Funny enough, this first scene in which Koston is introduced
was originally put in halfway through book 2, roughly 600-700 pages later. I
started writing it without any plan, outline, or even the acknowledgment that
Koston had these secrets, and after I felt like a PFLAG parent who was
dumbfounded by not seeing the signs in the 600 pages beforehand.
What’s important to note about Koston isn’t that he likes
men, but that he loves honoring others more. In the short story, “The
Wedding”, you see what is probably the first major moment in Koston’s life
where he sacrifices a piece of himself for the benefit of others. Kallisto is
there even then to advise against it. She believes that his intentions stem
more from hubris than honorability; a common theme in their multiple
interactions.
What we see initially in Koston’s first chapter is exactly
what he wishes to conceal. Koston
finds himself “glancing nervously at the windows of Damien’s home. Black
curtains were draped over the already closed blinds. The younger man’s bedroom
door was locked and his front door was bolted shut upon Koston’s arrival.” In
order for him to maintain his reputation, the world cannot know that he
regularly visits a gentleman escort. Is it more because of the lie itself, or
the homosexual act? That much is revealed a little later…
Koston’s
fleeting moments of genuine joy are cut short when his “escape” reveals himself
to be another one of Koston’s admirers. Koston is about to step into the
second-most powerful position in all of Cardeau, and everyone is comparing him
to his grandfather, who is the embodiment of both the man Koston doesn’t want
to become, but is willing to become in order to appease the public. Later, when
we meet Marquez and see the dichotomy of his and Koston’s relationship, several
parallels can be drawn between the men of the Donnick line, the paths there
have been taken before, and where Koston and Marquez want to be and are
currently heading. I could probably time a 50,000 word analysis on that
subject, but that’s tangential to this chapter.
As this chapter
progresses, we still Koston go from being his true self to falling deeper and
deeper into the crevasses of his fatal flaw. The lowest point lies in his
conversation with Queen Kallisto. Kallisto represents both the one person who
could have helped set him free many years before (again, read “The Wedding”)
and the person who has ensnared him in a delicate political web. He is her last
option. She doesn’t want Koston to become her advisor, but he represents the
only way that she might remain on her throne and attempt to redeem herself from
a costly political maneuver. Those that don’t know Kallisto (really, that’s
basically everyone except Koston) would think that she’s purposely taking
advantage of him for his position and his loyalty to her as the Captain of the
Cardeau Guard.
In reality, she wants to put him in this position about as much
as he wants to be in it. As badly as Koston wants to avoid this position of
power, Kallisto feels as though she’s nothing without it.
The end result,
at least in this chapter, is a sour one. Kallisto despises Koston’s popularity,
but would never reveal his darkest secret. They are bound now and, as it’s
revealed later in the story, for more reasons that one. However, that doesn’t
mean that she can’t still get in a good jab or two if opportunity knocks. Thus,
her implication that he’s a whore at the end of a section that started with him
being intimate with one is the perfect conclusion for Koston’s opening chapter.
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