The Frog Prince

by Tracy Lauren

  Vazrium clears his throat and I can see his golden eyes are glossy with unshed tears. “You were my daughter before I ever met you, Madison. I had won many battles in my life, but none held more meaning than those I fought to bring our family together. Nothing has ever mattered more than that.

  “But then I saw your comm. Granted, Madison, I knew you’d been unhappy for years. I’d have been blind not to. Though I suppose I never wanted to recognize just how unhappy you were.” He sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “But when I saw your comm, I kept thinking about that moment outside your room, reaching for the door, so eager to meet you…my daughter…and I wonder now if it was all just a selfish mistake?”

  It feels like there’s a knife lodged in my heart and I swipe at the tears streaming steadily down my cheeks. “No. It wasn’t. Please don’t think that. I owe you an apology, Vazrium. You and Mom both. It’s just, there were times I felt so alone, times I missed how things were before, but instead of dealing with those feelings I chained myself to them until they were dragging me down. I was drowning in them. I let them become my identity.

  “Kethian may have been a liar, but he helped me see my part in things. I’ve never given you credit for saving Mom. I’ve never thanked you for bringing us back together. But I also never admitted to myself that I was angry with you for stealing her away in the first place.”

  “Stealing her away?” Vazrium starts in surprise. “I rescued her!”

  “I know, I know. That’s not what I mean. See, when it was just me and Mom, I was number one. I was her partner in crime…her best friend. Somehow, after you came along, it felt like I got demoted,” I admit with a shrug.

  “I could never take your place in your mother’s heart, Madison; you must know this.”

  “I do now. But for a long time I didn’t. For a long time, it felt like even though you guys came to get me…I still got left behind.”

  “I have failed you then. Somehow along the way, I have failed you.” Vazrium shakes his head, looking back in his mind for some imagined moment of negligence. “I tried to give you everything…”

  “You gave me a lot of stuff,” I agree. “But that wasn’t what I wanted. Though…if it makes you feel any better, not even I had an idea of what I did want. Even now, I still don’t know.”

  “It’s not too late for us to be a family,” Vazrium tells me.

  I reach for his clawed hand. “No. It’s not too late, is it?”

  “Do you still…want to go back to Earth?” he asks, seeming fearful of my answer.

  “No. I don’t think I do.”

  “What’s changed?”

  “I did.”

  Then, that silence spills between us again. “And what of Kethian Indera?”

  “He’s a liar.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  I pat my heart with my free hand. “Only here.”

  “I could recommend execution—at his trial.”

  “Oh no! Vazrium, please don’t! It’s not like that. He just…he just made me believe he really cared about me. He had so many chances to speak the truth, but still…he kept his entire identity from me. What I don’t understand is, why? I poured my soul out to him and he couldn’t bother to meet my honesty with his own.

  “He shouldn’t be locked up, you know,” I say after a while. “I begged him to take me back to Earth. Everything he did, it was because I asked him to. He shouldn’t be forced to stand trial for that. I’m only mad because now I understand his true motives.” I frown. If he wanted to get lucky, he could have easily had me ten times over. He didn’t need to get my heart involved. That was just cruel.

  “On that we disagree. Kethian Indera should have brought you directly to us after you were found in Prett’s dungeon.”

  “Really?” I ask skeptically. “He was just supposed to ignore my crying and toss my ass in the cargo hold so he could get me home before curfew? Is that what you have done for Mom?”

  “It is different with your mother and me. I loved her from the moment I saw her. I could deny that woman nothing.”

  Thinking of Kethian, I roll my eyes. “Funny, that’s what the prince of Atana said. Turns there was one thing he could deny me—the truth.”

  Vazrium sits with that for a while.

  “Perhaps you should speak with him?”

  “What’s there to say? Besides, I don’t want to give him the chance to talk his way out of all the lies. What’s done is done.”

  “You are as stubborn as your mother.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “It depends now, doesn’t it? As long as you’re not letting stubbornness rule your life. We both know that such a thing can cause unnecessary heartache. I’d hate for you to make choices that you might one day regret.”

  “I get it. My stubbornness brought us to this clusterfuck to begin with. But it’s different this time. This time I opened my heart for more. I really did. Kethian got me to let my guard down. For the first time in my life, I felt like there was someone out there who was made just for me.”

  “That is a feeling I can understand.”

  “But for you and Mom it’s real. With Kethian, it was a lie. He made himself out to be someone he wasn’t just so I’d let my guard down.”

  “Well he must be very clever then; I’ve spent many unsuccessful years trying to get you to let your guard down.”

  “Very funny,” I say drily.

  “We do not know his reasons, Madison,” Vazrium points out, his expression growing distant as he loses himself in thought. “Perhaps we should try to?”

  “What difference could reasons make?” I shrug. “The damage is done.”

  Chapter 34

  Kethian

  My wrists are bound and a strong hand keeps shoving me in the center of my back, forcing me down a dark hallway. Even with the sack over my head I know I’m underground now. And it’s quite likely I’m about to find myself in a Teveran dungeon.

  It appears this adventure will end just as it began…only this time I will be the prisoner. My crime—failing Madison, just as so many others who came before me have done. I thought I would be different, but in the end I let her down.

  I grit my teeth at the thought. I don’t want to go out like this, without having a chance to explain myself to her. I always knew there would be consequences to my actions, but I never thought that hurting Madison would be one of them. Somehow, I must speak to her. She has to know that despite everything, my heart was always in the right place. Everything I did, I did it for her.

  Ahead of me I hear the door to a cell creak as it opens. I halt my forward motion, but the strong hand behind me grips my shoulder and forces me onward.

  “I demand to speak with the Warrior King!” My request earns me another hard shove, right inside the open prison cell. Despite the sack over my head, I spin to face the guard. “Counsel! With your king! NOW!” I bellow.

  Suddenly, the sack is ripped from my head and I blink at the sudden reintroduction of light to my senses. Even still, it doesn’t take long for me to recognize who it is who stands before me…

  It’s the Warrior King himself. Vazrium.

  “Where is she?” I question, only to be met with a stony silence. It pricks my already thin nerves and I bark at the king. “I demand to see her!”

  “You are in no position to make demands upon me, Prince,” he replies, and though his tone is cool I can see his body is as tense with anger as my own.

  “Try me for my crimes, Vazrium, I’ll accept whatever verdict your courts come to, but you can’t keep her from me.”

  “Who says I’m keeping her from you?”

  I study the king, but I sense no deception coming from him. “She’d have come to me. I know it,” I mutter, wondering if I speak the truth. Would Madison come to me, even after the way we parted?

  “Seems you don’t know Madison half as well as you think you do. Nor she you.” The king pointedly narrows his golden eyes at me.

  I shake my head, huf
fing out an angry breath. “I didn’t lie to Madison. Not outright at least.”

  “I have never told a lie to my Stephanie. Not outright. Not otherwise,” he counters, his shoulders stiff and his expression stony.

  “You weren’t there. Madison needed to feel safe. You think she would have trusted me if she knew our worlds were allied?” I growl out the words.

  “So you lied to gain her trust? I can see why she does not wish to speak to you.” The king grunts. Seeming to be finished with me, he moves for the cell door.

  “Wait!” I stop him. “Is it true? She doesn’t wish to see me? Doesn’t she want answers? An explanation?” After days without seeing her, I need to know what Madison is going through. Did I truly hurt her so badly?

  “She doesn’t want any more of your lies.”

  “I didn’t li—” I cut my growled frustration short. “I simply never told her I was a prince. Everything else that passed between us however—” I sigh heavily, willing him to understand how important this is, how much Madison means to me. “Nothing could have been more honest and real than the days Madison and I spent together.”

  “She does not seem to share the sentiment,” Vazrium tells me, one foot out the door.

  “Vazrium, I beg you!” I rack my brain for something to convince him that I love his daughter, because if I can’t convince her then I need someone to know—I need someone to bear witness to my breaking heart. “I’d have done anything to make Madison happy. She asked for Earth and I couldn’t… I couldn’t say no.”

  The king nods knowingly. “I have made the same mistake when it comes to Madison. Things mean very little to my daughter. That girl cares about actions, they speak far louder than any thing you could ever give her.”

  The king and I stare at one another, long and hard. I can’t deny my anger toward him. If he hadn’t driven Madison away in the first place, if he hadn’t told her who I was before I had the chance… “We were coming back. I was going to tell her everything, but we were interrupted,” I tell him, my jaw tight.

  “I am not responsible for your mistakes, Kethian Indera. Only my own.”

  I let out an angry grunt. Frustrated or not, I can hear the truth in Vazrium’s words. I gambled and in the end it cost me. But as painful as it is losing Madison, all I can seem to think of is what she must be going through. What must my princess think of me now?

  “I’ve got to speak with her, Vazrium. Please.”

  “Rasarit notwithstanding, my daughter is grown. She makes her own choices, Kethian. I will not force her to speak with you if she does not wish to.”

  I hang my head and rake my hand through my hair. “Will you give her a message for me then?” I beg. “At the very least, she has to know it was never my intention to hurt her.”

  “I didn’t come here to pass messages for you.”

  “Then why are you here, Vazrium? Couldn’t one of your guards deliver me to this cell?”

  “I wanted to see for myself how deep your deceptions ran.”

  “Damn it, Vazrium! I omitted one truth.”

  “Silence. I’m not the one you need to convince. What does my opinion matter if Madison refuses to see you?”

  “Wait…did you say refuse?” Vazrium averts his gaze. “Did you try to get her to speak with me?”

  “The point is, Kethian—she’s not coming.”

  “It can’t end like this,” I say, more to myself than to the king. I’m wrought with disbelief and I find myself thinking back to Madison and that night I found her in Prett’s dungeon. After everything we’ve been through together, how did we end up here?

  The Warrior King lets out a pained sigh. “She’s decided to go on with her Rasarit. It is in four days’ time, but after that, the princess will be leaving Tevera.”

  “She’s not going back to Earth, is she?” I ask, aghast at the thought of her all alone and back at that filth-ridden motel.

  Vazrium shakes his head. “Madison will travel—with guards of course. It’s time she got more from this life than what can be found here in the castle. Her mother and I have been too protective over her for far too long.”

  “I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this?”

  “Madison told me what happened, some of it at least. She spoke of how she begged for your aid and the way you pledged yourself to her.” The king has a distant and thoughtful look in his eyes. “Doesn’t seem so very long ago that I found myself in a similar circumstances.”

  In my mind’s eye I can see Madison on that rooftop on Atana, staring out at my world, yet seeing nothing. “She was so sad, Vazrium—so…lost. Whatever my fate may be, I would still have taken her away from this life. All she ever needed to do was ask.”

  Vazrium looks grim. “The day after her Rasarit is your trial. There will be a call for witnesses to speak on your behalf.”

  I nod solemnly at the information. “There was only one witness of course.”

  “And your fate is in her hands. Though…she might be worlds away by then.”

  Chapter 35

  Madison

  “You don’t have to go through with this. You know that, right?” my mom tells me.

  “I know.” And though my voice is bleak it has nothing to do with the Rasarit.

  Mom fastens a heavy golden necklace around my neck and I watch her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes look sad. “What is it?” I press. The time for us avoiding our emotions is over.

  “It’s just…I feel like you’re doing this for us and not you, baby. I know the Teveran customs aren’t ours, but the whole point of a Rasarit is you. I don’t want you to feel pressured—"

  “Trust me, Mom, that’s not why I’m going through with it.” I turn to face her. Mom’s eyes bore into mine, like she needs to be sure we aren’t just falling into the same old routine. This isn’t just me pretending I’m okay when I’m really not. Well, to be fair, I’m not okay. But that fact has nothing to do with my Rasarit. No, that has more to do with Kethian.

  “I want this, Mom. Maybe the Teveran customs weren’t ours. But they are now. We’re a family. I’m Teveran as much as I am human.”

  Mom just nods, her eyes welled up with tears. I know her so well. I know the words that are on the tip of her tongue that she works so hard to fight back. She doesn’t want to put undue pressure on me anymore and I know she’s worried she’ll say the wrong thing. So she doesn’t tell me how much it means to her to hear me say that—how much it means to Vazrium, the only father I’ve ever known. But she doesn’t need to say it. I already know.

  “Besides, I feel like I’ve earned it. This whole thing, it’s supposed to be about growing up…” I let my words trail away.

  “And you certainly have.” Mom blinks away a tear and a soft smile appears on her lips. “It’s funny how a journey through space can age a person.”

  “There aren’t many people in the galaxy who could understand that the way you do…who could understand me the way you do.”

  “Don’t give me too much credit, Madison, I spent a long time missing the boat.”

  I shrug it away, leaving all that in the past. “It’s different now.” Ever since Earth…ever since Kethian really, I’ve felt my age. I’m not lingering in childhood any longer. I’m an adult and for the first time ever, my mom and I can understand each other in a brand-new way.

  “Nearly everyone else, they’d look at what we’ve been through as space travel. But it’s more than that. It’s been a journey in space. There’s a difference.”

  Mom and I both look into my vanity mirror. Our makeup is done, our hair styled and adorned with delicate tiaras. Our gowns are gorgeous and flowing, meant for royalty. Situations like this used to feel so foreign to me. But finally, after so long, I’m okay with this life. Maybe I wasn’t born the princess of Tevera, but this is where fate wanted me to be, and who am I to argue with fate?

  “I know you’re still hurting,” Mom says to my reflection. I don’t bother lying.

  “All I need is som
e distance.”

  “You flew to Earth and back, honey. Do you really think it’s distance that changes things?”

  I close my eyes and fight the urge to cry. I’m still so broken over Kethian’s lies.

  “He’s in the dungeon, you know?” she tells me.

  “I figured as much.”

  “Did you know your dad talked to him?”

  I whip my head around to look at her, the horror plainly written on my face. “Mom!”

  “Vaz did it on his own accord,” she defends, “right after you landed. Believe me, I’d have told him not to if he’d have bothered asking.”

  “That’s so embarrassing!” I lament.

  “Oh bullshit. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Vaz just wanted to talk to him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re his daughter, Madison. He cares about you and wanted to make sure you weren’t making the wrong decision.”

  I look down at my hands, wanting to be far away from here and this painful twisting in the pit of my stomach. It’s worse than a corn dog binge.

  “He thinks you are, by the way.”

  “Are what?”

  “Making the wrong decision.”

  “What am I really supposed to do, Mom? Ignore the fact that Kethian lied to me when I was at my lowest. That he lied to me when I actually took the risk to open up to him?”

  “Relationships aren’t about ignoring hard truths—”

  “But they’re about ignoring hard lies?”

  Mom cocks her brow at me. It’s that look that tells every daughter, no matter how old she is, to bite her tongue.

  “Relationships are hard work, Madison. People make mistakes. It’s how we try to fix them that matters. Believe me, I know from experience.”

  “So you think I’m making a mistake too?” I frown at the knowledge.

  “I’d never say that. Nor would I tell you what’s right for you. I just…I just don’t want you to have any regrets, baby.”

  Just then there’s a knock at the door. We both turn to see Vazrium poke his head into the room. “It’s time ladies.” Music filters in from the ballroom, but Mom and I lock eyes once more.