Kamara patted Declan’s back, and he flinched away as if her touch burned him. She pulled herself to a sitting position, hovering behind him as he wrapped his arms around his knees, his head in between them. He rocked himself once.
“You’re s-scaring me, Callan. Is it something I did?” she whispered, concerned.
He shook his head. Then he raised and looked at her. “I’m really sorry about this.”
“No, please, don’t apologize for being with me. It will hurt me a lot.”
“That’s not why I’m apologizing, dearling. I’m apologizing for stopping...for what happened now.”
“You know you can always talk to me about what it is.” A thought came to her then. “Did you remember something?”
He swiveled his head to meet her eyes, and his head moved in a nod. “Flashes of when I was being tortured. I...I was tortured really bad.” He swallowed tightly. “I…I was raped in the worst possible way.”
“Oh, Callan, I’m so sorry.” Kamara’s eyes watered at the pain in his voice. The fear.
“I wanted you so badly, and I feel like the luckiest man in the world that you would choose me to be with you, but look how I handled things. I can’t even go through with it because of these horrible flashes of the brutality done to me.” Every word from his mouth dripped agony.
She leaned behind him, standing on her knees and wrapping her arms around his neck, not minding how he flinched again. Under different circumstances, she would have been embarrassed and shy about her state of undress, but that was the last thing on her mind as she hugged his head to her chest.
“I’m sorry for what you had to go through. I wish there was a way to make your memories come back so that you would understand everything, so you would know why you were tortured and who tortured you,” she whispered, rubbing his tense shoulders.
Slowly, the tension went out of him, and he burrowed deeper into her. “I wish so too. It’s excruciating not to know.”
“And a lowborn would not know the word ‘excruciating’. Have you considered that you might be privileged?” she asked softly.
Callan thought about that for a minute. He swiveled his head to stare at her beautiful face as he pondered her words. “You might be right, but I really don’t think I’m privileged. I think I’m a slave. Most of my flashes are in a slave’s cold cell, and the others are when I was working as a slave.”
“You might be a privileged who was sold to be a slave by his family. Think about it: you know how to read. Read! How many slaves know how to read?”
Callan’s heart tightened at the thought that his family might have sold him to slavery before. “That would also explain why nobody ever searched for me since I disappeared. Maybe...they couldn’t care less,” he conceded with heartfelt pain.
She pulled him tighter to her, and he took the comfort she offered selflessly, burrowing his head more comfortably on her plump bosom. “I’m so sorry, Callan.”
Baski matched the king’s step as they walked out of the Consultation Room together. He had not said anything to her, and she waited patiently, knowing he did have something to say.
“Thank you so much, Baski,” he said at last.
She lifted her head to look at him. “For what?”
“For everything. For not giving up on Danika. You were actually the only one that believed in her—believed that she could have never laid with another man and pin that man’s child on me. Thank you for always standing for what you believe in, even when no one has the same belief. You have always seen the best in people.”
His words melted her heart. Baski smiled at him. “Thank you so much, Your Highness.”
“Why did you go through so much pain to save me all those years ago, Baski?” He asked the one question that has perturbed him from time to time.
The suddenness of the unexpected question took her aback. They passed a guard that bowed his head to the king, who acknowledged the greeting by nodding his head slightly. She watched the guard continue walking down his path.
“I raised you and Melia right from the time you were both children. I watched you two grow up—both of you were always in my heart. You were the kids I never had,” Baski began.
“Then my dear husband, Tedda, died when I was pregnant for Remeta after ten years of barrenness. Words cannot describe how broken I felt.” Remembered pain dripped from her words, and her eyes glazed over from the painful past.
King Lucien remembered that period. He was nineteen at that time. He remembered the way Baski cried at every moment, at every day. “His death was unexpected and very painful,” he conceded.
“A carriage accident.” Baski nodded with a sad smile. “You and Melia were right there for me. Countless times both of you would console me when I broke down in the middle of doing anything for you two. I was devastated when Melia died, and we were taken to slavery. When I heard Cone planned to starve you to death, too, I couldn’t bear it. Not my Lucien! Never my son! That went through my head as I held my daughter and rocked her in my arms.”
He stopped, turned, and glanced at her at the mention of ‘my son.’ Her wrinkled cheeks turned ruby.
“Not that I th-think you’re my son or anything. You’re the k-king, of course,” the older woman fluttered in explanation. “But that was how protective I felt. As I nursed Remeta, the idea came to me.”
“The crazy idea that kept me alive.” The king began walking again, his voice the gentlest note.