The Rise of Deragon (The Deragon Duology #2)

24

Pandora

K it and I haven’t spoken much since he veered the speedboat away from the coastline—since his kiss nearly knocked the wind out of me. Mostly, it’s been brief exchanges and emotionally charged eye contact, but I learn to take Kit’s cues, to let him make the first push towards any and all conversation.

After all, the man just defied the most radical sector of his government to save me from certain death, and there’s a good chance that the kiss is what convinced him to do so.

I’d kissed him . . . or maybe Kit kissed me. However it happened, it’s sure to haunt me. I know it for certain as Kit steers the boat like a maniac, tearing through the choppy waters like they don’t nearly throw him from his captain’s chair. I sense it in the way time moves at a glacial pace, even at the rapid speed we soar at. And worst of all, I feel the notion in my bones like the death toll I would’ve faced in the tribunal.

It doesn’t matter that the kiss was desperate, or that the high I rode in the midst of it has since trickled out of my bloodstream. If I want Kit to keep me alive, I need to pretend like that kiss was everything .

Even though it didn’t hold a candle to the spark I felt when Madman kissed me in his lair.

Kit found a river path wide enough to still maintain our speed, though the wake we leave behind drenches the side streets and footpaths that the morning city-life treads. It takes every instinct in me not to apologize to alert passersby of my presence. Eventually, Kit finds a vacant mooring to dock the boat at before urging me to lay completely flat against the boat’s flooring, shielding my body from sight by leaning against the sitting bench. He’s gone all of ten minutes, having disappeared down an alley of merchant carts and mortar storefronts before returning with a sky-blue shawl, a thick overcoat, and a small capsule of red ink.

“What’s this for?” I say, forming my first full sentence since our…moment.

“There’s a good chance your absence is being reported to the court. Drape this around your hair so that it casts a shadow over your face,” he says quickly, standing by to help if need be. I do as he bids without aid, and when Kit feels confident enough in my capabilities, he dons the coat and ruffles his hair through his fingers.

Then, dipping a finger in the ink, Kit draws a symbol that reminds me of an infinity broken before the two loops can connect in the middle across his forehead. Before I can shy away, he lifts the edge of my shawl to repeat the marking along my head, too.

“What does it mean?” I ask.

“It’s the refugee mark,” he says, his voice lowering to where I can barely understand him. “If we can make it to the Sacred City, which should only be two miles from this intersection, we will be offered shelter without question.

“Even if they recognize us?”

Kit smiles vaguely, helping me out of the boat. The gesture proves to be eerily reminiscent of Madman’s mannerisms. “Even then.”

“How?”

“By law, the Sacred City of Vesta—named after the goddess of hearth and hospitality—is required to take in any refugees that present themselves for asylum. People all across the Mosacian continent travel to visit the shrine, which rests in its center, but the city itself is reserved as a haven for those with no place to go. Even better, no one can legally bring any violence against us once we’re past the walls, or they’ll face their own tribunal for it.”

Dear Saints.

“Which is why you and I need to get to the entry point before the court announces the massive bounty on our heads,” he whispers, increasing the pacing of our steps.

“ Our heads?”

“Tribunals don’t take lightly to broken promises. I told them I’d bring them the heir to the Deragon Dynasty, but by not showing up, not even to report that I had lost you somehow . . . it means my dissention is equally as damnable as your sentence would have been.”

I gulp at the weight of his words—the realization that by choosing to spare me, he might not be able to go home to Andromeda House. And Andie . . .

“I’m so sorry, Kit,” I choke out.

I hate what you’ve become to me.

He should. He should hate me for it, because if he could read my mind right now and see that despite the insane risk that he just brought on himself by bringing me here, I’m still thinking about someone else . . .

I thought it was the end. My family hadn’t come, my mother was Saints knows where on the continent looking for me, and Madman . . . well, that’s what seemed to burn me the most. I’d die for them—for a bloodline that hadn’t cared to negotiate my release in any form—but I would have left things with Madman on bad terms. My final interaction with him would have been a fight, and it broke me.

The uttered words were a disastrous slip of restraint.

“I’m going to miss you.”

Not parting words for the man I presumed was ready to turn me in, but a silent prayer that by some supernatural force, Madman would hear me. That even if he couldn’t bail me out at the last second, he’d know that if I was given the chance, I’d have reconciled with him.

But then, Kit Andromeda took the words to heart, which left me with no choice but to do as Madman had once instructed me.

So as Kit twines his fingers with mine, more so to drag me behind him than to be endearing, I will myself to cling tighter to him. The increased closeness in the touch makes him glance at me over his shoulder, and he halts for a moment before he steps towards me to conceal my face from two onlookers across the street. I let my eyes fall shut, breathing in his scent.

And then, Kit says, “I couldn’t let you die for them.”

“I know that, now,” I wince. “I wasn’t sure before, but I—”

“And I get that it may feel like an insult, to mean more to me than to your family.” His nose draws a tender line down the bridge of my own, a soothing sensation against the gut-twisting reminder of what I had murmured inches shy of what I believed was oblivion on the boat. “But what if, in time, I can give you that sense of family you need?” His voice is a devastating whisper. “What if we find a way . . . some way to get back to Andromeda House, and wipe the slate clean. What if I promise you years of daylight and stocked shelves of books and card games with Andie?”

My eyes turn misty at the idea, at the sight of Kit piecing together a future for us.

“Would a makeshift life with me be enough to outweigh the world you once knew?”

Even though Kit’s heart has shifted, mine lingers elsewhere. Lingers in a place that I never would’ve wandered to on my free will two months ago, with a man who found a way to make the dwelling of my deepest fears feel like a sacred space. A man who would’ve offered me a life of blissful darkness, beautiful music, and unwavering devotion if only given the chance.

Still, I nod through the lump in my throat, if only because I would loathe myself anew by saying the word yes aloud. To vocally lie. I allow the tears to spill over for Kit’s sake, even as I silently wonder whether I’ll ever lay eyes on Madman again—and then, I let Kit Andromeda whisk me up the street and towards the Sacred City.

+

Had Kit not cut through the riverbend, we would’ve been swarmed by the general population the minute the tribunal declared the monetary value of my arrest reward, not to mention Kit’s. Thankfully, fate or the Saints or the gods—I’m still trying to understand how the culture operates here—remains on our side, because with minimal resistance, Kit and I manage to complete the trek to the walls encasing the Sacred City.

The walls span at least twelve feet high—likely a nod to the amount of deities represented in the shrine, Kit had explained on the walk over. Polished stone with illustrative etchings of people and settings I recognize from reading Mosacian Ideologies and Stories of Old separate the town from what lies within, but the images are not carved deep enough to provide anyone the ability to wedge their feet there and attempt climbing over. This close to the gate, which Kit insists is down one more winding pathway, I can’t see what treasures Vesta waits to grant us. But earlier on, I could see a porcelain building gleaming in the daylight atop the steepest hill, Corinthian columns striped across its perimeter beneath a gray-gleaming roof. Surely, that must be the shrine.

“Let me do the talking,” Kit instructs.

The moment I behold the silver gates, sharp tips pointing up towards the clouds, my blood runs cold. A booth rests perched on the right side of the gate’s yawning mouth. As we approach, however, I find that the gatekeeper starkly defies my fearful expectations.

A girl, no older than Flora if I had to guess, leans at the base of the security booth with fair skin, a lighthearted disposition, and the purest, river-blue eyes that seem to pop against her braided, chestnut hair.

Before Kit can make the first interaction, the girl carefully steps towards us, as if worrying we’ll spook easily. “I see that you both bear the refugee’s mark,” she says, her voice wrought with a gentleness I wouldn’t anticipate from a city gatekeeper. “I only hope your journey here has not been too perilous.”

Kit’s brows scrunch in confusion, as if the girl’s kindness flies completely over his head.

“Adventurous, yes,” I reply in his stead. “But not dangerous.”

The somewhat lie hangs in the air for a moment before the gatekeeper smiles, as if sensing it. Still, she replies, “Well then, welcome to the Sacred City. May Vesta grant you all that you seek.”

“Thank you,” I say, looping my arm through Kit’s to further imply that we’re together. Only once we’re a few steps past the girl do I dare to whisper, “Nice talking you did back there.”

“How come you understood her?” Kit says through his teeth, arm locking mine into place.

“What do you mean?”

“The girl greeted us in Mosaith, and you answered her.”

The dominant language of the continent. I had gone through a series of tutors over the years in order to be able to carry casual conversation—mainly if the instance of possible capture ever arrived. I had prepared to speak that way when Madman first stole me away, but he spoke the Urovian tongue. Kit, too.

But I know the girl at the gate spoke Urovian to the two of us—and I know I responded in the same language.

“You’re probably sleep deprived,” I say passively.

“Then what’s that?” he asks snidely, pointing towards the entrance again.

My steps come screeching to a halt as I hear her honey-sweet voice speaking to a new passerby—this time, her words manifesting in a dialect I’ve never heard. My eyes flare at how seamlessly the two strangers converse together, and even Kit seems taken aback. “She’s speaking Kionan, now,” he marvels. “That’s a language way out eastward.”

Kit shakes his head, beginning to walk us both deeper into the city, but before I turn my attention fully towards our unknown fate, I catch the girl looking my way again. Studying me. There’s a gleam in her eye that tells me this won’t be the last time we talk, but I don’t get to react before Kit tugs me towards the Sacred City by the arm.

+

Vesta teems with life from all across the continent.

Everywhere we turn, navigating through the route of hostels and stone-lined inns, there are herds of people that look nothing like the people that now act as their next door neighbors. Every culture, every conquered tribe, every skin tone and dialect—they’re all here.

Convening with one another.

It almost feels like I’m intruding on a party. The entire community seeking shelter lines the streets of the city, passing food to their families or playing games on the shaded pavements. Not everyone in the city bears the refugee mark—the ones without them likely venturing towards the shrine situated skyward—but the ones that do offer smiles towards Kit and I as we coast through the crowds. Those that don’t are already wrapped up in conversations, and something swells in my soul as I watch people from different parts of the world speaking in different dialects attempt to tell each other about themselves. Their stories.

It’s the most beautiful display of humanity I’ve seen in all my life.

It fills me with such hope that I drift aimlessly through the masses until Kit guides us into a hostel lined with uneven stone and indicated by a green flag posted above the door frame. “This will be our home base,” he exhales, hand already on the knob of the door and twisting it open.

I take note of the stairs on the immediate right of the door, which leads up to two higher floors, those demarcated flags colored red. Occupied. No doubt Kit will probably complain about hearing footsteps at whatever hours of the night our new neighbors might move around at. Meanwhile, I just hope they’re kind people. Gearing my eyes back to the door, which now gives way to a humble living room, I step inside and instantly feel the air in the room turn cold.

The temperature only seems to drop as I assess the rest of the space we’re to share this next . . . however long.

A small kitchenette rounds off the corner of the living room, the black hearth and matching stove sticking out amidst the otherwise beige suite. A wicker basket of woven blankets and a gray-stitched couch rests not far away from the fireplace’s steel grate. But the entire suite is one room save for a closeted toilet, which likely leaves little mystery and privacy to be had. Specifically, it’s the sight of what constitutes our bedroom that does me in.

I don’t bark out any sort of protest at the single bed, even though my gut churns at the lack of pillows. One for each of us—but with my tendency to clutch a pillow while resting my head on another, I’m worried I may try to cling to Kit .

To his credit, Kit doesn’t outright smile at the sight, but his disposition tells me he’s weighing the prospects of sleeping together, too.

My eyes snag on vacant shelves along the back wall, and I point it out to him. Kit turns to the shelves, and his smile crushes a piece of my soul. “Maybe we can find some books for you in the city,” I say.

But it’s a new voice that remarks in answer, “Oh, I think we can manage that.”

Kit and I both jolt at the young gatekeeper’s sudden presence, not having heard her pad into our hostel.

“I wanted to introduce myself earlier, but you seemed to be in a hurry to find lodging,” she says, eyes flicking towards Kit with quiet amusement. “I’m Marzipan.”

I recall the detail Kit mentioned about being safe within the city’s walls, and feel inclined enough to trust her with our real identities. “It is nice to meet you, Marzipan. This is my partner, Kit.” I’m almost surprised by how easy the words come, not to mention the fabricated, smitten blush that floods my cheeks. “And I’m—”

“Pandora Deragon,” Marzipan says with a broad smile, dipping in a short curtsy and bowing her head. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, princess?”

“This is our home, now,” Kit speaks up, his voice earnest and soft despite his rigid stance.

“That’s the spirit!” she chimes happily. “I’m a permanent resident here in the city. Actually, I’m on the third floor.” She points up at the ceiling. “So if you ever want company or have questions about—”

“How many languages do you speak, Marzipan?” Kit asks before letting her finish her statement.

Marzipan giggles. “A few.”

It’s not a clear answer and we both know it.

“I can assure you there are far more interesting things in the Sacred City than little old me,” she insists. “Speaking of which, I’ll track down a few books for your shelves. Do you have a genre of choice?”

When Kit doesn’t immediately respond, still suspicious of the girl, I answer on his behalf. “Historical accounts, perhaps. Anything that covers the origins and legends of the land is right up our alley. Isn’t that right, Kit?”

I look to Kit just in time to catch him grinding his teeth before schooling his face back into neutrality. “Indeed,” he murmurs, and I try not to let the notion of his silent yet evident distrust in Marzipan shake me.

“Should be easy enough,” Marzipan says as she begins her departure. On the way, she accidentally bumps into me, briefly apologizing, and then stops before the door. “See you around, neighbors,” she grins, then vanishes without a trace.

Kit harumphs before leaving my side to assess each of our appliances. “We’ll have to pinpoint different food spots within Vesta’s walls. I’m not particularly hungry yet, but we can—”

He drones on, but his voice turns muffled as my attention focuses elsewhere.

To where Marzipan had bumped into me and conveniently slipped a secret message in my pocket.