Chapter 46
When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse.
- Fix You, Coldplay
Warning: Adult theme
August 5rd - Grythen
Annie glared at the audacious young woman in front of her. “I said, ‘name your price’, girl.”
Evelynn breathed in deeply, forgetting and remembering again where she was. Today was one of her better days, but she still had to fight to keep her mind clear. Standing in front of her now was a woman who could haul her out of the hospital at the snap of her fingers. She couldn’t take any chances.
This woman was also, Evelynn fervently hoped, her future mother-in-law. She placed a hand over her belly protectively. Even though her bony legs were shaking, the words she spoke did not indicate fear. “No amount of money can bring me to the clinic.”
Annie laughed bitterly and walked towards the frail dancetress like a predator. “Do you want to do it the easy way or the hard way?”
Evelynn’s nose reddened and tears surged from her eyes, but she did not back down. She could not. “You are a mother too, Mistress Viken. You have carried a baby before. Surely you’ll understand how I feel-”
“Do not compare me to you. We are not on the same level.”
“Mistress Viken… please.”
Annie steeled her gaze. “The hard way then.”
“Annie!” A man burst into the hall, incredulity written all over his face. Evelynn stared at him timidly but he gave her a kind nod instead. Even in her state, she could instantly point out where Chairon got his excellent genes from. “I’m so sorry, Sweetheart,” he said to her. “Please take a rest upstairs while I have a private word with my wife. My housekeeper will attend to you.”
Evelynn nodded dumbly as the Viken housekeeper led her to the second-floor parlour. She felt extremely self-conscious, knowing that she had not powdered her cheeks. What first impression had she given her future father-in-law?
Annie crossed her arms and glared at the dancetress the entire time she ascended the staircase before turning back to James in annoyance. “Please, Honey, let it pass. She’s just a small fry. We’ll make sure she leads a good life. She’ll have more money than she can ever make. She won’t need to work-”
“What about the baby she is carrying now? Have you forgotten about our grandchild as well?”
“What about the humiliation it will bring to us? Oh, oh dear me. My life has already shortened by ten years just by thinking about it,” Annie flipped her hair from her shoulder and rolled her eyes.
“Her background isn’t that important-”
“She’s a GoldCrest, Honey! How many men and resources have we lost to them?”
James gave her a funny look. This time, it wasn’t the usual half-smile-half-frown. “You aren’t even born at that time. Why do you care so much about the civil war? Why do you insist on drawing this line between us and them? Can you imagine if King Fred thought like you did and blocked off trade with our past enemies? Starving them would have starved us too.”
“But the GoldCrests are treacherous people!” Annie protested.
“On the contrary, they were loyal to the King at that time, even though he was a horrid King. They defended whom they thought was the rightful ruler. Think about it: King Husti actually rebelled and knocked him off the throne. If they had won that war, we would become the treacherous ones now.”
“But… but a dancetress, James! I can look past the fact that she was an orphan, but a dancetress? Haven’t you heard enough about those girls? I might as well have a prostitute for a daughter-in-law!”
James finally blew his top. “Annabella of Richford! Not everyone has to be a match made in heaven! Who would you be now if my mother didn’t close an eye when she realised your family was in a huge debt? You try too hard to fit into the upper-class society, too hard to maintain our family’s ‘purity’ when there was none to start off with.”
August 8th - Grythen
Evelynn
It had been decided that, in the best interest of everyone, Chairon and Evelynn should wed in a month’s time before her baby bump showed. Everything that was prepared for Kismette was simply changed to fit her instead. It was little comfort for her-an insult, more likely; nobody sought for her opinions. Annie had, of course, fought hard to resist this, but Kismette agreed to withdraw charges against Chairon on the sole condition that Evelynn and her baby’s future were secured.
Be careful what you wished for, her collection of romantic movies had always preached. What a funny way life worked itself out. She would never have foreseen how there could be so many different paths leading to the same destination.
She curled herself up into a ball. Her thoughts flew to that cold, gusty night. The memory still brought tears to her eyes when she recalled it in the solitude of her bedroom. At a loss for something to stop Kismette’s wedding, she had run off to find the prospective groom. 'Desperate' would not have been adequate in describing how she had felt then.
As expected, he was drinking away at his regular haunt. What she didn’t expect was how drunk he had become; he had quite a reputation for the amount of liquor he could hold.
“Chairon…” she began tentatively, not knowing how to approach him. “Please… please go home and rest.”
The man grunted, awoken from his half-slumber. “You don’t know… you don’t know how much I went through just to stabilise our relationship strong enough for an opportunity to ask for her hand in marriage,” he drawled, grabbing his beer bottle by its neck in one swipe of his hand. “I love her so much but she just…” he shook his head.
She had been shocked into a stutter then. “Y- Y- You… you knew? You knew she doesn’t love you? Then… why?” she cried, aghast.
Chairon ignored her and continued guzzling his dark golden antidote for sorrow.
“Don’t drink anymore!” she shouted and snatched the bottle out of his hands. She had expected him to resist her and gasped when his hands gave way without any struggle. The extra force she put in only made her lose her balance, and she crashed to the floor.
The drunken man merely glanced at her in mild surprise, grabbed another bottle and started drinking again. Evelynn would have cried if she had not been even angrier than she was saddened when he did not even show the slightest concern about her.
“Chairon! Face it, she doesn’t love you. Love yourself. She’s just a self-centred, immature girl. Love yourself and not that selfish wretch!” she tried again, but the love of her life did not even respond.
She picked herself up from the ground, about to open her mouth again when he raised his hand high, ready to strike her. She shrank back, whimpering, “I love you, Chairon… You never noticed, but I love you so much…”
He paused, his hand hanging in midair.
“Oh for Heaven’s sake, pity me, Chairon! You and I are both in the same mess, loving someone who does not love you back. I am in a far worse state than you, for I’ve never gotten a glimpse of what I wanted before,” she cried.
The warrior hesitated a while before staggering forward, trying to hush her. She fell into his arms feebly. The warmth of the embrace and the surging passion in them soon brought their hands running around each other’s back, feeling up and down the curves of their spines.
Chairon nudged her forehead to tilt her head upwards and kissed her forcefully, pouring all his emotions into her. Evelynn returned the act fervently and slid her hands under his shirt.
*****
She could not remember how she led him to her room, but she could still remember how he pulled away afterwards. She drew his shoulders around to turn him to face her again, but he jerked his shoulders from her touch and hurried off the bed for his clothes.
“Don’t you feel anything for me?” she asked in a deadly whisper.
Silence.
“At all?” Her questions were redundant. Both of them knew the answer.
“I- I think we shouldn’t see each other again,” he lowered his head in shame and escaped through the door without any apology, too proud to even admit he had made a mistake.
All she could do was to lie in bed and cry, her honour forever lost in the stained sheets she was lying on.
August 10th - Grythen
Mejaine
”The subjects of the King shall now depart.”
Mejaine looked down the moment Queen Mariel entered the hallway, guards flanking her on both sides. Her Royal Highness took no notice of her, but she remained glued to the wall. A dancetress did not belong here. It was such a gruelling wait as she tried to stay out of sight from every Noble or Wesarsh who walked past.
She hurried over the moment she spotted him. He was always the last one to exit the morning court session. “Zel…” she reached a hand out, bracing herself for his reaction.
Zaelem shot her an icy glare and continued walking. “I thought I told you that I never want to see you again the last time?”
She opened her arms, attempting to block his path. “You were drunk. It doesn’t count. We’ve been through so much, Zel. You can’t just let this go,” she begged, sounding as earnest as she could. She had never felt more frantic than before, now that Kismette had broken up with Chairon.
He stopped in his tracks and released an exasperated sigh. “No, Mejaine,” he crossed his arms and met her squarely in the eye, “for the final time, I don’t love you anymore. I’ve finally understood what it really was. It was just a deep sense of attachment for you all this while. You were the only connection I have left with the village. I know now why I’ve never gotten used to city life. I missed my life back there too much to like it here.”
His smooth calmness made her all the more uneasy. “I can go back with you,” she whimpered.
Zaelem sighed again. His eyes softened, but all they held was pity. “I used to imagine going back there with you one day to continue from where we left off. I was even willing to pretend that none of this happened,” he admitted. “And then, I thought about what kind of a person you have morphed into and I repulsed. I have always been stuck in time, stuck in my daydream with the old you. I would have jumped for joy a century ago, Mejaine, but not anymore.”
He paused for a long while, contemplating whether to hold his tongue. A wistful smile found its way to his lips. “Now, if I ever go back, if I can ever redeem myself, I’ll be bringing someone else with me.”
Mejaine glowered and her eyebrow twitched as anger rose in her chest. “Your little healer, isn’t it?”
Her tone was challenging and she regretted it immediately, for Zaelem’s face darkened. He found no need to answer that. The tiniest bit of guilt and responsibility he ever felt for her vanished in that instant. He turned on his heels and headed towards the exit.
A low, urgent whisper caught him at the door. “Do you not remember what you told me? You said ‘till as long as I live’. I want you,” Mejaine swallowed the lump in her throat, “to fulfil it now.”
Zaelem inhaled deeply, trying not to let his irritation boil over while he composed his reply. He closed his eyes and scratched an eyebrow. That was perhaps the ultimate reason he consistently threw himself at her feet all this while. He never wanted to break promises.
“A hundred years, Mejaine,” he began in such a soft whisper she almost couldn’t hear it. “Haven’t you tortured me for long enough already? Haven’t you broken my heart enough times already?”
“But you promised,” she cried. Her voice trembled like the rest of her body. “You promised. You promised!”
He glared at her with such menace she flinched. “Isn’t a hundred years longer than what we could have lived for? Haven’t I wasted a lifetime on you already?” He turned, ready to walk away when he added, “I would have said I’m sorry, but you are not that little Jane I made my promise to.”
Mejaine crumpled to the floor. She wanted to howl out in pain, but she felt too choked to release any sound. Her final safety buoy, the one she thought she could always count on, was washed down the gushing river, leaving her to drown in the cold dark waters she had filled her own boat with. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of his shoes hitting the floor in a swift pace, as though he could not get away from her fast enough.
Ning: So, um, (if it’s still possible for me to plead on his behalf,) Chairon really didn’t mean to betray Kismette. :(
Anyway, I was desperately trying to post this chapter before taking my break because I wanted to link up this part of Evelynn’s story before taking the break. :D
Chapter 42: Evelynn left her room with heavy make-up, thinking about how she must do something to stop Chairon’s wedding. That is followed by the scene in this chapter where Evelynn found Chairon drunk at the bar.
Chapter 43: Chairon began to act suspicious. He was feeling guilty and afraid of being found out. Also, Evelynn was feeling tired all the time (apparently, that’s one of the symptoms of pregnancies ._.) and people were gossiping about her. It seemed she imagined it since she was going crazy, but later at the end of Gwen’s scene, Gwen thought about the nasty things other dancetresses were saying about Evelynn too, so it wasn't Evelynn hallucinating. The gossips came about as there were people who recognised Evelynn and Chairon at the bar that night.
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