Chapter 3: The General

General Callan stayed. Theia was aware of his every moment. She was so tensely wound she thought she might break, and Callan was so easily calm and casual she wanted to scream. Wanted to rage at him for intruding on their sacred time. But she did non of those things. No, instead she smiled and played and pretended it was all normal.

They spent the whole hour before the twins' supper in the garden. Theia was weaving a crown of daisies for Isme and Callan watching Theia intently through side way glances as Mikka narrated an elaborate battle against invisible foes and Callan indulged the make-believe story.

In the end, both children were talking over one another in the joyful, chaotic way of siblings. Theia listened to all of it and tried to interact with the General as little as possible. It was a balancing act, not to outright ignore him but not offer too much either. She had so very little left of herself as it was.

She had grown skilled at observing and listening, it was, perhaps, the only skill her imposed isolation had given her. She noticed things others missed, maybe it was also ingrained in her as way to protect herself. She noticed the way Isme chewed her lip when she was working up courage to ask something, the particular pitch of Mikka's laugh when he was truly happy rather than merely performing happiness for an audience. She committed each one of these details to memory. So she could replay them when the greyness took hold of her. Cling to them as a rope to walk her back to life.

‘Will you come to supper tonight?’ Isme asked, settling the daisy crown crookedly atop her curls. Theia cringed internally and pointedly did not look at the general, who had moved closer and was lying in the grass beside her. Isme asked this every time, with the same hopeful lift in her voice, and every time Theia had to find a new way to say the same old no.

‘Not tonight, sweetling.’ She tapped the tip of Isme's nose, drawing a giggle. ‘But I'll see you tomorrow. I promise.’

‘You always promise.’

‘And doesn’t Theia always keep her promises, little princess?’ Callan's husky voice replied before she could, an irritating smirk on his lips. Isme's lips turned down ever so slightly, like what he said didn’t quite sit right, but her innocent little brain couldn’t understand why.

It wasn’t lost on Theia that the General used her name, he always used her name around them. He never called her princess unless official ears could hear or it was to drawl a sardonic reprimand at her.

She smiled as Isme, a tight, forced smile despite her efforts. To aware of general’s hands edging to close to her leg, she found the will to speak softly to Isme. ‘The General is right, I always keep my promises. I will come tomorrow. I promise.’ She said, knowing the general would like that she said he was right. Theia at least knew he was right on this one thing. And that is what she clung to as evidence that she had not entirely failed at being present in this world, whatever else it had denied her.

The bell for the children's supper rang faintly from the palace, and before Edith, their Nanny, could come looking for them, the general rose and took both their hands, in way that left no room for argument, and ushered them out the garden. They both gave Theia a one armed hug goodbye, and the General gave her a devious half smile and a slight nod of his head.

Her stomach dropped. She knew it wouldn’t be the last she saw of him today.

Still, Theia watched the twins go with the ache that came at the end of every stolen hour. Half grief, half gratitude, indistinguishable from one another. She stayed in the garden a while longer, unable to force herself back to her room, knowing what the rest of the night had in store for her.

She stayed until the sky purpled into evenlight and the roses lost their colour to the dark. She told herself, as she always did, that her time with them was enough. Then she forcibly dragged her unwilling legs out the garden and along the dimly lit halls to her wing. She climbed the stairs to her rooms, willing the familiar numbness to take her.