Wraith Walker

Chapter 9

      There was something else going on and Tamsin was too late to realize it. There was something else happening that she hadn't paid attention to, that she had missed between Sasha and Helisant somewhere along the line. Helisant hadn't come shopping with them, but Tamsin assumed that was because she was exhausted from the trek back. Kethan said she was spending the day in the springs and because they were buying for the Samhain ritual, Tamsin didn't think much of it. It was crown business, not a personal shopping trip--despite what it might have turned into.

     Helisant took a step back, but didn't lower her gaze from Sasha's. Her face was no longer shocked, but her eyes were narrowed and watery. Not shock, not anger, but something hurt.
Tamsin stepped forward to face Sasha, angling herself in between the two of them. The entire mood of the room had changed from anxious planning to dread.

     "Your kingdom?" She asked, lacing the words with as much incredulity as she could muster. "Your kingdom?" 

     "Don't." Helisant's voice was just a breath, just loud enough for her to hear. Tamsin's heart dropped. She was right, something had happened between them. She would figure that out later. For now her heart was pounding in her ears. Her temper, already hot from the argument over the child's fate, was threatening to boil over. 

     "My kingdom, yes." Sasha said coolly. He took a step towards her. From the corner of her eye, Tamsin saw Ymayne slowly get to her feet. The others stiffened. His eyes were blazing and his magic tightened around the room. Her own buzzed in response, a low warning.

     "You might have noticed," Sasha started, stepping up to Tamsin. She could feel the heat radiating from his body. He was so close that if she turned away she would shoulder check him. He would deserve it, too, for the way he just cut her down. Sasha was a head taller than she, broad and muscular but lean. She burned just below the surface of her skin at having him this close, even angry as she was. Her magic was at the same impasse, torn between wanting to smack him or tangle with his magic.

     Behind her, she felt Helisant make to move closer to the two of them, but Sasha's eyes flashed to her and she slipped back.

     He continued. "You might have noticed that while you are on the road, I am here, running a Kingdom. I am the King and she is your second, not mine. I do not take orders from her to 'listen'. She will not stand here and talk down to you in my presence. And I certainly will not take orders from her demanding I tell you want to do."

      "She wasn't ordering you. She was asking." Tamsin shot back, firing up at once. What was going on? He never, ever, talked to them like this. Maybe a handful of times throughout the years had he gotten a little ahead of himself, but he'd always been receptive to them putting him back in his place. They all had. 

     "How dare you speak to her like that. How dare you discount the work she puts in for you, for your kingdom." She spat. "As if she hasn't been around since you were crowned? What a stupid, shitty thing to say when you spend your days being waited on. When the worst part of your day is sitting in a meeting letting others decide on the price of—" 

     "Be very careful, Godslayer." His hiss was deadly quiet and his eyes had gone dark. His magic pulsed, a thread pulled taut waiting to snap. 

      If Helisant had crossed a line that wasn't identifiable, then she was about to cross one that was glaringly obvious. Even as the words left her mouth, even as she hadn't finished the sentence she regretted what she was saying. She wanted to reach out, to snatch the words back and stuff them into her mouth before they could hit their mark, before they could breach the space between them and live forever in his mind.