Chapter 3: Hot Coal

"Im by your side Huck, if you abuse your power I'll just break all your bones to show you the true lesson: without structure, there is no system..." Aiko's words stuck in my mind, distant yet familiar, as the factory walls around us crumbled away.

I blinked hard, trying to focus as the rubble and smoke were suddenly replaced by plush emerald carpets and gilded archways - a vivid memory I couldn't escape pulled me momentarily backward in time. I felt my mind retreating into the past, the way it tended to do when boredom or anxiety struck.

Just like that, Aiko's fiery gaze blurred, her voice morphing into the nasal tone of my childhood tutor. This woman's cheeks flushed crimson, tendrils of dark hair falling across my face as she dragged the scissors close to my ear...

"I don't want to be here…" The scissors she used made my curly black hair uneven…these silly unending foreign rules never cease to make me look more stupid somehow. If my ancestors could see me from the afterlife they would throw up on me.

I knew what this glorified lackey they called a tutor would have something to say. "It doesnt matter what you want–You are the future monarch huck" Her azure eyes met mine as she held the scissors dangerously close to my left eye.

"We both know you're full of shit" I knew she wouldn't dare to really harm me no matter who's random second cousin she was to the throne.

"Why can't you be like your sister?!" The woman's shrill voice always reminded me of Buriti Cacti. It had a certain nasally cadence that made the inflections of her voice unbearable. If I spent any more time having my head primped I was going to guillotine it myself.

"I'm not a genius with an addiction to–" I felt a cold shift in the room as the Svetlan delegates' eyes widened in what I assume was horror. Small sand particles flowed through beams of sunlight as I turned my face to see my father.

The woman bowed low in some mockingly terrible display of our traditional greetings "Oh, your Highness I didn't know you were here" All the bravado left her voice now that my father was here.

"He is always predating the shadows…" I dont scream authority slouching in a chair and getting my hair cut. Yet I knew I could say anything around him.

"Leave us…now" He seemed to be in a fairly bad mood as the deep creases in his face made him look like an overly ornate granite statue. His regal Buriti moldavite crown hung on his head like a decoration.

"But Huck still–" She began to speak but I thew her a bone. "I wouldn't challenge him or his depth perception even at this age…He's still a raging–" and then she threw me one.

"My apologies King Vasca…The hot Buriti air is very different then the snowy stepped cliffs of my homeland. I will attempt to further his Svetlan studies in proper grace and nobility to the best of my abilities later this evening." the delegate's blue-tasseled dress swayed as my father's command was law here in the palace. Her gate reminded me of a tamed circus animal as she attempted to make herself small passing my father.

Once she had made her way fully through the golden archways my father's voice rang out "You make everything difficult Huckle…why do you pester the Svetlan delegation?"

"I don't see any reason why I need to bend my knee for money just because you do" His eyes flashed with anger like always. I had upset him deeply no matter how much he told me otherwise.

"Boy I do not do what I do for my own wealth–We have allied ourselves with our past oppressors in order to bring us somewhere in this fight against the rebels" He clenched his fist and shook it, forgetting this wasn't a planned speech to the uneducated masses. It was an unhinged rant to a teenager who gave no fucks.

"Rebels Rebels Rebels, you talk about them like they arent our people you run around shooting–Excuse me pay our soilders pennies to pay Svetlan mercenaries to shoot." My hands came up to mimic a Buritian rifle aimed at his bad eye.

"I warn you to be more wise with your tongue child…I have seen more combat than you have 'love warts'" He was glaring at me with such intensity I swallowed a lump of air into my stomach.

"I didn't know you were the most storied hero in modern history Dad" My arms flailed up dramatically as I got out of the chair. I mocked it as a throne as I brushed the hard Svetlan stool off for him to sit.

He seemed to begrudgingly sit down letting the weight of his crown slant slightly on his brow. "If you had any mind for leadership as you did useless wordplay and drinking–we wouldn't need to be prepping for Dennis' Grand Regency." Fucking Dennis…That boring old bookworm spent more time harassing me than actually DOING anything.

"Why do I care if my boring cousin has power, as soon as Kash is old enough you'll probably marry her off…" I moved to a lounge chair placed by an open window. The sweet smell of figs hit my nose as I looked over the Capital. Merchants were selling shitty wares with the new paper money my father got from our colonizers.

"What makes you so sure?" His voice had an unusual waver that I had not heard in the ogre since he told my mother he was taking a second wife.

"My 'tutor' is very loose with gossip. Im guessing in Svetlan the nobility get rise from their back stabbing ways."

"What did the pagan tell you I planned to do with my daughter?" I smiled as he ended the sentence knowing I had the king's almighty attention. How powerful I must be to have such unworthy fatherly companionship.

"Mother has been in talks with the Svetlan courts wanting to make us a puppet state by selling Kasiha's hand to the Messiah…I would imagine you would know–Oh I forgot since we forgo our culture and now send intelligent Buriti woman to play courtier 100's of miles from their home country" I stood again…I had the worst habit of pacing and getting overly involved in my own arguments I wish I could break.

"I do not believe they have a place in our court so why would it matter if they politic with fools in powdered wigs?" His bravado was back after he dismissed me. What a snide remark from the man who sent my mother away to be plowed by foreign dukes.

"Kash is more than an advisor or a delegate…She deserves the throne more than me, especially more than Dennis." My father's face remained unchanged like I was being potty trained again—a simple godamn welp with no meaning.

He waited for several moments before he began talking in a ridiculously firm tone. "Huck you are lucky you are the heir to the throne–I would have you hung for such blapshemous disregard of our own culture you claim to love so much."

"I never said I love our culture, I merely hate the dogmatic hypocrisy of Svetlan more than I can ignore the changing tide of your simple worldviews." I didn't hold my contempt for the old ways and my father's anti-feminine agendas he held onto them like he wasn't born of a woman.

"Your grandfather fought tooth and nail to preserve our people's faith against the crusade of the north." His eye didn't blink as I could see waves of internalized trauma ripping at the royal seams that stitched my battle-hardened father.

"Grandfather sired 34 illegitimate children and had them all jailed under the palace as 'vassales' you obviously understand each king is allowed to make liberties for whats best for the people"

"What are you getting at Huck?" My father's voice faded as a distant shell exploded me similarly back into the destroyed factory I found myself in. I snapped back to reality as Aiko waved her black-gloved hands in front of my face.

You have to be kidding me Huck—" Her smooth yet sharp tone cut through the crumbling building. Underneath I sensed a festering inferno behind her short breathy words.

Aiko's brown eyes showed cracks in their resolute strength. I knew the demons that haunted her still from Grandpa Aygu's torture of her family a decade ago. Similarly to our forced engagement, we had never spoken on the matter.

Maybe it was the stress or the way strands of dark hair clung to her sweat-slicked neck. Small stress lines formed under her freckled brown face. Seeing her vulnerability, I was overwhelmed by an unexpected urge to comfort her, to pull Aiko close…I don't know if it was the adrenaline or the realization everyone in that memory was dead but me but–

Without thinking, I reached for her, my hands finding the curve of her hip and the small of her back as she crashed against my chest. For three heartbeats we stood entangled. The fig-derived state shampoo cooked my senses before she recoiled violently backward.

"What the FUCK are you doing?" Her forearm crushed my windpipe as she slammed me into crumbling drywall, reeling from my touch yet firmly anchored into a painful grip she'd executed countless times on insurgent enemies and leering drunken comrades alike. I had forgotten that I'd never hugged Aiko–for the fucking matter—or anyone in years. It must have been as abrasive and jarring as the rebels storming the barracks in her mind.

I saw the confusion swirling in her fiery brown eyes. We'd never embraced besides swift sibling-like nudges - proper distance was engrained for a disgraced prince and the princess' Soul-Guard. She had been trained from the age of 7 to kill and maim anyone who came too close…Yet I felt nothing but an unfamiliar sense of belonging in the split seconds we shared.

The comfort there had been an instant, alarming spark of– Her strong calloused fingers twitched against my squishy throat. I could see the goosebumps on her scarred skin as her lips slightly trembled before speaking. "The infantry reported a rebel convoy deux miles out," she said coldly, regaining her composure though still on a hair-trigger. "If you plan on hugging it out with Aygu I'll shoot you both myself when he arrives..."

She stalked towards the back exit, rage, and disgust...or was it panic...emanating from each deliberately planted step. She turned to me as she stopped trembling to say something but the unspoken barrier I had shattered loomed heavily in the clay-stricken factory air.

She tried to form words, to voice the maelstrom of feelings either my touch had unleashed or the very real threat of death.

Fury at my audacity to break our sacred unspoken vow of distance?

Confusion at the long-dormant yearning felt in those 3 heartbeats pressed, matching my own?

Fear most of all - that she had failed in her sworn duty because a part of her had welcomed the comfort. Wanted more…most likely I had projected these subtle emotions I had yet to stomach myself.

Though we were similar we were from two different worlds. Aiko had been trained since childhood to show no weakness and accept no affection. She was a weapon, not a just woman. Yet I felt I had cracked through her marble exterior in one impulsive moment.

All her life she'd kept people at bay, hiding any vulnerability. The thought of letting someone in, giving them power over her...it was antithetical to everything she'd built her identity on.

Aiko turned from me, facing the smoking piles of rubble and soldiers running in the chaos; The Rebels approaching made each passing moment more hectic. I watched Aiko pull her bulletproof emotional armor back in place briskly.

Would there be time later to confront what had surfaced? I need to focus on not being beheaded and shown to the masses naked instead of standing here gasping for air three ways.

I laughed to myself in the moment knowing that we might be each other's last embrace. She regained her normal stoic expression as she flashed a beautiful smile at me. Aiko was a titanium Buritian flag and even if I was paraded through the streets by my entrails minutes from now…I felt that moment had begun something I was meant to finish.

end