Vanator felt the uselessness of his rationalizations. They bounced off of the cross-armed Vantha as arrows against a stone tower. Every word only served to anger her further.
And She knew Kashik! How did she know her? This was getting worse, he wanted to stop, only now willing to spill what had been going on. At the mention of Hex, Khiara turned from him. He saw the disbelief in her smoldering eyes, disgust and betrayal and a hurt he could not define cried from her every movement and expression.
Van could not shut up, he went on with his pitiful attempt to justify himself, sounding shallow even to himself. Thankfully Khiara shut him up herself with a strong angry voice he had never heard, nor thought he would hear from her. He glared at the Vantha dumbfounded as she unloaded her barrage at him, accusations of failed trust and lies that drilled massive holes in him...the final scathing remark cutting him to the bone. He was a selfish bastard.
He knew it was all true. But he had had enough. His own ire stirred, his need to defend himself, even in his own recognition of guilt, surfaced with a vengeance. His lips tightened, his visge fuming. He raised a finger to jab towards the Vantha's face.
His voice was thinly veiled rage, barely controlled. He kept it low but thick with anger. "I was with Kashik for one day, One day! It was only 15 days after you two showed up and I never saw her again until the arrangement. There was no affair, we met and the next day she was gone, I didn't know if I would ever see her again. Did I fall in love with her? Yes! When would have been a good time to tell Pygmy, when did she ever tell me how she felt about me? What if I never saw Kashik again? Did I fall in love with Hex! Yes! I always have loved her, she was one of my best friends. Did I plan to make love to her one day in the grass? No! Did we plan a future together? No!"
"Do you know, Mi never even knew about Tamar! Never asked about this mark!" He thumped his chest where the dark Lacun mark stained his skin. "Hex knew, Kashik knew, you knew! What kind of relationship is that? I never knew why she left Zeltiva, why she went out into the grass and danced till she collapsed into a heap weeping. What kind of relationship did we have?"
He was loud now. He was spewing things he didn't even know he was saying, things he really didn't know if he believed. He was blaming Pygmy for his own inability to see what he had right in front of him everyday for the last season. Van wanted to stop, and he wanted to say more.
"I never asked for her to follow me around like some lovesick puppy!" He stopped, a lump forming in his throat. He had gone too far, he didn't mean to say that. Mi was so much more than that, and he realized it too late. Vanator's face fell flat. "Or for my feelings for you to be so strong." The last sentence was spat out as if he was confessing a crime.
"I love her and I love you. I will never deny that. How could I choose between you two? You wanted to protect Pygmy so badly, at your own expense. When I found out that the woman my family was trying to marry me off to was Kashik, I made my choice. Was it cowardly? Maybe. Maybe I was wrong. But I didn't hide some grand scheme to lead Pygmy along for the whole season and plan to crush her in the end. Pygmy will get over me, I will marry off to this woman she doesn't know and she will move on. But if I picked her, or you, there would always be the knowledge that a best friend took the man you loved."
You might not see what I did as protecting her, or you, but I did what I thought I had to do. I'm losing three good friends. I love Kashik and she will make me a fine wife and I do not regret taking her. But I regret that in the end I had to hurt you and Mi, and Hex."
He stopped, dark eyes fixed on the shifting hues of the Vantha's. He took a deep breath and sighed, turning to look out of the open window, settling his hands on his hips. |