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27
RHIANNON
I was asleep when Cosma ran into my room, shrieking.
"He's up there. He's gone to fight!"
"What do you mean he's gone to fight?" I asked wearily.
"That lunatic took a ship and went to meet them head on. I don't know what he's thinking. He's going to get himself killed."
Cosma was on the brink of hysteria. I understood her concern. However, it was not the idea of Nikathy charging into battle that disturbed me so much just then. Rather, it was the notion that he was so desperate to escape me, he would put his life on the line. It was like being punched in the gut, and I felt the air go out of me all at once. Cosma was staring at me wild-eyed, like she expected me to say something in response, but I was speechless.
This wasn't him just changing his mind after a little romp in the back of a truck. We'd all had moments like that. This was him sending an obvious message that he had no intention of coming back.
I was going to be sick. I placed a hand on my stomach absentmindedly to steady myself. She was staring out the window, her face pressed against the glass. I would have gone to her, I thought, but I couldn't muster the energy. And I was struggling with my feelings toward the woman again. I could never tell from one moment to the next whether we were adversaries in a battle for his affections. It was hard to know how I was expected to react at the moment. Would Cosma be enraged if I cried for him too? Or would she simply think that my tears were a show of empathy for her?
Suddenly, I felt like the walls were closing in on me and I could hardly breathe. He had chosen to fight this battle on his own terms. I should have seen it coming. Whenever anyone had pressed him for answers, he had tucked tail and run away, making excuses at every turn. And whenever things got serious, he always had a sarcastic remark to deflect attention away from himself. Never once in all these days had I seen Nikathy being straightforward, and I was sick of it. I wanted answers.
"Cosma?" I asked quietly, not sure how to broach the subject, exactly. But she kept her face to the glass and barely mumbled a reply. "Cosma? I have a question."
This time she dragged herself away from the window, although she continued to watch the sky wearily out of the corner of her eye even as she turned to face me.
"What is it?"
"Can I ask... about you and Nikathy?"
She sniffled and wiped an arm across her nose, blinking away her tears several times. Then, to my surprise, she sat beside me on my bed, folding her hands in her lap neatly.
"What do you want to know?"
I bit my lip. I was sure she knew what I was asking, but she wanted me to ask her directly. I thought she might get some sick joy out of telling me the truth if I voiced the question that was really on my mind, so I changed direction.
"How did you meet?"
I saw the surprise flicker across her face, but then her features relaxed, and she shrugged. "I was already here when he came back. I was his father's lover. When Nikathy returned to take over, he told me I could stay here a while longer until we settled everything."
She started to say something else, but then she stopped herself and fell silent. This revelation actually left me more puzzled than I had been to begin with. I still wanted to ask the question that was gnawing at my mind, but now I had another question.
"Does Nikathy know... I mean, about you and his father?"
She gave an amused snort and nodded. "He knows. I don't know if he approved or not, but it doesn't really matter. It's in the past, and we've never spoken of it since Pops died."
"So you andhehave never..."
Her eyes flashed angrily and her lips pursed. "Once or twice."
I thought my heart was going to explode from grief. My worst fears were coming true, and now I was trapped in this house with this woman. I wanted to scream at her to get out of my room, but even that seemed like a further imposition upon her in some way. This wasn't my room, after all. This just happened to be the room I was currently occupying. I didn't belong here. I belonged on the Titaness with Tayla and Adreax, and it had never been more obvious to me.
I lowered my head, unable to hold eye contact with Cosma any longer. I kept expecting her to get up and leave, but it seemed that she was intent on gloating for a while, so we sat in a strained quiet, interrupted only by her sniffles and my pained breaths. Finally, she spoke again.
"We were never in love, you know? It was never like that. Maybe Nikathy just didn't know how to process everything that was happening to him. He had a reputation as a bit of a wild one, and all of a sudden, he was here, trying to act the part that his father laid out for him. He needed time to adjust."
"And so he did it between your legs?" I gritted out between my teeth, not feeling the least bit reassured by what she was trying to tell me.
She frowned and shook her head, but she said nothing else. She just patted me on the knee apologetically and left me sitting there alone. I contained my rage and sorrow until after she had closed the door behind herself, but then it all came crashing down around me. Love or not, Nikathy had brought me here, knowing that he was still entangled with Cosma in some way. He seduced me when I was weak and scared, and let me believe that there was something between us, only to take off at the first chance, leaving me to bear the weight of it all in his absence. I was so angry; I hoped I never saw him ever again. If he managed to survive the battle, I planned on being long gone before he came knocking at my door.
I looked around the room at the handful of personal possessions I had acquired since the rescue. It was a mix of things that Tayla had given me aboard her ship, and tiny gifts the nurses had brought me since I’d been here. I needed to find a way to carry them all. I pulled myself out of bed on shaky legs and yanked the pillowcase off of my pillow, shaking it out and then making my way around the edge of the room to stuff my things into it a little at a time. When I was done, I tied a knot in the makeshift bag and pushed my way out into the garden, not wanting to risk running into Cosma again. All I had to do was get around to the front of the house, get back in the truck, and get as far away from here as possible.
