Chapter 17 - Irresolute

Ania is faced with a choice.

The day after she accepted who she was, Ania's life was able to settle into a comfortable pattern. Everyday after breakfast, she would go and train with her file, going through rigorous individual and group exercises. At times they would engage in mock "battles" with Aimon's or one of the other files.

The older Knights became more open, transforming from teachers and mentors into comrades and friends. She also got to know her own comrades better, those in her file coming to understand and respect her greatly, but, more than that, learning to laugh and smile around her.  Matya seemed to lose her superior attitude, and she became a wonderful person. Echo came up to Ania once, wanting to know who she had replaced Matya with, because, “There is no way that is the same girl that has been here for the past eight and a half years. She’s stopped calling me short. What did you do?” Ania just laughed and shrugged.

The attitude in the Outer Compound changed as well, and Ania came to love spending time there, wandering through the streets with Randen and the others. Lyem introduced her to the various people in the Compound, and she found out that most of them already knew her. Everyone in the Outer Compound knew the Covenant Prophecies, and so they had known her mother for who she was, and they knew her for what she was. But now she knew them, and she found friends everywhere she looked. She found herself making excuses to go down more often, to talk with the people and walk with her older brother.

After lunch, she and her friends would have the day to themselves, walking in the City or talking in their rooms or a variety of other things. They would spend more time laughing than actually talking, though.

And then there was Skaught. It started out that he would come find her, walk her back to her room and wish her goodnight. But he would, ever so slowly, come earlier each day, and about six month after her nineteenth birthday, her time with Echo, Randen and Aimon ended at dinner. It stayed that way from then on.

Every night after he walked her to her room, he would wish her goodnight, but as he came earlier and earlier and started doing things with her like showing her around the Palace and riding with her through the countryside, he began kissing her hand. Around the time that he started coming to get her at dinner, he started kissing her on the lips. Each night, he would do it a little longer, hold her tighter, and she would just stand there, his arms holding her up against the onslaught of the power that was him.

One night a few weeks before her twentieth birthday, he held her there for so long she was afraid she might lose consciousness. But he let her go, and with his usual, “Good night, Ania,” and a small smile, he opened her door for her, and went his way.

Ania walked through the door, each step dissolving the narcotic sensation. Blinking, she stopped, shocked to realize that Hakem was not the only figure in the moonlight. Echo stood, stretching her muscles, from where she lay, sprawled on her back with her head on his back. Ania gave her an odd look, utterly lost as to why her best friend was in her bedroom. Echo shrugged, saying, “Hakem said he was lonely here all alone.” Ania nodded, knowing that Companions could communicate with each other. She must have heard it through Nyllia.

Echo looked like she was about to leave, but she stopped, a sad look on her face. It seemed out of place on her usually cheerful face. “Ania, what was the happiest you have ever felt?”

“What?”

“What is the happiest you can ever remember feeling?”

“Well, I… I guess, the day we were named Knights. I felt like I was floating. I don’t think anything could have brought me down then.”

“Does… does he make you feel that way?”

“I… that same day, when he came over, I felt like I was wrapped in a hug warm blanket. It was kind of hard to think straight, but I… I was… happy…”

“You already happy. What about when you are sad, or depressed? My mom always told me that when she was around my dad, no matter how she felt, she felt like the sun had come up. Does he make you happy when you feel bad?”

“N…no, not exactly… It’s more like he shields all the bad stuff. It’s like I’m…underwater… I get kind of…tired, and when we kiss, it’s like I’m being hit with waves of…something…”

“That doesn’t sound like happiness. You say he shields all the bad stuff? Does that help you deal with it, make it go away for real, or just bury it for a while? That doesn’t sound like happiness. It sounds like an addiction.”

Ania confused. Why was she doing this? She knew Echo didn’t like Skaught, but…

“Ania, is he your friend?”

Ania was so lost. She didn’t understand what was going on. “N…Not like you and the others, but I…” She couldn’t seem to think straight. Part of her was screaming for her to defend Skaught, but the smaller part that she now knew was the Legacy was rearing up like a beast fresh out of a cage. It ordered her to listen to Echo, and it easily rivaled the larger, lethargic part of her brain.

“Have you told him about the Legacy?”

“I didn’t think…”

“Didn’t think it was something he had to worry about? Ania, you said Alliania told Alecgorn the instant she learned it. The way you told me and Aimon and Randen. There are no secrets between friends, and my mom swears that her best friend in the world is her husband.

“Ania, another thing that my mother told me. She always said that the worth of a friend is measured by how hard you cry when you think you’ve lost them, and how long you smile when you get them back.

“What is he worth to you?”

Ania didn’t know.

She honestly didn’t know. She didn’t know what he was worth, didn’t know if he was someone she could tell anything to. She only knew that what had started so simple had evolved into the most chaotic and complicated thing she had ever seen.

She stood there, stunned, while a war was waged in her mind. Echo turned to leave, and she made it to the doorway when she stopped again. With one hand on the doorframe, she didn’t turn to look at Ania, so she couldn’t see the look of sorrow that was written all over the girl’s downturned face. This was the hardest thing she had ever done. And it might cost her everything.

“Ania, would you ever knowingly hurt someone who cared about you?”

Shocked out of her own internal struggle, Ania answered automatically. “No! You know I would never do that!”

Squeezing her eyes together to keep herself from crying, Echo spoke in a quiet, broken voice. “You’re right. I do know you. I know you’re the best friend I could ever want, and that you’re the biggest, blindest fool I have ever known. You spend all your time chasing after a fairy tale ending when the real hero is right behind you. You’re tearing him apart from the inside out, and half the time I don’t think you even know he’s there.” As hard as she tried, a single tear escaped her defenses and rolled down her pale cheek. “And that makes it even worse.”

With that, Echo left, leaving Ania to stumble to her bed where she would spend the rest of the night crying and fighting an internal battle that would leave her exhausted, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

There was no sleep to be found this night.

The next morning, as she went through the motions of normalcy, she spoke very little, even when the file assembled for training. She let Randen take command, barely even able to join in on the training. She missed the bull’s eye for the first time in years, and when she dropped her knife while going through the concentration exercise Alliania had taught her, Randen and Saira took her off the training ground to go and let her lie down by the side wall.

Gesturing for Saira to go back and lead them in a hand to hand exercise, Randen sat, crouched beside her. “Ania, is something wrong?” His tone made it clear that he knew fully well that something was wrong. He was just giving her the chance to tell him what it was.

“Nothing…” Here Ania was interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn. “Nothing, I just…didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

Randen could see that easily, but taking one look at her red eyes told him that was not the real problem. But if she didn’t want to tell him, then…

“Alright.” He took one last at her eyes, and helped her to her room. She was sleeping like a rock until Echo came to get her for lunch.

She was going to excuse herself to go back to her room for the rest of the night when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder. Turning around, she found herself face to face with the brown eyes that she, more than anything in the world, did not want to see right now.

“Lady Ania, if I might steal you away for the rest of the day?” Ania turned to her friends; half hoping that one of them would speak up. She could already feel the lethargy coming over her. But Randen and Echo were both staring at their plates, apparently dealing with some exceptionally problematic food, and Aimon was his usual amiable self.

“If she has no argument, I can’t think of a reason why it would be bad.”

Skaught looked to her, and she fell into his brown-black eyes against everything she tried to stop herself. She couldn’t string together a coherent argument, and so she was led away by the hand, with the Legacy within her screaming for her to let go.

But she couldn’t.

At first, it seemed like just another day with him, but when she found herself in the gardens, sitting on one of the benches that had a clear view of the western sky while the sun set, she knew something was about to change.

It was early spring, so most of the flowers where still brownish-green stalks with new buds pushing their way through the old barriers, but there was a red rose bush that was in full bloom. Skaught brought her the largest one he could find, a deep red one that had bloomed out so that its petals reached out over a space that was larger than the palm of her hand. It was beautiful, but all she could think of was the small, white rose that had just barely bloomed that both she and her mother loved so dearly.

“Ania, I have greatly enjoyed the time we have spent together, and I need you to know that I feel very happy when I am around you. I honestly cannot think of another person I would rather spend the rest of my life with.”

No, no, no, no! Not now, not when she was having these feelings! Why couldn’t he have waited? Why couldn’t he have asked her earlier, when everything was easy? Why everything have to change now? Why?

He pulled out a gold rind that had three large diamonds on the front of it. It was gorgeous, but all she could see in her mind was the thin silver band that had small, perfect diamonds all around it and a loving inscription on the inside that now hung around her neck.

“Ania Kyatei…”

That’s not my name! But you don’t know that. You don’t know me!

“Will you be my wife?”

"I... I don't... I'm not... I..." Ania didn't know what to say. Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn't he have asked when she still felt the same? Why couldn't Echo have stayed silent? Why couldn't it be the same?

But did she want it to be the same?

She thought of how her parents, both her birth parents and the ones she had grown up with, had loved each other. Did she honestly think that what she had with Skaught was even remotely similar to what they had? What had started out as perfect had transformed into something terrifying and confusing. And wrong.

"I'm not sure I'm ready... I need... I need some time to think..." Ania tried to say it as gently as possible, and she must have succeeded, because Skaught just pressed his lips together and nodded.

"Alright. I suppose that's all I can ask."

He gave her the ring to keep with her, and then led her back to her room where she spent the rest of the evening crying into Hakem's fur. The wolf did his best to comfort her, but after a while he fell silent, knowing she just needed someone who didn't offer judgment, no matter how well intentioned.

The next morning, Alecgorn came up to her, saying, "We need you to put together a scouting mission. We've heard some rumors of activity along the border just past the Diamond Lakes, close to where the Battle of Je BlizteFälle was fought. We need a team to go investigate.

"How many people in the team?"

"Two should do nicely."

She nodded, silently thanking the Heavenly Lord and Lady for giving her this opportunity. "I'll go myself."

"And your partner?"

She thought for moment. Dare she do it? Was she strong enough?

She would have to be.

"Randen. I'll bring Randen Derris with me."

Author's Note

Skaught scenes were always tricky to write... I'm not sure where the drug-like thing came from. It just showed up in Chapter 11, and I decided to keep it. I don't know how well I wrote it, though.