“I’m glad you like it here,” he said. “I was skeptical about bringing you. I know it’s rare for you to leave your gilded cage, as I like to call it. I’m glad to share your first outside experience with you.”
I told him, “I wouldn’t want to share it with anyone else.”
We smiled at each other then, a hint of something dangerous in the air between us. I thought he wanted to reach out and touch my cheek, maybe kiss me. My body heated at the thought of it. Instead, Roki bit down on his lip.
“Come,” he said, quickly dismissing the sudden tension. He took me by my hand and led me deeper into the market. “We have to hurry. We only have a few minutes before the Protectors take you back. There’s one more thing I want to show you.”
It was a park, but inside the park were women with round bellies and small strollers, pushing the strollers with one hand while they held their tummies and laughed with their friends.
“What is this?” I asked Roki. I didn’t understand.
“They’re pretending to be pregnant,” he said. “It reminds people of how we used to only have natural births, back before the clan leaders imposed strict regulations on how women are allowed to bring life into the world. This display reminds us of a happier time, when people were free and the world was natural.”
I gave Roki a weird look. I wondered what more freedom would mean for the world order. I’d never appreciated these ancient things or considered them as an alternative. What would it be like to actually be pregnant? But Roki was also talking about these things again like he knew them firsthand. I thought, That’s just how mature he is. Roki knows his history better than me. He is more sophisticated than some grown men I know! Of course I’m attracted to him.
Then again, I had been attracted to Roki since the night we first met, since the very first time I laid eyes on him, at a ball thrown by an Ava-Nurlie noblewoman in honor of my parents’ successful leadership. Roki had bought his way in somehow. He had introduced himself, telling me, “You have the saddest yet most stunning eyes I have ever seen. They portray a longing that can never be fulfilled. I feel drawn to you. Perhaps because your eyes say what I feel about our world.”
Yeah, that had unnerved me. He had seen me for who I was. Just me, plain and simple. Not an heiress, not a potential queen, not a rung on some political ladder, just Kaelyn. I had been obsessed with Roki ever since.
“… and that was the reasoning behind artificial births,” Roki was saying.
“Huh?” I realized I had been daydreaming and missed most of what he had said. I felt heat radiating from my face. While he was talking, I had been fantasizing about our previous dates, the cute things he had said to me the night we met, and how he had lifted me high and spun me in the air outside the noblewoman’s mansion. I couldn’t help it. Roki had been so romantic!
“I was explaining how Decens-Lenitas, our mighty moral code, put an end to natural births in favor of lab babies. Our rulers say that it’s avoiding natural births that enables the gene editing that has eliminated cancer, allergies, and all but infectious diseases. Still, it’s one of the things I wish hadn’t changed, because pregnancy used to be a pleasant experience for many people.” He narrowed his eyes at me and smirked. “Wait a minute. You were daydreaming!”
I was still blushing. “A little,” I said. “I still can’t believe you’re with me. There are so many other girls to choose from. Can … can I ask you why?”
He smiled and said, “There are no other girls. That’s why. There’s only you, Kaelyn. When we met, I saw a rebellious young girl with a sullen spirit in need of some much-needed happiness. I saw your soul, and I wanted to be a part of it.”
I had to turn from Roki before my emotions boiled over and I started to cry. My cheeks were so hot they could have been sunburned. For so long I had lived in a bubble of bland nothingness, and now here was Roki, making me feel so alive, so overwhelmed with emotion!
“We should get you back to NordHaven,” he said. “I don’t want your parents to be upset with you before the big ceremony for your brother.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Thank you for bringing me here. It was a relief after all the time I’ve been imprisoned at home. I hope we can come here again. I’ve never been happier than I am right now with you. To be honest, Roki, I don’t think I can go back to the way things used to be.”
“I feel the same,” he said with a smile. “Don’t worry, Kaelyn. We have all the time in the universe to be together.”
I was having separation anxiety even before I got home. I wanted to be with Roki so much. I missed him fiercely. Pushing open my front door, I could have sworn I smelled him in the foyer of our house. Could I have been so obsessed with Roki that I was now smelling him when he wasn’t around? Then again, I had lingered during our parting hug in the square, with my face nuzzled against him. Perhaps his scent still clung to my clothes: earthy, herbal fresh, slightly smoky, faintly toffee sweet. I’d have to put off having them laundered for a few days.
Mama was descending the grand staircase into the foyer with a judgmental look on her face. Even when she was displeased with me, I held my mother in high regard. I venerated the long hours she
