266. Eude
266. Eude
It was noon when the twins finally found their way back to Varan’s caravan. Rhobart was waiting for them under a tarp. He looked worried and pissed at the same time. His black gaze scrutinized the two Paladins for a long while.
Eventually, Rhobart said, “You two always get into trouble. It’s like you have a don for it.” He waved his hand up and down at them. “What happened now? Tried to look at more women without a veil?”
“Believe it or not, this time we did nothing,” Eude said.
Rhobart arched an eyebrow. “Insulting the looks of a woman in front of her family and friends is nothing to you?” His tone was laced with anger.
Eude rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, we were only being honest. What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with that!?” Rhobart asked in disbelief. “We are in a foreign land, a land of which we don’t know the laws, and you ask what’s wrong with that? Do you understand what could happen if Hewe’s father decides not to help us anymore? How will we get to Ishtar without his help?”
“We didn’t think—” Hudde started saying, but Rhobart interrupted him.
“Exactly! You never think. You behave like children. For fucks’ sake, you are Paladins! Act like it! Do you understand how much is at stake? How heavy the burden on Ayla’s shoulders is? Stop messing around! Especially now, when you will become fathers. Inoss knows how poor Marianna can put up with you two.” The expression on the twins’ faces made him ask, “What? What did you do this time?”
Eude narrowed his eyes. “Why do you always blame us of doing things?”
Rhobart shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because you keep screwing up?”
“You are always quick to point out all the shitty things we do, but you never acknowledge anything good we do,” Hudde gritted.
Rhobart arched an eyebrow. “Remind me when was the last time you did something worth mentioning?”
Eude couldn’t remember the last time anyone said something nice about them. Even Ayla, whom his brother and he adored, had only harsh words for them lately.
‘No one needs us. No one sees or cares for us. Even our n’alxa preferred another man and rejected us. Sometimes I wonder why we keep fighting,’ Hudde said to his twin.
Eude didn’t have an answer for Hudde, but he knew he wanted to make his brother happy, for once. All this time, Hudde had put Eude’s happiness above everything else. It was time Eude did the same.
“We just found out Marianna is not pregnant, so maybe, show us a little grace,” Eude suggested.
Rhobart snorted. “Grace? The one grace here is that Marianna is not tied to you two. At least now I understand why she said that she wanted to return to Myrthana.”
Pain hit Eude all of a sudden. It wasn’t only his pain that he was feeling, but that of Hudde as well. The only time when he felt pain this intense was when Zell rejected them. Maybe not even then, since they didn’t get to spend as much time with her as they had with Marianna.
Marianna wanted to abandon them? Eude couldn’t allow that to happen.
“When was that?” Eude wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” Rhobart replied. “Maybe an hour ago.”
Hudde mumbled something under his breath before turning on his heels. “I’m going to bathe and change my clothes,” he said as he walked away.
“I’m not done talking to you!” Rhobart yelled after him.
“Where is Marianna?” Eude asked. He could tell from Rhobart’s face that he wasn’t done with his scolding. “You call me an idiot and stupid as many times as you want after I’ve talked to Marianna. So tell me, where can I find her?”
Rhobart fisted his palm. “I wasn’t about to call any of you an idiot.”
It didn’t matter if Rhobart called him an idiot or not now, Eude already knew what his king thought of him and Hudde. What everyone thought of them. Why bother showing others that they were pretty smart—at least he hoped they were—when everyone already had an opinion of them revolving around their intimate life. Yes, they fucked many women, but it wasn’t was drove them, what defined them.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t call us idiots now, I already know what you think of us. You will have to finish yelling at me after I am done speaking to Marianna,” Eude said before going to look for the woman who made Hudde’s heart ache.
It took Eude two hours to find Marianna. She was sitting under the shade of a date palm.
“There you are,” he said as he sat next to her. “I was starting to get worried when I couldn’t find you.”
“I needed a quiet place to think.”
“What were you thinking about?” Eude wondered.
“Your brother, you… me, and the dream I had.”
That caught Eude’s attention. “What dream?”
She looked into his eyes as she said, “In my dreams, you always saved me from my mother. You would protect me and our child. When I started having this dream, I made nothing of it, but in time, I realized it was a sign from the gods my mother worshiped. Or maybe from the Gods of this world. I do not know anymore. But you and Hudde are nothing like my dream.” She place a palm on her abdomen. “There’s no baby either.”
Eude stopped breathing. “The baby, boy or a girl?”
“Girl with hair like the sun, like you and Hudde.”
Eude once thought he and Hudde would have to settle for Marianna but maybe she was part of the plans the Gods had for them. Maybe they weren’t settling at all, just accepting the woman who was meant for them all along.
Ayla said that true n’alxaes don’t reject each other.
Then why did they felt that Zell was their n’alxa?
Ayla said another thing. True n’alxaes don’t run at the first sigh of trouble, abandoning their soulmates.
He was finally starting to understand what Ayla wanted to say. And he was slowly starting to see and to accept what was in front of him.
He took Marianna’s hand into his. “That dream will come true.”
Her voice trembled as she asked, “How.”
With his free hand he cupped her cheek. “We will make it come true,” he said pressing his lips to her.
He had kissed other women before but this was the first time it felt like he had finally find his home.
When their lips parted, Eude murmured, “Be our wife.”
The words came from his heart.
The next update will be in 3 days.