His fists barrel into my face before I can respond. It’s all I can do to cover up. I kick my leg out trying to back him off me. He’s much too quick. He steps aside easily and counters with another fist. I reel but manage to grab him. I spin, hurling him into a boulder. He lands with a thud, and I jump back to gain distance. We circle, sizing each other up.
It has been years since we tried to tussle truly. There was the Arms of Agony, but this is him for real. He’s as fast as ever, but I’m no longer the clumsy boy who had never wielded a sword before.
I kick, and he barely blocks. I’m on him with a flurry of my own. He moves away. I corner him against the boulder, not letting him escape. All of my training, my skills learned through losing again and again, all my capabilities come together with a blind rage.
I hit him. He bleeds. He hits me back. I bleed more. The smack of our fists becomes a rhythm. Then suddenly, he breaks it. He sweeps my feet from under me. He pins me to the earth.
“You’ve lost!” he says. “This is my arena, don’t you understand?”
He looks down at me, panting. The strange look comes over his face.
“You’ll always be my friend, won’t you, Edmon?” he asks quietly, echoing our younger days.
“You lied to me.” My voice cracks with pain.
He rolls off me, lies on his back, and looks up at the sky. His skin glistens from the exertion.
“Your mother demanded you leave House Julii and have your father return you. He refused. She threatened insurrection. Your father came to Bone to quell the rebellion. She was to be publicly executed. Alberich dissuaded him, but he couldn’t keep her from punishment completely. The seneschal reasoned that leaving her impaired would deliver a much more powerful message.”
“To whom?” My eyes burn with the salted tears.
“I’m so sorry, Edmon.” His hand reaches out. He brushes the tears away gently with his thumb. “It wasn’t my place to tell you. You wanted to contact your mother and let her know how you were doing. You wanted to comfort and be comforted, but she was already gone. I thought at least letting you keep writing would make you feel better. I didn’t want to hurt you. I would never want to hurt you. I love you.”
He leans in and gently touches his lips to mine.
I shove him away. I scramble to my feet, wiping my mouth.
“I’m sorry!” he blurts. “I thought that was what you wanted?”
I don’t let him finish. I run.
CHAPTER 13
ARIA
I need to get away from everything, but I’m trapped between past and future. Everyone wants to control me, use me. There isn’t anywhere I can escape.
Maybe there’s one place. One place I could always go and be safe. I remember . . .
The cliffs are the same. The white, smooth limestone still stands over a cerulean sea that blends seamlessly with the azure sky.
She’s not anything like what I remember, though.
“I thought I might find you here eventually,” she says. Nadia waits where I left her, on the edge of the world. She sits facing the blue on blue of the distance, her back to me.
Perhaps she’s afraid to turn and look at who I’ve become?
Long, dark hair cascades down her shoulders. The outline of her body is no longer straight lines, but smooth curves begging for a hand to caress the contours.
“Nadia?” My voice catches in my throat. “I—” I sound not quite a boy, not yet a man.
“Shut up, Little Lord. Before you hurt yourself.” She glances over her shoulder with a wry smile. She pats the ground next to her.
“I’d rather be alone,” I respond.
She shrugs as if to say suit yourself, but she makes no attempt to move. I shuffle forward. I clumsily sit next to her. My thigh touches hers. The contact against her smooth skin floods my thoughts.
“You’ve seen your mother,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.” I choke back tears. I wish I was stronger. I wish she wasn’t here to see me like this. I’m glad she’s here at the same time.
“What are you going to do?” she asks pointedly.
“I don’t know” is all I can muster.
She stands.
“You’d better decide,” she says, her voice hard. “You are Edmon of House Leontes. Your father may be given the deed by the High Synod, but he’s an absentee landlord. Your mother may still be alive, but she can no longer fight for us. You are the lord of Bone. These are your people.” She indicates the island. “We need you.”
I’ve come back after years only to find my mother a walking corpse, made so by my father; my best friend knew about it and didn’t tell me. Then he just . . . tried to kiss me? Now Nadia admonishes me.
“You can’t leave us again,” she says.
“I had to go!” I fire back.
She sighs. “You’re more than what they want you to be.”
“And what is that?” I ask.
“You’re more than someone’s companion. At least that’s what I always thought.” She leans down. She touches her lips to my forehead. Then she’s gone, as if she were a dream.
I wander the winding streets of the town. The hot sun beats down. I wipe the sweat from my brow. My head throbs with every step. Fishermen take the fish from their lines and close their shops for the Eventide. Life goes on here as it always has. The people endure. The nobles of the Pantheon and their games make no difference here. People live; they get by, day to day. They’re better off without us, without me.
“Water, m’lord?” An old woman huddled in the shadow of an awning motions to her pitchers. She pours the spring water into a pottery cup and holds it out with gnarled fingers.
I take the cup and sip the cool water of the isle. I reach into my pockets for a coin, but remember I no longer carry tokens for island bartering. Companions have no need of money. Everything in Meridian is paid by subdermal credit scans.
“No coins?” The woman clucks her tongue. “I used to give water to your mother, too, when she was a little girl.” The crone smiles.
I smile back; her warmth almost makes me forget my troubles.
“You knew my mother?” I ask.
“Feisty girl, that one.” The old woman clucks again. “Beautiful, too. She was born here, the daughter of a fish merchant like the rest of us. Her father was a wise man, her mother even wiser. They looked to your grandmother at council meetings, called her a chief. It was clear, with your mother’s beauty, she’d follow, a chieftain’s daughter. She was marked with inner fire, that she was.”
“Instead she was taken by a Meridian lord,” I remark bitterly.
“Taken?” The old woman’s smile wrinkles with consternation.
“She became my father’s concubine,” I explain.
“She did, young Leontes, because she was desirable. That was unavoidable, but he couldn’t claim her fierceness. Her mind has always been her own. Her heart was always on the isle. It couldn’t have been otherwise. She’s one of us. She couldn’t be taken from here any more than your voice could be taken from you without you losing what makes you Edmon Leontes. Your father had the sense to realize she should stay. She served us until she passed.”