AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Derith shook his head. “I shouldn’t have stayed away so long. I thought… You seemed so sure.”
“I’m a fool.”
“No,” he replied firmly. “You are a good person who thinks the best of others. That doesn’t make you a fool. Let me get you a towel, you’re shaking.”
As he put the towel around me, he noticed the marks.
“He has beaten you then.” His voice was hollow.
I nodded, and Derith’s fist clenched as his eyes narrowed.
“That raises a very definite question.”
“It does?”
“Yes. Whether I should beat him then kill him or just kill him.”
“He’s your brother!” I gasped.
“Family has been used to excuse all sorts of ugly behavior and I won’t be party to it,” snarled Derith. “No brother of mine would treat a woman—would treat anyone—in such a fashion. Therefore, I have no brother.”
I shook my head. “He has the servants and footmen and his personal guard. You would be killed too.” My eyes flicked up at him. “And I could not stomach that.”
“Then I shall get you away from here.”
Again, I shook my head. “If I flee, then he will sue my father for breach of contract. It will bankrupt my family.”
“I’m sure they care more about your wellbeing than about money.”
I was not so sure, but I said, “I care about their wellbeing. I will not see them in the poor house.”
“Well, I’ll be damned if I do nothing!” Derith snapped and sat down heavily on my bed.
“I could use a friend.”
With my hand upon my heart, I can honestlyswear that friendship was all I intended, and Ibelieve Derith felt the same. We found a quiet happiness in each other’s company, sharing our troubles and so diminishing them. We then learned to share our joys and soon my days were based around figuring out how I could spend more time with Derith. Perhaps we were both foolish to think that it could stop there.
I now consider that first time with Derith to have been my first time. It was the first time I was with a man, not had by him. Derith was everything that his brother was not; gentle, generous, and tender. He opened a new world to me and it was one that I dearly wanted to explore with him. But, such was our mutual enthusiasm, we took risks to see more of each other.
In hindsight, Balor must have known of our affair before he walked into the bedroom that day. He knew we were in there. He walked in with the intention of killing his brother. And he fulfilled that intention as I watched.
After that, there was nothing left to my life. In my brief time with Derith, I had enjoyed more happiness than most are granted in this world. Perhaps it would be selfish to ask for more. Certainly, I knew there could be no more happiness left for me in this world once Derith was taken from me.
But as I stood on the top of the tower, the wind blowing my skirts about me, I dared to hope that Derith and I could be together again, somehow.
***
“Jo? Joanna… are you alright?”
It is a strange question for Derith to ask when I have my sword tip to his jugular, but he must have seen me completely losing track of the world around me as I was ushered into one of Suisse’s memories.
“I… she… we…” I start, but can’t seem to continue.
They are all right and wrong.
IamSuisse… Or at least I had been and still am to some extent, but in the meantime, I had become Jo, who is a very different person in some ways because Suisse was raised in a very different household, had a very different childhood and was never forced to fend for herself as I had. But she is also me. I not only know that, but now I feel it; I have her memories—mymemories.
Until now, they were all dormant. Or perhaps suppressed.
