The Autobiography of the Dark Prince

by Dan Wingreen

  No, you haven't, and you've never cared before either.

  Elias took a moment to think up an answer which would satisfy both of them. He couldn't exactly go with the truth, that he hated her because the Prince laughed for her when they were alone together. That would sound utterly ridiculous. Thankfully, she had many terrible traits to choose from.

  "She is loud, clingy, has no respect for personal boundaries, and I hate the way she looks at—" You. I was going to say you. Why in the name of all the gods was I going to say you? "—life. Like it's a game with no real consequences. In short, I dislike her because of who she is."

  "Hmm." A thoughtful look crossed the Dark Prince's face. "You don't like very many people, do you?"

  Elias fought against the sudden, irrational urge to defend himself. "No. I don't."

  "And yet you like me."

  It was a statement, not a question, and yet Elias was aware that, even though he wasn't looking at him, the Prince seemed uncommonly interested what he might say.

  Elias licked his lips. "Yes." He admitted, his stomach flipping and tightening at the same time. "I do."

  The Dark Prince smiled, then. It was a small smile, but it softened his entire face in a way Elias had never seen before.

  "Good," he said.

  The hand on Elias's back moved slightly. Almost like a pet. Or a caress.

  The Prince started speaking then, asking rapid fire questions and changing subjects in a way that demanded all of Elias's attention. The scholar wondered at the sudden flurry of conversation, but was quickly drawn into a heated and only somewhat playful debate about the merits of psychological horror versus the much more common—and commonplace as well—stalker in the woods novels.

  He never even noticed he was leaning back into the Prince's touch.

  Chapter 17

  It was definitely fear, rather than a coordinated effort to snub him, which kept the nobility away from the Dark Prince. However, the full extent of said fear only became apparent to Elias when, once the Prince left his side to fulfill his promise of two dances to a returning Elladora, what seemed like the entirety of the Peerage in Ellington descended upon him and savaged him with questions. "What was it like talking to the Dark Prince?" "Didn't you fear for your life?" "Do have a death wish?" "An unquenchable desire for danger?" "Aren't you that scholar who made my father cry?"

  Elias answered these, and many other questions, with the barest minimum of politeness and a subtly biting verbosity that, when translated into more simple terms, all seemed to boil down to one uniform answer: Go away.'

  When they eventually did leave—lamenting the lack of fresh gossip about the temporarily-in-residence Lord of Evil—Elias had no idea how much time had passed. He was, however, relatively sure that more than two dances had happened while he was distracted, and since the throng of nobles hadn't scattered like sparrows at a soft noise, it was quite apparent the Prince hadn't returned to him.

  This, obviously, would not do.

  After a brief scan of the dancing area to make sure the Prince wasn't still dancing with the nuisance—he wasn't, and Elias let out a breath of relief he was barely aware of—he started searching through the rest of the crowd. It took longer than he would have liked. Too many nobles saw him walking in their general direction and took that as a sign that he was dying to discuss the sordid secrets of the Dark Prince, and waylaid him accordingly. He extricated himself with speed and contumeliousness, leaving them in varying degrees of offense, before continuing his search. He'd just barely managed to avoid running into an even more forlorn looking Baron Connolly when he finally spotted the wayward royal near one of the columns by the northern staircase, looking like he was searching for something. His eyes met Elias's as he walked over, and the Prince's face lit up.

  "There you are!" he said when Elias reached him. "Where did you get off to?"

  "I was looking for you." He responded flatly.

  "I was dancing."

  "Yes, and it was only supposed to be two dances."

  "It was two dances." Elias raised an eyebrow. "They were rather long, perhaps, but when I was done I came looking for you."

  "You weren't dancing when I started looking for you."

  "No offense, Elias," the Prince said. "But you aren't exactly tall enough to see the entire dance floor from ground level."

  "I saw enough of it." Elias scowled. "And it's your fault that I had to go searching. You should have picked shorter songs and returned immediately."

  "You could have just waited…" The Dark Prince suddenly smiled. "Elias…did you miss me?"

  "No." Maybe. "The moment you left, I was accosted by nobles. It was most unpleasant."

  "Really?" The Prince narrowed his eyes, his earlier exuberance dimming. "What did they want with you?"

  Elias snorted. "They wanted to talk about you. Why I was with you and how many murders do you commit in a normal day and was I worried about you draining my blood and using it to paint the walls of your chambers."

  "Really?"

  "Yes."

  The Prince laughed. "Well, that's perfectly all right then."

  Elias raised an eyebrow. "What did you think they wanted?"

  The Dark Prince pursed his lips, like he was trying to decide how he wanted to answer that. Before Elias could tell him to just answer the very simple question, another unwanted voice interrupted them.

  "Elias! There you are. I've been looking everywhere!"

  A slightly flushed and out of breath Crown Prince jogged over to them, stopping just in front of Elias.

  "This is becoming a theme," the Dark Prince muttered under his breath.

  The Crown Prince gave him a suspicious glare, but either decided he didn't care what the other prince said or that he'd rather focus on Elias, because he almost immediately switched his attention back to the scholar.

  "Elias!" He breathed, his face lighting up so bright it was almost blinding. Elias frowned internally when he saw the Crown Prince was alone, no advisers in sight. For his part, the Crown Prince seemed to have stalled after saying Elias's name. After another moment of increasingly uncomfortable silence, he finally decided on saying, "Hello."

  "Hello, Highness." Elias responded, keeping his voice neutral.

  He very much wanted to tell the Prince off for interrupting his conversation, but he was well aware of the dangers associated with an unescorted heir in a room full of easily offended nobles, and he wanted to hold off creating a scene for as long as possible.

  It was too bad neither of the nobles with him seemed to share his desires.

  "Hello again, Your Highness," the Dark Prince said with a false obeisance that bordered on satire.

  "I'm not greeting you," the Crown Prince said, never taking his eyes off Elias. "Elias, I—"

  "You would have eventually, once our favorite scholar rightfully berated you into it. I'm just saving us the time." The Dark Prince brushed an invisible speck of dust off his sleeve. "By the way, my sincerest congratulations on evading your handlers. Getting one of them to take their eyes off of you for more than a moment would have been an accomplishment in itself, but all three, and for long enough to scamper away? I am truly impressed."

  To Elias's surprise—and relief—the Crown Prince laughed.

  "You might as well stop," he said, still not looking at the other royal. "I'm much too happy that Elias is here to let anything you say bring me down, dark one."

  "He does have a point, though," Elias said, cutting in before one of them went too far. "How did you circumvent your advisers? And why?"

  The Crown Prince looked surprised. "Because they wouldn't let me find you, of course. And you would be surprised how easy it is to slip out the window in the lavatory and back in through the window in the kitchens." He gave Elias a triumphant smirk.

  The scholar barely held back a sigh.

  "Highness, you aren't a schoolboy anymore and you should refrain from acting like one." Elias acknowledged, in an absent way, that he was now the thir
d member of their trio who was in danger of causing a scene, which would end up embarrassing the royal family, but this conversation was too important not to have. "Your advisers are there to help you—"

  "To annoy me more like."

  "—and you shouldn't be alone at an event like this. There is too much alcohol and too many foreign dignitaries here for there to be no one around to restrain you."

  The Crown Prince laughed again. "You worry too much, Elias. I do have some impulse control, you know."

  Elias raised a very pointed eyebrow.

  "All right, fine." The Prince conceded with a huff. "But I don't need a guard. Especially not one who's preventing me from seeing the only person at this ball that I have any interest in conversing with."

  A passing noblewoman let out an offended "Hmph!" before storming away.

  This time, Elias did sigh.

  "I guess the damage is done," the Dark Prince said cheerfully.

  "See?" the Crown Prince said. "There's no point in even trying now. I might as well just stay with you for the rest of the night."

  Elias took a moment to relish the look of horror on the Dark Prince's face.

  "That wasn't what I meant," the Dark Prince muttered darkly.

  "You are both acting like children," Elias said. He took a moment to wonder why that sentence caused him to feel, in equal measure, exasperation—when he looked at the Crown Prince—and something almost close to fondness—when he looked at the Dark Prince.

  "I am not."

  "No, I'm not!"

  They glared at each other.

  Elias stayed studiously silent.

  And then, just when he thought the conversation couldn't get any worse, it did.

  "Oh, enough of this. I didn't come here to speak to you." The Crown Prince sneered at the Dark Prince, then deliberately turned his back on him. The Dark Prince raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  "Highness—"

  "No," the Crown Prince said, cutting Elias off. "I came here to do something and I'm going to do it. I…" The Crown Prince trailed off in that way Elias had been noticing more frequently of late. He fully expected the Prince to glance away and say something which was obviously not what he'd set out to say, but instead the Prince took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, looked Elias straight in the eye and held out his hand.

  "Elias, will you dance with me?"

  Elias's eyes widened. "Absolutely not."

  The Crown Prince's face fell, and for the first time since before they were teenagers, Elias felt bad for snapping at him. It had obviously taken a lot of courage to ask, although he had no idea why, nor did he know why the Prince had hoped for a different answer. Surely he knew how much Elias detested dancing by now.

  "But why not?" the Crown Prince whined.

  Apparently not.

  "Because I hate dancing, I'm no good at it, and I don't wish to make a spectacle out of myself."

  "But it's my birthday! Surely you could—"

  "No."

  "But it could be your present—"

  "No." Although that reminded Elias he completely forgot to bring a present, and he felt another pang of disquiet.

  "But…" The Crown Prince struggled for a moment, and then let out a sigh of such heartbreaking defeat that Elias had to wonder what, exactly, he was missing about this conversation. "All right," he said, disappointment infused into every syllable. "I suppose I have my answer."

  Elias frowned slightly. "Highness—"

  "No, it's fine," the Prince said, a smile pasted on his face. It was a pale imitation of his usual, carefree look, and Elias was even more confused than before. "Dancing was a stupid idea anyway. I hate dancing. I spent our entire childhood complaining about the lessons, after all."

  "Actually, you never did—"

  "And, really, I should be getting back to the ball anyway. No doubt Bertrand has already run off to Father and there have already been several pages sent out to find me." The Prince bit his lip. "It…was very wonderful having you here, Elias."

  He nodded again, and without another word, or any acknowledgment of the Dark Prince whatsoever, he walked away.

  "Well," the Dark Prince said a moment later. "That was less unpleasant than I would have expected."

  Elias frowned at the back of the retreating Crown Prince. "I think I hurt his feelings."

  "Of course you did," the Dark Prince said, not altogether unkindly. "But I think that was inevitable. Rejection is never pleasant."

  Elias turned back to the other prince. "He's never reacted like that when I refused to dance with him in the past."

  The Dark Prince blinked, a small frown line appearing between in the middle of his porcelain forehead. "Elias, don't take this the wrong way, but even you can't possibly be this naive."

  "What are you talking about?"

  The Prince's eyes widened. "You really have no idea, do you?"

  "No idea about what?" he asked with a scowl.

  For a moment the Prince looked like he very much regretted saying anything. "Elias, the Crown Prince is infatuated with you."

  Elias frowned. "What? No he's not." It was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.

  "Yes, he most definitely is. And you just rejected him."

  Elias blinked rapidly. "No, I didn't."

  "You didn't?" the Prince asked, somewhat apprehensively.

  "Of course not. He wasn't—" Although it would explain the look on the Crown Prince's face. "He never—" But there were those nervous subject changes and unexplained, searching glances. Not to mention the way the Crown Prince always wanted to spend time with Elias. And it would explain all the tutoring sessions, which the Prince obviously never cared about and always tried to turn into a social engagement. "I mean, if he was…confessing some kind of deeper feeling, I obviously would have, but…"

  "You would have?"

  "Of course. I don't have any feelings like that for the Crown Prince." Or anybody. Although that last didn't exactly sit right with him. He shook off the feeling. "Was he really…?"

  "Yes," the Prince said, regaining his earlier cheer. "He was."

  Elias blinked again. "Oh."

  How was one supposed to react to someone they'd known most of their life suddenly springing romantic feelings on them completely out of nowhere? Especially when Elias had never given even the remotest hint he'd ever thought of the Crown Prince as anything more than an incredibly annoying companion? Elias's eyes widened as a long ago conversation suddenly sprang to the front of his mind.

  * * * *

  "Highness, you mustn't antagonize the king's pages. It's very unbecoming behavior in a prince," said a very annoyed fourteen-year-old Elias.

  "You, you can't scold me!" yelled a flushed-with-embarrassment sixteen-year-old Crown Prince. "I'm your prince."

  "That was my point," Elias said, not quite old enough yet to consistently hold back his exasperated sighs around the Prince. "You're acting more like a Prince of Fools than the future King of Ellington. If I didn't have to call you highness, I think weeks would go by where I completely forget that you even are a prince, instead of days."

  "You…don't think of me as a prince?"

  "You make it very difficult."

  "Then…how do you think of me?"

  Elias almost said as a friend but he had too much respect for the throne the idiot in front of him was going to one day sit on to lie to him. "As an incredibly vexing companion."

  "A companion?"

  "Yes." Elias nodded. "And probably a life-companion, since you seem to be the only person in the castle who actually wants to spend time with me."

  While they were infrequent, even a boy as self-contained and pragmatic as Elias sometimes had episodes of adolescent melancholy at the unfairness of the world. Years later, at a ball with a completely different prince standing next to him, he would blame that particular episode for missing what should have been more obvious.

  "A…life-companion?" The Crown Prince's breathing took on a ragged, almos
t desperate edge. "I…I think I could live with that…"

  Elias looked up to see the Prince smiling softly to himself, his face flushed even more than it was a moment ago. He might have asked why if he was in the mood to pretend to care, but he wasn't, so he didn't. Instead, he grabbed the Prince by the sleeve of his robe—ignoring the disapproving looks from the passing servants—and dragged him back to the schoolroom before they could be yelled at for being late.

  * * * *

  That memory, and several others from various points of his life, suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

  Could he have actually been encouraging these feelings?

  "I…" He was completely at a loss for words. It went without saying that he didn't feel the same way about the Crown Prince, but he couldn't help being annoyed at the way he'd tried to confess. "Did he really expect to win me over by asking me to dance?"

  "I think, perhaps, he was going to broach the subject while dancing," the Dark Prince said.

  "Ridiculous. I don't dance. I can't dance. Why would anyone with any sense whatsoever think to use a dance as a means to draw me into a romantic relationship?"

  "Oh, I quite agree. Very foolish indeed." The Dark Prince grinned and held out his hand. "Would you care to dance?"

  "Wh-what?"

  "It's a rather straightforward question."

  "Absolutely not!" Elias ground his teeth. "Did you not just hear me? I can't dance. Nor do I wish to. Nor have I ever wished to. And, even if I did, I just refused to dance with the Crown Prince. It would be an insult of the highest order if I accepted a dance with anyone else even without taking into account any…feelings."

  "Well, at least that's a legitimate objection. One easily remedied, in fact."

  Before Elias could ask what in the name of all that is sacred the Prince was talking about, said prince grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him away from their semi-secluded space and into the crowd. Elias was too stunned, both at the revelation of the Crown Prince's feelings and the confusion about what the Dark Prince was doing, to do anything but mutely follow along. Even when they approached the still-adviserless and quite forlorn looking Crown Prince. Even when the Dark Prince started speaking.