Divided (18 page)

The traveler had lied about his name.  Atris.  He’d
stammered it out as if it was of another language.  Still, Taeru had been so
frustrated at having the guy follow him and help him unload Manali’s wares that
he’d let it go.

Upon the man’s departure, Taeru thought of the lie
fleetingly, though he was more focused on the strange way the blond had held
his hands.  Why had he grabbed them like that?  He’d said that he liked
Taeru—which was strange enough—but the physical nature of the blond frightened
Taeru immensely.  His heart continued hammering in his chest long after the
travelers had left Juliet’s home. 

Not only that, but the blond had asked about Taeru, or Kilik
rather, after coming to the healer.  How had he even found out where Taeru
lived?  Not to mention, his wound looked as though it was older—which meant
that he’d shown up…

No, that was ridiculous.  Nobody was going to come to Juliet
for the sole purpose of seeing Taeru.  Taeru was not so vain as to believe that,
surely.  And yet, the blond had spent the majority of sun up unloading boxes. 
With a rather unpracticed hand too, the blond had the hands of a man who had
not done much honest work.

Traders weren’t known for doing much labor.  In fact, that
was the very reason that Taeru had been hired to unload Manali’s goods.  So, it
made decent sense that Atris—or whatever his name was—wasn’t practiced at
unloading.  Why had he volunteered to help Taeru, then?

“So—your friend was incredibly handsome,” Alyx informed
him.  Taeru got the feeling that Alyx had been talking to him for some time
when he finally glanced at her.  Her eyes were filled with the slight agitation
that she got when he’d zoned out.

He sighed.  “What?”

Alyx looked indignant that she hadn’t been paid her proper
attention.  “I said that your blond friend was incredibly attractive.  Why did
you not introduce me?” she prodded.  Taeru found that he really didn’t want to
have this conversation.

Ordinarily, Alyx’s conversations were endearing and
sometimes he even enjoyed them—but right now, he did not want to take part in
them.  “He’s not a friend,” Taeru corrected, “I barely know him.”

“If you hardly know him, then why did he ask Mother about
you?” she asked accusingly. 

The question was one that he’d asked himself many times.  It
wasn’t normal for an acquaintance to inquire about someone.  Even less so when
they had nothing but rumors to say that they were asking the right person.  The
blond and he weren’t friends, and he knew that, but the blond seemed to want to
be.

In his life, friendship had always been a novel concept. 
Few people pursued his friendship, and even fewer did so without proper reason
or sensibility.  There was court in Cathalar, but that was not an affair to
find friends.

Friendship was often a product of a forced or arranged
partnership, and nothing that was ever formally announced.  However, this man
had been direct in his approach, his compliments, his intent—even people in
court had never been so candid.

 “I don’t know,” Taeru finally answered Alyx’s nearly
forgotten question.

“How did you two meet at the dance?” she asked after another
moment of thought.  The fact that they had met through that bloody soul-finder
dance wasn’t lost on Taeru, either.  Perhaps that was why the traveler was so
bent on befriending him.  Maybe the man believed in the silly superstition. 
Taeru thought it would be terribly awkward if a man he barely knew thought they
were destined to be soul mates.

Still, he couldn’t deny that the dance had been an
interesting experience.  One that he had avoided thinking about—partly due to
his illness, and partly due to the fact that there were feelings associated
with it that shouldn’t be.  “Ah, he was… well, I ran into him,” Taeru answered. 
He didn’t feel the need to hear Alyx’s interpretation of his soul-found
partner.

“Oh, no, Alyx.”  Katt’s voice lit up the room, alerting them
both to her return.  She had been helping Juliet with one of the children that
had come in with a skinned knee.  “Ask him when he ran into the very handsome blond!”

Alyx looked to Taeru, waiting for the answer without ever
opening her mouth.  Taeru had no idea how Katt would know whom he ran into
during the soul-finder dance.  He wasn’t going to give himself away that
easily.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“His friend said that you were his partner for the
soul-finder dance!” Katt nearly shouted.  Alyx let out a gasp that meant that
he had been spot on in his prediction of her behavior immediately following
this revelation.

Taeru felt his cheeks burning, and he wanted nothing more
than to walk to his room.  “Wow, he went to all the trouble to find out who you
were!  Maybe the legend is actually true!” Alyx said.

The young prince didn’t know if he should remind Alyx of all
the times when the superstition had meant nothing to her.  He sighed, prepared
to come up with some excuse to go when he saw a child run out the door waving a
thank you.

Juliet appeared shortly from the cloth.  Her eyes were amused
as she watched the child leave the room, and then she looked at Taeru with a
stern expression.  “Come here, Kilik.  I want to check on your shoulder.”

Taeru nodded his head and stood.  He wasn’t going to resist
her, considering how kind she’d been on the matter of letting him return to
work a few suns before he should.  Then, there was the matter of the bruise. 
He nodded to the two girls, from whom he was very glad to get away.

Once they got into the back, Juliet smiled at him.  “You
made a friend,” she said gently as he worked to get his brown tunic off.  He
didn’t worry with correcting Juliet, as he knew she wasn’t going to give him a
hard time about it.

“I barely know him, though.  I’m not sure why he was so
anxious to help me,” Taeru muttered as she checked his shoulder.

The bruise had appeared shortly after he’d gotten the fever
that he’d had for a few suns.  The fever had broken, but the bruise had
remained.  The small purple-blue splotch hurt when touched, but other than
that, it didn’t bother him too badly.  There was a very mild pain, but he just
assumed the bruise was being stubborn.  Juliet went to work putting some kind
of herb on it. 

“You’re very likeable, Kilik.  He was probably just taken
with you,” she said softly.  Taeru wasn’t sure that he felt he was likeable. 
In fact, back in Cathalar, most of the nobles found him rather unappealing to
be around.  Well, Aela had always liked being around him, and Ryo did too.  Still,
they were his siblings.

Oddly, what Juliet said was very close to what the blond had
told him on the way back from the deliveries.  “Thank you, Juliet,” he said. 
There was no sense in arguing with someone who had just paid him a compliment. 
Though, he had done so with the traveler, certainly.

“I do think there was more to his visit than he said,
though.  From what I saw, someone had worked with his wound before I did, and
someone who… almost knew what they were doing.  I have a feeling, my dear, that
he came here with the sole intention of inquiring about your well-being.”  Her
words were matter-of-fact, as if they didn’t contain horrifying information
that made him want to hide under the table.

Taeru’s cheeks turned red again, and he shook his head. 
“Don’t be absurd.  He has things to attend to.  I’m sure you just saw his own
work with the wound.”  He tried hard to make his words convincing, more for
himself than Juliet.

“Kilik,” she said shortly, “I told you to be careful.”  Her
words were less playful, and more as though she were scolding him.  He winced
under her tone, and then he found himself wondering what he had done to
displease her.

He chewed on his lip for a moment before he asked.  “What
did I do?”

“The bruise is worse,” she said.  “What did you do?”

“Oh,” he answered.  He hadn’t expected Rijit’s hit to have
actually made the bruise worse.  He had to admit that upon being struck he had
felt much more pain than he had expected, even knowing that Rijit was about to
hit his bruise.  “Rijit slapped me on the shoulder.  He didn’t know,” Taeru
defended warily.

Juliet let out a very slow breath, and then she nodded her
head.  She had nothing more to say on the issue, and she just returned to
healing his shoulder.  “You have to be careful, though.  This bruise is not
like most of the ones I treat, and if there is something further wrong with
it—I do not want your recklessness making it worse.”

Taeru shifted a few times on the table.  He hadn’t meant to
make the bruise worse.  No, he hadn’t been particularly careful as he’d lifted
the packages—but as the past few suns hadn’t caused any problems, he’d nearly
forgotten his plight.  Leave it to Rijit to cause him trouble.  “Apologies,” he
said, “I’ll do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

“See that you do,” she said curtly.  Taeru didn’t like when
Juliet got agitated with him.  She so rarely got agitated with anyone, and yet
she seemed more stern with him.  He didn’t blame her, of course, as he was a
guest in her home and should be held to higher standards.  But he hated when he
upset her—after all, he had no right to be living in this place—and then he
went and angered her.

She worked in silence for a little bit, with a slightly
angry expression in her hazel eyes.  Taeru wondered if he should apologize
again, but that never did him much good when dealing with Juliet.  He
swallowed.

When she moved her head so that she was looking into his
face again, her eyes softened with instant worry.  “Oh, Kilik, I’m not angry
with you.  I’m just worried about you.  You don’t seem to understand the
importance of keeping your body healthy.”

Taeru had been told that on more than one occasion before
he’d ever left Cathalar, but he had always tried to ensure that his body was
properly cared for.  He’d washed all the times his father had told him to, and
he’d done all the things that he needed to do to keep himself healthy.  “I do,
ma’am,” he said. 

“You don’t,” she countered.  “You are constantly throwing
yourself into tasks with no thought to the effect it might have on you.”

“What do you want me to do?” he whimpered.  The last thing
he wanted to do was to worry her, even though he knew he’d been doing this
since the family had formed the attachment to him.  He masqueraded as a
vigilante referred to as the Phantom Blade, even though he knew that this put
them in danger. 

But how could he not?  Like the blond had said earlier this
sun—people weren’t going to help people if there was no one to begin it for
them.  Taeru wanted to be the one to bring a little hope to Dark District. 
He’d tried to do the same for Lower Town in Cathalar, even though the problems
had been less violent there.

If he couldn’t stop a war from occurring, then he should at
least do his best to help the people that he had the power to help.  Even if
his father wouldn’t listen to him, and Lavus would have killed him on sight—he
could bring a little hope to people who deserved it.  “I wish you would stop
trying to play the hero,” Juliet said.  The veiled request was blatant.

Taeru shook his head.  He couldn’t do this one thing.  She
had asked him before, and his answer was always the same.  Nevertheless, he was
aware that he was needlessly putting others in danger, and he wanted to stop
that.  “Juliet,” he said warily, “perhaps I should stay elsewhere.  I know you
say you don’t mind me here, but as I am being a bit reckless with my charade… I
don’t want that to fall ba—”

A stern expression took hold of Juliet’s features again as
she put a finger to his mouth with a frown.  “Kilik, darling, you don’t
understand at all what I am trying to say to you.  I would never have you live
anywhere but here.  The times when you are safe in this house are the times
that I feel the most at ease.  I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if you
left.”

Taeru tried again.  “I would still give you the money from
my unloading job.  I won’t quit it.  I know you need the extra coin…”

Oddly enough, Juliet smiled.  Taeru thought that she might
take him up on this offer, and though he wasn’t sure where he’d go—he realized
that there was relief accompanied with his wonderment about his new lodgings. 
Then, she shook her head as she touched her fingers to the side of his cheek. 
“Listen to you—this is what I’m talking about—I’m worried about you.  I’m not
worried about you getting us in trouble, Kilik.”  She laughed.  “You would give
me the coin, love?  Then what would you live off of?  You must stop thinking
like that.  You have to protect yourself, or find someone to do it for you.”

The idea was fair.  Taeru had never been one to think too
heavily about what he would do in any given situation, but he always seemed to
be the secondary factor.  The one time that he’d made a selfish decision was in
the decision to leave Cathalar, and he regretted that to this very sun.  Even
so, he had made sure that Ryo would be the one to follow in Veyron’s footsteps—and
that had been a good thing.  Taeru would never have been able to lead.  “I do
think about myself,” he told her.

“You don’t,” she said.  She handed him his tunic back after
a weakened smile flitted across her face.  She seemed tired, and he couldn’t
help but feel like he was the reason for it.  He had spent a full cycle lying
on her healing table.  Surely, that had taken its toll, he flushed when he
thought of how silly he must have looked.  But those dreams—those dreams had
been terrifying, and even when he thought of them now, he couldn’t discount
them.  “I was delighted to hear that young man ask about you this sun.  People
in Dark District will take anything they can, and you give yourself freely to
them.  After all that you do, I have never heard one of them ask about your
well-being.”