Divided (26 page)

Despite the pain, he tried to move again, only this time
rather than his own pain stopping him—a boot slammed down against his leg and
he found himself against the dirt once more.  With a forceful gesture, the man
grabbed the bag of supplies and tossed it to one of his friends.  Taeru tried
to see if he recognized the noble—it wasn’t Tareth, nor was it the man who had
injured him a few suns ago.  This man had pale brown hair and pasty skin. 
Bulky, and not very attractive, Taeru thought meanly.  “You’re a quick thing,
aren’t you, you little street urchin?” the man asked hatefully.

Taeru growled and tried to pull away, but the man reached
down and grabbed him by the shoulders, slamming him up against a nearby stone
structure.  Taeru tried to suppress the groan, but he couldn’t manage.  The
gash on his back made the impact feel that much stronger, and his head swam for
a moment.  “If you’d just given us the bag, I would have made this short. 
But—as you didn’t, I’m going to enjoy dragging it out.”

Drawing his fist back, the man grinned and then slammed a
punch into the smaller boy’s jaw without mercy.  Then again, again, and a third
time.  When Taeru didn’t seem to be reacting as he anticipated, the man forced
his body back harder against the wall.  This time, the back of Taeru’s head hit
it.

Once again, his head spun with pain, and the fist drew back
and collided with Taeru’s jaw.  He was certain that with a few more punches,
his jaw would be broken.  However, the punches ended there, and the man instead
pulled Taeru away from the wall and shoved him back into the other two men.

The one that caught him was even larger than the man who’d
been beating Taeru before.  When Taeru tried to squirm away, dizziness subdued
him.  Despite the change of hands, the man who’d been doing the beating before
was too involved to quit now.  He gestured to the third man, the only one who
wasn’t involved yet.  “Hold his foot,” the leader said flatly.

The other man obeyed without question, pulling Taeru’s leg
so that it was fully extended before him.  For a moment, Taeru wasn’t sure what
the intent of the action was, but then he saw the leader raise his arm in the
air.  The sickening crack that accompanied the searing pain frightened Taeru
more than anything else. 

His leg, once the third man released it, hung at a very
awkward angle, and even the simple act of existing sent pain into his chest. 
With a jolt, he realized he’d cried out at the impact, and he flushed as the
man grinned at him.  As they all seemed satisfied enough, Taeru took the
opportunity to writhe out of the hold he was in and try to pull himself away
from them.  He didn’t get far with his leg in its current condition.  The
second man moved forward and caught him across the back with a blade, and Taeru
fell without much resistance.

Instead of remaining and dwelling on the pain, however, he
pushed himself up on his arms and made a desperate retreat towards the far
wall.  The men took a few more steps towards him, though, and they kept laughing. 
“I ought to take you back to my manor, boy.  I could have fun with you.  You’d
make an interesting servant.”

“I’d sooner kill myself,” Taeru informed the man angrily. 
The street was oddly deserted, he noticed, and he was getting dangerously close
to the wall.  Sweat clung to him, and dirt clung to the sweat.  Blood spilled
from his busted lip, and though most were simply bruises, Taeru thought there
might be a cut on his face due to some stickiness that seemed to run along his
temple.

The man snatched Taeru from the ground and hit him hard
across the jaw, sending his body slamming back down.  Once again, Taeru
scampered back as far as he could.  The three of them were glaring at him, and
his energy felt entirely depleted.

This was really going to hurt.

As one of the men stepped forward, the sound of horses
startled the men and Taeru into glancing around.  They didn’t have to look
long, as in a matter of moments, there was a white horse standing between Taeru
and his assailants.  Another noble.

Taeru felt his entire body twist with misery as he glanced
up to see whoever was on top of the horse.  A blond, and the blond wasn’t
looking at Taeru, he was looking at the other men.  “What in Elyst are you
doing here, Ceran?” the blond asked.  There was a strange undertone to the
question, though, and Taeru found that he was even more frightened.

“I… Prince Calis, I… ah… well, we were…”  The confident
burly man from before had disappeared in favor of a frightened little boy who
simply wanted to get himself out of trouble.  Prince?  So this was the older
Tsrali.

“Do explain,” the prince spoke with venom, and his horse
seemed to snort with anger as it advanced on the other three men present. 
“Because I’m sure you were not
piddling
about in Dark District when we
are trying to prepare an army.  My father asked me to keep an eye on our future
soldiers, and I was simply making rounds—I never thought I’d see someone in
such a disgraceful place!”

“No sir, absolutely not sir… we were just…”  Taeru felt the accused
man’s gaze move to him in a moment of desperation.  “I was settling a debt for
my father.”

“A debt?  I hardly think your esteemed father would accept
the money of a Dark Districter.  So now you are lying about what you are doing
here?” the prince sounded absolutely indignant.  Perhaps he was just as
hard-hearted as Lavus and his brother, but surely he wouldn’t sully his own
words by turning his own hand against Taeru after this.

Taeru, not wanting to test the theory, tried to force
himself up and then had to contain his whimper as he fell back to the ground. 
He wasn’t sure how he was going to get back home in this state.  His leg was
entirely useless.  “No, we… we should return at once.  Our business here is
concluded and wasting any more time here would be foolish.  Let’s go, men,” the
burly man said sharply.  They all turned back to their horses, then.

“A good plan, indeed,” said the prince.

“Apologies, your grace,” one of them mumbled.

The men left without another word, but to Taeru’s dismay, he
discovered there was another horse in the alley as well.  So the prince had
come with friends, which meant that he wouldn’t hesitate to toy with some
defenseless boy in the middle of Dark District, either.  The other horse was a
deep brown color, and it approached purposefully.

In another moment, the prince’s attention changed to
him—well, there went Taeru’s last hope that he hadn’t been noticed.  Nausea
swept across him as he stared blankly at the white horse.  The words that he
received were not at all what he expected, though.  “Are you alright?”

Taeru blinked a few times and then glanced up into the face
of the prince that had just—advertently or not—saved his life.  And what he saw
shocked him to his very foundation.  Not only was the look on the prince’s face
unexpected, with eyes that were so genuinely concerned that Taeru felt as
though he might break down like a child in front of its mother, but the face
was entirely familiar.

Blue-green eyes, with a strong jawline, and a very serious
face that seemed somehow eased into a state of softness.  His blond hair was
messy and short, much shorter than most noblemen.  Either they were twins, or
Prince Tsrali and the traveler from before were the same person, and that meant
that they—or rather he—had saved Taeru thrice. 

Still, sickness had not left the injured man, and he
realized that his suspicions may have been true.  Why else would a prince have
been hanging around him?  Surely, Tareth had put him up to this—and perhaps
Calis had already made the assumption of his identity.  It would not have been
hard.  He had begun to tremble, and he realized that he hadn’t answered the
question.  “Yes,” he said firmly.

Just get up!
His mind demanded furiously.  Unfortunately,
any movement in his leg at all sent so much pain into his mind that he couldn’t
even hope to comply. 

The prince frowned, obviously discontented with this
answer.  Then, though, the brown horse arrived and its rider tossed a sack at
Taeru.  The sack just missed his leg and Taeru looked inside, finding Juliet’s
supplies where they should be.  When he glanced up, he was not surprised to see
that the rider of the brown horse was the brown-haired friend that had
accompanied Calis to Juliet’s. 

“Lee!” the prince snapped.  “You bloody imbecile, why would
you throw the thing at him?  He’s clearly hurt.”  The words brought even more
shock to Taeru.

The friend’s—Lee’s—response was calm and collected.  “I made
sure that it did not hit his leg.”

“His leg isn’t the only injury he has sustained,” the prince
corrected irately.  “And stop riding your horse like a blasted girl.”  Lee
worked to suppress a smile, but Taeru could see the workings of one just
beneath his cool expression.

Then, the man who had returned Taeru’s goods spoke calmly. 
“Every time you tell me to stop, I feel more obliged to do it.”

What an odd correspondence between a noble and a guard. 
Taeru had never seen anything like it—especially in Telandus.

The blond prince rolled his eyes and then dismounted.  Fear
returned when the prince took a decisive step towards Taeru.  Taeru’s entire
body stiffened.  “What is your name?” Calis asked after a moment.  Taeru could
see the interworking of anger in the prince’s countenance, but he was doing his
best to calm it.

“Why?” Taeru spat, nearly before Calis had finished the
question.

“I wanted to introduce myself to you properly,” Calis
answered.  “I’m Calis Tsrali.”

“I know who you are, prince,” Taeru said dangerously.  He
finally found enough strength in his body to pull himself backwards a little. 
Calis let out a long sigh and stopped, staring at Taeru with increasing worry. 
It had to be fake.  “My name is Kilik, but you knew that.”

“So I did,” Calis answered calmly.  “Let me help you,
Kilik.  You are extremely injured.  You won’t make it back.”

“I can find help with someone other than a prince of
Telandus.  Don’t you have more important things to do than tend to an injured
lowlife?”  Taeru’s defenses sounded strong, but inside he felt them falling to
pieces.  He couldn’t get back to Juliet’s house, and her supplies would spoil
if he took too long.

Still, the prince had to be lying to him—had to be trying to
trick him to find out some sort of important information.  “I can think of
nothing I would rather do, than to help you, Kilik.  I would very much
appreciate if you would let me.”

Taeru’s lips trembled as he glared into the blue-green
eyes—the ones that looked absurdly sincere and gentle.  No, no, no.  He had to
stop thinking like this, or he was going to deeply regret it.  “I can…”

Calis took another firm step forward so that he was within
grabbing distance of Taeru.  The smaller boy fought off conflicting feelings of
terror and desire as he stared at the blond prince.  “You’re bleeding far worse
than you realize, I think.  Please.  I will leave you alone after this if you
like, but I cannot leave you here like this.  I’d sooner have myself hanged.”

A prince saying please?  What sorcery was this?  Princes
didn’t say please, and Tsrali princes were rumored not to even know the word. 
Yet this prince was willing to lower himself to the level of helping a citizen
of Dark District—even if he was working under the pretense of a ruse, that was
out of the ordinary.  Taeru frowned, but denying the help seemed foolish at
this point.  “I don’t want attention drawn,” he said seriously.

Calis smiled.  “I know Dark District well, Kilik.  I will
ensure that we do not make a ruckus.  Not to mention, your foolish Dark
District friends have all gone to hide so they needn’t help you.”  The man’s
voice was so angry that it trembled.

“There wasn’t anything they could do,” Taeru assured
quietly.

A flash of thunderous fury appeared in the blue-green eyes,
and Taeru winced away from it.  “Unfortunate, then, that the Phantom Blade was
not here to help you,” Calis said oddly.  Taeru felt defensiveness flare up
within him.

“He cannot be everywhere,” Taeru said.

With a surveying glance, Calis quirked an eyebrow.  “No, I
suppose he can’t.”

Then, though, the gentleness returned, and Calis extended
his hand to the injured boy.  Taeru, unthinkingly, reached to take it, and his
injured finger slammed into the prince’s hand.

With a startled cry, Taeru pulled back, clutching his hand
to his chest.  With a horrifying thought, Taeru glanced into Calis’s worried,
and oddly admiring, eyes.  His cheeks burned with humiliation—for if Calis had
been searching for an answer—he had it now.  This time, Calis knelt and pulled
Taeru off the ground, and it didn’t escape Taeru that the prince made very
certain that he didn’t touch Taeru’s injured side.

The feeling of Calis’s arms around him inspired far more in
Taeru than it should.  Calis seemed as if he was intentionally holding him like
this—like the prince wanted to hold Taeru.  And he wanted Taeru to feel safe. 
Possibly another way to trick Taeru into revealing information, but the
gentleness was not something Taeru had experienced before—not since he was a
child.

“I need to get you onto the horse, Kilik,” Calis said
softly.  “How bad is your leg?  I saw them chasing you, and then I heard you…
but I didn’t see what happened.”

Taeru set his jaw into a hard line and spoke objectively. 
“I’m not sure.  He held my foot out and hit the center of it.  I heard
something crack.”

To Taeru’s surprise, Calis stiffened, and then he jerked his
head to the side, as if trying to keep from hurting Taeru.  “I should kill
him.  I should go find that rat bastard and rip his throat out.  Worthless…”

“No, you shouldn’t.  Kilik would still be hurt, and you
would certainly be questioned on the motive of your action.  Imagine your
father’s reaction if he knew it was for the defense of a Dark District citizen! 
On that note, perhaps you should.”