Stealing Calista

::9::

Calista sits alone on the beach, her hair waving in the wind. It's been a week and there are no signs of Laethain's ships. She sighs and traces her name in the sand.

Milani let her borrow some of her clothes and the dress feels itchy against Calista's smooth skin. She closes her eyes and listens to the waves crashing into the shore. It sounds like Brealle. The land she grew up in. The land she was stolen from.

Calista wants to feel resentment toward Jasper but she fails every time. Deep down she misses him. She misses the way his body felt against hers and how he always smelled like pine.

"Hello," A voice interrupts her thoughts. Her eyes snap open and Calista turns around. A village boy around her age stands before her. His skin is tanned from the intense heat of the sun and his dark hair uncut and tied behind him. "You are Calista."

"Yes, that's me." He smiles and he looks goofy. He plops down beside her, keeping a respectable distance.

"My name is Kai and my job is to watch you."

Calista's eye quirks up and she studies the boy next to her. "Why?"

"You are a foreigner." Kai points out. "Milani thinks you are safer with a guide."

Calista rolls her eyes, suddenly irritated. "So are you just going to follow me around?"

"That is what Milani wishes."

Calista gets up and wipes the sand off her bottom. Kai follows in sync.

She steps a foot into the jungle and she feels Kai right behind her. Calista spins around to tell him to go away when she spots something across the sea.

Her eyes widen and and blinks a couple times to make sure she's is seeing it right. A little speck in the horizon has her heart lurching.

"Kai, do you see that?!" Calista runs back down the beach, close enough that the waves lap at her ankles. "He has come for me!" She yells.

Kai rushes up next to her and squints hard. "I don't see anything."

Turning to the village boy she says, "What do you mean, it's right-"

Calista soon realizes that her eyes have mistaken her. Looking again there is no speck, just the endless horizon. "I thought..." The words die on her tongue and her heart feels deflated.

She blinks hard to keep the tears of disappointment back and turns away from the ocean. "It must have been a bird or something." Calista mutters before turning around and heading for the jungle.

:::::::::

The rest of the day she mopes around and sleeps in her hut. She is starting to hate this island and the people on it. The food that she eats she can't hold down and then she ends up sleeping more.

Kai finally left her alone and she is left to her thoughts. Everything she thinks of Jasper she feels a slight pang in her chest and she wonders if he has already given up on finding her.

No. He would never.

Hearing someone enter the hut she flops over on her cot to face them. Milani stands there with her hands on her hips. "Are you sick, Calista of Laeth?"

"I don't know." She admits. "I just need rest."

"You have been in here half of the day." She says. "Kai!"

Kai runs into the hut, ready to do anything she says. "Go fetch the healer."

He leaves and Milani takes a seat on the plush chair across the hut. Her dark hair is piled atop her head and she has a thick line of coal under her eyes.

"I can help you get out of the depression you are in, Lady Calista." Milani leans forward on her elbows. "I can send any of the villagers you like in this tent tonight. I'll even come, if you please."

Calista feels like she might puke. "Look, I think you have the wrong idea. I'm married."

Milani shrugs. "So, married couples on the Quarid islands have no rules to stand by."

"Then it isn't marriage, Milani." Calista says getting suddenly angry.

Milani stands up. "Do you honestly think your king will find you, Calista? You might as well carry on with your life here in the islands."

Her words hit Calista hard and she jumps up. "You might as well mind your own damn business, you are forgetting who you're talking to." Calista says, her voice foreign to her.

"You have no power here, Calista." Milani heads for the doorway. "And I would be wise to watch the way you speak to me."

::::::

It's not long after Milani leaves that a young woman appears in her place. "Hello." She greets. "I'm Talulla."

"I don't need a healer. I'm fine." Calista says angrily. Talulla just smiles, she doesn't seem at all threatened by her.

Calista actually feels fine. "Kai told me your symptoms, Lady Calista." Talulla says. She continues smiling and Calista eyes her worriedly. "You are definitely not sick."

Calista raises a brow and the small village woman. "You are with child." Talulla takes Calista's hands into her own. "When was your last bleeding?"

Calista feels stiff and she thinks back to the last time. Jasper never stopped himself from releasing inside her. She never told him not to.

"Are you sure? Maybe I just have a parasite." Calista's face pales. She knows she has been late. She should have gotten her bleeding weeks ago.

Calista pulls her hands away from Talulla. "Please, leave. I need to think."

Talulla obediently leaves and Calista is alone. She can feel the blood rushing to her ears and she recounts her months over and over again before a headache blossoms.

She wants to deny it but she has been very active these past few months. Calista wants to scream but somebody beats her to it.

Screams erupt outside and Calista runs out of her hut. Kai is not at his post and it seems as if the world erupted in chaos.

People run by and babies scream. Calista darts through the crowd, heading toward Milani's tent.

She doesn't know why the people are acting this way. Calista almost gets thrown to the ground by a heavyset woman pushing through the crowd.

By the time Calista gets to Milani's hut she is out of breath. Milani doesn't seem to be there so she heads to the heart of the village.

That's when she sees the soldiers in Laethian red.