Page 107 of The Fury She Holds
Tal placed her hand on the rough bark. Her fingers easily found the grooves of her and Carrick’s initials carved into the trunk long ago.Hello, old friend. I pray you’ve been well. It had been many years since she last sat beneath the tree. While so much in Tal’s life had changed, the willow kept its many branches and grew the same leaves every spring.
A light breeze blew its draping branches in an elegant dance that she couldn’t peel her gaze from. They sat underneath and listened to the leaves as they swayed in the wind.
Sweat dripped down Tal’s brow and off her lip. Faron took off his shirt and enjoyed the cooler air. The summer sun glistened along the sweat dripping down the muscles of his back. He caught Tal admiring his bare skin and winked at her. She shoved him and laughed.
The faint sounds of life at the bottom of the large hill carried on the wind to their spot beneath the tree. Seagulls screeched at sailors. She always hated the sound. It pierced her eardrums. But at this distance, it was almost beautiful. People went about their lives below, entering shops, scrambling about, unaware of the danger that walked among them a few nights ago.How peaceful it must be, she thought,to live a life free from such violence. Tal didn’t have that luxury. She had chosen violence as her profession, or rather, it had chosen her. But sitting up here under this willow, she could almost imagine what that kind of life must be like.
“I come up here to think,” he said to the wind. “No one can interrupt my thoughts or demand a decision I don’t want to make.”
“It must be lonely.”
“You have no idea.”
His gaze remained on the town. Things had quieted between them. Tal could feel it in her heart. The tumultuous waves of excitement and near-anxiety of those first weeks had dissipated. The poisonous betrayal of his secret and what his identity might mean for them remained absent. Right then, she only felt peace.
“What’s it like?” she mused. “Having all that power?”
“Nothing like you would think.” He paused. “I’m not allowed to make many decisions on my own. I can’t even eat breakfast without someone approving. Can’t have their precious king do anything that could put him in danger. And you think the king has power? I likely have barely more power than you do.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “The council has to approve of anything I do, and they most often do not.”
“Then what’s the point of you being king?”
“To have someone to blame when their policies backfire,” he said harshly.
Tal blinked, having expected a different answer. “So, you weren’t merely coming to the docks to escape life at the palace?” She thought of his maroon suit and the first night she had seen him, a naive swordsman eager to save the first person he saw in danger.
He nodded. “I didn’t realize how bad it was. No one told me anything. And when I questioned, they assured me everything was being taken care of. But even my first time outside the grounds proved they lied.”
“So, what now?” Tal had always thought the king didn’t care, that he called all the shots, and his council only advised. All the times she silently blamed him for the kingdom’s condition, not knowing it had actually been Faron, only to learn he’d been deceived by his own council made her wonder if things could have been different. “Now that you know how bad it is,” she added.
“Things are going to change,” he said, staring out at the run-down homes. “I’ve already started pushing them to show me evidence of their improvements. Some of them will have to go. But I’m going to be more involved. I have allies on the council. I’m seeking allies abroad. They’ll help me take the kingdom back.”
Hearing him talk about Meladair like that gave Tal a strange feeling in her chest. She had spent so long thinking of him as this spoiled but charming noble. And as king, he had responsibilities to uphold. He would need to attend meetings, entertain foreign dignitaries, visit other kingdoms, as well as continue the royal bloodline. A rock formed in the pit of her stomach at the last thought. What did this mean for them? For her? What was she even doing?
She couldn’t be running around with the king. It would spell disaster for him. The council had already made their intentions of marrying him off well known. He would wed some royal princess from a wealthy foreign country. There was no fighting it.
They would never approve of him marrying an orphan from the docks. Even if it were a possibility, would she want that? The fancy balls, the meetings, the reputation to uphold—Tal wouldn’t survive that kind of life, nor did she want to.
She had already made a name for herself earlier that summer. Even if she wanted to join Faron, the council would never approve, nor would the public accept a queen who behaved the way she did. She sighed. She shouldn’t even think of such things. It’s not as if they had discussed what they were to each other when she thought he was simply some random nobleman. She frowned at her thoughts’ downward spiral.
“I planned on bringing you here that morning.” He didn’t need to say which morning. She knew. “I had a plan. I would tell you that I come up here when I need somewhere to think withoutbeing bothered. Sometimes I come up here when I’m stressed, or worried. But I come here to be happy too. This place brings me peace. And then I would say that my life requires a good number of important decisions that could affect many people. You would ask something like ‘What important decisions do you have to make? If you want your fresh croissant buttered or with jam?’ And I’d say ‘No, that’s usually decided for me,’ which you wouldn’t believe.”
She chuckled at his impersonation of her.
“I’d get all serious and say there was something I needed you to know. I’ve been wanting to tell you for some time, but didn’t know how. I came up here for weeks wondering if and when I should tell you. I honestly didn’t know how you would take me being serious, and if I would have been able to say it if you couldn’t. But you deserved to know, and I’m sorry you found out like you did after so long. I honestly thought that first night without my mask you would have known. And when you didn’t, it was nice to be just… me. I got a glimpse of what life would be like if I wasn’t the king, what it could have been like if that fire hadn’t burned the east wing of Silaron and everyone in it. And when I decided to give it up and tell you, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I started to so many times. But I kept finding a reason why the time wasn’t right. Honestly, can you think of a point when I could have told you and not have it go badly?”
Tal inhaled deeply, not sure how to respond. “I don’t know, Faron. What do you expect me to say? Just because it wasn’t easy, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have tried to explain. And it doesn’t mean I can’t be upset about it.”
His lips thinned, and he nodded.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “Maybe it’s for the best. If telling me hadn’t upset me somehow, we probably would have continued down some road we had no right to be on.”
Faron’s head snapped to meet her gaze. “Wait, what?”
“I mean, you can’t expect me to think we’d continue this charade after finding out who you really are?”
“Charade? That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”
“Is it? I mean, I should have understood what was going on even before then.”
