Page 79 of The Eye of the Fifth
Before the unpleasant journey ahead, however, he could enjoy at least one more homely comfort. Sunsi brought a couple of bowls of hot food directly to his room, and they sat in silence on his bed, each slurping on the watery chicken broth.
‘You should stay down here,’ Gedeon told her when he had finished his broth. It had been on his mind for a few days. Her anxiety induced decline from living a double life was weighing heavily on him.
She shook her head, taking the empty bowl from his hands and placing it, along with her own, on the ground. ‘I’m the Base’s emissary. If I disappear down here, they lose their eyes and ears.’
‘And if you stay up there, they will lose you completely,’ Gedeon said bluntly. ‘I don’t wish to see Sekun’s blade dripping with your blood.’
She gave a dry laugh. ‘I think your brother would rather keep me as a pet than kill me.’
Sickening though the thought was, Gedeon knew it to be true. His brother had goaded him about Sunsi enough times for him to know that. Sekun’s leering eyes had not gone unnoticed by her either, it would seem.
‘Had I never shown interest in you, Sekun would never have even looked your way.’
Sunsi fractionally raised her eyebrows. ‘So, I am nothing but an object of jealous desire?’
‘No,’ Gedeon swiftly said. ‘It could have been you or anyone.’
‘Charming.’
‘No… that’s not what I-’ Gedeon paused, shaking his head. ‘Sekun has always been competitive. There was never anything I had that he did not try to take from me in some way. Perhaps it was because the only thing he truly wanted was the one thing he could never have.’ At Sunsi’s confused expression, he continued, ‘My being the Fire Warden was always somewhat of an offence to my brother. He has always resented that it was me, and not him, who Eraura chose, no matter how much hatred he has for the Four.
‘When we were coming of age, Sekun had this complex about how many females he could bed over me. I… was never interested in sharing my bed with someone I did not like. Or even know for that matter. But in his eyes, he was winning his game. And I didn’t particularly care.
‘Until I met Laurette. She was a half-human, half-fae handmaiden to my mother. She was quite beautiful. And intelligent. As I got to know her better, I liked her more and more. I was young and impressionable and soon… I was falling in love with her. Sekun could keep his whores. I had Laurette. And she was all I needed.
‘I deliberately kept our relationship from my brother. For weeks, Laurette and I were together and no one knew. If they had, she would have been killed, but she took the risk. Reckless of me, perhaps, to let her do so but… I was a young fool in love. And for a while… it was bliss. Then Sekun found out. He had one of his whores act as a spy, andshe saw Laurette coming in and out of my chambers each night. The following night, Laurette did not call on me. Instead, she was summoned to my brother. And who was she to ignore the summons of the crown prince?’ Gedeon said bitterly. ‘To this day, I still do not know what he did to her. But it was enough to make her flee the capital and never return. There was a warrant out for her arrest for abandoning her duty, but she was never found. By some miracle, she got away.’
Gedeon could still remember the exact shade of gold of her long curling hair.
Sunsi was frowning, her expression faraway and disturbed. ‘I always knew he was sadistic. But this…’ she let out a long breath. ‘Ysabell does not deserve him.’
‘Ysabell made her choice when she married him.’
‘Don’t be naive, Gedeon,’ Sunsi said with a cutting glare. ‘I have no affection for fae nobles, but she had no choice in the matter. None. If she had refused the match, her family would have disowned her. And if she does not give him an heir soon, I imagine she will miraculously disappear just like the others before her did. All going well, she will be his Empress Consort one day but she will never, ever be happy.’
Gedeon’s pity for his sister-in-law increased tenfold then with Sunsi’s female insight. He had scarcely seen a smile on Ysabell’s elegant face. He asked Sunsi, ‘Areyouhappy?’
After a moment deliberating the simple question, she let her head fall back against the wall with a soft thud. ‘I remember what it feels like to be happy. Now, I’m unsure if it was happiness or naivety. Maybe they’re the same thing. But since my father passed… I don’t think I have felt true happiness.’
‘How did he die?’
‘He fell to Winter Rot,’ said Sunsi. Her eyes glazed over. ‘I’ve always wondered why the best of men should suffer such a fate. His body went first. That I could deal with, for his mind was still his. It didn’t stop him from barking orders down here and always making the children laugh.’ A soft, nostalgic smile graced her face. ‘He was still a leader, though his body was frozen. But then the Rot began to take his mind. He would call for my mother thinking she was in the otherroom, but by this point she had been dead for fifteen years. I was holding his hand when he died, but I was a stranger to him. He didn’t know who I was. He called me Elara seconds before he passed away.’
‘Elara?’
‘My mother,’ Sunsi said, then shook her head. ‘He had never done that before, but in his last few breaths of life, he did.’
Winter Rot was not a disease that afflicted the fae. In his lifetime, Gedeon had never personally known anyone to succumb to its icy hold, though he knew it was a rampant curse amongst the humans in the city.
‘I’m sorry you had to see him like that,’ said Gedeon sincerely.
‘Me too,’ she replied. ‘So, to answer your question… no. I don’t think I am happy. But I am proud. To be leading these people as he did. And I… I feel like that’s enough.’
Gedeon found himself watching her. The way her eyelashes softly beat the dewiness in her eyes away, the way she brushed the flyaway strands of autumn-touched hair from her face that had fallen out of her tight braid, the way she had allowed her body to relax gently next to his.
Her gaze locked with his for a moment, but instead of recoiling away, she shifted to face him, her legs curling underneath her. ‘I won’t ask you if you’re happy, because I think I know the answer. But… do you remember the last time you were?’
There had been moments in his life that might have resembled happiness. Moments of fleeting jubilance, of joy in pleasure.
