk, and while he’s not a gentleman, he’s not a degenerate either. There are laws he lives by that cannot be broken. Some I understand, some I never will, but the truth is he’s much more controlled than I gave him credit for.
I’m happy with him. It’s a simple thing, at least it sounds like it is, but when I consider how often I was happy at court and compare it to now, here with him in Paris, it’s like night and day. There’s nothing I would trade for this moment with him. Not a single luxury that could compare to holding him, being held, and feeling the strength of him in my own body like it belongs to both of us. Like we’re better when we’re together, the way we always should have been.
The way I foolishly hope we always will be.
chapitre quarante-trois
Nothing gold can stay.
My mother says that to me every birthday. I read the poem a few years ago and I think what she means is that I won’t be young forever.
I’m The Golden One.
I’m fleeting.
So is love. So is joy. So is everything under the sun.
My feelings for Bastian are pure gold; precious and flawless. I swim in them like a warm lake under a blue sky that will never fade. I’ve never been here before and I never want to leave. I want to live in his eyes, in his arms. I want to eat his smile, drink his laugh, and if I could just let go of the other memories, the ugly ones from the years in between, I could be so happy.
If I could just.
But I can’t. I can’t let the memories go. Out of all the things the concussion took from me, why couldn’t it be this?
The memory The Strain comes to me in flashes, like a lightning strike. Sometimes I get hit with it so hard I’m winded, nearly gasping, and my vision goes fuzzy at the edges. It comes out of nowhere, for no good reason, but it hurts like the devil. I look at Bastian and I see him then and now, and I wonder how they could be the same person. I can’t figure it out. I can’t forget.
I need to know.
“Are you warm enough?” Bastian asks from the radiator. “Because I’m melting. I gotta turn this down.”
“How could you do it?”
He pauses, closing his eyes for a second. He knows from my tone. He can read me well enough by now.
“You said you would answer me if I asked again, and I have to know. How could you kill him?” I press on.
He opens his eyes to look at his hands. Not at me. “I didn’t kill him. He survived.”
“Was that on purpose?”
“I wasn’t sorry that he lived.”
“Would you have been sorry if he died?”
Bastian sighs. He puts his hands in his pockets, raising his eyes to meet mine. His shirt is off. The light is on. I can see the tattoo on his chest clearly – the Bouchard coat of arms. Directly over his heart. “I don’t know. It didn’t happen that way.”
“How could you do it?” I ask again.
“I can give you a hundred reasons, Ria, but none of them will make you happy.”
“I don’t want to be happy about it. I just want to understand.”
“I wanted to be king.”
“That’s it?” I laugh incredulously. “That was your whole reason behind killing your brother?”
“Yes.”
My breath rushes out painfully. “Bast.”
“If Gable had won the fight, would you ask him how he could live with himself?” he asks coldly. “Would you be sitting there asking him why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You wouldn’t be interrogating him like this because he was the victim, right? I was the aggressor.”
“He didn’t want to fight.”
“But he still showed up,” Bastian insists angrily. “He picked up a sword and swung it at me.”
“He was defending himself. He didn’t want to die.”
“Neither did I! He showed fear and I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t afraid. I had it under control. That was the only difference between us that day, and somehow that makes me the villain. You told me not to do it. You said you’d never forgive me if I killed him, but I’ll bet my life that you never said that to him.”
I shake my head, trying to deny it but I can’t. He’s right.
“I didn’t ask him to spare your life because I didn’t believe he’d take it,” I explain carefully, my voice low and calm. “I came to you to beg for his because—”
“You knew I’d kill him if I got the chance.”
“Yes.”
He shakes his head angrily, running his hand over his hair.
“And I was right,” I insist.
Bastian pauses, his eyes full of frost. He holds my gaze for a second before dropping his hand. “Yeah,” he agrees numbly. “I guess you were.”
“I’m sorry I asked. I thought I wanted to know, but—”
“No, we’re in it now.”
“I’m not. I’m done.”
“We’re done when I say we’re done,” he replies darkly. “You started this. Let’s finish it.”
“What else is there to say?”
“You’re in love with me.”
I blink, stunned. “I don’t—”
“You are. You have been for years. You act like I’m a monster because you want to hate me, but the truth is you hate yourself for loving me because you know who I am. Better than anyone, Ria, you know exactly who I am and what I’m capable of.”
I swallow thickly, my throat bone dry. I have no words, no thoughts, and he just stands there staring at me, waiting so painfully patient that I want to scream. But I don’t, I can’t, because he’s right.
About everything.
“You want reasons?” he demands. “You wanna know why I went at Gable with everything I had?”
I pinch my lips together, shaking my head. “No.”
“I wanted the throne. I wanted the power. I wanted to see my dad proud of me for once. Just once. I wanted him to stop hitting me and hitting Gable. I wanted to spare Gable a lifetime of beatings because we were never going to be enough for him. I wanted to be tough enough to make him see me as a man and if that meant killing my brother, that’s what I had to do.” Bastian stops to take a breath. His hands are shaking. “Do any of those work for you?”
“Do any of them work for you?”
His eyes flash; dark and angry. “You don’t get to ask any more questions. I’m asking now.”
“What questions do you have?”
“Just one,” he promises. “Why did you quit on me?”
“Why did I—”
“You left the second it got ugly. How do you think I felt when they told me I had to kill Gable? Do you think I was happy?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He’s disappointed. His voice is low as a growl when he says, “Don’t. You know.”
“Okay, no. I don’t think it made you happy.”
“I was in Hell. I needed you more than anything and you disappeared.”
“I couldn’t handle what you did.”
“I thought you were tougher than that.”
“No one should have to be that tough, Bast!”
“I had to be!” he snarls, his chest heaving. “Why couldn’t you do it with me?!”
“You never asked me to!”
“Why would I have to?! You weren’t his, Ria! You were mine!” he shouts, his body growing big as the room. It presses me against the bed, the walls, forcing me halfway out the window just to breathe. “You should have stuck by me!”
“How?! How could I after everything?” I fire back, my heart hurting like it’s six years ago and I just lost him. “After the cat and Gable and—”
“The cat? You mean Emmy’s little runt?”
“You bashed its head in! It was psychotic!”
He looks disgusted. “God, Ria. Really?”
“Don’t tell me you’re proud of that. I can’t handle it. I mean it.”
“Do you even remember that cat?”
“I’ll never forget.”
“Do you remember its eyes?”
“They were crossed. It was cute.”
“It was sick,” he argues impatiently. “It wasn’t going to live much longer, especially not after it threw up part of its guts at Emmy’s feet.”
I balk. “What are you talking about?”
“I was with her in the field when it coughed up a piece of itself. A lung or liver, I have no idea what but it was gruesome. Emmy was screaming. The cat was gagging. There was more coming up. It was dying in front of us and it wasn’t easy. I shoved Emmy away, grabbed a rock, and crushed its skull so it would go quickly.”
My eyes burn in the back, smoky and hot. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“You never asked.”
I was too afraid of you. I couldn’t.
“You think I’m psychotic?” he asks so quietly I have to strain to hear him. “What did you expect? Everyone walked away and left me with him. He was all I had and he was out of his mind. You think that’s not going to rub off on me? I was a kid. I was—” He shakes his head, scanning the floor. “Where’s my shirt?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t need it.” He goes for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“Wait! Don’t leave like this!”
I get anxious when Bastian goes off on his own. I worry that someone will figure him out, that he’ll answer to the wrong name, and I’ll find him hanged under the Arc outside. That’s my new nightmare. Since we’ve been here, I’ve had it more times than I can count. I can’t stand the thought of him going out alone at night like this.
He doesn’t listen to me, though. He’s gone.
The door slams shut behind him.
chapitre quarante-quatre
Bastian is missing.
Not from Paris but from our room. From my life.
It’s been a week since we argued, and in that week we’ve barely talked to each other. He’s using the change in our schedules, our jobs, as an excuse to avoid me. He’s moved into the other room. I forgot it even existed until I came back from breakfast that first morning to find the mattress on the floor was gone. So were all of his clothes. It was a shock that knocked the life out of me. I stood numb for a minute, just staring at the emptiness he left behind.
“You look sad.”
I sigh tiredly. I’m not in the mood for Paul. I’m not in the mood for anyone or anything. “What do you want?”
“A book.”
“What book?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
I gesture to the room full of stacks. “Take your pick. Let me know which one before you go.”
“Why are you sad?”
“I’m not. I’m just tired.”
He nods like he believes me, but he doesn’t. “Did you check?”
“Check what?”
“On the sixty.”
“I did,” I admit. “Looks like you were right.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Not even about how we met?”
For once, his smile falters. “I might have been wrong.”
“You lied. Why?”
“I thought it’d be easier to get to know you if you thought you already knew me.”
I shake my head in disgust. “You knew I was having trouble with my memory.”
“I’d heard.”
“You took advantage of that.”
Paul spreads his hands in a gesture of openness and innocence. “I was curious.”
“I’m not here to be a curiosity for you, so pick your book and get out. Or just get out. I don’t really care which just as long as you’re gone.”
“You don’t like me,” he observes.
“I don’t like being led by the nose. I’m waiting for you to get to the point.”
“I don’t have a point. I just wanted to get to know you. That’s all.”
“I stole a diamond bracelet from my mother’s jewelry box,” I tell him briskly. “I was six. I still haven’t given it back because the longer it’s gone, the worse my punishment will be. I’ve thought about burying it to cover up the crime, but I like the thrill of knowing she could find it at any moment. I cheated on a history test when I was seven because America is boring and I don’t care about their independence. I broke my sister’s favorite porcelain doll when I was nine. I said I was sorry but I wasn’t. I felt more guilty about not feeling guilty than I did about breaking it. I’ve committed more sins, but those are the big ones. If there’s anything else you want to know, you’re going to have to ask me directly.”
“Why are you sad?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Bastian is a sore subject for you, isn’t he?”
There it is. Finally.
Yes, I heard him drop Bastian’s name instead of Gable’s.
Yes, I know what he’s implying.
No, I will not give him anything.
No one has power over you until you give it to them, and Villette’s never yield power. We hoard it like dragons guarding their gold.
“Okay,” I say simply.
“Okay?”
“I grew up in the French court under a mad king,” I remind him. “You’re going to have to work a lot harder than that to shock me.”
“You’re not going to deny it?”
“Do you want me to?”
“I want you to tell me the truth.”
“He’s not Bastian,” I assure him. “He’s Gable.”
