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Chapter Twenty
Einar
Aknock sounds at the door as soon as we’ve unpacked the few items we brought with us.
Zaina has hidden herself before I turn around. The only reason I even know that she’s in the closet is because Khijhana paws at the door before curling into a massive protective ball in front of it.
I nod for Gunnar to answer the door, and he returns seconds later with a note in his hand. Zaina appears next to me on silent footsteps, peering over my bicep at the letter in my hand.
A gameof chess and a glass of whiskey before dinner, my friend?
-Jean
“You should go,”Zaina says, studying my expression. “I’ll be fine here.”
I hesitate, stalling by carefully folding the paper and placing it in my pocket.
I wish that things were different and that she was coming with me. That I could introduce her as my queen to a very old friend.
I shake the thought away. There are far more important things to worry about than whether or not my bride can walk beside me publicly. She’s right. I should go.
Even if it does mean leaving her side in the city where the evilest woman in the world resides.
Something in the softening of her eyes makes me wonder if she can sense what I was thinking, but if so, she doesn’t say. She only stretches up on her toes, and I lean down to meet her parted lips with a kiss.
Within minutes, I’m following the familiar red-and-gold-lined rug toward King Jean’s private room.
The portrait of Jean’s father on the wall marks the passageway, and I move my fingers along the panel behind the frame until I feel the latch. When I push it to the right, the lock silently gives way, allowing me to move the wall inward.
The room where we spent late nights playing chess and talking politics so many years ago is exactly the same, down to its crystal decanter.
Only the man sitting by the fire has changed.
Jean stares into the flames, his eyes glazed over and far away, unlike the alert man I knew before. His hair has grayed, and his spine is hunched forward as if the actual weight of his kingdom is resting on his back.
I know the feeling.
“Hello, old friend,” I say, approaching him.
Jean’s head snaps up, finally free from whatever memory he had been lost in.
“It has been too long, Einar.” His weathered hand reaches out for mine, and I take it gladly.
“And you haven’t aged a day.”
“Liar.” He chuckles, gesturing toward a servant in the corner of the room.
The man comes forward and pours us both a dram of whiskey before returning to his station. His watchful gaze rests on Jean’s trembling fingers when he passes him the drink, as if the king may drop it at any moment.
“How are you, Jean?” I ask in a more serious tone than before.
His eyes go distant again, and I wonder if he will answer me at all. I set the pieces up on the chessboard, prepared to drop the matter when he answers.
“Time has sunk it’s filthy claws into me, my friend. My body and my mind aren’t what they used to be. So much has changed...” He trails off, taking a sip of the whiskey. “But you, well, you look the same as you did twenty years ago. What I wouldn’t give for that fabled Jokithan fountain of youth.”
This time, his smile is bittersweet, and a pang of guilt jolts through me.
It’s hard to reconcile what I see now with who I knew before. I’ve spent so much time shut away in Jokith that I’ve nearly forgotten how the rest of the world ages.
