“You hiked all that way to get me water?”
He nods. “Anything for my queen,” he says snidely.
“Thank y—I mean—good.”
He leans down and pinches my chin. Gently. Otherwise, I’d be screaming. “Never mistake my actions for kindness, Lake. I am just doing my duty,” he snarls.
Meaning, he still hates me. “I have zero misconceptions about how you feel, Tiago. But let me point out that I never asked you or your brothers for anything. It’s the other way around.”
“Untrue. You asked Bard for sex. Quite the bold move, too. Seducing a Wall Man is not easy.”
He knows about that? “You’re right. I did ask for him to…”
“Fuck.”
“I loved him.”
“Then why didn’t you fight for him?”
I snap my mouth shut and stew for a moment. “He rejected me. And I don’t see what difference it would have made if there are all these rules around sleeping with a proxy.”
“You seemed to have found a way around it.”
“Gabrio and Alwar did. Not me.” I look away, wondering if I’d known the rules what might have been different with Bard. Would I have found a loophole eventually? “Doesn’t matter anymore. I have to accept he’s gone.”
“As does he.” Tiago grabs a stick from the fire. He pulls the charred chunk of meat to his mouth and bites without blowing.
Tiago’s words hang in the air like a curse on my conscience. Is that why Bard came for me? For Dave? Maybe he has unfinished business.
Maybe we all do.
Why else would I be here fighting for a husband I don’t know, to save two worlds that don’t give a crap about each other? In my heart, I guess I want to believe there’s something greater than all of us. “Bard will always be a part of me. Nothing will change that.”
“He knows. It is why he cannot rest.”
“Me neither.” I lean my head back and watch another shooting star blaze across the dark sky, leaving a blood red tail.
“If you could tell him anything, one last message to give him peace, what would it be?”
I wince and take a deep breath, willing my tears to stay inside my damned head for once. “I would say…I wish I could burn it down. All of it.”
“All of what?” Tiago says.
“All these stupid rules and vows. I don’t see the point to any of them, including the Proxy Vow, when the only thing they’ve accomplished is putting someone like Benicio in power and sentencing good men to die.” Bard and Gabrio are two perfect examples. “The punishments don’t fit the crimes in this world, and it’s ridiculous.”
“You are very astute for a human.”
“No. I’m just smarter than all you power-hungry morons.” And I’ve begun to learn that life means nothing if you can’t live it with the person you love, or you have to grow up without a mother and father for no good reason. Or if you have to lie to your granddaughter her entire life. None of this mess has made anyone happy.
“Us power-hungry morons have kept you ignorant humans alive for centuries.”
“You’re right, Tiago. One hundred percent. But at what cost?”
“Everything.”
“Exactly. And don’t you think if you’re going to give up so much, that it should be for something more than a life ruled by Benicio? Or simply surviving day to day? It’s not enough.”
“What would you know?”
A lot, actually. I’ve made one sacrifice after another. Traveling and grad school to take care of Grandma. I took thankless low-paying jobs, like working at the local 911 call center, to keep the estate going. I married Alwar. Now I’m risking my life to hopefully free him and prevent my world from being overrun by monsters.
Maybe I should listen to my own words and rethink what I’m doing. I’m risking everything here. All for the hope that I might survive? Or that Alwar will be freed so he can maybe, just maybe, win a war against Benicio? Then what? What happens when the next monster king comes along and wants to take down the wall?
Merely surviving isn’t enough. I need a plan to stop all this chaos once and for all. But how?
“You’re right. I don’t know anything,” I finally say to Tiago. “But that’s going to change.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My conversation with Tiago gets me thinking pretty hard. Not only about what I want for my world but for the other beings who’ve made sacrifices to protect that wall. Like the War People.
I’m beginning to see that defending the wall isn’t simply about a vow to protect us humans. They’re preserving their way of life, too. I saw their green fields at the base of the wall. I see the pride in their war-scarred faces now. To me, they look like a people who have something worth fighting for: themselves.
The group of giant women closest to me laugh into the air, their campfire sparking into the night as one giggles at a group of “young” men close by. I actually don’t know how old they are or anything about how they age. Hell, Gabrio said he’s three hundred years old, and he’s not even the oldest. Bard is. Was. I shudder at the thought of falling for a four- or five-hundred-year-old man.