The Red Heart (The Krystal Knights 1)

Chapter Twenty

"Kali, it's your birthday tomorrow!" Aaliyah says to me, for about the fiftieth time this evening.

"I am well aware of that lovely piece of information. Thank you though, Lia, for telling me. Again."

She rolls her eyes, "You're so boring, K! It's you're eighteenth birthday–"

"So you and Nix keep reminding me."

"–so, I'm not about to let you just sleep around and paint or do something boring that you do every single day, on your eighteenth birthday!"

I grab her by her shoulders to stop her from jumping around before she turns into a bloody unicorn or something. "Aaliyah, I love you. I truly do. But seriously, I do not care about my birthday. All this means to me is that I will thankfully be eligible for the competition."

"But you have to let us do something for you!"

"No."

I would literally rather do anything else than celebrate my birthday. I should have told them all I forgot my birthday too when they found me.

"But–"

"Aaliyah, leave her alone. Gods above." Nailah laughs from behind the rack of dresses surrounding us.

Lia sighs, surrendering for now. "Fine."

We're in some random room in some random hall in the palace that I've never seen before that has hundreds of dresses in it.

After the competition is over and there's a winner and new general, there will be a huge celebration. A ball to end all balls –at least until the next one.

So, Nailah arranged for hundreds of gowns to be made specially for us and brought up to the palace for us to choose from.

It's insane.

"How about this one?" Nailah asks holding up a little purple, kind of lilac, coloured long elegant dress.

Aaliyah and I stare at her, wided eyed for a moment.

Nai looks between us, "What? Is it ugly?"

"No. No, Nai, it's not. I promise." I say, trying to cover up the bewildered expression on my face. "It's just purple."

Her eyebrows furrow, "What's wrong with purple."

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong with purple." Lia says quickly, "It's just that for balls and engagements where you need to wear a dress you always wear royal blue. Or at least a shade of blue, but nearly always it's royal blue."

"So, purple is just a surprise."

"I don't always wear blue. Do I?" She asks.

"Pretty much."

"Yeah, always."

"Huh." She pauses and thinks for a moment. "I've never really noticed it before. I just always liked how the colour looks on me."

Nai starts to put the purple dress back on the rack of dresses and Aaliyah and I look at one another realising that this whole 'you only wear blue' discussion is hurting her self-image. So, we jump back into 'supportive friend' mode.

"Oh my Gods, Nai, stop that." Aaliyah runs over to the rack and picks the dress back up.

I quickly walk over and take the dress from Lia and hold it up against Nailah. "Purple and blue are such similar colours. Basically twins. And this lilac colour will just look gorgeous against your skin, Nai."

"Really?" She looks between us. "You really think so?"

"Of course! Nailah, you're stunning in any colour no matter what. But you'll look magnificent in this." I angle her towards the full length mirror so that she can see how pretty she and the dress is.

Lia smirks and nudges Nai's shoulder, "Besides, all the ladies won't be able to keep their eyes off of you in this."

"Stop it." She rolls her eyes, smiling nonetheless.

I slide up next to them, "Have you got your eye on anyone though, seriously?"

"No. No, I don't." She shrugs, "And even if I did I can't do anything about it. Act upon it. Nothing could even become of it."

"At least until we know your father is picking you." Aaliyah points out. "He could still choose Killian."

Nai sighs, "I love my brother, I do. But our father and him have a very difficult relationship. So, unless I do something so drastic and horrendous that he is forced to pick Kel or I die, it will more than likely be me. So, yeah, nothing could ever become of anything and I shall be forced to marry a man and reproduce for the rest of my life."

"Oh, Nailah." I frown and give her a hug as she sniffles back a stray tear.

I hate King Leroy.

I hate the standard and expectations placed on the royals.

I hate that my friend is forced to live her life in secret and that she can't truly be who she is.

She exhales and puts her dress on the 'keep' rack, that up until now, was empty.

"What's really dreadful about all of this, though, is that I don't even want to be queen. I don't think I would be particularly good at the job and it forces me to be something that I'm not. But I will probably become the ruling monarch and Killian won't.

"Which is particularly terrible because Kel wants to be king. And he would be amazing at it. He is kind –when he wants to be, he has a huge heart, he cares about his people, he knows and understands all of the politics of the country, he has plans to improve the kingdom. But because our father is a giant prick he won't get to achieve everything that he is capable of."

I think that in the past month, week even, I have learnt more about Killian Asteria than I have in the ten years that I have lived with and known him.

And with every piece of information that I get told whether it be by him or his sister or someone else entirely, I start to sympathise with him and realise that I had him completely misjudged the whole time.

I think that maybe Killian just is cruel sometimes to hide the fact that he is hurting, emotionally and physically. And I think that he just thinks it's best to not let anyone get close to him so that he can't hurt them too.

Maybe he just needs to find the courage ans safety and strength to communicate whatever it is that he's feeling and what he's going through to the people who care about him the most and that would do anything for him.

Like his sister.

I think that in a heartbeat Nailah would die for her twin and she would do it without a second thought.

Nai exhales and chuckles. "Gods. Enough of my temper tantrum, let's find some dresses for you both."

"You can always talk to us, Nai." I say.

"I know." She smiles at me, "Okay then, Kali, you first. Red? Gold? What colours are we thinking?"

At minimum an hour later, Nailah is satisfied with both mine and Aaliyah's dress choices and we all start on the trek back to our bedrooms.

We stop at Nai's first and say our goodnights and Aaliyah and I make our way to our own.

I stop at my door and turn to her, "Night, Lia. Love you."

She looks at me, "I am going to do something small, Kali."

"What are you talking about?"

"For your birthday." She explains, "I don't care how much you protest. I am not allowing you to sulk in there painting all day, you will get your butt up and spend quality time with your friends. For my sanity, you have to."

I laugh, "For your sanity? I thought this was my birthday?"

"It is, obviously. But this will drive me insane if I stand idly by and allow you to not celebrate your eighteenth birthday!"

I shake my head and open my door. "Do whatever you want, Lia. You will anyway."

She grins and starts to run down the hallway to her bedroom. "I love you, Kali!"