Page 12 of A Brat's Tale
My body warms the whole way through, and I’ve never felt so good being Tristan.
Chapter 3
Bayaden leaves for a meeting with his father and I use the opportunity to tidy up his chambers. Problem is, without Bayaden to distract me, I’m alone with my thoughts and things creep back, like the doubts I’ve shoved away.
Diekin.Did he really make it out? Or was he taken away and killed? I didn’t demand any sort of proof; I took Andothair’s word for it.
Further back, I remember my beautiful hair, lifeless on the ground, my wrists and ankles shackled as Diekin was taken away to the prison for the first time. I stared at it and while I hated that it was gone, I felt another feeling I didn’t like.
Freedom.
It’s odd for a slave to feel free at the time of their imprisonment. I buried that feeling first, but it manifested anyway.
“You have no intention of returning to Mortouge, Warlord. I know this,” Diekin had said. He was right. Eventually I’d bartered for Diekin’s release, but I didn’t even try to barter for my own. I told myself there was no hope for my release and I wasn’t wrong, but that I didn’t even try to, said something about me I had to think about.
“No. I already told you,” I’d said to Diekin. “I can never face Corrikor Mortouge again. I can only hope I can save Mortouge and that they will still hold alliance with Markaytia.”
Ha! If I had a noble cause, then my actions were stillgoodby my old morals. But I was only fooling myself. I know Diekin didn’t believe me, even if he tried reasoning with me. I acted selfishly. I was not thinking of my homeland, or the kingdom I was meant to serve, only myself.
My heart chose for me, even if it was heavy with betrayal.
I betrayed everyone for this slice of happiness. That I am a prisoner seems to make up for everything, at least it did, but when Iremember—something I choose not to do—it makes less sense to me.
But when I look at Bayaden, it all makes sense again.
When he returns, he knows something’s up. “What’s wrong with you?”
The Elf is as rough as they come. Even being pressed up against him can be a callous experience, but so is sandpaper and what’s beneath it comes out smooth—that’s what Bayaden does to me, smoothens me with his roughness. “Do you remember what you first said to your brother about me?”
He smirks, remembering.
I try my best at an impression of his deep voice when it’s most irritated and I use Markaytian like he did that day so I would hear him insulting me. “What is thiscreature? It’s absolutely hideous. He looks like something the sea washed in.”
“To be fair, the sea had just washed you in. Hadn’t you come from a boat my brother destroyed?”
“I’ll not stick my cock anywhere near that thing,” I continue. “It’s probably riddled with fleas.”
He still won’t admit to his treachery. “You were a scraggly ragamuffin. I had every right to exercise caution.”
He moves closer to me and takes over. Bayaden has a wide frame like you’d expect an Elven Warlord to have. He’s dark-haired with coppery skin, more like mine. Andothair has a sandy hue of brown to his skin, but he’s not tanned like Baya. It’s testament to the long days Baya’s spent out in sun, much like I had once upon a time andso he’s several shades darker than Andothair with a pink hue. His skin isn’t weathered of course, seeing as he’s an Elf—their skin forever remains youthful-perfection and not even the sun can age it before its time.
But his eyes are what always get me, they are primal, dark menaces.
“I had you bathed and unsheathed your glorious beauty quickly if I remember.”
“Not before your guards imprisoned me and whipped me nearly to death.”
“You were not whipped nearly to death.” No, I wasn’t, but still. “I came to retrieve you, didn’t I?”
I laugh. “You weren’t happy about it.”
When he set his black eyes on me that day, I wanted to run back into the cold cell and stay there. I was sure he would finish the job the guard began.
“No, but would you have been in my position? Andothair was breathing down my neck more that day than usual and then I was called to fetch my unwanted, disobedient manservant.”
“Your fault. If you’d have just given me this in the first place, all of that could have been avoided.”
I rest my hand on the collar at my throat. It’s thick, black leather and has a tag with Bayaden’s Warlord’s insignia and a pendant from the house Tar Jian. I’d tried to convince the guard that I belonged to Baya in a desperate attempt to get out of the dank place—the smell of rotting flesh and the sound of painful moans get to anyone after a time—but the guard didn’t believe me.
