Divided (46 page)

Sweat dampened his entire body, and he glanced across to see
that Kilik had collapsed onto the grass as well.  Their eyes met and there was
a satisfied glimmer in Kilik’s that made Calis smile.  The feel against his
body had left him with the hum of further arousal, but his exhaustion tried to
put it to rest.  Still, though, he reached out his hands and very protectively
pulled Kilik against his chest, cradling him, despite the way his fingers
slipped over the skin. 

Kilik was soaked with sweat, and his body moved in silent
cadence to his panting, which seemed to match up nicely with Calis’s.  “I
think…”  Calis ventured warily, “that I might be falling in love with you.”

The body against his pulled a little tighter to him and
Kilik made the faintest of sounds.  The glow of the flowers, Calis noticed, did
wonders for Kilik’s damp skin.  “You shouldn’t do that,” Kilik offered
unhelpfully.  Calis just laughed, as there was not a bloody thing he could do
to stop it.

Kilik moved his head to rest against Calis’s chest, and
Calis could feel sleepiness pulling at his own consciousness.  Kilik was falling
asleep too, he realized.  “Kilik,” he whispered, “put your clothes on—you’ll
get a fever.”

Somehow, Calis managed to help Kilik reassemble his clothes,
though putting the wet pants back on may not have been the best idea.  Then, Calis
replaced his own clothes and finally pulled Kilik to him protectively.  He was
certain that the smaller boy was asleep before they’d fully settled on the
grass the second time.  “Kilik,” Calis said gently, to no one.

Then, Kilik stirred and responded in the strangest way. 
“Calis,” he said, and it sounded as though he was waiting for a response.

“What is it?” Calis asked.

“Me too,” he said, with a soft whine in his voice.  Calis
didn’t need to be reminded of before they’d put their clothes back on to know
precisely to what Kilik was referring m.  The thought was terrifying and
euphoric at the same time. 

Rather than answering, Calis pulled Kilik to him a little
tighter and embraced the body against him solicitously.  Within moments of listening
to Kilik’s gentle breathing, feeling the warmth of his body against
Calis’s—Calis found himself pulled into a peaceful sleep.

When next he woke, sun shone into his eyes rudely.  His
eyelids fluttered at the light, and he squeezed them again to try to remove
it.  When the light seemed to remain through his closed eyelids, he opened his
eyes again.  Only then did he realize how tangled he’d become with the boy he’d
been holding as they slept.  If they had been close before they’d slept, they
could now be mistaken for one body.  Kilik’s head was resting on Calis’s chest,
and the fingers of two of their hands were entwined together.  Calis’s other
arm was draped over Kilik’s waist, and their legs were knotted together.  Calis
laughed silently.  Even in his sleep, he couldn’t stay away from Kilik.  

He knew he ought to wake Kilik so that they could return, as
the young man’s foster family would be worried—but watching Kilik sleep was
fascinating.  Nevertheless, it only required watching him for a moment, for
Calis to realize there was a look of terror etched into Kilik’s face.  Then, as
Calis noticed the look grow more and more fearful, Kilik began to whimper.  And
not the soft, passionate whimpers from last moon—no, these were terrified,
frightened whimpers.

Suddenly, Kilik spoke, with a quiet, wavering voice.  “No,
no, no… please… let me fix it… I can fix it…”  Then, he tensed, as though
whoever he spoke to in the dream had grabbed him.  For some reason, Calis
glanced to Kilik’s slightly exposed wrist.  A bruise there seemed to, quite
literally, be growing as Calis watched it. 

Panic shot through Calis, and he gasped, shaking Kilik as
gently but severely as he could.  After a few moments, Kilik’s eyelids began to
flutter, the fear began to die down, and the bruise seemed to stop growing. 
“Kilik!” Calis cried.

Moments later, the fluttering of Kilik’s eyelids gave way to
the blue irises—filled with uncertainty and fear.  Eventually, the irises found
Calis, and Kilik whimpered, biting down on his lip, and ducked his head.  When
he said nothing, Calis spoke fiercely.  “You were having a nightmare.  Kilik,
what was that?  What happened?”

That was no mere nightmare, Calis realized.  Nightmares
didn’t cause your wrist to bruise.  Perhaps there was something seriously wrong
with Kilik—that or there was something more dangerous at work.  “I-I just had a
nightmare,” Kilik said unconvincingly.

“Your wrist!” Calis yelped.  “Your wrist was bruising while
you were sleeping!  Tell me, Kilik!  What is the matter?”

Kilik shied away from him, and they worked to untangle
themselves from each other.  When Kilik finally unknotted himself, though,
Calis moved forward and grabbed him by the shoulders.  “Answer me, Kilik!  If
something is happening to you, you have to tell me.  Please.  After that—after
last moon—after… I can’t… I
can’t
lose you,” he cried, and his voice
broke over the words.

Kilik seemed actually affected this time, and his eyes
burned with worry as they bore into Calis’s.  Kilik was worried about Calis—when
he’d just had a nightmare so terrifying it had physically harmed him.  “Lately,
I’ve been having these nightmares… It’s been… I’m sure it’s nothing, but they
follow me—I can hear the voices from them when I’m awake.  Telling me I’ve
failed, and that I’m worthless, I…”  He jerked his head to the side.  “This
isn’t your problem.”

“It’s more my problem than you will ever know.  You should
have said something.  Have you told Juliet?” Calis asked harshly.

Kilik shook his head warily, and then he began to chew on
his lip.  “I don’t think it’s anything that she can help with,” he assured
Calis.  Calis growled, and his heart began to pound uncertainly.  If Juliet
couldn’t help—then what was Kilik saying?  Someone would fix this, if Calis had
to travel all of Elyst to find them!

“What are the dreams about?” Calis asked, working to ensure
that his worried thoughts didn’t prohibit him from being helpful.

Kilik opened his mouth to respond, but then his eyes widened
and his eyes glazed over—as if he were seeing something in the distance. 
“Kilik!” Calis whimpered.  “Kilik, what’s wrong?”  His heart felt torn, broken,
and he thought that he might die in the meadow—now.  His heart was surely about
to burst in his chest, or rather, in his throat—as that was where it was had
gotten to with all the commotion. 

“I can… it’s…”  Kilik leapt to his feet without warning, and
he jerked his head to the side and sprinted away from Calis with undeniable
purpose. 

Calis jerked up to his own feet, yanked his sword from the
ground where he’d left it, and followed Kilik as best as he could.  The boy
moved through the trees, quickly, and without pause, as though he was possessed. 
“Stop!  Kilik!” Calis shouted from the few paces behind him as they both moved
through the trees.

They kept moving, and Kilik showed no signs of stopping. 
Calis had just decided that he would have to catch Kilik himself and make him
stop, right before the boy reached a stop.  They had left most of the trees,
though some of them still dotted the far surrounding area.  Calis caught Kilik
by the arms, and tears burned in his eyes as he did.  “Kilik!  Talk to me!  Are
you alright?”

Kilik blinked at him, and suddenly, he began shaking his
head in panic.  He kept shaking his head, but he did leap forward and wring his
arms around Calis’s neck, sobbing hysterically.  “I can’t make it stop.  It
follows me everywhere.  It keeps saying that I’m going to be the reason that
everyone dies—that I shouldn’t… I don’t know if I’m supposed to die to save
everyone, or if—I don’t… I’m not crazy, I swear I’m not crazy,” he sobbed
quietly into Calis’s chest.

If Calis was sure of one thing, it was that Kilik was not at
all crazy.  He wrapped his arms around his crying lover and shushed him with
gentle words.  “You aren’t crazy,” Calis whispered.  “But we have to figure out
what is doing this to you.”

Kilik drew in a shocked breath, and then his head pulled
away from Calis’s chest as he regarded the prince with awe.  “You aren’t going
to drag me to some prison, are you?  I’ve tried so hard to ignore this—to tell
myself it’s just in my head, but I can’t make it stop.  Don’t…”

Calis let out a low snarl and pulled Kilik back to him. 
“I’m not going to take you anywhere.  I am going to stay with you and help you
figure out what is causing this.”

“Thank you,” Kilik whimpered. 

For a few moments, Calis simply held Kilik, soothing him,
holding him with the arms that only a lover could offer.  He breathed gently,
whispering softly against Kilik’s hair.  He would figure out what was happening
to Kilik, and he would not let whatever it was hurt him—he would protect
Kilik.  Of that he was certain.  “I’m going to keep you safe.  I promise.  I
promise I will keep you safe,” he whispered gently.

After another few moments, Kilik seemed to have relaxed, and
then—almost simultaneously—they both tensed.  It was as if their affection had
prevented them from feeling it, and when they had released, knowing that they
had to return to Telandus—they were able to fully feel what was with them. 
Calis’s head moved to the field, and he found at the far end of it sat a black,
eroded structure.  It wasn’t a tree, but it seemed to grow like one.  It was
black, with odd purple crystals growing on the sides of it.  It seemed to be
sucking the life out of the area in which it sat.  “Was that in your
nightmare?” Calis asked softly.

“Yes,” Kilik answered breathlessly.  “It’s real,” he choked. 
It was nothing but a blackened, burnt tree with an outer shell of a purple
obelisk.  Though, the black thing was too slight to be a tree, and its branches
seemed more like tendrils, wrapping around a single base.  The purple was what
appeared to be sucking the life out of the area, though there was far less of
the purple than the black. 

They both started towards it mutely, after all, leaving it
once Kilik had run so desperately to it seemed counterproductive.  As they got
closer, Calis could feel it more than see it sucking the life out of the area. 
The black hummed with energy, and the purple seemed to be pulsing with quiet
thievery.  Calis’s grip on his sword tightened, and his eyes moved up to the
thing. 

There was a calling, then.  A million voices came together
in a chorus, coaxing him to touch the thing.  He could hear the whisper in his
ear. 
Touch it… touch it.  You’ll understand if you touch it. 
The words
kept flowing, and Calis’s eyes widened as he tilted his head just slightly. 
Tentatively, he reached out a hand to touch it. 

Kilik yelped, grabbing Calis’s hand and pulling him back. 
The whispers vanished in an instant.  “No, Calis!  Don’t!” he screamed, with
urgent fervor.  Not about to go against Kilik’s advice on the matter, Calis
picked up a small stone near his feet and tossed it.  The moment it touched the
black, it eroded, crumpling to the ground like dust. 

Calis found himself infinitely glad that Kilik had stopped
him from touching the abomination.  Then, though, he heard Kilik’s pained,
terrified breath.  “I can hear it!  No!  Calis…”  He cried in anguish.

Then, in a moment of uncertainty, Calis grabbed Kilik and
pulled him into a fervent kiss.  His lips claimed Kilik’s warm ones
passionately, and when he pulled away, Kilik was blinking. 

“Kilik.  Look at me.  Stay with me, now,” Calis whispered.

“Th-thank you,” Kilik answered, sounding more than a little
shocked. 

“We should get back to Telandus.”  Calis narrowed his eyes
at the black monstrosity.  “You shouldn’t be near this, love.”  Then, with
authority, he took Kilik’s hand and pulled him back towards the city walls.

“From their division, there was love, and it eclipsed
any war of good and evil that could ever have thought to challenge it.”

-A Hero’s Peace v.ii

“Stop trying to make me out to be a halfwit!” Aela growled. 
“I saw him!  It was him!  I know my own brother better than anyone in—”

Leif’s glare and stifled snort forced Aela to stop her
saying of the word Cathalar.  They didn’t need to draw unwanted attention,
though Aela was much more concerned with her brother and how he’d lived
unnoticed in Telandus.  However, Leif was not as certain of Aela’s own eyesight
as she was.  “Ael—ic… listen, you have been dreaming of Taeru.  You have spoken
his name while you slept.  You miss him dearly.  It would only make sense that
you would see him in new faces.”

His words were so sympathetic that it made Aela want to
reach forward and strike him.  She had not imagined her brother’s blue eyes—she
could not have recreated those if she had tried.  Every dream she’d had of her
brother had never done those penetrating blue irises justice.  “I know him.  I
know what a hallucination is, and I saw him.  He is here—in Telandus!”  She
slammed her fist into the wall.  “By the Magisters, Leif!”

“Hush!” he snapped.  His eyes were burning, and she could
see that he wanted to believe her.  This wasn’t his fault—as it was rather
difficult to believe the former crown prince of Cathalar had escaped to
Telandus and had been living here unnoticed.  What were the repercussions of
that?  “Fine, if you are so certain—what was he doing?”

Aela took a breath.  Leif still didn’t believe her, but he
was willing to humor her enough to listen now.  This juncture had taken quite a
while to reach.  First, Aela had been forced to work out the rest of her shift
in the tavern, and when she’d returned Leif had been gone.  Only recently, at
mid-sun, had he returned.  Then, their argument had commenced and lasted for
quite a few sun shifts. 

“He was in the tavern.  I saw him talking to one of the
barmaids.  When I first saw him, I dropped everything I was carrying.”  She
winced at Leif’s disapproving gaze.  “You would too if your brother, lost for
five years, suddenly appeared before you!”

Letting out a breath, Leif nodded his head in agreement and
then urged her to continue.  He really did want to hear this.  She felt the
slightest pang of affection for her friend.  Was Leif her friend?  She was sure
he’d say they were, but the term felt odd when she looked into Leif’s cocky,
assured expression.  “Continue,” he said.

“Well, once I’d dropped everything, I looked back up and he
was gone.  I thought what you thought, that my mind had finally gotten the
better of me, and I’d imagined it.  But as the tavern owner was chastising me
for the mistake, he was there.  He convinced the man to keep me on as a
barhand.  I know his voice.  And, you know there is no mistaking those eyes! 
He helped me clean up the mess I’d made.”

For a moment, Leif just stared at her, as though he hadn’t
heard a word she’d said.  Then, he nodded his head very slowly.  “Well, the
kindness certainly speaks to his character.  That sounds very much like the way
your brother would react.”

“Come with me next sun.  I asked him to show me around.  You
can see for yourself.”

Leif looked incredibly amused at this statement.  “You have
matured, dear.  You have matured and are currently dressed in a way that is not
very characteristic of you.  I, however, am not all that different from when I
last saw your brother.  If you are correct, then he would recognize me.”

Aela wasn’t sure if this was alright or not.  In any case,
if Taeru recognized Leif, he would be thrown from his comfort zone.  She did
not think for a moment that Taeru was up to anything particularly bad, nor did
she think they should have to hide from him—she found herself far more
concerned that they may expose Taeru.  “True,” she admitted.  “Then, come and
watch from afar.  Do you think you could manage?”

A foxlike grin spread across Leif’s already-vulpine features. 
“Oh, I could manage.  Trust me, I have always enjoyed watching you from afar.” 
There was just enough longing in his voice to cause a blush to spread across
Aela’s cheeks.

Not wanting to harp on that subject for too long, especially
considering that she may be about to see her brother again after five years,
she let out a breath.  “Lovely,” she said.  “I have to find a way to talk to
him, so I can tell him who we are.”

“If it is him, then I’m not sure that would be wise.  All of
us together would be even more likely to draw attention.  Your brother has his
own reason for being here, and I’d imagine he hoped to stay away from all of…” 
He gestured around him, to their room.  “…this.”

Aela hadn’t thought of that.  She’d known her brother would help
her in whatever way she needed, and yet she hadn’t paused to consider that the
reason he had left Cathalar was to escape the war.  However, if she didn’t ask
him for help—if she just wanted to see him, to talk to him—that would be
acceptable.  “Then, we won’t ask him for help,” she said decisively.

“He isn’t going to accept that.  You are his little sister,
and you are in a foreign land.  He will be sick with worry, if I know him.  He
will insist on helping,” Leif said carefully.  Despite the sensibility of the
words, Aela’s mind was made up.  She had waited so long to see her brother. 
She would find a way to keep him out of it.

She shook her head, glaring into Leif’s eyes defiantly. 
“I’ll… just… just come next sun.  See if it’s him.  Then, we’ll go from there. 
I will remain as Aelic for now.”  The idea of seeing Taeru again had her heart
pounding.  Her brother!  After all this time.

“Fair enough, Aela.  Just try to keep his inability to stop
giving in your thoughts.”  She nodded, though she was having a hard time not
being selfish about this.  “There is a section of the wall to Dark District
that I thought we could climb.  I need to go keep watch over the guards until
sundown.  Will you be alright?”

For some reason, the simple question caused Aela’s already erratic
heart to flip inside her chest.  She couldn’t have explained why if she’d
thought about it for the next two suns.  A brief smile came over her lips, and
she nodded.  “No, Feil,” she said, almost mocking the fake name, “I think I
might just faint in your absence.”

“Understandable,” Leif said with another grin.  He placed a
brief hand on her shoulder.  “Hang in there, princess.” 

Without much ceremony, he left her alone in their room.  The
room felt even larger when Leif was gone, and she made her way to the straw bed
and lay down.  Her motion moved the shelf near the bed just enough so that an
object fell to the floor and sent a resounding thud through the room. 

As her mind was already less than composed, she leapt off
the bed as though soldiers had just barged through the door with swords drawn. 
When she realized that the object had been the cause of the noise, she let out
a shaking breath and glanced down to pick it up.  Her book.  She had kept it
with her all through her journey, hidden in her cloak, and somehow it had made
it to their quaint, little Telandan room. 

A smile came across her face at the memory of getting the
book.  It felt like so long ago when Graan had given it to her.  Suddenly, she
realized that she missed him, and she missed Arthal.  She hadn’t really
imagined what she was leaving behind.  She couldn’t help but wonder if Taeru
felt the same way.  Had he realized what he was leaving when he left it?  No,
Taeru had thought about the decision much more than she had—so he must have
been more prepared.

Rather than worrying about her own impulsiveness, she
flipped the book open to find where she’d left off.  She remembered the moon in
the garden, when Leif had interrupted her.  A small, silken slip remained where
she’d left it—only to her dismay, the mark seemed to have been moved, the page
was blank.

She frowned, not having the slightest idea how she was going
to figure out where she was in the book now.  She supposed she could start from
the beginning, as it had been so long—and so much had happened since she’d last
read.  Going to a bookstore had been one of her plans when she’d arrived in
Telandus, but she hadn’t managed to make time.  Perhaps Taeru would show her
where the bookstore was—though she doubted he knew, since he’d always been so
opposed to reading.

Ask him about it next time you see him.

Arthal’s words rang in her mind.  She remembered how she’d
been so certain that she would never see Taeru again when Arthal had spoken
those words.  They had been nothing more than a means of easing Aela’s rampant
mind.  And now she was going to get that opportunity. 
Taeru…
And yet
she’d have to remember to call him Kilik. 

Flipping idly through the pages of her book, she was alerted
to the fact that something was very wrong.  The pages were blank, though she
was only three quarters of the way through the book.  She didn’t remember a
single blank page in the pages of this book when she’d read it the first couple
of times.  She would have remembered that, because she’d always found blank
spaces in books to be such a waste of resources.  She furrowed her brow as she
flipped the book closed, analyzing the title to ensure it was the correct one.

Her silken bookmark had been in this one, but surely Leif
could have knocked it out of the book and tried to cover his mistake.  That was
certainly not too far of a stretch to imagine.  But the title of the book read
A
Hero’s Peace
.  Was this a different edition?  How in the world had she
gotten a different edition?  And why was her bookmark in it?

Bringing her teeth together with a snap, she flipped to the
beginning of the book.  Sure enough, there were words there, waiting to be
read.  Her eyes moved to the lettering curiously, waiting to see if this was
the same book she’d read.  Her eyes moved quickly along the words, taking them
in as they had before. 

The beginning was a short history, she remembered.  The
first few pages talked of the Magisters and how their faith in Elyst faded as
war seemed to loom in every passing phase of the moon.  But no, these words
were not the same.  This wasn’t the same book at all.  This book talked of
uncertain peace—peace that was threatened by corruption and powers that should
not be involved. 

Her heart quickened at the similarities to her own
situation.  She could see the words, and she could feel them like she had never
before.  A land that had been at peace—a land that was soon to come under fire
due to a war that seemed inevitable to all its citizens.  All its citizens,
save one of them.  This was not a book that she’d read.  The words spoke of a
prince, as she read, an illegitimate son—whom the entire kingdom had adored—but
he’d left.  He’d left the kingdom, unbeknownst to himself—to try and stop the
war that he knew would be the world’s undoing.

Aela felt her heart pounding in her chest as her eyes
frantically moved over the words.  The boy had left his own kingdom, sentencing
himself to insurmountable sadness.  He’d made his way to the neighboring
kingdom—the one that seemed to be pressing so desperately for war.  But why? 
The book seemed to ask the question without asking it, for though the words
never spoke the question—Aela felt it.  Why did Telandus want this war? 
Telandus would never win.

She bit down hard on her lip as she continued to read.  The
tale was nothing like the one before, though there was the theme—the theme that
the hero in this book was born of the same blood that the original had been. 
He felt the unstoppable urge to end the war, though all of his warnings fell on
deaf ears in his own kingdom.

He’d made his way across the plains and into the neighboring
land.  The journey had been hard, and bandits had nearly killed him on more
than one occasion, but the boy was strong—and he had made it.  In the other
kingdom, however, he soon realized there was little he could do… that the
leader of that kingdom was a far harder man than his own father.  Aela’s
fingers clenched around the table.  What was she reading?  Had Leif written
this?  No.  The words were in the same manuscript as before, the very same
style.  The style had not been a simple one either, and one that Leif would
surely have been unable to copy.

Closing the imposter, she began her frantic search for the
real book.  Though, every object that she turned over yielded nothing, and as
her search came up empty, she was forced to consider the possibility that the
book on the bed was her book.  Her bookmark had been in it, and she knew Leif
had been too busy to have bothered with such a thing.  Unless they were being
followed, it would mean the book had changed on its own.  Either way, Aela was
sure that this meant something terrible.

She pulled herself back to the bed, and her breath came in
short, labored breaths.  What was happening?  Perhaps she was going mad?  Maybe
Taeru had never been before her, and her mind was simply going.  Easing the
book into her lap, she reopened the pages.  They still told of the young boy, a
boy who had worn a mask to protect the unfortunate peasants of the rival
kingdom.  They told of a young boy who lived with the healer, and who
constantly put himself in danger for those that he didn’t know.

Nevertheless, there was an undercurrent to the words, and
Aela knew that all was not well.  The blank pages at the back of the book
proved that there was no ending to this story.  This story felt as though it
was being written as she remained there—but that was impossible and she knew
it.  What had gotten into her head?  No.  She had to put the book down, and she
would see the following sun whether or not her mind had betrayed her.  Leif
would be able to tell her. 

Still, the haunting words of that book hung in her mind. 
She couldn’t deny them, and she couldn’t deny the familiarity of them. 
Certainly, there were strange points in the book, and when she realized that
her curiosity was not sated—she read further.  The mask, the healer, the
slipping into the castle and saving the friend of a friend.  The hero was
possibly more valiant than that of the book she’d read before, and yet there
was something terrifying about this book.  These words spoke so highly of the
hero, but they promised that he was in danger.  As the book continued, it told
of the boy’s life, and how he’d struggled to adjust—pretending not to remember
anything about his past.  They told of the years that he worked to ensure a
little unity and peace within the commoners of the rival kingdom.