Finding Contentus

Chapter 78: The Things We Do For Power (1)

Genesia did not approach Ramela immediately. He closed his eyes and drew several deep breaths like he would underwater.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and watched Ramela with a weakened gaze, just as she watched him like a fleeing meerkat.

Usually, he expected her royal bedroom to be lit up with scented candles that shimmered with bright green fire. Now, the candles burned with dark red fire. The darkness continued to grow like an entity of wickedness around them, allowing for their shadows to cast over and doom the room with nothing but gloom.

Genesia swallowed. He had no saliva, but he swallowed anyway. He performed his cracking habit and started trembling slightly with a stoic expression that was already cracking.

Ramela said nothing to this and stared with bedroom eyes that desired nothing but sleep, while her restless mind cursed and took away her ability to sleep peacefully. She never slept peacefully. Not a single day, since that day.

That — one — bad — day.

She sighed and reached for a glass of water, weakly. The display shocked Genesia. Where was the strong, tormenting, self-confident Ramela he had become accustomed to? The one he derived strength from? The one that made him weak without even trying? Where was the proud lioness and the seductive cobra? Femi and Kepi weren't even here, she must have sent them again to his bedroom to provide them with privacy.

He couldn't believe he was saying it, but in this state, she looked weaker, smaller and infinitely more fragile than Ramiya, barely even a wild cat and more like a house cat.

Ramela drank water, heavily, to sober herself up. She rubbed her throbbing head. Ever so slowly, she sat at the edge of her bed with a drooping expression. Her dark hair looked dry and messy as it fell down her face, making her look like a creepy, sickly demon of the night.

Without looking at him, she patted to the open spot on the bed, signalling for Genesia to sit right next to her.

Genesia hesitated for a moment, before he tentatively made his way towards her. He sat next to Ramela and studied her carefully.

"Metsi, u'nwa metsi," she said in Raraac, telling him to drink water.

She's learned so much in my brain already. Genesia wanted to applaud her brilliance in sounding so fluent in his tongue with little under two weeks of studying. Then again, she conditioned my brain to understand their language. She must have studied many languages, I'm sure she knows Afri too since they're allies.

Genesia heeded her order and drank several glasses of water to soothe his thirst and thumping heart. He stilled when he saw Ramela brushing her long hair back to stare at a singular candle that burned with red heat.

"Do you want to know what the truth of this world is, Genesia?" She asked him without taking her eyes off the candles.

He would have thought she'd have at least tried to hide her vulnerability, but no, she was open as a...

Not a book, not yet at least, but a book cover, with contents he was very much afraid to read about.

Ramela caught onto his frightened look and snorted. "Come now, we've already seen each other as bare as can be. Stripped of everything with nothing to hide. Are you that surprised to see me like this? Surely you can't expect me to maintain my strength all the time can you?"

Genesia pressed his lips together and remembered what Ramiya told him.

"I know she can be overwhelming, but she's hurting Genesia. Alone, by herself, with pain that has never healed and trauma that will never heal."