Touch of Guilt

I watch the moon fade into the backdrop of the sky, the horizon paling into blue as the sun climbs higher, and then I turn my attention down to the marching foot soldiers. It's been a few hours since Valerian excused themself—most likely to attend to whatever duty a soldier of their rank has—and all I've done is sit and peer through the window as the scenery passes by, mountains and towns that watch from afar as if afraid the army will turn its march on them at a moment's notice. It's only then do I regret not planning for the actual journey to Mureke better; I've brought no books for entertainment and all my scrolls and documents I can study in my free time are stored in my luggage. I must admit I'm bored out of my mind, and whilst the thought of falling asleep is tempting to my weary mind which couldn't find rest the night before, I know I'm too stressed to fall asleep, and even if I do the slightest bump in the carriage will undoubtedly shake me awake.

My coach abruptly stops and I barely manage to prevent myself from lurching forward. I look out the window again and frown—everyone else is still moving. However, any questions I had are answered just as the door opens and my disgruntled expression immediately slackens.

"I hope I'm not interrupting you," Adonis says as he slides into the seat opposite me apologetically, and then tacks on as an afterthought, "my lady."

He has no need to use any honourifics on me, I think then, since he himself has stripped me of any and all titles that give me power. I suppose it's a formality. "Unfortunately I don't have much to be interrupted by," I reply instead.

His mouth opens in a circle and he quickly shuts it with a simple nod, "I see."

There's a prolonged silence and Adonis shifts uncomfortably before me while I hold myself as still as possible. I realise our carriage is moving again as the ringing silence has all my senses pricking up in annoyance. It's an awkward silence, a tension so thick it would part like butter under a sharp knife.

He clears his throat, barely cutting through the tension, "About the marriage... you don't have to go through with it."

My mind blanks for a second as I process what that means and I inhale sharply. It's one simple sentence but it could mean a lot of things: "you can go back to your country"; "I can kill you if you do not wish to marry me"; "I will still bring you back as a trophy but we don't have to be wed"; "I will bring you to Mureke and we don't have to have any relation with each other". Frankly, I don't think the first and most appealing offer is an option. And all the others... hundreds of different scenarios run through my head, thousands of fragments of memories of days where I held no power come back to me.

"Am I not desirable as the jewel of Novenia, sir Adonis?" I ask. It's best to provoke a confrontation if the opponent seems like one that can bend under pressure.

"No! It's not that—"

"Or do Murekens have different tastes?"

Adonis opens his mouth to counter, but he pauses, letting the thought sink in. "I - maybe? I never thought about it like that." He leans back in his seat, a hand absently rubbing his chin.

"I heard from sir Valerian that Murekens prefer those who can fend for themselves," I continue, "Those who are strong and skilled and good warriors."

"They're just describing their spouse now," Adonis sighs, albeit fondly.

"Do you not agree with them?" I inquire, curious to see if the information provided by Valerian during our turns of questions are reliable or not.

"It's not that I disagree with what they think, but like my lady said, it is differing tastes after all," he shrugs, still staring off into space as if deep in thought. "But I wonder if tradition can have a hand in influencing..." He trails off, then his whole body freezes before he meets my gaze again.

"We got off topic," he apologises, "I'm sorry about my rambling, my lady."

"It is an intriguing discussion to have," I wave it off, though for the past few minutes I've been trying to calm myself down as he rambled. I've been thinking since yesterday about the exchange we had, his look of indifference and indecipherable expressions that cross his face every so often. "Although I don't think its lightness is fit for the current mood."

"No," Adonis says, "I suppose not."

"Then if it isn't me that deters you, is it something like love?" I ask and the way his eyes dart away betray his answer. Before he can say anything I continue on. "I understand fully if you wish to marry for love, sir Adonis."

"No, it's not that—" so he says, but I'm still trying to figure out if he's lying or not, "—ah, I'm afraid I've been giving you vague answers until now, my lady."

"Then tell me."

Adonis stews on it. He inhales and speaks, "I am a general, my lady, one of the few on the battlefield. I hold a lot of power here and that includes the decisions pertaining you and your family being left up to me."

I nod. The ex-king was right to bargain with him then.

"I say that, but it isn't as simple as just taking you back to Mureke or not," he says with a finality that tells me he won't elaborate if I ask what he means by that. Still, to gauge this man's personality, I ask:

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, my lady."

From what I saw, he's not the best at conversation, and it's a relatively easy task to poke at him and get him to spill things—but he's not daft and from the rest that I've gathered a lot of it is a ruse, a distraction so most wouldn't focus on the fact that, despite his supposedly clumsy nature, he is still a tight-lipped man with sensitive information. I file away those thoughts for a later dissection, slight annoyance at my mind's eagerness to dive into what I see and pick him apart from his head to his toes.

"What I'm saying—or at least the gist of all I can reveal, my lady—is that it is your choice whether you marry me or not. I—" he pauses a beat, not meeting my eyes and I dive into that pause, trying to figure out what the information he's so poorly yet so efficiently dodging around could be, "—I've chosen what I've chosen. To have you in exchange for the safety of your family from our executioners."

I shiver involuntarily. He's not marrying for love, that's for sure if he would accept the ex-king's trade so easily, nor is he marrying for lecherous desires like my previous husband did; it's political, or at least something close. He doesn't want my affection and he doesn't want—at this, my fingers curl around my shoulders—my body. Cold seeps into my bones the way they've done so many times before and phantom fingers wrap around my ankles, trailing along them and sending goosebumps up my back. A memory of inky black fingers digging into my skin and a whisper of a breath at my nape, I suppress the fear and force myself to look back up at Adonis.

"That is acceptable. How long—Sir Adonis?"

At the sound of his name, his attention snaps back to me, "I'm listening."

I frown but don't comment. "How long do I have to decide?"

"Until the wedding day," he says.

"Oh."

"If you want you can even make a big scene and run out of the hall if you want."

"I see."

Adonis looks down at his fists in his lap and I purse my lips.

"I'll decide before then," I finally say, but the next few words get stuck in my throat.

"Great!" Before I can say anything else he's already knocking on the wall behind him and climbing out of the carriage even before it stops. He skids on the floor and turns back momentarily with a pensive smile. "Thank you, my lady."

He leaves. I breath out a sigh into the empty coach, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Thank you."

-

Night comes quick and Adonis watches as Alexandria gracefully steps off the carriage, drawing eyes from anywhere within eyesight of her. She's a sharp one, that's something he is sure of even when they've only had few exchanges. However, he can't for the life of him figure out what she wants or what she can possibly gain from becoming his wife. Sure there are benefits that you get from the status of 'general', but Adonis would've guessed that the lady would rather be with her children than with him just for the power. Still, despite that thought Adonis can't help the realisation that she's more sinister than he had bargained for.

"Hey chief," one of the lieutenants, a short but stout woman who goes by Tyler, creeps up behind him and follows his eye's line of sight with her own gaze, "We're all wondering who the lady is."

Adonis hums, still not taking his eyes off of Alexandria. Valerian helps her set up a sleeping space closed off from the others—all the soldiers sleep outside seeing as they're going to pack up and leave that very morning anyways.

"That's nice," Adonis responds whilst side-eyeing Tyler, "tell me how it goes."

"Like, why would you marry her?" Tyler continues on, hand clasping down on Adonis' shoulder as something to hang from instead of an armrest (she's too short to do that on his shoulder). "Well I mean, like, I guess I understand. She's a catch alright."

Another soldier poking at a bed of fire speaks up, the embers floating up in a gust of wind, "She's like... she's like water," he stares in wonder.

Tyler looks at the soldier, unimpressed. "What the shit, Seven."

Seven turns to look at her, his cheeks puffing up and doing an exaggerated pout, "I like water. Water is nice and refreshing and..." he trails off looking for more adjectives. "—and nice."

"So is your mother."

"That doesn't—" Seven blinks, "—that's not even an insult."

"Why do I need to insult your mother when your very existence is enough."

"This is why nobody loves you."

"Pot, kettle."

Adonis interrupts their banter, "Quiet down, children. No fighting at the dinner table."

Seven looks down at the fire and fakes a sniff. "I used to eat on a table."

"We all did you dumb fuck," Tyler grabs Seven's ear and tugs, causing the latter to squeal and scramble against her vice-like grip.

While they to wrestle it out on the hard ground, Valerian walks up to them, nodding to Adonis with a quiet "Don," and going to sit where Seven had been pulled away from.

"Mom, dad, Tyler's bullying me again," Seven whines before he's once again pushed to the ground face first, crying out as his nose scrunches up at the taste of dirt.

Both Adonis and Valerian ignore him, Adonis gesturing towards where Alexandria is and asking, "What do you think about her?"

Valerian, polite as ever, answers, "I think she's a very smart and proper lady."

Tyler is wrestled down as Seven grapples at her legs. She says through Seven's hands muffling her breath, "What does that even mean."

"It means she's the opposite of you, sir Tyler," Valerian smiles sweetly in answer.

"Ouch."

Adonis hums, a low sound in his throat. "She's smart, yes." His arms crossed, one hand fiddles with the stripes on his shoulders that show his rank. "I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

"A bad thing," Tyler says the same time that Seven says:

"A good thing."

They glare at each other, pushing away and dusting off their uniforms from their little scuffle.

Tyler speaks first to justify her reasoning— "Isn't she supposed to be, like, a trophy wife? And if you're being technical, she's literally a prisoner of war. If she's smart who knows what she'll get up to when you leave her alone in the House for long. And because of her ignorance she might even go around causing trouble."

"If she's dumb wouldn't she cause more trouble?" Seven interrupts.

"See that's what you would think," she continues, "but if she's a bit dim it would be easier to take care of her and monitor her. If she's smart, she might go around finding loopholes to get herself back home."

"You overestimate her. Besides, why'd she even follow us if she's just gonna run away?"

"Because she'd die otherwise, duh? She might be some aristocratic bitch but she's got some, like, basic survival instincts at least."

"Yeah, but wouldn't it be a bad thing if she's boring—"

"You talk of her," Adonis grits out, a vein visible in his jaw, "like she's a pet."

Seven and Tyler look at each other. Seven answers, "I mean, she's basically just there for you to look good and she's not gonna work or anything. She basically is a pet."

Off to the side, Valerian sighs, "Why are you two like this..."

"That's awfully dehumanising of you, Major," Adonis speaks without inflection, not even bothering to look at the soldiers.

"Shit he just pulled rank—"

"You fucked up you fucked up—"

There's annoyance biting at his heels as he walks up to Alexandria, leaving the two rascals behind to wallow in their mistakes. The sun has already sunken into the horizon, the very same mountains that the sun rose in when they were still in Bolchest, but had long since crossed through. He stops just a few feet shy of the former queen, standing up straight as if to attention as he watches her stir the army gruel listlessly. There is a tension in her shoulders, but Adonis does not blame her for it.

"Is the meal not to your liking?" He asks as a formality; the meal is never to anyone's liking.

"It's not the meal, sir," Alexandria responds. "I have no appetite. You understand it has been a long few days for me."

"Of course," he says softly. She continues to poke at the gruel with the spoon, almost an absentminded action if not for the fact that she's also staring at it intently, not looking Adonis in the eyes. They stay like that, the two of them stuck in an awkward silence. Alexandria breaks the silence:

"I am faring well, if that is what you're asking, general." It's a dismissive comment even if she's not saying it directly, a 'please leave me alone'.

"Well, uh—" he came here for something, but it's already slipped his mind as most things do when he's faced with social pressure. He is the Devil of the Wastes who sweep armies clean and brings empires to their knees, he is one of the strongest and most feared men on the Whalien Strip—but here in front of his future-wife and not knowing what she's thinking, he's choking like a lovesick boy about to get rejected. It's unfitting for someone of his caliber, but he's a certified train-wreck if he hasn't practiced what he's about to say. "Is there - if there's - uh - if there is anything I can do to make the journey more comfortable, lady Alexandria, then just ask."

She still doesn't look up when she says, "I will." Adonis feels as if he's being shaken off like a persistent fly. He nods anyways and turns around.

"But," Alexandria starts and Adonis turns back more eagerly than he wants to appear. "If there is a book or something to keep me entertained..." she trails off, then looks up, her dark eyes finally meeting Adonis' gaze. "That would be appreciated, sir."

He wouldn't compare himself to a puppy, glad to do his master's bidding. No, that's something Tyler would say to tease him, only seeing the two from the outside. Adonis doesn't feel happy to do something for Alexandria—it's more of a gratitude that he can do something, anything that would make her forgive him. His guilt eats him alive every night, empty eyes of corpses and screams of mean clawing at their ears as his blade sings through them; he remembers every face that curses him into their deaths. But he thinks he would feel less guilty if he had killed Alexandria and her royal family right then, before he could've seen her pitiful and desperate grab for survival, the way her children held onto her as they knelt on the cold, hard floor. He would've felt less guilty then, but all he can do now is make sure she survives. He can make sure she doesn't regret this decision for the rest of her life.

It is the least a monster can do.