Within the Walls [NEW VERSION]

Chapter 10

"Marry you?" I toss my hands into the air, storming across my bed chamber. Ruben barrels into the room without even knocking, muttering a flurry of curses, as if I should somehow be falling over my feet with excitement to marry him – marry him. I square my shoulders and sink into a brooding cloud, ready to refuse before he even tries to drag me out to my first morning duties.

His scent swirls past me, fuelling the rage brewing in my hands, face, and chest. "Good morning to you, too," he says, clicking his tongue.

I roll my eyes, pacing to the window and leaning against it. My back to him. It's a dreary day. Grey clouds billow in from the east, coating the sky with the foreboding of more snow. Yet, lazy fingers of sunlight reach over the kingdom. Frost spreads across the window frames like cobwebs. A string of sunlight catches my hair.

"The wedding won't be for several months," he says, blowing out his cheeks in such a way that I have a feeling he tossed and turned all night, too. Good.

"You never mentioned this part of the deal." I whirl around, glaring.

He shifts his weight, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Today, he doesn't wear his armour. Only the black pants and long-sleeved tunic. "The idea came to me after we spoke. I wanted to tell you earlier."

"Lies," I spit, stalking forward until I am only inches from him. "I don't want to marry you, Ruben."

"Oh, gee. Thanks." He crosses his arms over his chest and a vein in his neck pulses. "Did you think I wanted to?"

I simply shake my head. "I cannot believe I agree with the king. It would have been easier to exile me and get on with it."

His eyes narrow. "Why are you acting so ungrateful when I saved your life?"

"Because this is a trap!" I find myself leaning forward as the heat surges throughout my body.

"A trap?" The morning light gilds his face, and his forest eyes glimmer like pools of jade.

"I don't want to pretend to be happy for the rest of my life, stuffing my belly, wearing fancy stones and gowns, while my people across the river starve to death each winter! It just isn't fair." My voice trails off and a single tear slips down my cheek. "Nothing about the sectors has ever been fair."

He flinches at my words, scrunching his nose. Ruben steps back and traces the edge of the vanity with his fingertip. "I couldn't banish you, Elle. I couldn't be responsible for that."

"Why?"

"Because my father loves watching people go. Because it is the quickest way for him to regain his control, to remain relevant without having to see the consequences of his cruelty. Except for each night, those city gates open and close on a person, he turns to the drink to console himself. To dampen the impending, instinctive guilt of the blood on his hands. It is one of the reasons you'll never catch the king in the Convex Sector. He can't handle seeing the bones of the people he starves."

The whistling wind fades into the background as I swallow his words. A cruel yet remorseful king. Too cowardly to change. "So, you don't want to end up drunken and miserable either."

His eyes flash as if he's remembering something horrific. The darkness swirls around him as he presses his lips together. "Not if I can help it. I am not like him."

"A delicate balance," I echo the king's words from last night. "That's why you've suggested the wedding. To keep the balance."

He sighs and his shoulders slump. "It was still a dangerous move. If we tried anything more dangerous,... my father would just send more Tranqs into the Convex Sector. No one would dare lift a finger, not even in their own home, or... or in the forest."