Page 62 of A Brat's Tale
I usually hear the door open; there are several locks that keep it closed and two guards in front, but I was enthralled in my farmer-warrior watching. Corrik does not like me sitting on the large window ledge with my legs hanging off it. He comes over to help me, giving a smack to my already sore arse, and shuts the window.
No.
Something goes off inside me, a switch, the animosity I’ve been holding inside so I could get what I needed to get done bursts free. “No.No!You take everything from me.” I mean that in a lot of ways. “If I want to sit on the ledge, I will sit on the ledge. And you know what? Screw becoming an Elf. I don’t want to anymore. Do you hear me? I’m not becoming an Elf.”
“You have to become an Elf, Tristan. It’s part of the contract, you know this.”
“Oh, I know,” I say the words like a dare. They always underestimate me,Elves, and I would love to show them why they shouldn’t. Bayaden learned how clever I was. He believed in me. The limitations I have, he recognized them in a real way, but instead of keeping me locked up, he helped me find ways of overcoming them. “Open that window back up now, Corrik, or so help me, I will find a way out of here, and you will never see me again.”
I’ve metaphorically punched him in the gut. But he does move over to open the window wide, while his eyes burn icy cold at me before he storms out of the room and I hear all the locks get done up with finality.
Victory.I climb back onto the ledge and contemplate how I might get down.
Things become uneasy between me and Corrik. He stops spanking me for things, which even I admit he should be spanking me for, and this is not good. I need to be spanked like I know Father spanks Papa, but I’ll never ask. Corrik visits less, and I begin to resent him for that too, along with everything else. I knowthat this time, he’s not sitting outside the door for me. What I said hurt him, but I’m angry again, and my anger won’t allow me to apologize.I am right, my ego tells me, and there seems no other way out than to manipulate him.
I hate myself for it, it’s not how I operate, but my options seem few and I just want a day out of this room. One day, that’s all I ask. I try not to let Corrik see me cry, but eventually, he does. “Tristan,” he says, climbing onto the bed.
“No. Stay away from me,” I sob. “This is your fault. And I’m not going to reach my goal, and I’ll be stuck up here longer.”
It is breaking me apart. If only Father could see me now, he’d take back everything he said.All it took was locking him in a room and the Great Tristan Kanes was defeated—that’s what the books will say about me.
He pulls me toward him anyway. He’s shirtless and I’m naked, his skin is cool against mine, but I like it. I need him even when I hate him. He lets me cry against him. “You’re so close, Tahsen. It’s just a little longer and then we will have to travel.”
Travel sounds exciting. I sniffle.“To the East?”
“That’s right. Mountains far to the East. This is where you will have to pass the final test and then you will become Elf.”
I nod.
“I am sorry, my darling. I never should have implied that I was going to board up the windows. I saw the fear in your eyes, and you reacted in kind.” His ears move with the lines of his face, it makes my chest pang with sadness. He does try.
“I was horrible and hurtful. I’m sorry too, but yes, I was scared. I’ve never been so defenseless in all my life.”
“You’re hardly defenseless, Tristan. Half of my protections are to keepyoufrom breaking out. I know if you really wanted to, you’d find a way.”
That makes all the difference. “Thanks, Cor. The worst of it is thinking about how weak you think I am.”
“No, my mate is strong. But we all have things we cannot fight and for you, that’s Elves.” We’re quiet for a time and I enjoy him runninghis hands through my hair. “Tristan, could you leave me so easily? I mean, in your heart. Of course, you could figure out a way to leave, I believe that, but could you turn away, never come back without a single thought?”
One of my biggest character flaws is saying things like that, hurtful things I can never take back. But the problem is, I did mean it at the time. “I could not leave easily, Corrik, but I could leave if I needed to.”
“You won’t though, because of Markaytia, not because of me.”
It hits me. I still haven’t told Corrik I love him. There has been too much going on, making my feelings go everywhere. I’ve been waiting for a pure time, but there hasn’t been one. I don’t want to say it to him out of duty or obligation, I want it to come out freely, but something keeps blocking it. This means Corrik still doesn’t know, especially when he knows that while I have shelved my outward resentment about his “protection plan” it is still there. Plus, with all the turmoil, it must be hard for him to feel my love on his own, without the words for more certainty.
“Ultimately the reason I will stay despite what you choose to do is because I have made an oath in the name of Markaytia. But if that reason didn’t exist, then I’m sorry, but my love for you would not hold me here, which has nothing to do with how much I love or don’t love you. I have to love myself first Corrik; being confined like this is dampening my soul.”
“I can understand that. It’s not forever.”
“I know. It’s just hard.” I take a breath. “I will get through it.Wewill get through it, but Corrik, don’t doubt that I love you. I’ve never said it, so I’m saying it now. I love you and I just want everything to be as normal as our lives will ever be, so I can enjoy you.”
“Me too, though, you must have known even before we married, life here won’t be the ‘normal’ you are used to.”
“Yes. I know it’s different here. That you are deviant creatures,” I say. “Which I have wondered about. There have been no lessons of the kind you tried to teach me on the ship.”
“That is a time commitment, I knew you’d want all spare time tostudy and shoot arrows into our fine tapestries,” he teases me. I laugh. “Did you enjoy those lessons, pet?”
A shiver runs through me. “When you weren’t whacking me with your crop, I did.”
