by Halie Fewkes
“Not all of them, but far too many.”
“And my... my father...” Ebby’s eyes teared up at the mere mention of him. “He’s not evil, is he?”
Prince Avalask’s eyes hardened for a moment before he covered his thoughts. “I don’t know how to answer that, Ebby.”
Ebby never would have believed it before, but now, after seeing Sir Avery setting fire to the rooftops and allowing a death hound to kill a child... Prince Avalask would never have done that.
“Look,” Prince Avalask said, shifting uncomfortably, “I’m not trying to convince you I’m better than your father. I’ve done terrible things too, and he’s not usually this violent. He’s just ripping the world apart looking for you, which we both know is my fault.”
“Sir Avery doesn’t want me,” she said, taking a sharp breath. “He’s never wanted me.”
Prince Avalask chuckled in exhaustion. “Oh no, I can guarantee he does. I’ve gotten an earful about it over the past months.”
Ebby bit her lip to keep it from quivering. She’d lived her entire life with a hole in her heart where her parents were supposed to reside. She’d always tried to hide how much that hurt, because the families she stayed with always took good care of her and she didn’t want them to think her ungrateful. But Ratuan knew. It would be ok if Prince Avalask knew.
“When I was little,” Ebby said softly, “I dreamed every single night that my mother and father were on their way to come get me. They were such happy dreams that I’d get out of bed before everybody else and stare out the window, looking for people who looked like me. I spent every morning imagining what I would say the first time we ever hugged as a family, wondering what they would say and think of me.” Ebby shrugged quickly and said, “It was so stupid, but I just thought that… maybe they loved me.”
Ebby wiped her eyes quickly and said, “Sir Avery has never once said hello to me in eleven years. I’m not a little girl anymore. I know he’s going to say he loves me now, but it’s only because he doesn’t want you to have me.”
Prince Avalask released a long sigh of understanding, then caught her eyes and said, “I’ve known Sir Avery for a long time, Ebby. I don’t have a lot of pleasant things to say about him, but abandoning you was probably the most loving thing he’s ever done.” Ebby scoffed in disagreement. “He didn’t want this life for you either, and even though he needed you, he let you have a childhood instead. I’ve been a little less generous with Vack.”
“Having a father is better than being lonely,” Ebby said bitterly. “Vack is lucky.”
That drew a sad laugh from Prince Avalask. “I don’t know that I would call him lucky.”
His distant eyes reminded her of a dozen statues in a room far below them. “Is there really a curse on your family?” she asked.
Prince Avalask studied her for a moment before asking, “Where did you hear that?”
“Jalia told me. Is that how Vack’s mother died?”
Prince Avalask released his knees unthinkingly and bit at his thumb nail, something Vack also did in moments of discomfort. “Yes. She fell ill before Vack was born.”
“But couldn’t you save her? Since you’re an Epic?”
“I tried everything, but… fate had decided her time was up. There was nothing I could do.”
Ebby bit her lip, knowing she should be quiet, but finding herself boldly curious. “Jalia told me the same thing happened to your sister, the one they called the Golden Princess. Jalia said she got sick. You couldn’t save her either?”
“Well, there was a little more to it than that.” Prince Avalask looked uncomfortable. “But yes, it was awful. She was supposed to be queen too. The second sibling to the Epic always takes the throne, and she was going to be wonderful.”
Ebby couldn’t help wondering if Savaul had something to do with her death, because that would make him king after Izfazara.
“It’s nothing like that,” Prince Avalask said to her thought. “There was an age gap, but Savaul and Glidria were close — very close. We all were, but losing her hit Savaul the hardest. A curse is a truly terrible thing.”
“I’ve always been told curses aren’t real,” Ebby said.
“They’re…” Prince Avalask hesitated before he glanced at her, as though deliberating if she was old enough. “People have thrown the term curse around lightly for so long that we’ve lost sight of their severity, I’m afraid. A genuine curse can only be cast in death, and only by somebody hateful enough to stick around past death to fulfill its intent.”
Ebby had never heard of such a thing. “So… Somebody sort of leaves their soul behind when they die?”
“If they have a purpose large enough to remain for, then yes,” Prince Avalask said. “But to do so requires imprisoning yourself somewhere between life and death, and it’s not meant to be that way.”
It certainly sounded horrible to Ebby. “Who would do that?”
“Your grandfather,” Prince Avalask said. “It was in the battle where my father lost all his power, and your grandfather lost his life. He was angry enough to commit his entire soul to ensure every man in the Escali royal family would suffer the grief he’d endured losing his own wife. It was shortly after that fight, about twenty years ago, that we began losing every woman in the family. Now none are left.”
Ebby looked up at him, giving him a moment’s peace before curiosity bested her. “So… when Vack’s mother married you, did she know?”
“She knew. We both knew,” he said with a sullen nod. “But Dreya chose to be my wife despite the death sentence — well, she competed for it actually.” Prince Avalask bit several nails off in deep thought before he smiled faintly at his legs. “This will sound weird to you, but we had a competition to find the strongest woman in the world. Everybody had a shot, and I agreed to marry the winner because we needed somebody who could survive long enough to give me Vack. She would be our best chance.”
Prince Avalask grinned at an old memory and said, “I didn’t get to meet her until the day of our wedding vows, for her safety of course, and Savaul teased me for weeks that I was marrying an ox. You have no idea how relieved I was to see she was beautiful, inside and out — her hair so dark and her eyes delighting in life. I didn’t realize when I met her that she would share in all my pain, or handle half my problems… And against all my better judgments, I fell in love.”
“You… didn’t want to?”
“I thought that maybe if I didn’t love her, she wouldn’t die. But there was no stopping it. Everybody loved her.”
“Even Vack?” Ebby asked. “Was there enough time for him to love her?”
“He loves her memory, but no. We lost her less than a week after he was born.”
Ebby just felt sorry to hear so. Sorry for herself, for Vack, for Prince Avalask. The world hadn’t been fair to any of them.
“She wrote him letters though, knowing she wouldn’t be here to watch him grow up. Letters for every birthday until he’s twenty, for when he makes his first big mistake, one for the day he gets married, one for if he ever falls in love...” Prince Avalask leaned his head back against the wall and groaned. “I miss her so much.”
Tears gathered in the bottoms of Ebby’s eyes. How could this be happening, that the most powerful fiend in the world was giving her the heartbreaking story of his life?
She asked softly, “How did you make it stop hurting?”
“I... cheated. I forced myself to forget her.” Prince Avalask ran a hand over his eyes and said. “Sir Avery gave me ten days to grieve, and it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t pull myself together.” He pulled his hand away and a bittersweet thought darkened his face. “I can still remember meeting her for the first time, when she laughed at me for being nervous about the continent-wide wedding my family had assembled. I remember the very last week with her too, and all the last things she told me to hold onto. And I remember a couple times in between... But I forgot the rest of that beautiful year.” Prince Avalask gazed sadly up
to the ceiling. “I had to.”
Ebby wrapped her arms around his middle and hugged him tightly, though her hands barely reached far enough to clasp on the other side. Prince Avalask smelled like smoke and destruction, a smell that had become familiar over the past months, and one that didn’t bother her.
“The world is cruel,” she said.
“It can be,” Prince Avalask said, hugging her with one arm and tucking the other behind her legs to pick her up. Ebby hadn’t been carried to bed in years, but it didn’t bother her now. It just made her sleepy and strangely comfortable as she pressed her face into his shoulder and closed her eyes.
She knew she wasn’t supposed to feel safe in his arms, but the second he set her down, her heart began to race. She didn’t want him to leave. She couldn’t go to sleep while Savaul and Gataan knew her location. She might never sleep again.
Almost on cue with her thoughts, a light knock resonated through Ebby’s room, and she bolted back to her feet to tug her gloves off. It was only Vack though. He pushed her door gently open, lacking all his usual fire.
“I can sleep in here,” Vack said, looking at their feet as though reluctant to be present. “It’s my fault Uncle Savaul knows where she is.”
Did you listen to our entire conversation? Ebby asked in her mind.
Vack frowned and said, You let your thoughts drift like flood waters. That’s not my fault.
We’ll work on it tomorrow in practice, Prince Avalask’s powerful voice broke in. I’ll show you how to block them and how to keep your conversations a little more private. “Now what do we want to do?” Prince Avalask asked aloud. “Is everybody going to sleep better with Vack in here?”
Ebby hesitated because she and Vack had nearly bargained their lives away to get separate rooms. It seemed like a huge step backwards, but she would feel safer with Vack in front of the door, and even if Vack didn’t want to admit it, Ebby knew he didn’t want to be alone.
She shrugged as though it made no difference to her, then said, “It’s better than sleeping in Vack’s room. Have you seen that place? I mean, honestly.”
Prince Avalask’s booming laugh filled the room, startling them both. “She does have a point,” he said to Vack, who simply rolled his eyes. “Alright then. Tomorrow we’ll train, and we also need to get you both new clothes. Start thinking about how you want people to see you, because you can’t show up to save peoples’ lives dressed like ragamuffins. Vack, come help me grab your bed and we’ll get it moved over here.”
Ebby lay awake in her Escali bed, staring at the vaulted glass ceiling, still sporting carved limericks about all the ways she wished Vack would die. They had shoved Vack’s bed in front of her door so nobody could get through it without bowling him over, and Vack’s deep breaths finally sounded like he had fallen asleep.
They hadn’t spoken since Prince Avalask left, but something else happened in the silence. Ebby had the constant, tiny feeling that Vack was grateful for her presence, and she had the tiniest urge to be thankful for him too, because the dark was much less scary when shared.
She waited until Vack had been asleep for a little while, then ghosted herself past him, became invisible, and trotted down hallways and stairways until veins of grey rock crept through the black glass walls.
“Ratuan?”
Ratuan snapped awake at the sound of his name, and Ebby could feel heaps of anxiety evaporate as he saw her outside the cell.
“Oh thank life you’re back,” he said, leaping up to grab the bars as the other kids woke. “You had me so worried. Did he hurt you? Are you alright?”
Ebby nearly shrieked as Ratuan gripped the bars. His hands were burned and blistered, and his pain rang through her like the skin of her own palms being ripped off.
“Your hands,” she said, grabbing Ratuan’s in her own. He took a sharp, stuttered breath as she pulled them off the bars. Ebby winced just as hard and said, “I can fix them.”
Ratuan smiled gratefully as she narrowed her focus. She had never healed another person, but this was Ratuan, and she could do anything for Ratuan. He leaned his forehead against the bars and asked again, “Did he hurt you?”
His entire life seemed to rest on the fear that she might say yes. “No,” Ebby said. “It was really more of me trying to hurt him.”
“Any luck?” Ratuan asked.
“No,” Ebby said, suppressing a smile. “I’ve never been a match for Vack. I’m not sure I ever will be.”
Ratuan flipped his hands around so he suddenly had a grip on hers, despite how they pained him.
“You have to be safe, Ebby. Don’t ever take a risk like that again. Don’t fight him unless you know you can win.”
“I’m... We fight, Ratuan, but he’s not going to kill me.”
“You don’t know that,” Ratuan said, desperate to make her understand. “It’s like when you hear about people taming wild animals, and the animals turn on them without warning. He’s going to turn on you without warning, Ebby, and I don’t know what any of us are going to do. Nothing matters more than getting you out of here.”
Ebby slouched forward and pressed her forehead between the bars so it just barely touched Ratuan’s. She still felt incredibly shaken from all she’d seen in the day, and she was going to collapse if she couldn’t admit her guilt. “Ratuan… I had a chance to escape today, and I didn’t take it. I was too afraid,” she said, eyes on the floor where the metal beams buried themselves in rock.
“Afraid? What were you afraid of?”
“Of leaving you here,” she said as a few tears fell onto her cheeks. “Of meeting Sir Avery, and someday having to fight Vack. Of everything.”
“Hey, it’s alright,” Ratuan said as another large tear hit the ground and she slid her hands down the bars. “Come in here so we can sit and talk.”
Hysteria crept in, and Ebby screamed, “I can’t just leave while you’re still here!”
Ratuan barely startled, and didn’t distance himself a single step. “Ok, that’s alright,” he said gently. “I just need to know you’re safe, Ebby.” She looked up to meet his eyes, embarrassed by her outburst. “It’s not a bad thing for you to stay here. If you play along with the Escalis, you might eventually gain their trust and get a free shot at killing Vack. We’ll never get an opportunity better than that.”
Ebby fell unnaturally still because that was the last thing she ever wanted to attempt, and a small voice of caution warned her not to mention that Vack was currently asleep in her room. “I don’t know—”
“You know how important it is to kill him, don’t you?” Ratuan asked, and Ebby nodded quickly. “Because he’s going to grow up to hunt you, Ebby. He’s going be a danger to all of us, and if you don’t stop him now, while he’s weak, you’ll have to stand up to him later when he’s powerful. You understand that, right?”
“Yes,” she whispered, although trying to kill Vack sounded like the surest way to kill herself. She quailed, however, at the thought of Ratuan’s disappointment if she didn’t try.
“But what if we weren’t enemies, and I didn’t have to fight him?” Ebby asked, feeling her face redden as dread swept through Ratuan. She couldn’t believe she’d just said those words.
“I know they’re trying to convince you that’s an option,” Ratuan said slowly, carefully. “But Ebby, Vack was born to kill and do harm. Think of everything he’s already put you through. Look what he’s already done to me.” Ratuan turned his palms up to show the angry welts and boils from the ten seconds he had been exposed to Vack.
Ebby could feel Ratuan looking into her eyes, but she couldn’t tear her stare away from his hands. She felt so guilty, so ashamed, that she had fallen this far into Prince Avalask’s trap when she had seen through it every step of the way. Her throat constricted into a painful knot.
“Ebby?” The smallest boy with the orange hair, Leaf, approached with slow caution to set his hands on the bars. “Have you ever heard the story of the scorpion and the frog?”
> “Yes,” Ebby said with a miserable nod.
Ratuan frowned and asked, “How does it go?”
Ebby glanced at Leaf, then said, “Reso could always tell stories better than me.” She longed to have that life back more than anything. “But there once lived a scorpion who needed to cross a river, and of course, he couldn’t swim. So he asked a frog to carry him across, and three times the frog told him no, for surely the scorpion would sting him and he would die.” Ebby hesitated, because she suddenly couldn’t remember how in the world the scorpion had convinced the frog to do something so stupid.
Leaf said, “The scorpion promised not to sting the frog, and the frog believed him, because if the scorpion stung him in the water, they’d both drown. So he decided to carry the scorpion across.”
“They both drowned,” Ebby said, feeling the weight of the story in her stomach. “The scorpion stung him and they both drowned, because it was in the scorpion’s nature. The circumstances didn’t matter.”
Ratuan set his hands on hers again, and waited until Ebby raised her eyes to his. “No matter what anyone says, Ebby, a scorpion will sting you, and Vack will hurt you.”
Ebby looked at the ground again because she knew Ratuan was right. Vack was an Escali, and he had a predator’s instincts in his blood. There were times when he didn’t seem so bad, when he panicked at the sight of death or helped her when she hurt, but there were also times when he was vicious and fearsome.
“Do you remember when we used to play chess?” Ratuan asked. Ebby could feel him running through things he could say, knowing her well enough to pick exactly the right words. Always the strategic one, he was.
“Of course,” Ebby smiled, glad to be off the subject of Vack. “You could beat anybody. You even beat your father when he finally agreed to play.”
Ratuan smiled too and said, “That’s all this is now. We’re playing chess, and I just need you to trust me to control the board.” He squeezed her hands and said, “I will get everybody out of here, and I will keep you safe, but I have to know I can count on you. I can’t win without a full set on my side.”
