specific person.
But his features gnawed through the
numbness—she remembered them. Childlike almost, as though he had
the body of a man but the innocent face of a boy—plump cheeks with
dimples and round eyes. Mikza's closest friend, a friend who had
always risked much to help their doomed romance.
"Tam?" She questioned, hushed and weak.
"What will they do to him?"
"I don't know, Princess," he shook his head.
Hurt was written across his face. Hurt that he had been a part of
the capture. Hurt that he had not been able to keep Mikza safe.
Hurt that he could not help her. Leena saw each thought flicker
across his eyes, like an apology, one she did not want from
him.
"Tam, you need to go to him in my place. I
will not run, I promise. I will not break your trust. But you have
to go and pull him back from the brink of death, which is where my
father will surely leave him."
Her voice did not waver, did not break.
"I will, Princess. And here is my promise to
you. When he is safe, I will bring you to him. I will give the two
of you a proper goodbye."
Tam squeezed her hand, then dropped it,
gently releasing his hold on her body. With one glance back, he
left and closed the door behind him. Like a strong tide, her heart
went with him, sucked from her body, pulled free.
Leena walked emotionless across her room,
throat raw, limbs weak. Then she stepped off the edge and sunk deep
into her pool, letting its warm waters embrace her, not sure if she
would ever surface again.
Six
Time ceased to exist underwater.
Had it been hours? One day? Two days? An
entire week? Leena did not know, and she did not care. Her stomach
growled, but she ignored it. Her limbs ached for their weight, but
she continued to drift, to float, ambivalent.
Down here, it was easier to pretend. To let
her memories take over, to let her dreams unfurl. Sound was
muffled. Light was softer. The world seemed far away and out of
reach.
Leena was happy to leave it that way.
Without Mikza to save her, Leena could just
drift until the end of her days. No one else dared enter her
quarters without permission, not while she was inside. He had been
the only one willing to save her, to ignore protocol. The servants
might inform the guards of her silence, the guards might inform the
king of his daughter's deep mourning. When she started to miss
events, balls or dinners, he might be angry enough to
intervene.
Leena almost hoped her father would be the
one to discover her, to see her at the bottom of the pool. Maybe he
would think her drowned, defiant until the end. Maybe then she
would be free of him.
As if reading her mind, a body slid under
the surface, distracting Leena, tearing her eyes open for the first
time in she didn’t know how long. Arms encircled her, and for a
moment, she let herself dream it was Mikza, let her heart soften
and her body curl into the warm chest.
And then they broke through the surface, and
the dream shattered. Noise jerked her senses, unwelcome after all
the silence. The roar of waves, the tinker of metalworking, the hum
of human voices screaming from below. The sounds of her city
infiltrating her peace.
The sun was bright, painful, and its heat
stung her cold skin, sizzling the water droplets away.
"He said you would be in the water," a soft
voice said, and he gently placed her on the ground.
"Mikza? He's alive?" Leena turned over,
rolling up from the ground to face Tam. She recognized his caring
voice, but his face seemed older, somehow aged since the last time
they had met.
Tam nodded, but held something back, words
he seemed unable to bring himself to say aloud. "Come, Princess,
there isn’t much time. He is to be moved from the palace dungeons
in a few hours."
Leena needed no other prompting. Despite her
protesting muscles, soft from so much time spent unused, she stood
and then raced into her bedroom for dry clothes. Within minutes,
hair unpinned and face free of powder, Leena met Tam outside her
quarters.