Revenge14 min read
The General Who Loved Me Twice
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They carried me to the great house at the hour the town clock called unlucky, and I felt no fear of men anymore—only a patient, hollow sort of cold that matched the dusk.
"Open the cover," a voice said.
I kept my eyes closed. If they wanted me dead, fine. I could meet death like a tired traveler.
"Kaia?" someone whispered.
I blinked. The name left me raw. "Jonas?"
Jonas Espinoza stood there, stunned, the lamplight catching on his damp hair. He looked exactly like the boy who had once tied my sleeve and promised me a different life. He looked like a man who had failed me.
"How are you here?" I breathed.
"You?" He sounded as surprised as I felt. "If I'd known, I would have stopped you."
He moved like he wanted to gather me up, to carry me away on the spot, and for a wild second I thought I might let him. But the house had already swallowed me; there was no crowd of friends at the gate, no shouting arresting the moment. We were hidden beneath a silk curtain, and inside the house men moved like animals.
"I—" Jonas began, then shut his mouth. He pressed his fingers into my knuckles. "Listen to me. You have to do what I say. Trust me."
His eyes were dark with something like panic. "Will you stay?" I asked before I could swallow the question.
"I swear I will protect you," he said.
When the curtain moved and the man's hand reached for the veil, I felt my heart behave in a way it hadn't behaved since I was a girl—aching and numb at once.
He pulled the cover back.
The man who looked at me was not a monster in court clothes, but a pale, hollow-eyed figure with a smile that made my teeth ache to see. His cheeks were too hollow, his hair thin on top. He smiled like someone who had practiced mourning.
"Just her," he said, pointing with one finger as though choosing fruit at market.
I wanted to swallow a scream. The house was famous for swallowing wives alive. First wives, second wives, third. None lasted a month.
"Is that all?" Jonas hissed under his breath as if the wrong thing said at the wrong time might make the roof fall. "Kaia, don't make a sound."
He let me go back, gave me a look I knew from our engagement days—one of those soft, private looks that used to make my knees light. It comforted me, because once upon a time I had believed the world would change because of that look.
Later, when the moon was higher and the house had settled into its usual breathless hush, Jonas stood at my side like a blade pressed soft.
"We'll get you out," he whispered.
"How?" I wanted to say. "You are an accountant in another district. You didn't have five hundred coins to buy me back when my mother sold my name into this."
He closed his hand over mine. "I lied. I lied to get in here. Trust me."
He said, "I will not let him hurt you."
He felt like rescue. He felt like home. I let myself rest in his arms. For a night, it was enough.
But the house had a secret that swallowed nights whole.
The man they called the general—Crosby Kovalev—had a part of him that was a warm, clear river. In his hours of being him, he was considerate, literate, the sort of man who listened to songs in the quiet and who could make a bloom seem like a blessing by pinning it into hair.
And he had a part of him that was a storm.
When the storm came, rooms smelled like iron and powder. The general's hands became jaws. He called for "white powder," and the house obeyed like a fearful court. When he had the drug, he raged and accused and used; when he didn't, he could be startlingly gentle, as if nothing at all had happened the night before.
Jonas told me about it in whispers, by the candle in my room. "There are medicines in the kitchen," he said. "They mix the white powder, and it makes him vicious when he takes it. He buys flowers to make up for it, and the flowers change in the moonlight."
"Flowers?" I asked.
"Red ones," he said. "They sell them to the men at the harbor. He keeps them in the garden."
I saw the garden and almost fainted. That sea of red bent beneath the moon like a crowd. For a second the breeze made it seem like a hundred faces turning to look at me.
I told Jonas about the feel of being in that garden, about how the petals looked like mouths. He kissed my fingers and said, "Don't wander at night."
One night the general's storm came on like a dark tide. He attacked me in my bed, his hands like claws, and for the first time I understood the meaning of fear that breathes like a creature. I screamed and called Jonas's name, but the house was hollow and only the bats answered.
"Where are you?" I said to the dark.
"Here," Jonas answered, breathless and close. He had come back. He smashed through the door and stumbled into the room, light made of pain and nails. "Get away from her!" he cried at the general, voice raw.
The general's face changed as if a curtain had been pulled. His teeth were bare, and for a moment the kind man vanished and the other returned. "You again," he hissed. He grabbed Jonas, struck him.
Jonas staggered. His face went pale, and he held to my hand like it was an anchor. I saw the look in Jonas's eyes then—something more like a calculation than sorrow—and I did not understand it.
We survived the night because Jonas stood between the general and me. He kept me whole with his body and arrogance and a plan stitched into his breath.
"I will take you away," he said later that dawn, when the sun first leaned into the house. "Don't talk. Follow me."
We ran. He carried me like a thing to hide, then set me down in the wood shed, then moved me like a chess piece from room to room. We kept our bellies close to the earth and our voices like mice.
He saw the marks on me and swore, "I should have taken you much earlier. I'm sorry."
"I thought you had left," I said, fingers pressed brave to my mouth. "Why did you come—really?"
He looked at me as if those two questions were the same. "Because I couldn't bear the thought of you there," he said. "Because I had to make it right."
He kissed my forehead. The movement was like a confession. I believed him.
But things turned on a knife.
"He's become worse," Jonas told me. "I told the steward. They were supposed to—"
"They?" I asked.
"My uncle," he said. "Denver Rice. He said he could help. He came with men last night."
"They came for the general?" I asked.
"For his own good," Jonas said. He spoke as if describing a harvest.
A day later, the manor changed. Voices came in with new orders. Men walked with a swagger that smelled like deals. The general's second brother—the man who took the house ledger—benign enough to look like help—came like calm rain. For a while the house felt almost ordinary.
That was when the truth came rattling like a bad coin in a box.
I found a box Jonas left behind on his desk. It fell and the lid banged and a paper slipped free—a note with two names on it, a little like a thread connecting them: Jonas Espinoza. Kaiya Allen.
Under it, a card with another name: Denver Rice.
I thought about the faces I had seen—the way Jonas had clung too fast, the way he flinched like a man who had rehearsed anger. Then I found a small knife hidden behind a book, and something cold slid from my chest down to my stomach.
That night, Jonas closed the door to his study and told me everything.
"You have to understand," he said. "It wasn't all false. I did save you three years ago—" he made a small, humorless laugh—"but not the way you think."
My mouth opened. "You saved me?"
"No," he said. "He did. The general."
He smiled in a way that tried to make light of the thickness of the room. "The general was there. He pulled you out of a wagon and put you on a horse. I watched from far away. I was too cowardly to step forward then. I never forgot you."
"You said it had been you," I said. My throat scraped like dry cloth. "You told everyone you rescued me."
"I told people what they wanted," Jonas said, voice like a rope. "I was poor. My father wanted me to marry into stable things. When the general's house was hiring, I saw a way in. I thought I could do good. I thought I could change things from inside."
I leaned back. "Change things? You said you loved me."
"I did," Jonas said. "And I do. But love doesn't pay for food. Love doesn't make men stop taking what they want. When I saw how the manor took women like cloth and used them until they frayed, I told myself I could fix it. I told myself I could take you out first, because you were mine by promise."
"Jonas," I said. The name lost its softness.
He looked at me with a hunger like winter. "Kaiya, I tried to save you. But saving you and keeping everything were impossible. The house was rotting. My uncle promised me a way to put you somewhere safe—if I played along."
He leaned closer. "If I married into the family, I could control the money. If I controlled the money, I could take you out. I had a plan."
I wanted to hurl the knife at him then.
"And what?" I whispered. "What was the price?"
His face hardened. "My uncle said we would push the general. We would take the house. We would manage the property. You would be protected. We would be family."
"Family," I repeated. The word was poison.
He looked like a man who had been caught by his own shadow. "It was the only way I could see."
"And the flowers? The red flowers in the garden?"
"White powder," he said finally. "They grow the plant, they dry it, they grind it into powder. It makes him worse. It keeps him needy. My uncle wanted him weak, so the house could be run. My uncle did not care who suffered."
I remembered the general laughing in one hour and stabbing me in another. I remembered the gentleness and the hunger.
"You set a poison to make him worse," I said.
Jonas's face flinched. "We never wanted him dead—"
"He is not the only one who would die," I said. "What about me?"
He reached for me. "But Kaia—"
"I believed you," I said. My voice was small and sharp. "You said you would stay. You said you would save me."
"I did what I had to," Jonas said. He sounded like a man reciting reasons.
That night, I found a red stone and letters hidden beneath a floorboard. The letters were addressed to "Kaiya" in a trembling hand. I read all of them. The hand was not Jonas's. It was written by Crosby Kovalev, the general.
The letters told of a man who had watched me play and had been afraid to step forward because he thought himself ruined, because he carried the powder's memory like a shame. He had left coins at the back of the theater, he had sat in shadow to listen to my songs. He had loved me before he knew me.
I realized I had been lying to myself about who had saved me originally all along.
The house's double face came crashing down when my door was finally forced open with men's boots. Jonas was taken by the stewards. There were raised voices and curses and then a harder sound like metal meeting wood. He had tried to run; he had tried to save himself with theft and threats. They brought him to the courtyard and the servants gathered like curious birds.
"You traitor!" someone shouted.
"I never meant—" Jonas began.
"You meant to make us all your stepping stone!" cried another voice.
The steward—Denver Rice—stood there, hands on a ledger, a gentle man with iron teeth. I saw his smile thin into a blade. He spoke like a man reading from a contract. "Jonas Espinoza," he said, loud and clear so everyone could hear, "you have betrayed the house and the trust of the lord. Men of the town, servants, merchants—listen."
He had us form a line outside the gate. The merchants from the square pressed close along the lane. Women leaned from windows. Children came silent. The air smelled of hot bread and the promise of a public spectacle.
"Jonas," Denver said, "explain to the town what you did."
Jonas trembled. He looked like the boy I fell in love with, and like a snake all in a single shake. "I—" he began, then stopped. He found his throat.
"You convinced us you were noble, you convinced this woman she should trust you," Denver said, voice smooth and cruel. "Then you took advantage. You helped poison the household to gain power and money."
"I did it to save her," Jonas said, breathless. "I did it so I could buy her freedom."
"Is that so?" Denver smiled like a man holding confession under glass. "You turned this house into a den of powder so you could inherit it. You allied with me for control—"
The crowd gasped. I heard people whisper: "But he saved her once." "He loves her."
"Am I a monster?" Jonas shouted, then a child nearby cried and a woman hissed. "I began with a lie. I thought I could fix it."
"You thought," Denver said, "you would use the general's illness to take his estate. You plotted to marry a cousin, to take the line, to be 'respected.'"
Jonas's face went pale. He tried to lift his head and speak to me. "Kaiya—"
I could not hear him. The words were a bell underwater. Around us the town made a sound like linen rubbing—a thousand judgments pressed close. Someone in the back hissed, "Shame on you," and someone else muttered, "Serves him right."
Denver commanded, "Tie him."
They bound him with rope. The crowd pressed nearer. I saw faces I had known in the market when I sold my songs. They watched like people watching a storm break.
"Listen!" Denver called. "This man stole trust. He brought the powder trade to our doorstep. He sought to make the lord's family weak to take power. He betrayed his promise, his friends, and this woman."
"Kill him!" someone shouted. It was wild and quick like a fever. But it did not happen. Instead, the magistrate's men arrived with a summons: "Bring him to the square. Let the people hear the evidence. Let justice be done."
They dragged him through the lane and up to the square. I followed like someone being pulled by pain, unable to stop. There were more people than I had ever seen gather. Carts were abandoned. Hands on hips. Fingers pointed.
Denver came forward with ledgers and receipts. He laid them out like a tapestry. "Here," he said, "are the letters, the accounts. Here are the payments for the powder. Here are his messages."
He read the names: traders, boats, middlemen. He read every step in the slow, ugly business.
Jonas pleaded. "It was to save her! It was always to save her!"
"Tell the town then," Denver said, and his voice was like iron. "Tell them that you wrote letters begging me to cut the general's hours. Tell them you wrote to the boatman who stored the powder. Tell them you wrote the notes demanding sacrifices. Tell the town what you traded for power."
Jonas faltered, then began to speak. "The powder—" he began, and when his voice hit the open air it sounded small and paltry.
They had a magistrate. He asked: "Did you profit?"
Jonas swallowed. "Yes." He said the words the way one spits out rotten food. "I wanted his house. I wanted safety and name. I wanted to be respected."
"Did you love her?" the magistrate asked.
A hush. "Yes," Jonas said. "Yes."
The crowd's reaction was dangerous then. Some voices said, "A lover." Others said, "A liar."
Denver stepped forward. He did not raise a hand, but his ledger was a rod. "You risked the lives of women in this house. You risked the life of the lord himself. You put powder into his meals. You made him worse to take his estate. Your love was a knife."
Jonas looked at me like a man who had been found at crossroads and misread the stars. He tried to reach me across the square with a look so pleaded it made my stomach lurch.
"Remember the third wife," Denver said aloud, and a woman cried somewhere. "Remember the second. These were marriage contracts you used as your stepping stones."
I could not move until Jonas said my name. "Kaiya."
I felt something snap inside me. "Jonas," I called back. My voice came out slow and raw. "Why did you do this?"
"To make us safe," he said. The crowd drew in like a net.
"To make us family," someone hissed. "To make a lady of herself."
Denver pointed to the stables where the market boys often played. "Bring the old letters," he ordered. They brought bundles of paper and a sealed chest.
They opened them one by one right there, and the town heard every line read aloud: Jonas's bargaining, the notes to traders, the charm letters, the maps of the garden. The men around licked their lips at each fresh confession. A woman spat. Someone recorded it with a crude ink and a wooden stylus.
Jonas's face slowly unmade itself. He went from a man to a raw wound. He began to weep. He folded his face into his hands and the crowd began to chant, first low and then rising.
"Shame! Shame!" the chant grew.
When the magistrate said, "For crimes of theft, endangerment, and treachery, we sentence you to public labor and loss of title," the crowd roared like breakers.
"Wait!" Jonas screamed. "I begged for mercy—"
Children threw stale bread. A woman spat in his face. A merchant slapped him with a flat palm and the sound echoed like a bell. I stood to the side with my hands clenched until my nails bled. Around me people were not all monsters; they were stunned and burning and eager for justice.
Then Denver said, "And you, Denver?"—a voice in the crowd, not his—"What about the uncle?"
Denver smiled thin. "I orchestrated the exposure. I could have taken the house for myself years ago. I held back to let the law decide."
The magistrate then ordered that Jonas be stripped of privilege and that Denver be fined where his ledger showed profit and banned from managing such an estate. Jonas would be paraded through the neighboring towns and put to work mending the road. Some days, his humiliation would be heavy and public; but the worst of it was the gaze—the knowledge that the people he loved would see him lie on a plank and sweat and not be able to hide the smell of the powder on his hands.
As Jonas was led away, his face collapsed from defiance to a terrible, hollow regret. He looked at me once more.
"Forgive me," he mouthed, but his voice was lost.
The crowd watched, and some called, "He deserved worse." Others were silent. I drained something out of myself and felt lighter, and yet I felt anchored by a grief that wouldn't go away.
Later, months after the magistrate's judgement, when the market's laughter had moved on, the story of Jonas's betrayal settled like dust. People still pointed and said, "Remember Jonas?" and children asked the older ones why anyone would break his vows. But punishment does not always heal what was wrecked.
The house, freed from the worst of its powder trade, was not the same. The garden was burned. I watched the red blaze swallowing the petals and for a moment I saw the general standing in front of that fire, his thin smile like a benediction.
They told me then that the general—Crosby Kovalev—had been stabbed. In the alley behind the study, a man slipped a blade through his ribs to stop the final fight between his two selves. He had put himself between Jonas and me at the last moment, and payed the price.
I ran to him as he lay there, and his hand found mine. "Call me Crosby," he murmured. He said it like naming a beloved thing. He smiled. He died with my name in his mouth and the stone I'd hidden earlier in his palm.
The funeral was small, and I wore the red stone next to my chest. I burned the letters and the jade that connected him to me, because his memory deserved to be cleaned of the powder's stain. I screamed into the night as they sank the coffin, and no hand reached to stop me.
After the funeral, I inherited the house. The law placed me as guardian. The magistrate said I was the rightful lady of the place. People bowed or spat; they didn't know how to stand with me in quiet.
Jonas walked by the road sometimes, his shoulders shrunken and his eyes hollow, and the people would hush as he passed. He worked with his hands, building fences and hauling stones, and his shame was visible as sunburn. He would never feel the warmth of those private looks again.
I left the manor once to see a market where people still whispered about me. A woman I used to know—Beatrice Serra, who had once been a washing girl—looked at me with a strange softness.
"You burned it all?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "First, the garden. Then the papers. Then the things that kept him from being just a man."
She nodded. "Good. He deserves rest." Her voice was gentle and not cruel.
In the years that followed, the house became something like a place to live in, not to fear. I taught the servants to sing instead of to hush. I turned the garden into a place children could play in. I learned the ledgers. I kept the household honest in a small, slow way.
Sometimes I would find a note tucked behind a beam. A scrap of song, a line of music, a small charcoal drawing in the margins of a book. All of them were in Crosby's hand. I kept them in a box.
Jonas came to the gate once, years later. He stopped and didn't beg. He had learned the hard craft of humility and the way it makes men small and better.
"You came back," I said.
"I wanted to," he said. "You forgive me?"
I looked at him. His face was thin and lined like a map. "I forgave you a long time ago," I said. "But forgiveness does not mean forgetting."
He knelt, not to me, but to the road. "I deserved worse," he muttered, then looked up. "I will do what I can with my hands."
We hung in that awkward peace. He helped with the road repairs for a while, and later married a gentle woman named Berkley Colombo who grew cabbages and laughed like rain. They had a child and it ran through the garden at the manor, calling me "Aunt Kaiya." It was small redemption. It was not enough to fix the lie.
At night I sometimes sat in the study and opened the box that contained his letters. I read the lines Crosby had written, his handwriting shaking like a child. He had been a man who loved me without being able to keep his disease from shadowing his soul. He had tried to keep me safe with secret coins, with small protections. For that he died.
Once, looking at his notes, I whispered to a room that remembered him. "Were you happy, Crosby?"
I had no answer but an echo. The fire had burned the flowers. The ledgers had been turned into honest accounts. The town had less powder and more bread. That was my small victory.
Years later, at the market, a woman heard my name and told her daughter the story of the girl who married a general who loved her, and of the man who betrayed and then worked to mend what he broke. The child would ask, "Did the hero survive?"
"Sometimes heroes die," the woman said. "Sometimes they leave gifts. Sometimes you find yourself living in the house they once haunted."
And when I closed my eyes, I could still feel Crosby's hand warm and brief in mine. I kept the red stone. I kept the music. I planted white flowers where the red ones had been and grew only things that did not bite.
The End
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