My Soul Tattooed In Black- Part 3
“Sabrine!” I hear my name echo around the bowl of the outdoor auditorium on the east side of the city, and so I twist my torso to watch Cyrus begin his decent over grass carpeted steps towards where I am in the middle of the amphitheater.
“Cyrus! Finally escaped? I haven’t seen you for weeks.” We try to meet every Wednesday under some pretense or another. My family thinks I am meeting a potential suitor, but I don’t know what he tells his father.
“I…wasn’t allowed to leave the palace for a few weeks. Healer’s orders.” Cyrus has put on that strained smile, with tightening glazed over eyes. Whenever I see his face contort in an illusion of brightness my blood boils in my veins and I want to march up to his father and inflict on him every injury he has ever inflicted on Cyrus. I do what I have to in order to be there for him. I shut off all anger. I don’t think about how much pain he must have been in for him to be gone for weeks. There have been times when Cyrus showed up to our meetings with broken arms or hands bracing his fractured ribs, with different parts of his body bandaged and his tightened eyes and forced smiles appearing as permanent fixtures on his face.
My voice has gone ice cold. “What did he do this time?” For some reason, I seem incapable of distancing myself from this anger. My twenty-first birthday is coming up and once again I pray to Astridore that if King Cadeyrn’s name doesn’t appear on my arm then it will appear on someone’s skin with a death sentence attached.
“I tried to use your excuse a few weeks ago when he asked where I was always running off to. I told him I was meeting with a potential bride. He did not think I had ‘adequate intelligence’ to pick one and proceeded to quiz me on every minute part of our country’s rules. Every answer I got wrong resulted him striking me with Astridore’s Staff. The longer it went on the more I missed. He asked me how I thought I could pick a bride that would be an asset to the kingdom when I don’t even understand how the kingdom runs.” Cyrus has locked his gaze on the thick columns that line the amphitheater as he rubs the side of his head. Under his hand I can see a healing scar. No wonder he was missing for so long. If he was concussed, he would not have been able to walk here by himself.
“What did you tell your father this week?” I hoped he hadn’t brought up the potential wife thing again. If he did, I am going to start worrying about his mental health on top of his physical and emotional health. His eyes finally light up when he answers.
“I told him I was meeting a potential wife again, but this time nothing happened. Maybe I proved I am ready to start training for the throne.” I know how badly he wants that. He wants to rule the kingdom without fear. Unlike his father, Cyrus is a firm believer in the power of respect and trust that comes from a good relationship. His proof…our relationship. What he doesn’t realize is that neither of us is like our parents, so it’s like apples to oranges. We are realistic dreamers that wish to change something but are unable to do so.
“He didn’t say anything?” If Cyrus used the same excuse and didn’t get beaten to a pulp this time, there had to be a reason. King Cadeyrn never does anything without purpose. We might need to find a new meeting spot. We don’t need his father sending Astridore’s Knights to follow us; we already have to evade my cousins every couple of weeks.
“No. Did your family? Are you still telling them you are meeting potential suitors?”
“That’s what I told them, but now they want to know who I am meeting. The women in my family often don’t have that many options so they assume I have been meeting the same person. Now they want to meet this suitor…or you I guess.” Cyrus just gazes at me. I know what he is going to say to that.
“I wouldn’t mind meeting your family. For as much as you hate that Astridore gives your family missions, your family loves each other and I envy that.” Cyrus thinks my family sounds like some sort of entertaining family paradise. He only has his father, who really doesn’t act like family should. The Queen died when he was very young for reasons no one knows. I think the King beat her to death. I had heard rumors of King Cadeyrn’s temper even before I met Cyrus. Servants talk, especially when they don’t feel loyal to the one they serve. Whispers circulate the city, how the king smiles when he deals out punishment, how no one was safe, not even his son- it turned out that rumor was true. My mother said gossip flooded the streets when the queen died for no reason. There had been stories about her being bedridden a lot, and if she suffered even a fraction of what Cyrus goes though than her frequent bouts of poor health were not from illness. What little Cyrus does remember of her being well sounds beautiful. She apparently had the voice of a songbird and loved to read love poems under cherry trees in the palace gardens.
“That can never happen. My Baba would kill me if she knew I was associating with the Crown Prince of Tholos.” The image of my Baba’s blind eyes staring in my direction as the creases around her mouth turned into canyons with her disappointment in my choice of friend sends a shameful blush to my cheeks.
“I am still confused why us being together would be a bad thing.“ The first time Cyrus had brought up the idea was just a few months after meeting me, and he never seems to understand just why that cannot happen, even if we would try to kill Astridore herself to protect, please, or impress each other.
“Our families have to stay separate. Too much power in one place causes corruption and the abuse of gifts given by Astridore.”
“All I’m hearing is that we would be a force capable of making change.” This is where we always begin to argue.
“If I wasn’t in line to be matriarch of my family then it might work. But eventually I will be the channel for prophetic power in my family. I cannot put myself in any situation that might jeopardize my objective stance.” What I really mean is that I plan to die before that job becomes mine, because I don’t want it. Cyrus never buys my many deflections.
“If the prophecies come from Astridore, then there is no need to worry about being impartial. You have no control over it anyway.” I turn away. He brings up all the things I think to myself. All the ways I can justify loving him, allowing myself to take all of his cracked edges and fill them with little pieces of me. It’s like picking the stones for ink. I know that I am what he needs, but I also know that it could never be possible. For that to happen I would have to be crushed down to powder and mixed with the burnt ashes brought on by massive devastation. The aching just under my diaphragm pulls my body inward as it tries to fill the massive space this want creates.
“Yes. I will have no control, but what if I want control? What if being given the ability to have some say in my life interferes with what I need to do? What happens if I cannot listen to Astridore and the stones? What if I do something wrong? Family members will die if I make a mistake when creating the ink for their missions because I can’t hear Astridore over my own wants.” I can’t look at him. I know in this moment I would agree to anything. I only want to protect him from any pain, but Astridore knows that right now, I am the one ripping his hopes to shreds again.
“Fine. I’ll drop it.” I can feel the tension coming from his body. He’s angry and trying not to be. He is so scared that any sort of volatile emotion will turn him into his father so he attempts to hold all that energy inside his body. It’s not healthy, but I can’t talk him down from his anger today. If he were to explode at me though I would deserve it. I’m no better than some tease. The possibility of a happy life together is just in front of us shining like the sun trying to melt us together, but I won’t let it because inside my family is a toxin, a curse I never want him to have to bear. He wants to rule without fear, but that is all my family instills in people. There is no other option for me other than my family’s legacy and the fear that comes with it, but Cyrus has the opportunity for something better. The whole kingdom is going to love him.
“I have a present for you,” Cyrus states. His voice is tight but I can tell he is trying, so I will try too. Maybe just for a little while we can pretend. I filter my devastation with curiosity before I turn to look at him. I try to act excited- the way I normally am when he surprises me with some gift.
“What? We still have two weeks until my birthday.” I’ll be turning twenty-one. My stomach revolts at the very thought.
“It’s not for your birthday. It’s for mine.” I had completely forgotten that Cyrus turns twenty-three two weeks after my twenty-first birthday. “My father is actually throwing a party this year, so I am inviting you personally. I am allowed one invitation to give to whomever I please, and it would please me to give it to you. And I really hope that you’ll come.” I stare down at the cream invitation with gold and black-filigreed ink Cyrus holds in his hands. If his father wasn’t such a snake, Cyrus would start having some sort of control on political decisions. That probably won’t happen though. Cyrus knows this. That is why this invitation, this little taste of control his father has given him, means so much. I can’t refuse him, no matter the position it puts me in. I grasp the edge of the invitation directed at me and look up into Cyrus’ eyes.
“How could I say no?” It’s just one night. One night for us to pretend that we could possibly be more than what we are now. A chance for us to see if maybe we could make a change together, that maybe we are worth the risk. But I will not risk his heart, because I will probably die while completing my first mission.
“You seem to have no concept of self-preservation,” King Cadeyrn says.
“I don’t really. That gets trained out at a young age,” I sneer back. What do I have to lose? I can’t complete my mission locked in a cell and I won’t allow him to use me to extort my family or Cyrus. If that means I have to make him so angry he kills me, then so be it. King Cadeyrn’s face changes right before my eyes. His eyebrows relax and he gives me this smug grin.
“Your impertinent mouth will get you nowhere. I have plans for you, Sabrine del Fee.” I hope that his plans only involve the humiliation of a public execution. If that’s the case, then everyone will know that the future matriarch of the del Fee family is a failure. I start to relax my shoulders but they couldn’t have fallen more than a centimeter when he starts speaking again, “Oh you won’t be dying anytime soon. I have something that you will hate. However, it benefits me immensely.”
“Whatever you do, I can handle it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite.”
His grin gets bigger and he pulls an ivory handkerchief from the back pocket of his trousers and first wipes the blade of my small dagger, then wraps it around his hand. He holds his now bandaged hand out to the side so I can see the white fabric, his blood slowly dying the white red while he speaks. “So you won’t mind if Cyrus is present for your sentence then?” As much as I don’t want it to, my blood flees from my face and my eyes involuntarily widen for a moment but then I deaden them and set my mouth in a straight line. I hope to Astridore that Cyrus won’t do anything to make the situation worse than it already is. “Cyrus, why don’t you keep the lovely Lady Sabrine company while I go and prepare for the big event?” Cyrus enters my line of vision, shoulders hunched. He won’t look at me.
“Yes, Father.” “Good. You two have some things to talk about before the big event anyway, don’t you?” King Cadeyrn grabs Cyrus’ shoulder so hard that he winces from the pressure.
“Yes, Father.” Cyrus still hasn’t turned to look. I have to start this incredibly awkward conversation somewhere.
“Have you been here the whole time?” I pray to Astridore he wasn’t there to hear my bout of crazy screaming.
“Most of it.” He won’t look at me, so I can’t gauge how much he saw by the reaction in his eyes.
“How much is most of it,” I ask warily. If he won’t tell me exactly when he came in than it was probably during one of the more reckless moments, like me calling his father out about being abusive.
“Calling Astridore idiotic isn’t the smartest thing to do when you are locked in a cell.” Oh sweet Astridore he was here for the whole thing.
“If there was ever a time when I could be crazy, now would be it.”
“Agreed.” Cyrus has started pulling at his collar, unbuttoning the top button. He only does that when he feels trapped. The silence starts to put the salty-acidic taste that comes with uncomfortable situations in my mouth.
“I’m sorry I ruined your birthday.”
“I’m sorry you had to get Father’s death sentence tattooed on your skin.”
“Why would you be sorry about that? It’s not your fault.” Cyrus finally turns to look at me. His eyes look dead; there is no light in them what so ever. Is it because I got caught or because I tried to kill his father?
“We are both sorry for things we can’t help. So both of our apologies are useless.” His whole demeanor is beaten down, shoulders slumped, hair in disarray, clothes unkempt. It’s so different from last night, when we were so happy together.
“You came!” Cyrus’s eyes light up when they see me as I approach the dais. He is dressed sharply in a pressed, white button down and a blush waistcoat peeks from between the gold trimmed lapels of his cream dress coat. My black lace-covered hands grasp my scarlet satin skirts and I sweep them away so that I might dip into a curtsy so deep my knees almost touch the ground.
“Happy Birthday, Your Highness. It was to my great joy that I received your invitation and I was happy to come celebrate with you.” The King stands right behind Cyrus on the dais; his look of interest scares me. I cannot have him interested in me too soon if I am to succeed tonight.
“Who is this stunning young woman, Cyrus?” The King apparently will not leave me in my anonymity. Cyrus meets my eyes. His smile is still as big as it was when I came up to greet him, but the tightness has started around his eyes. He apparently didn’t think through the fact that his father would be interested in the one guest Cyrus himself invited. Cyrus descended the two steps of the dais and offered me his arm before turning back to his father.
“This is Sabrine, Father. She’s the one I meet in town every Wednesday.” I twine my arm around his and raise an eyebrow at that.
“So this is your potential bride?” The king is smiling and his hands are at his hips in a powerful yet welcoming gesture, but there is a glint at the lower waterline of his eyes I don’t like. “Well, bring her up here so everyone can see her.” Cyrus turns to look at me. I can see the apology in his eyes. He didn’t mean to bring so much attention to me. I just untangle my arm from his and grasp the front of my skirts so that I can ascend the stairs without falling. Cyrus walks behind me. His hand rests at the small of my back. He knows what it is like to be the center of his father’s scrutiny and is attempting to tell me that I am not alone. I sink into a low curtsy.
“It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Your Majesty.”
“Cyrus you did not tell me that the woman you were meeting was such a beauty. I hope my son has been behaving himself.”
“He is a perfect gentleman, Your Majesty.” Cyrus and I turn to look at each other and grin, playing the part of potential fiancés. Cyrus’s eyes have a playful glint as he extends his hand to help me from my curtsy.
“Now if you don’t mind, Father, I would like to ask Sabrine to dance.”