by Ella Fields
“No, I’d much rather just kill you, but I like to have my reasons. It helps one to sleep better at night.”
“I’m sure,” she muttered.
I stopped, and she rushed out, “Love.”
After staring at her with lowered brows, I laughed again, the sound crazed and dry. Then I rushed the cage and began plucking locks of her hair from her head, one tug of too much wind at a time.
She screamed, moving her hands to her scalp to try to stop it.
“Let me tell you a story about love, you piece of vermin filth.” I began pacing again, the sound of her screams spurring me on. “Love is nothing but a drug that will trick your heart for access to your soul. It seeps inside and poisons you, attempts to rid you from existence.”
My gut began roiling, my breaths coming faster. I forced my magic to still and drew in a deep inhale. I had to leave. I had to leave, or I would end her.
And I couldn’t do that just yet.
Her quiet sobs chased me up the steps as I slowly traversed them. The door boomed to a close behind me, and without saying a word, I dumped Eli’s key on the bar, then gathered my skirts in hand as I swept outside into the bitter chill.
My lids lowered when I stopped beneath the stairs and turned my face up to the skies.
Drops of ice-cold rain slapped onto my skin and slid down my cheeks, sinking inside my pores.
“Majesty?” Ainx called, concern in his tone.
But I remained standing there, the breeze and rain a comfort against the inferno threatening to engulf me.
Only fear and hatred.
When I was sure my voice wouldn’t betray me, I opened my eyes, rolled my shoulders back, and continued down the street. “I need to see Truin.”
“What of the female, my queen?” Azela asked.
It was then I realized I hadn’t gleaned anything of much use from the traitorous bitch. “She’s not a female. She’s nothing but a disgusting human fool.”
“Did she know of your decree regarding…?” She didn’t want to say it.
A few streets downhill, we slipped back into the hustle of the heart, people parting once they realized I was in their midst.
“Enough with the questions. She knew, and she did it anyway.”
Ainx snarled, and for that, I gave him a tiny smile over my shoulder.
I knew of people’s less-than-stellar opinions of me. I wasn’t so self-absorbed that I didn’t pay attention. I just simply did not care. I was who I was, and naturally, many wouldn’t like that. Regardless, it was nice to know that not everyone loathed me. Some seemed to respect me from a place that had nothing to do with fear, and everything to do with knowing me.
A monster, most certainly. But not always.
Truin lived by the waterfront in a tiny apartment sandwiched between a bakery and a blacksmith.
She was at the door before I could knock, and I again left Azela and Ainx on the street. “I had a dream,” she said as she slammed the door behind me, and I moved up the narrow steps. It was a good thing I’d left Ainx outside, or else he’d need to move up them sideways like a crab because his shoulders were too broad.
A thin red door with unnecessary peepholes shaped in every phase of the moon opened to reveal a large room. Truin’s bed was a straw-filled mattress, bedecked in gold and greens in its place by the window in the corner of the apartment.
A map of the continent was pinned to the wall above a curved oak desk. Scrolls, inkpots, and quills scattered over the scratched surface. Her kitchen was but a countertop with a sink and small oven. She rarely used it unless she was brewing potions and remedies. She was paid well for her service to the crown, and for her healing aids and fertility tonics.
Jars of insects, herbs, dirt, sand, and even gold sat in uneven rows upon the windowsill and over every available surface of the small countertop.
She grabbed a large round plaid cushion and moved it before the fire and then took a seat on a spotted one next to it. “You’re even more troubled than when I last saw you.”
I unwrapped the scarf from around my neck, sighing as I took a seat and ran it between my fingers. Crossing my legs, I stared at the small flames dancing over the bronze hearth. “She said she did it for love.”
It only took Truin a moment to realize whom I was referring to. “Her name?”
“Casilla.”
Truin’s muddied gaze sat upon me for long moments. “You didn’t kill her.”
“Is my disappointment in myself that obvious?”
A small laugh tittered from her. “No, you just seem… kind of defeated.”
The glossy silk weaved between my fingers, looping and unlooping.
“And what of Raiden?”
I pushed out a hard breath. “That’s why I’m here.” I looked over at her. “He remembered Zadicus. And not only that, but before we left for the Sun Kingdom, it’s been said he had some type of episode.” I waved my hand about. “Hallucinations, apparently.”
“Was he physically unwell?” she asked.
I nodded.
Truin looked at the flames, firelight flickering in her narrowed eyes.
“Why would he remember Zad but not me?”
Her shoulders sank as she eyed me. “I don’t mean to upset you, but he did want you dead.”
My teeth gritted, the scarf coiling too tight around my fingers.
Truin continued, voice gentler. “Is it possible he remembers, at least enough, and that it doesn’t make one bit of difference?”
“To him,” I finished for her, rubbing my face, the silk soft over my heated skin. “Because he detested me that much?”
Truin shifted. “I don’t know. I’d like to believe, as I’m sure you want to, that he never truly hated you.” She paused. “Audra, what is it you hope to glean from this situation before it’s over?”
The truth. Or a truth spun well enough that it would counteract the damage wrought to my heart from his actions.
I was in search of well-spun, undetectable lies.
I said none of those things as my hands slid from my face. “I want him to look at me and see what he’s done. To feel it all and suffer beneath the weight of his betrayal.”
“Maybe that was your plan, but really, you want him to tell you it was all a lie. A catastrophic misunderstanding.”
I groaned. “Stop being so perceptive, you fucking witch.”
Truin smiled, soft and knowing, when I looked at her. “It’s okay, you know.” She nodded. “To still love someone who destroyed you. Your father was despicable. He killed your mother, he took everything that held meaning from you if you weren’t careful, and let’s not even begin with the horrors he wrought, of which he made you bear witness to many of, yet deep down, you still loved him.”
She was right.
He was my greatest shame and greatest foe all in one.
Truin made tea, and we sipped it while watching the fire die before she fed it a couple more logs.
“Should I even bother trying anymore?” I was beginning to worry I was becoming transparent. “I don’t want to seem like some desperate imbecile.”
She grasped my hand within hers, and I stared down at her small fingers, watching the way they struggled to curl around my longer ones. “You look like a queen who has been gravely wronged, so you’re taking your own form of justice.” I lifted my eyes to her fierce gaze. “As all true queens must do.”
I could only hope that’s how I would see it when it was all over.
An hour later, my boots hit the damp cobblestone, and I rewrapped my scarf around my neck. I’d never needed protection from the cold, but I did need to look fabulous. My own rules, and I adored abiding by them.
The sun was dimmed by a group of passing clouds, and I wished for more snow, not liking the way the damp wanted to claw inside my bones and reduce me to a pile of defeated mush. We were a kingdom stuck in perpetual winter, but the temperature only got so low before it rose again, making it easier for trade to take place and ships to gl
ide into our shores.
No one really knew why, though if you asked the many who worshipped the goddesses, they’d bore you to tears with tales of the two sisters’ personalities—light and dark, fire and ice—and how their love for one another, no matter their differing opinions and traits, was so strong it forged a world for their offspring to rule over.
Though it was true the powers of the royals were born from our lands, I had a lot of doubt about the rest of that nonsense. I didn’t quite know what I believed. Perhaps one day, I’d care enough to find out more about this mystical continent of mine.
Should people ever decide to quit pissing me off, of course.
“What does he have?” I asked Azela.
“Sweetcakes.” She smirked at Ainx, who’d just stepped out of the bakery. “He adores them.”
I let him eat two before I snatched the box and tossed them into a thawing pile of snow.
I watched him sleep, listening to the incessant drip coming from stalactites tucked within the deepest cells.
He’d always slept so easily. I’d found it odd in the days after his betrayal, as I’d recounted all the times he’d been inside me, and how easily our lovemaking had serenaded him into a peaceful slumber. Odd because he wanted my kingdom—me—squashed.
How could you love someone so convincingly, so painstakingly earnest in every transaction, all the while knowing you would be their demise in every crushing way?
He slept now as he had then, as though not even a rat scuttling over his hunched form could disturb him.
I contemplated waking him by removing the bars from the stone and sending the gated door down upon him.
But I chose to start talking instead. They say the comatose can hear you wherever they’re lurking within their minds. Perhaps it was the same for sleeping assholes.
Either way, I didn’t particularly care.
I wanted to retell this part for me. To pluck the memory from my own mind and cast it upon every breath I took. To feel the words leave my lips as I envisioned the moments that bestowed mayhem upon every facet of who I was and changed the course of our lives forever.
Most of all, I wanted to remind myself that it was real. Once upon a time, it had happened. I was there and so was the stranger curled against the wall of his cell.
19 summers old
The snow had left, and in its place fell sunshine carried upon a crisp wind.
The grass crunched beneath his boots as he approached where I’d secluded myself with Van upon the second tallest mountaintop in the kingdom.
How he’d gotten up here, I’d love to know. I’d been here for hours, trepidation over what to do with the male who wouldn’t leave me alone, even when he wasn’t near, troubling me into needing utter silence. The kind only found on top of a wind-strewn field of grass, grass that was trying to coax itself back to life in the absence of the brutal cold.
Wildflowers had cracked through the earth this past week. Van was making a meal out of them, the sound of his huffing and slurping and chomping, and the faint whistle of the breeze the only exceptions to the otherwise deathly quiet landscape.
As the prince drew closer, a curious smile igniting green eyes that bounced between Van and me, I half wondered if he’d brought the warmth from the Sun Kingdom with him to ward off the worst of the chill.
For once, I didn’t mind. Usually, the coldest of days and nights were my favorite. The perfect time to curl up before a roaring fire and sip tea with a book or guzzle wine with a lover.
Maybe that was my issue. It had been a while since I’d found relief in the form of a suitable male. All thanks to Prince Raiden.
A snarl rippled from Van’s mouth, grass and wildflowers falling free as he speared his head in Raiden’s direction. An onyx eye took him in as his nostrils widened to the size of my head.
From where I was leaning against his side, I shushed him and patted his furry leg. “He’s not a threat.” I then eyed the prince. “Well, not entirely.”
Van stared another few seconds, then harrumphed and got busy licking up the wares he’d lost from his mouth, one eye still sharp on the male taking a seat beside me.
Raiden leaned around me, his expression one of unbridled awe as he studied Van’s gray coat, flecked with white and silver, the gray feathered wings, and the brown horns curling out of his head. “They’re even more magnificent up close.”
“And territorial,” I informed, joining a wildflower stem with the rest of the chain I’d been working on. “He can sense a large variety of helpful things, especially ill intent.”
“Duly noted.”
We sat quietly for a long moment before curiosity got the better of me. “Pray tell, just how did you get up here?”
Raiden ran his hand over his close-cropped hair, squinting to the melting mountains nearby. “I asked around for the fastest way, and they reluctantly allowed me to borrow your stallion.” He turned to me, a glow to his eyes. “Being that you’re my betrothed and all.”
I tensed. “Wen? Where is he?”
Raiden pointed at the incline. “Tied to a tree some clefts down. It was too steep to have him come any higher.”
My shoulders sagged. “You have some nerve, Prince.”
He grinned, and I wanted to slap it right off his chiseled face. “Where you’re concerned, I’m constantly on my toes.”
“All the more reason for you to leave me be.” I adjusted my sapphire skirts over my crossed legs, the sun causing them to shimmer.
“Never.”
I peered up at his earnest eyes, the hard set to his jaw, and then averted my gaze to the flowers in my lap.
“Pretty,” Raiden commented after watching me weave them for a time. “What are you going to do with it when you’re done? Wear it?”
I snorted. “No, it just helps to quiet the mind. I’ll feed it to Van.”
“That’s his name?”
“Vanamar.”
Raiden tilted his head, his arms wrapped tight around his bent knees. “You love him.”
I frowned at him briefly, then returned my attention to my ministrations. “Of course, I do. He was a gift for my fourteenth birthday.” When I came of age. “I’d been asking for years and was given the runt of the litter.” I smirked down at the violet flower in my hand. “For a time, anyway. He’s since outgrown his kin in every possible way.” I stilled my hands, looking up at him beneath my lashes. “Do you not think me capable of such a thing as love, Prince?”
He seemed to think about it, then that arrogant smirk returned. “Everyone is capable of it.” The sun haloed behind his head, illuminating his skin and eyes, the edges of his cheeks and strong jaw—stealing my next breath. “Do you need to quiet your mind often?”
I wasn’t going to answer, but I figured if I was to spend the rest of my existence with him tied to me, it was probably best he knew enough about me. Maybe then he’d leave me alone, or at least know when to.
“Every now and then. There are always so many voices.”
He hummed in understanding. “Nod and smile. Bear it all.”
“That.” I sighed. “Sometimes it’s too hard to fake it, and that’s when I need to escape for a while.”
The blades of cold grass tickled my ankles, and Raiden observed the way my skirts fanned around me in a rippling pillow of chiffon. “Hate to break it to you, but you’re not so great at faking it anyway.”
I tossed a bud at him. His hand shot up, catching it. When he opened his palm, there was nothing but smoking specks. The wind swept in, curling them off his skin and into the air.
“Do you wonder if this is what you would have chosen for yourself?” he asked.
“Do you mean marrying you?” I asked. “Or being royal.”
He tipped a broad shoulder. “Both.”
“Yes and no,” I said. “I wouldn’t have chosen to vow to you. You’re not my type.” His brows gathered, and I smirked. “But yes, even with the incessant boredom, stresses, and annoyances that can accompany being a r
oyal, I would still choose it.”
“Why?”
The question knocked my eyes to his curious ones. “I’ve lived with magic running through my veins for too long to ever go without it.”
“No,” he said, shifting closer, his gray tunic billowing over his chest, the opening collar exposing a tantalizing glimpse of his skin. “No. The other powers that being a royal grants you.”
I knew my response would probably disappoint him, hoped for it even. My smile was genuine as it sank into my cheeks. “Never. That is my favorite power of all. One I do not take for granted by wishing it away onto someone else’s incapable shoulders.”
Raiden swiped his thumb below his lush bottom lip, his eyes bright. “A true queen you will make.” Those eyes dulled then, and he looked away, taking in the panoramic view of Allureldin. The streets and streams of water that wound their way between wood and stone structures for miles until they faded into greener grass and dirt roads.
Van turned his head, inhaling strands of my hair as he sniffed. I laughed, then handed him a wildflower, laughing again when his tongue grazed my hand. “Impatient boy.” I scratched beneath his sagging chin.
“He adores you.”
I gently nudged Van’s head away and wiped my hand over my skirts. “He’s one of my only friends.”
Raiden’s question sounded like more of a statement. “You don’t have any others?”
I picked up my chain, running my fingers over the silken stems, then the velveteen petals. “Only a few. Father says friends are merely the enemy wrapped in a prettier disguise.”
“Is that why he’s had you trained for a battle that may never come?”
We may have been a continent of peace for over a millennia, but we still had warriors, trained soldiers, and armories filled with gleaming death instruments just like other kingdoms across the Gray Sea. “No, that was my mother’s bidding.” I cleared my throat, ignoring the bruise that throbbed in my chest cavity. “She was defenseless without her magic, and as you know, my father’s is such an entity that no one really stands a chance.”
“He didn’t mind that you trained?” His tone was cautious.
