I See You (Part 3)

My feet hurt, but I can’t bring myself to say it. We’ve been dancing for at least an hour without stopping, and he just agreed to stop, but only because he wanted to take a walk outside. ‘Get some fresh air’ he had said with a devilish grin. And now, my feet are suffering.

“These balls might be my- the king’s best idea yet,” he says, stumbling over ‘my’, almost letting on that his father is the king.

I try not to snicker at him as I rest against a stone wall covered in vines. “I enjoy the concept.”

“Just the concept? Not the execution?” Malakai leans against the wall across from me, peering at me through his mask. My throat suddenly feels way too dry.

“The execution isn’t half-bad either.”

The grin that splits his face could rival the moon.“I’m not sure I’m too fond of these, though.”

He inches forward, reaching his hand out to touch the edge of my mask, and I turn my face suddenly. I’m not quite ready for him to see me yet. Being invisible has probably been what made tonight so perfect. There’s no need to shatter the illusion so early.

“I think they’re fun,” I say slowly. “Mysterious.”

Malakai’s hand is still hovering in the air when I turn back to look at him, but he doesn’t move to touch my mask. Instead, he slips his hand under my neck, pulling me closer until our lips are so close I can’t blink, can’t move. My blood roars in my ears, my heart quivering in my chest. What is he doing?

“Is this okay?” he asks, voice low.

Say yes.

“No,” I pull away, stumbling backwards and away. “I’m sorry.”

I don’t look behind me, heading straight for the wide double doors that lead back to the ballroom. I can hear him calling after me, but he doesn’t even know my name. He has no idea who I am, and he asked to kiss me. I should be happy. I’ve spent two years pining for Malakai, and there he was, perfectly willing to give me every fantasy and daydream I neatly filed away for two years. Except it wasn’t me he wanted to kiss. It was this mystery girl in a fancy dress with her hair done up and her face covered by a mask. His own fantasy.

I duck through the doors, bashing my foot on a nearby table and groan, bending over to remove my uncomfortable heels, dress trailing behind me as I push past shoulders and skirts. I don’t even notice the tears trailing down my face until I pass a floor length mirror hung on one of the walls. My nose is red underneath my mask and the tears are only visible on the lower half of my face. An absolute mess.

“Pathetic,” I mutter as I start down the ballroom stairs, my bare feet cold from the marble.

I don’t make it even halfway when a scream pierces the air, and the ballroom erupts into chaos.

#

“Guard the prince!” someone shouts.

Malakai. My heart jump-starts again, the hurt disappearing and replaced with panic. It doesn’t even take a second for me to turn around and go running back up the stairs.

“Get him down!” I see Miles, a fellow guard who took my place on Malakai’s detail, standing in front of him with his sword drawn.

“What happened?” I demand, whipping my mask off.

I don’t look for Malakai’s reaction to my face. I can’t bear to see the disappointment, so I focus on Miles instead, who speaks without looking at me. “Someone shot an arrow. Poisoned.”

My eyes whip over Malakai’s frame, searching for blood. There’s nothing, just a distracted look as he stares at me. He doesn’t seem to care that there was just an attack on his life, and just that makes anger boil under my skin. So reckless with his life, like it matters to no one else. Like he doesn’t understand that he’d be taking himself away from everyone else. Away from me.

The window across from him is shattered by an arrow that is now embedded into the wall behind him. It barely missed him. I reach instinctively for my sword, but just find the fabric of my dress and curse under my breath. Malakai hasn’t stopped staring.

I never should have come to this ball.

“Escort him out,” I instruct. “Get him to his room, and keep him under lock and key. He doesn’t leave until we find whoever did this and I’ve chained them up myself.”

“I can protect myself,” Malakai says, the first time he’s spoken since I took my mask off, the first time he’s addressed me since I ran away.

I can’t be a member of the Inner Guard, his best friend and a girl hopelessly in love with him all at the same time. “Your Highness, your safety is not in your own hands for obvious reasons. You will do as I say.”

He flinches at the bite in my voice. I didn’t mean for it to sound cruel, but I can’t be everything for him right now. Not when my heart is shattering at the thought that he might have died, and I wasn’t there to stop it because I was too busy playing pretend with the idea of him loving me. I nod at a squire nearby who is holding a sword rather awkwardly, and he hurries to hand it to me before I instruct him to get the rest of the Inner Guard here. The poor boy looks grateful to be relieved of the weapon, and turns to leave.

He doesn’t make it out. Another arrow shoots out of a different window and the crowd scatters again, shouting as the glass window breaks, showering down shards onto the ballroom. I push the squire aside, knocking him to the ground, and duck, the arrow whizzing past my hair, pinning one of the flowers in it to the wall, right next to Malakai’s cheek.

“Are you joking?” I hiss at Miles. “Get him out of here, now!”

The other guards form a ring around Malakai and escort him out, finally. I look up at the window, squinting. The glass broke from a window that leads out a room with barely enough room for two. Malakai and I have watched the sunset there plenty of times. It takes at least half an hour to get down due to how high it is. Realization dawning, I grab my skirts and take off running, sword in one hand. When I reach the bottom wall, I look up and spot someone in black slowly making their way down, feet searching for grip in the smooth stone. Idiot.

“Hello there!” I shout, and he looks down in a panic, loosing his grip and falling down with a groan at my feet. “Are we ready to surrender?”

"You’ve been avoiding him for a week,” Unika says, pulling hard on the tiny braid she was making in my hair. “isn’t it getting a bit immature?”

“Ow-careful. I don’t want to see him.”

“Oh, sure. And all the moping and pouting has been over my mother.”

I groan and reach up to pry my hair from her fingers, finishing the braid off myself and pulling the rest into a ponytail. “I don’t, Unika. Let it go. He knows who I am, he could have reached out.”

“He’s sent at least a dozen notes.”

“None acknowledging what happened.”

“You ran away from him!”

#

Unika crosses her arms in a huff as I grab my sword and hook it to my leather belt, glancing in the mirror before I open the door. She’s right about one thing. There is a stack of hard paper notes sitting on our desk, all covered in Malakai’s signature scrawl. Asking me to come horseback riding or to check out a new bakery in the city. Thanking me for saving his life. Begging me to stop ignoring him. But not a single one addresses the reason I can’t see him.

When the assassin was shooting and I had to take charge, I had realized that trying to be three different people around Malakai was impossible when one of them could never have what she wanted. The real me, the Inner Guard me, the best friend me, Malakai didn’t want to kiss that one. He wanted the girl in the dress with blushing cheeks and flirtatious smiles. But that girl is a fantasy, and I’ve accepted that. Now I need to move on with the other two. Inner Guard , check. Best friend…I haven’t gotten there yet. But I will. Today.

The thought sends my stomach twisting.

“I’ll go see him,” I promise Unika. “He’s my friend.”

“You love him.”

“He’s my best friend, and my future king.”

Unika sighs. “And you love him.”

I don’t bother trying to answer her.

“Laerson!” Captain Peter, the current captain of the Inner Guard, raises a hand as he sees me walk into the courtyard. “Report?”

I salute and stand in front of him, reciting the information like I practiced it. Which I did, just a little bit. “We managed to track the organization that paid the assassin. They belong to a group on the outskirts of the neighboring country of Schetz. The government was unaware and promised to deal with the matter internally.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

A grin splits my face. “We have a spy in the group already to ensure the Schetzen government follows through on their promise. He reports daily. So far they’ve arrested a good amount of the group.”

Peter claps his hand over my shoulder. “Attagirl. Your father trained you well.”

“He’s the best,” I say. “After you, of course.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, my dear. Keep buttering the King and I up and you might see yourself in this position by next year’s King’s Week. No nights off then.”

The smile on my face falters at the mention of my nights off. I spent the rest of them in a corner for five minutes, ducking out every night before Malakai showed. “Thank you, sir.”

He’s about to keep talking when a messenger comes out of the castle, holding a note that he delivers to the captain, who raises an eyebrow at what he reads. “You’re being summoned by the Prince, Laerson.”

“What?” I squeak. “No, I have to-”

“He’s threatened my head if you don’t go see him,” Peter laughs, obviously not too concerned. “Go on.”

I turn on my heel, teeth gritted, and stomp towards Malakai’s rooms. By the time I’ve reached his doors, I’m too angry to be nervous, and I push the door open, coming to stop in the middle of the room, hands on my hips. Malakai looks up from his book, eyes wide.

“You demanded my presence?” I snap.

“You came.”

“Well, I wasn’t fond of the idea of a headless Captain Peter.”

He rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t actually going to behead him.”

“No, but you felt the need to threaten someone to make me come here. Are you insane?”

When I finish and the last bit of rage exits with the word ‘insane’, I suddenly realize he stood up and walked over, and he’s standing really, really close. I take a step back. He steps forward again. Lord, he’s beautiful. I mentally berate myself for allowing the thought, for letting my eyes trace over the sharp line of his jaw, the dark eyes that sparkle under perfect brows.

“Are you going to run again?” he asks.

“I didn’t run. I left. Plus, now you want to discuss it?” I cross my arms, a buffer against him. “It’s been a week. You’ve never mentioned it.”

“You quite literally hiked up your skirts and bolted, Lila.” his voice has dropped to a whisper now, and he looks away. “I didn’t think you’d want to talk about it.”

I shrug. “We don’t need to. You thought I was someone else-”

“What?”

Malakai steps back now, brow furrowed. “I didn’t think you were anyone else.”

It’s cold water on a flame, dashing her words aside and leaving her with nothing but, “Oh.”

He knew?

He knew.

Oh my God, he knew. I’m an absolute idiot.

“You knew? And didn’t say anything?”

“I thought we were pretending.” Malakai blushes red, something I’ve almost never seen him do. “I guess that was stupid.”

“You think?” I shove at his chest lightly. “I thought you thought I was someone else.”

“Lila, I could see you through a brick wall.”

He grabs my hand, holding it still against his chest. I can feel his heart thumping underneath it, pulse panicked. The Prince of Flirtation is nervous. I bite back a laugh, the irony of the situation distracting me for a second. And then I realize what it means if he knew who I was, and I’m pretty sure my own heart simply stops. When I look up, he’s staring at me intently, a small smile on his face.

“I’m a little offended you thought I’d try and kiss some random girl,” he says, not moving his hand.

“Well, I had no reason to think you’d…” I trail off slightly, looking away from his face, the intensity of his gaze too much.

“Want to kiss you? Wow, you’re more of an idiot than I am.”

“Excuse me?”

Malakai groans, before using his other hand to lift my chin gently until I'm looking straight him. “Lila, don't you get it? You’re it for me. For the last two years I’ve been trying to show you and I thought that ball was the perfect time.”

I stare blankly, struggling to get air into my lungs. “Two years?”

“Two years.”

“Wow.”

My brain screams at my mouth, but it refuses to form any sentences. “You’re it for me. There’s no one else, Lila. You're my best friend, my heart, my everything.” Malakai repeats, holding my hand tightly.

“Two years.” I can’t bring myself to address anything else he said. His everything? “You’ve been in love with me for two years?”

“What can I say? I have a thing for girls that try to kill me and then save my life. But does she feel the same?"

My response is a whisper, a hushed confession I've practiced a thousand times, a moment of perfection between us that I would never repeat to anyone else. "And I wasn't trying to kill you," I add

He lets go of my hand and instead wraps his around my waist, pulling me closer. I don’t stop him. “You can try and kill me as many times as you want, Lila.”

“I wasn’t trying to-”

Malakai bends down and presses his lips to mine, and I forget every single thing I’ve ever learned. Between the feeling of his hands around me and his mouth on mine and the fireworks going off in my brain, I can’t feel my legs. If someone attacked us both right now, I’d die with a smile on my face. He’s way too good at this. I thread my hands in his hair just as he pulls away (to my dismay) and he analyzes my face in a way that makes me wonder if this is what a piece of art feels like.

“I’ve never caught you off guard before, Laerson,” Malakai whispers. “I rather like it.”

“Shut up,” I reply, and he happily complies.