Chapter 12 When the World Decides for You
1077 Words
They did not accuse me outright.
Not at first.
They called it concern.
They wrapped it in words like instability, risk, consequence. They spoke softly, slowly, as if gentleness might make the knife hurt less.
But the elders no longer looked at me with caution.
They looked at me with fear.
“The forest yielded because it was confused,” one elder said, pacing before the council bench. “Not because it accepted her defiance.”
“Defiance,” another echoed. “That is the word.”
I stood in the center of the chamber alone.
Kael was not beside me.
Neither was Mama.
Only Luntian stood at the back, fists clenched, eyes sharp enough to cut stone.
“She set a precedent,” the elder continued. “What happens when others decide they can speak to spirits without consequence?”
“I didn’t speak to it,” I said calmly. “I spoke back.”
Murmurs rippled through the chamber like wind through dry grass.
“That is precisely the problem,” the elder snapped.
I folded my hands together to keep them from shaking.
“You are asking me to undo what I did,” I said. “I can’t.”
“You will,” another elder said coldly. “Or we will remove you from the equation.”
The words hit harder than any threat before them.
“Remove me how?” I asked.
Silence.
That was answer enough.
⸻
Kael avoided me.
Not obviously. Not cruelly.
But he was never where I was.
I would enter a hall to find it freshly emptied of him. I would hear his voice around a corner, only to turn and see Dayang Isara standing at his side—her posture familiar, her presence accepted.
They spoke often.
Quietly.
Intimately.
I told myself it meant nothing.
I failed.
One afternoon, I saw them in the upper courtyard.
Kael was showing her something—some old map or document—his hand brushing hers as he pointed. She leaned closer, her shoulder nearly touching his arm.
She smiled.
He smiled back.
It wasn’t a wide smile.
But it was real.
Something inside me folded in on itself.
Luntian found me later sitting on the steps, staring at nothing.
“Say it,” she said.
“I don’t want to,” I replied.
She sat beside me anyway. “Say it.”
“He looks like himself with her,” I whispered. “Like the man he was before all this.”
“And with you?” she asked gently.
I swallowed. “Like a man choosing a war he doesn’t want.”
“That’s not fair to you.”
“I know.”
That didn’t make it hurt less.
⸻
That night, Luntian decided I was “one dramatic sigh away from becoming unbearable” and dragged me to the kitchens.
“We are not sneaking,” I said as she pried open a door. “We are tactically borrowing food.”
“You are stealing,” I corrected.
“Borrowing implies intent to return.”
She shoved a sweet bun into my hands. “Eat.”
I did.
Immediately felt better.
We were halfway through a second round when Kulas appeared upside down from the ceiling rafters.
I screamed.
Luntian threw a ladle.
It hit him square in the forehead with a satisfying thunk.
“Ow,” he said, offended. “I came to warn you.”
“Next time,” I hissed, “announce yourself like a normal demon horse.”
“I am not a demon,” he sniffed, rubbing the spot. “I am a folkloric guardian.”
“You’re upside down.”
“Perspective.”
Luntian laughed so hard she had to sit down on a flour sack.
Kulas dropped lightly to the floor. “The elders are planning something deeply stupid.”
“That’s not a warning,” I said. “That’s an observation.”
He grinned, teeth flashing in the low lamplight. “They want to separate you from the Datu.”
My heart dropped.
“Permanently?”
“Socially first,” he said cheerfully. “Physically later.”
“Why are you smiling?” Luntian demanded.
“Because,” he replied, “they have no idea what they’re poking.”
⸻
The separation began the next morning.
Kael was summoned to council after council, military briefings stacked one after another. Dayang Isara was always there—not as ornament, but as strategist, voice steady, mind sharp.
She belonged there.
I did not.
When I was summoned, it was only to be reminded of limits.
Do not leave the grounds.
Do not speak to the forest.
Do not provoke unrest.
By the fourth day, Kael had not sought me out once.
I told myself it was strategy.
I told myself it was necessity.
I told myself many things.
Then I heard it.
“He has always trusted Isara,” one court woman whispered as I passed. “She understands him.”
“They were nearly promised once,” another murmured.
My chest hollowed.
That night, I found Mama on the terrace.
“You’re pulling away,” she said quietly.
“I’m being pushed,” I replied.
She studied me. “Kael is protecting you.”
“By choosing someone else?”
She hesitated.
That was worse than denial.
⸻
The elders made their move at dawn.
A formal decree.
Tala of the forest is to be escorted back to the border villages—away from court influence—until stability is restored.
Exile dressed up as safety.
Kael read the decree in silence.
Then he nodded.
“I will arrange the escort,” he said.
I felt something in me break cleanly in two.
As I turned to leave, Dayang Isara caught my arm gently.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I never wanted this to hurt you.”
I met her gaze. Saw sincerity there.
That almost made it worse.
Outside, Luntian grabbed my hands. “Say the word,” she whispered. “We run.”
I shook my head.
No.
Running was what the forest expected.
As I stepped toward the waiting horses, the ground trembled.
Not violently.
Deliberately.
Leaves rustled. Roots surfaced—slow, black, glistening like veins rising under skin.
The forest was answering the elders’ decision.
And this time—
It wasn’t calling me.
It was coming for them.
- Writer
