Page 4 of Where We Belong

I shoot out of bed, clutching a pillow in front of me like a sword and regretting the movement immediately.

“What the hell?” I half shout. Squinting to clear the fog in my head, now suddenly very aware that I’m naked.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Ah. I wasn’t drinking alone after all. My frown deepens as I put the pillow to better use and launch it at him. “Go back to your flat, Raph,” I grumble, fumbling through my drawers for painkillers. Or rum.

“Gladly,” he smirks, stretching his pale, muscular body out like a stray alley cat. “Lest you kick me again and attack me with a pillow.”

“Sorry.” I’m not. I find his boxers and striped pajama bottoms on the floor somewhere and shove them into his arms in an encouragement to go. Now. Once he leaves with a smug wink that makes me loathe myself even more, I collapse onto my bed, glaring at the ceiling. Oh, how I wish I had found rum, but I settle for waiting for the paracetamol to kick in. His footsteps thud across the ceiling, obnoxiously loud. Using all my strength, I fumble for another pillow and throw it upwards, but it lands on my face. I huff out a noise that’s half laugh, half despair, and I swear this is the last time I let that man into my bed. I mean it this time.

Glancing around my flat, that familiar pang of disgust rattles my chest. How have I let it get this messy? There’s no plan in place to do anything about it, but at least I’m self-aware. I really do love my little studio, though. One room containing my bed, and a half-functional excuse for a kitchen. Is that an oven? No clue. The place is shoddy, and the landlord couldn’t give a damn. But neither can I, so it works as long as the rent clears. I didn’t choose the place for its quality anyway; I chose it for the floor-to-ceiling windows that frame the wild blue-grey of the sea. It’s mesmerising. Sometimes I stare at the waters for hours. My bed is as close to the windows as it can get, so I can fall asleep facing it; the swishing waves lull me to sleep every night. No point in making the place feel like home. I don’t have many belongings anyway, just the essentials in case I want to move again. Except, this doesn’t feel like anywhere I’ve lived before. As soon as I visited Southend for Macy’s birthday last year, it was clear that this is where I need to be. Can’t say I feel like I’m home exactly, but home adjacent.

When I’m confident the room has stopped spinning, I rummage through a pile of clothes and throw on a black top and some leggings that smell passable. I cringe, studying my reflection in the hallway mirror, my fingers tracing my sunken cheeks. God, I’ve lost so much joy in my face this past year. My eyes, though, are still striking. A vivid green with flecks of light brown contrasting my sandy skin. They’d always been a talking point.

“It is like looking into a beautiful jungle in the middle of summer.” Dad’s booming voice echoes in my mind. “We have jungles where I am from. All sorts of creatures roam the soil and trees. And even worse ones roam the skies. Scary!” He’d chase and tickle me until my eyes watered. “Not like you though, my flame. You are not scary. You are beautiful and strong. A Princess. A Queen.”

A faint smile creeps onto my lips as memories of my parents flood my mind, but thinking about them for too long is dangerous. That’s when my power slips. When the good memories crack and the darker ones seep through. I don’t want to think about him rocking in the corner. Eyes hollow, not noticing when I tugged at his arms begging him to play. Mum carrying me back to bed, whispering comfort meant for us both. And always his mumbling, about going home. Maybe their deaths were a mercy after all. In that case, you’re very welcome, Mum and Dad. A small flame slips from my fingertips and singes a hole through the stack of letters on the floor. Smoke curls up from the paper. Thankfully, the first thing I do in any new place is disarm the fire alarm. I flap the letter around, blowing the smoke away before tossing it in the bin. Can’t pay a bill if you can’t read it. A stray piece of frizz falls into my face, and I tuck it behind my ear. Where the rain caught my hair last night, my dark, wild curls are showing. I’ll have to deal with it later. I sigh and throw on my jacket, slamming the door shut behind me.

Time to find a drink, a job, and maybe an explanation as to why the sea won’t stop calling my name.

Chapter 4

Kaed

a beast unleashed, unchained, uncaged,

still shackled in denial.

This room is too small for my frame. It wasn’t built for someone like me. Yet today the air feels less suffocating. For the first time in months, my thoughts march in order. I am unfamiliar with failure. It has rotted my discipline and dulled the sharpness I was shaped for. But this morning, there is a change in the current. Something I cannot touch or see. Hope. A strange word. It sits uneasily on the tongue of a soldier, as foreign as peace or forgiveness. Yet I taste it all the same.

Rolling my shoulders, I condition myself to ignore the knots in my arms and legs. My body aches from head to toe after training, and now, I replay the same thoughts in my mind. I need to work backwards from the wound. For two hundred and forty-six days, I have retraced the palace corridors. The turns of my lieutenants, the timings of my commanders, even the routes the Volker guard in the city. How did I miss it? How did they get past me? Now I know for sure that rebels have infiltrated the palace under my watch. Plotted under my nose. Tricked me with their misdirection. My heart is full of venom. I now know that I must be careful with whom I trust in the palace, and if the King still trusts me after all this time. My strength. My instinct. After eight months of failure? It’ll be a miracle. Not that I believe in them anymore, miracles died when she did.

Some time ago, I debated whether I would attend fruitless meetings again, let them say what they want about me; it is no business of mine. I serve only my King. I walk the length of the narrow room, head high, hands clasped behind my back. My eyes pass over my maps, seeking the line they must have taken, the crack in the plan I have overlooked. I will find it. I can only assume there are entrances and exits I am unaware of. Though I don’t see how that is possible, I’ve spent my entire life at the palace, scaled it from spire to dungeon. When Nyk and I were boys, we tested its bones with childish pranks. Learning holes and hollows the King himself overlooked. I know it well. My home. I halt in front of the map of the barracks, leaning in close, urging it to whisper its secrets to me. They think solitude frays a soul, and that it may. But I will never forget who I am and what I was shaped for. Captain of the King’s Volker. A title earned in blood and demanded by The Creed. Footsteps echo. I freeze. Praying to nothing and no one that my muttering went unheard. The door groans.

“Captain,”

I tilt my head, catching him in my peripheral. Theron and his keen, blue eyes dart around the room.

“I’m sorry to interrupt whatever it is you are doing, but we must go.” The smile leaks from his words. I didn’t welcome his appointment, but he gets the job done, and he is a good fighter, so I kept my mouth shut despite the struggle to do so. But now, he shows his colours. Worming into councils, using any opportunity to undermine me, no doubt making sure his voice is the loudest in the room. But I didn’t claw my way up the ranks by giving a damn, so he can shove his ambition up his narrow ass.

“I met with the King today. Do you want to know what he said about you?”

I exhale, bleeding tension from my muscles. We both know I could snap his measly neck with one hand, chainmail or no. Instead, I remain composed. Discipline is the greater weapon. Perhaps my refusal to play his games will drive him from the room so I can begin again. There it is once more. Hope.

“No. I do not.”

“You should’ve been there when I gave him your updates. Nothing, of course.”

“I have no interest in your commentary.” Heat pricks my bones. “You bore me.” My scowl turns into a dangerous smile, baring my elongated canines. A small courtesy to remind him who and what I am. And that nothing, and no one, can take it from me. It seems he has forgotten in these months the face I have worn for the last two hundred years.

He takes a small step back and his throat bobs, before he studies me with the caution I deserve. “Captain, we are waiting.”

Chapter 5

Ashley

I reverted back, right to the start,