Chapter 89: The Weight of Responsibility

Kai woke before the light fully settled into the room and for a moment he only listened to the slow and even breathing beside him. Rhydian slept on his stomach with one arm stretched across the space Kai had occupied and the sheets sat low on his back and left the hard lines of muscle on display. Kai watched him for a second longer and then carefully slid out of the bed and collected the first thing his hands found which turned out to be one of Rhydian’s shirts. The fabric hung large on him and reached mid-thigh, he pulled on his boots next and decided that was enough to make it back to his own room if he stayed quiet.

He eased the door open and stepped into the corridor and began the short walk with careful steps while he prayed that no one would open a door before he reached safety. His own room sat at the far end and Elias’s door sat between him and it and Ayan’s room sat directly opposite Elias’s. He was halfway there when the door across from Elias’s opened, Ayan stepped out and at the sight of each other the both of them froze.

"Oh. Hi," Kai whispered.

"Kai!"

"This isn’t what it looks like" Ayan didn’t know what to say because in the same moment his door opened wider revealing a second figure .... Elias walked out bare-bodied and sleepy with nothing but a pair of low underwear clinging to his hips leaving nothing to the imagination because his everything was on display including his morning wood and the clear definition of his abs on full display too. He still had not noticed Kai and he reached out and slapped Ayan’s ass with casual familiarity as he passed.

"Thanks for helping me get that frustration off. Next time I want to hear you choke on it properly."

"Uh..." Kai was dumfounded this time around.

Ayan’s eyes went wide and he made a frantic cutting motion with his hand but it was already too late. Elias’s gaze cleared enough to follow the signal and land on Kai standing a few steps away in an oversized shirt and boots with an expression of pure bewilderment.

The three of them stood in the corridor in silence.

"Kai!" He startled as if he had seen a ghost,

"What are you doing here" he said suddenly feeling self conscious enough to cover himself with his hands.

Kai’s brain caught up immediately and the pieces arranged themselves without mercy. The frustration from the fight, The open door, The slap on the ass. The vulgar thanks, The two of them had slept together.

He did not raise his voice and he did not accuse anyone. He simply looked at Ayan for a long second while something inside him went cold and decisive and then he reached for the function he had gained in the Astral Interface , a function he had not seen himself using because he had always thought there would be no use for it...

Hey System?

[Host?]

Activate Husband Rejection function

[Husband Rejection function activated who do you wish to eliminate from the roster?.]

Candidate 006

[Are you sure you want to remove candidate 006, Ayan Bell from your roster?]

Well I wasn’t asleep when i said it the first time tf?.

[Candidate 006: Ayan Bell has been removed from the Husband Collection roster.]

[Current registered Candidates: 5.]

[Slot 006 is now vacant.]

Ayan flinched as if he had felt something shift even if he could not name it and Kai did not stay to talk. He walked past both of them without another word and entered his own room and closed the door and leaned against it until his pulse slowed.

He needed air that did not belong to this hallway.

***

Claire and Cassandra found him late in the morning after the palace had already finished most of its early routines. The twins stood at his door in light traveling clothes with matching looks of poorly concealed interest and Claire spoke first.

"We heard there was a rather loud disagreement in the guest wing last night. You look like a man who needs to be anywhere else."

Cassandra smiled.

"We are going into the city. You should come. Fresh air, it’s time to get your first experience as a Consort... if you are becoming one"

Kai rolled his eyes "I am not marrying your brother "

They both exchanged looks and looked at him

"We know " they uttered in unison. Kai was taken back.

"Well are yoi going with us or not"

Kai almost refused on principle and then the alternative of staying in the palace with Elias and Lucien and the residual tension from the corridor settled over him and he nodded.

"Lead the way."

Eldoria in daylight was somehow more unreal than it had been at night. The twins guided him along walkways and through terraced markets where the air smelled of sweet resin and flowers and the stone underfoot held a faint inner glow. Claire pointed out the older spires and the places where the original mountain still showed through the architecture while Cassandra kept steering him toward food stalls and overlooks and anywhere that kept his thoughts from circling back to the palace.

They asked light questions about the lower cities and about how Lucien had seemed on the road and Kai gave partial answers because he wasn’t really in the mood to converse about Lucien of all people.

The simplicity of walking without a crisis pressing against the back of his neck felt like luxury. He even laughed once when Cassandra dryly recounted the exact expression on Elias’s face after Claire had shut down his flirting at dinner and the sound surprised him.

They crossed a wide plaza lined with pale trees that shed luminous leaves when the wind passed through them and Cassandra glanced toward a small side stall and lifted her chin.

"Is that not one of your companions? The quiet one with the injured arm."

Kai followed her gaze and saw Ayan standing at the stall with his back partly turned as he paid for a small wrapped bundle. The younger man looked tired and tightly held together and he did not notice them across the plaza.

Claire watched Kai’s face for a second.

"Should we go over?"

"No," Kai said. "Let him be."

The twins accepted that without further comment and guided him down a different path and the rest of the afternoon passed in a gentler rhythm of walking and looking and letting the floating city occupy the space where heavier thoughts usually sat.

The sun had begun to drop toward the lower edge of the sky when the three of them turned onto a quieter residential terrace that overlooked one of the long outer falls. The light had gone warm and gold and the mist rising from the waterfall caught it and turned the air soft. Claire was in the middle of explaining how the city’s older stabilizers still needed seasonal recalibration when a sharp cry cut across the terrace.

A child had climbed too far along the outer decorative rail and the stone under his foot gave way with a dry crack. For one frozen second he hung in open air with his small hands scrabbling at nothing and the long drop to the clouds below waiting.

Kai moved on instinct and so did several others but none of them were close enough.

A figure in pale travel clothes was.

He appeared in Kai’s peripheral vision like a drawn line and crossed the remaining distance with a speed that did not look entirely human and caught the child around the waist before gravity could finish its claim. The momentum carried them both in a tight spin that ended with the stranger’s boots planted hard on the solid terrace and the child clutched safe against his chest. For a moment the only sound was the waterfall and the stranger’s controlled breathing.

He set the child down carefully and checked him for injury and only when the boy nodded through his tears and ran toward a pair of frantic parents did the stranger straighten and turn.

He was handsome in a way that felt almost deliberate. Fine features. Clean lines. Hair the color of sunlit ash and eyes a clear and vivid green that caught the evening light and held it. There were no wings on his back but something in the way he stood and the faint shimmer that clung to the air around him made the word fairy rise unbidden in Kai’s mind. Their eyes met across the short distance and the stranger’s expression flickered with mild surprise and then something warmer and more curious.

Kai opened his mouth without a clear plan for what he intended to say.

The System spoke first.

[New individual detected.]

[Candidate 006 registration conditions met.]

[Name: pending.]

[Race: Fairy.]

[Affinity: 9% and rising.]

[Slot 006 has been filled.]

Kai stared at the notification and then at the ash-haired man who had just pulled a child out of the sky and with all his might sighed out loud, a rather powerful sigh at that.