The Consort, Chapter 2
Cain waited in the drawing room. They’d come, and quickly. He’d used the codeword, half surprised he’d still remembered it after ten years.
The door opened quietly and the Queen and Ahamo entered. They were not announced, and no pages, secretaries or guards accompanied them. In this meeting, they weren’t sovereigns and he wasn’t Defense Minister.
They stood before him in the dim room. First the Queen, then Ahamo lifted their hands with practiced nonchalance and made the same gesture, a deliberate sweep of the first two fingers along the temple, as if to brush away an errant hair. Cain did the same.
“Before I go to DG,” he said, “I need to ask you something and I need the truth.”
The Queen nodded. “Agreed.”
“Was I truly her choice? Or was the idea planted in her head by you?”
“Why would we do that?” the Queen said.
“You know why, or you wouldn’t have come to this meeting.”
They exchanged a glance. “You were her choice, Cain. But…we were prepared to influence her if necessary. If she were to choose another. Why does it matter?”
“It matters because I left all this behind ten years ago!” he said. “I will marry DG. But I will do it because I care about her and she needs my help, and not because it’s been arranged by the Order.”
“The Order is dead.”
He sniffed. “The Order’s been thought dead many times in the last two thousand years. But it is dead for me.”
“You were one of its greatest heroes, Cain.”
“Not everyone would think so. And it cost me everything I had. My last connection to it died in Azkadellia’s prison. And don’t talk about it like you were part of it because you weren’t, either of you. You only knew we existed because we allowed it. I never wanted to be a part of any of it, but I had no choice. I would not have agreed to your terms all those years ago if I’d known I was ending my life as I knew it.” He sighed. “I never thought I’d have a new life, but I do, and I’m not getting into all this again, do you understand? So if you’ve somehow manipulated her into choosing me because you wanted her married to one of us you’re wasting your time. I won’t marry her unless I am her choice.”
“You are. You have our word,” Ahamo said.
Cain looked in his eyes, the in the Queen’s, and nodded. “Very well.”
“Can I ask you something?” the Queen said.
“Yes.”
“When she let you out of the tin suit…did you know it was her?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Have you told her that?”
“No.” He was done answering questions. Cain moved to the door, leaving the Queen and Ahamo to watch him go. As he was leaving he turned back and swept his fingers down his temple.
He didn’t stay to see if the gesture was returned.
Azkadellia had gone to bed. DG had watched her go, noting with concern her pallor, her trembling fingers, every sign of frailty on her sister’s form spelling her own fate…to sit in that chair and call the shots. She’d never been more terrified of anything in her life, nor more determined not to show it.
She’d worked hard to hang on to herself here in this place that wanted to turn her into some kind of fairy princess at every turn. She wore clothes of her own choosing, read books she was advised against, sent her valet back to the otherworld to fetch familiar music, and came and went as she pleased, for the most part. How would she hold onto who she’d once been when she was Queen?
At least I’ll have a friend at my side. If he agrees. God, I don’t want to imagine the look on his face when Father asked him…what if he was horrified at the very idea? What if he says no? What if he says yes?
I’m going to have to have sex with him.
That stopped her thoughts dead in their tracks. She suppressed a shudder. The idea wasn’t revolting, just…unsettling. DG was a red-blooded woman who noticed men, but she’d never thought of Cain that way. She could see that he was handsome, but she’d never put him in that mental category of “Guys I’d Think Of Having Sex With.”
She had raised this issue with Azkadellia a few nights ago in the hushed tones of sisterly girl-talk.
“You won’t be expected to share a bedroom with him,” Az had said. “The royal suite has a central sitting room and two bedrooms.”
“I don’t know how that works if I’m also expected to produce an heir at some point,” DG had said, hoping her flippancy masked her deep terror of that entire prospect.
“Well…it only takes once,” Az said, trying to be reassuring.
“What if five years from now I meet some really awesome guy and fall madly in love?” DG had said, putting words to one of her deepest fears. She was willing to marry for the sake of her throne, but she couldn’t imagine being so duty-bound and selfless that she sacrificed any and all chances at love for herself.
Azkadellia had smiled. “DG…you’ll be the Queen. You can take as many lovers as you like.”
That conversation came back to her again as she sat at her desk, staring at her blank journal pages, contemplating her fate, not to mention the one she was asking Cain to share with her. If I’m sacrificing the chance to marry for love, I’m asking him to do the same.
He got to do that once already. I haven’t even had the chance yet, and now I never will.
You’re royal. It’s your duty.
I didn’t ask to be royal.
No one does. It’s your birthright, and your responsibility.
What if I don’t want it?
Your parents gave up everything so you could have it. So you could do what they could not, and restore the O.Z. to its former glory. The people didn’t ask to have you as a Queen either, but they don’t have a choice, and neither do you. It’s your fault that Azkadellia can’t take the throne, so you’d better be willing to step up.
It’s not fair.
Nothing ever is. You should be grateful you can marry a friend, someone you trust, instead of tying yourself to some stranger with power and a claim to nobility who says the right things at the right time even while he looks for ways to trick you.
She was grateful. Or she would be, if only he’d accept.
A knock on the door jerked her out of her reverie. “Yes?” she said, her voice shaky.
“It’s me, DG.”
Oh God, here we go. “Come in,” she said. She stood up and faced the door.
He entered, his hat in his hand, and he looked different. She couldn’t say how, exactly, just that he did.
He doesn’t look different. You’re looking at him with different eyes.
“Hey,” she managed, feebly.
He smiled, but it was forced and false. “Hi.”
“Umm…sit down?” she said, motioning to the couch by her desk.
He nodded, and sat. DG perched on the edge of the couch, as far from him as it was physically possible to be and still be seated. She opened her mouth, but she had no idea what to say. Usually when that happened, she’d just go with whatever came tumbling out, but for the first time in her memory, nothing did. She shut her mouth with a snap.
Cain…maybe I ought to start calling him Wyatt now…was staring at his hat, which was beginning to look a little manhandled as his hands worried at it restlessly. He glanced at her, then away again.
God. Kill me now.
“Why didn’t you ask me yourself?” he finally asked, barely louder than a whisper.
DG swallowed past a catch in her throat. “Because I…I couldn’t stand to look at your face while I said it,” she choked out. She couldn’t go on. She shifted in her seat, turning her body away from him, and stared at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap.
Cain said nothing. DG waited, each agonizing second ticking by, made worse by her uncertainty as to whether she was hoping he’d say yes or hoping he’d say no.
He got up. He’s leaving. That’s it. He won’t even be my friend anymore. What am I going to do? How am I…
But he wasn’t leaving. He stepped closer, stopping in front of her. DG stared at his feet, unable to look him in the eye until all at once he went down on one knee before her and she found herself face-to-face with him.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box, which he opened to reveal a ring. She stared at it, her mind wiped clean with surprise, unable to take her eyes from it as Cain gently pulled her left hand out of entanglement with her right and slid the ring onto her finger. She blinked at it sitting there, looking so at home, its single diamond sparkling.
She lifted her gaze to his again and saw there only her friend, his familiar blue eyes holding nothing but understanding. DG smiled weakly. “Thank you,” she whispered.