Episode 212: After Dinner (Giana)

Something was wrong. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she could see it in the set of his shoulders. She could feel it in the absence of his palm on her lower back.

They walked the distance from the conference room to her bedroom in silence. She struggled to think of something to say, but her mind wanted only to pick at the evening and discover what had led to this tension in him.

She could ask, but what if she was wrong? Maybe he was only exceptionally tired. Why should anything be wrong between them? They’d enjoyed an excellent day. It was only in the last few minutes that the tide had turned.

Inside her room – their room – he hung his tuxedo vest in the closet and removed his tie. “What did you think of Sylem?” he asked.

There was a mess. It reminded her of photographs of Europe during and shortly after World War II. Or perhaps Russia, with all those wealthy contrasted with all those poor…

“Many of those donors wear two faces,” she mused carefully. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. What did you think of it?”

“I agree,” he said. “If Xander didn’t need their money, I don’t know why he didn’t just host a more entertaining event.”

“How much control does he have?” she asked.

Mel considered in the closet, his shoulders forward and his head down. “Less than he would say,” he told her.

Was he talking about Xander, or himself? She could not help the anxious laugh that escaped her. “It must be exhausting to do that so often.”

He turned now to look at her. “I was thinking if Spence backed down I could go there.”

She imagined him there, working that crowd. Yes, she could see it. He could do good there, in the way he had done here. Aadya wanted to step down, Giana suspected, but Meldrick was not done with his efforts to problem-solve the world.

He had said I, not we. She suppressed her anxiety. “You enjoyed it?” she asked, to buy herself a moment. “We could do a lot of good there. Maybe give Xander an orphan,” she added, amused at that thought. His talk of orphans was so ill-informed and self-centered that it made Giana want to march into Sylem and publicly adopt a handful of orphans herself.

Except she was selfish too. She wanted Mel’s children, before she had any others. Perhaps exclusively.

“Is that really what you want?” he asked. It took her a moment to realize he meant Sylem, not children. “You just called it exhausting.”

Exhausting wasn’t the same as not worthwhile. “I think it would be,” she clarified. “The campaign process.”

“I don’t think it would end after the campaign,” he argued. She kept herself silent on that. Xander seemed well-rested enough, but it was clear to her that Mel wasn’t talking about Xander. He was here to make a point.

She met his eyes, all but daring him to make it.

He looked at her, then looked away and began to unbutton his shirt. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

He still had not touched her. She forced herself not to admire his chest this time, until she knew what was the matter, why he didn’t want her company in the shower.

In his absence, she removed her shoes and sat at her little desk. She tried to think of a letter to write Viggo, but nothing would come to her.

It was a relief when he came back out: He would tell her what was wrong, or perhaps the shower had given him space and time to think and address his emotions.

When he looked at her, it was clear that nothing was better. “Do you think I should check in on Aadya?”

Her skin cooled.

“Maybe. I think she will either appreciate it or be annoyed.” Aadya had spent her week trying so hard to prove that she was deeply in love and happy. Giana suspected that she would not want Mel to be there with her, when she had Greg and when she was so determined to prove her independence from Mel.

“Either.” He stepped closer to her, arms at his sides. “Is this what you expected it to be?”

No, please. Not this conversation.

How had she possibly ruined things in only a few short days?

“This,” she managed. “You mean, us?”

“Yes.”

She pressed her palm against her diaphragm, as if she could soothe her racing heart that way. “It is more than I hoped it would be. Is it not, for you?”

“It’s…” he smiled, pained.

She closed her eyes.

“It’s been good,” he told her. “I’ll check on the three deliveries and be back?”

No. If he was ending this, she wanted to know now, not lie around wide awake wondering whether he even would return, wondering what he would say if he did, wondering what thing she had said or done at the dinner to destroy any hope of a future with him.

“What is it?” she pressed him. “Will you tell me?”

“Sometimes I feel content,” he told her. It was far less than her exuberance, disappointingly so. “Other times…I wonder if I can give you what you need.”

“You give me everything I need,” she assured. “Is there…” she straightened, as a means of pushing back the sound of emotions from her throat. If he would do this, she would not cry or be weak or desperate or beg him or any of those things she was tempted to do. “Is there something I’m failing to give you?”

“Not failing to give. I’m used to more space. Less touching. Specifically out of the bedroom.”

Had she touched him too much at the dinner? How could that possibly be grounds for giving up on everything?

“I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t either. I’ve never had someone who touches me so often, and…it’s been a difficult adjustment.”

Just a moment ago, she’d lamented the absence of his hand on her back, because she was so accustomed to him choosing to touch her. This was about something else. She wished he would just tell her and stop lying. “Is there anything else? I will stop touching so much.”

“Is that fair to you?” he pushed.

Fairness to her didn’t seem to be a factor in this conversation. Whatever it was, he’d set his mind to it already and no thing she said would change it.

Better that he did this now, she supposed, when she was meant to die soon anyway. It would save them the indelicacy of a painful divorce. “I see.” She stepped away, toward the bed. She would make her apologies to Niels, and pack, and return home to her estate.

“Gi,” he said, tenderly. He moved to step toward her and then held himself back. “I didn’t know before. I only want you happy. Not withheld because of this.”

She was going to cry if she spoke, but she managed a whisper. “Didn’t know what, before.”

“How uncomfortable touch makes me. Frequent touch, proximity.”

It was nearly a comedy. A tragicomedy, as so much of her life managed to be. “But Aadya is so warm…”

“But we only saw each other for bed, and a few other moments. We often were apart. Her in the gardens or in villages, me in an office or around the palace.” He gestured towards her. “Tea, across a table.”

His statements about Aadya were marginally true at best. It was such a terrible joke. Whatever was really wrong, she wanted the truth, the honesty, not this lie about touch.

“So it’s too much me,” she summarized. “Is it only the touch or is there more that you aren’t sharing?”

“It’s this room, too,” he said. “There are bigger rooms. Why do you want such a small space?”

“I didn’t see any sense in claiming a larger room when it was just me,” she said. Where was the sense in demanding something large or ornate or special just for her, when she ate all her meals in the dining hall and spent most of the time outside her room. “And you’ve never asked to move.”

“I haven’t tried to withhold from you.”

She had no idea what that statement even meant. All she knew was that the fear of being left was replaced with anger at the absurdity of this conversation. She could not defend herself if she didn’t know the real charge. “What is this really about?”

“I miss Aadya,” he admitted. “What we had. The changes have been more difficult than easy.”

Aadya. The one thing she could never defend herself against was a claim that she wasn’t Aadya. She could hardly argue that she was.

“And you need space,” she accepted. She would give him space, a whole realm worth, and she would not come back until Niels was king and she was no longer a laughing stock to everyone – including Niels – who secretly suspected that dating Meldrick was a bad idea for her.

“Not just space now. I need space to be me, to function. Time alone and apart. I don’t think you want that.”

He probably had someone else he wanted. That was her experience with men; they wanted you, and then they didn’t, and there was always some absurd reason like they needed space or –

She glared at him. “Are you also gay?” she demanded.

“What? No. I’m not gay. Why would I be gay?”

She waved her arms into the air, all her frustration and hurt contained in that one movement. “It’s a miraculous condition that afflicts men who want to leave me.”

“I am not gay,” he said, firmly. “You are a beautiful and amazing woman, Giana. I want you to be happy, not restricted by me.”

If that were true, he wouldn’t be doing this. “But you see, you make me happy,” she said. Now the tears came. She gathered herself together to fight them.

Instead she felt a tug on her being. She opened her mouth to – she wasn’t sure what…warn him? Ask for his help?

And then he was gone, her bedroom was gone.

And she was wet. Up to her neck in sloshing water, surrounded by strange men and an ancient woman with terrible teeth who smiled at her.

“No!” she cried. She needed that talk with Mel, whatever resolution she could get from it. “Why did you bring me here?”

“We talk later,” the woman said. “First, you die.”

The men gripped her shoulders and her hair and pushed her under.

Thank goodness she had water magic. She relaxed against them, resolved not to struggle. Let them think she had died.

When she breathed, as anyone with water magic could do, the water rushed sharply into her lungs. Pain and panic ricocheted around her body. Now she struggled, but already she’d taken another breath, dozens of other breaths, as her body fought what her mind was just beginning to grasp: Someone had taken her magic, and she was going to die.

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