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When the girl I had been in love with all my life sent her decree saying that she was looking to marry one of the three ruling kings of her kingdom, I dared to hope. For the first time in seven years, I had hope in my heart that Katrina was not dead to me as I would have thought.
And in that distraction, I have ignored the one friend who has been by my side throughout my misery.
“Come here, Cleo,” I order, making room on the bed for her.
“Is this a trap?” she asks, naturally suspicious.
“No, sweetheart. It’s a peace offering. Come. I’ll show you the letter.”
That’s all Cleo has to hear for her to jump from where she is and slide right next to me.
“Show me, show me!” she shrieks in excitement.
“Read for yourself,” I tell her, to which she immediately frowns. “Come on, Cleo. I’ve taught you your letters. At least try to read it. For me.”
“I can’t. Her handwriting is too damn curly for me to make any sense of it. I’m used to your handwriting. Not hers.”
“Fair enough.” I let out a sigh, knowing exactly when to push her and when not to. “Okay, this paragraph here is to tell me that she’s already heading south and should arrive within a fortnight.”
“Hmm. Does that mean we have to leave and head over to Braaka to wait for Her Majesty?” Cleo asks, this time putting less sarcasm to the royal title.
“We do. It’s the closest city to the border that they are traveling to.”
“They?” Cleo questions, immediately picking up on the slip.
I nod.
“Levi is coming with her.” I point to the paragraph on Katrina’s letter that informs me that he is escorting her all the way down south.
Cleo goes to her knees and crosses her arms around her chest.
“Will he be a problem?”
“Not one I can’t handle.” I wink.
“Don’t,” she interjects. “Don’t act like this isn’t a big deal. He said he would kill you the next time he saw you.”
“Levi says a lot of things.” I shrug, unperturbed. “Doesn’t mean I should take any of it seriously.”
“Teo…” she mumbles worriedly. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.”
I lift off my bed and place my hands on her bare shoulders.
“He won’t kill me.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he wants to be king. And he can’t be if word gets out that he killed his competition. It wouldn’t be the honorable thing to do. He wants to win, fair and square.”
“Win? Win what? The crown? But you don’t care about any of that shit,” she says.
“You’re right. I don’t. Doesn’t mean that I don’t want to win,” I explain with a cocky smirk. “The end prize is so much bigger than a crown. So much more priceless than being able to call yourself the king of all of Aikyam. This prize is something I have been waiting for, for all my life.”
“Her. The prize is her,” Cleo says, finally putting it all together.
“She’s all I ever wanted, and, in a fortnight, I’ll have her.”
“But only for a month,” Cleo adds, trying to caution my enthusiasm with pesky facts. “Then she’ll have to head west.”
