The Heir Apparent

by Lauren DeStefano

  Prince Azure was twelve when his father decided he was old enough to know.

  “This is going to belong to you one day, when you’re grown,” the king said, and Azure listened intently. It was rare that his father spoke to him this way, and without his sister present at that. He knew that Celeste would be jealous. He would find her when he returned to the clock tower and she would want to know what their father had said about the kingdom, because she wanted to be king more than anything. But the king spoke to his daughter even less than he spoke to his son.

  “You’ve always known that one day you’ll inherit the kingdom,” King Furlow went on. “But there are parts of it that you have not yet seen, and you’ll need to understand them.”

  The young prince had, in fact, seen very little of his kingdom. He and his sister were kept apart from the city’s main sections, visiting only for ceremonies and celebrations. He felt that he knew the city only through a sheet of glass. He could see but not touch.

  “It is not all about parties,” the king said. “A king must make difficult decisions that his subjects never see, because they are good for us all.”

  They walked through trees, dodging stray branches and thickets. No one in the kingdom was allowed this far into the woods, except for the hunters on the third Sunday of the month, and the royal family.

  They had been walking for an hour now, and Azure knew that he had never gone this far. He and his sister were required to keep the clock tower in sight at all times, and if they ever forgot, there were patrolmen scattered about to remind them.

  Now there were patrolmen walking ahead of the king and prince, and behind them, keeping them safe. Azure knew the woods. He and his sister had learned to shoot arrows there. But when they reached the metal gate, and the clock tower was long out of sight, he knew that his father was taking him over some new boundary. He had never even known there was a gate at all.

  “You share most things with your sister, don’t you?” the king said. “That’s good. The two of you need each other; when you’re king, I suspect she’ll be of value to your council. But this is something that isn’t for her eyes and ears. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Azure didn’t understand. The gate was still closed, and he didn’t know what waited on the other side. But he nodded anyway. It was the only way he would find out.

  One of the patrolmen opened the gate, which gave a shrill rusty whine.

  “There are things a king doesn’t share with the fairer sex. There are things I wouldn’t even share with the queen. It would trouble her. She has a soft heart. Your sister gets that from her.”

  His mother may have a soft heart, Azure conceded to himself, but his sister most assuredly did not. She could have rivaled him for the kingship if she had been born a boy. She was less troubled than he was, and when they’d found a fox gnawing on a dead rabbit in the woods during the dawn of short season, he’d been the one to look away first.

  But he didn’t say this. His father was the king, and whatever the king believed was a fact.

  They stepped through the gate, but the patrolmen stayed behind.

  “The top of the clock tower has one of the best views on Internment,” the king said. “That, and the top floor of the hospital. You can look out and see the entire kingdom. But you can’t see this here. It’s covered over by trees.”

  This area was dark with leaves and branches, so much so that the grass scarcely grew. Patches of dirt and well-trod moss led their way.

  They reached a series of buildings, and Azure looked at his father, puzzled. “There’s a city here, Papa?”

  “Not a city,” the king said. “It’s a camp for people whose minds have failed them.” The king put his hand on Azure’s shoulder, but it brought little comfort. There was something wrong about this place. The buildings were mortared with mud, they were all windowless, and the roofs were made of reeds. There was a horrible smell emanating from the buildings.

  The doors were wooden, rotted through by the damp; weeds had begun to sprout between the planks. Azure was not sure, suddenly, that he wanted to see what was on the other side.

  When he and Celeste had found the fox eating the rabbit, he had looked away. At first he thought it was because it sickened his stomach, and it did, but that night as he lay in bed he realized that it was the sadness that had disturbed him. The idea that one thing would kill another to survive. Celeste was the one who consoled him. She said it was the way things had to be sometimes. The fox would bring the rabbit to its young so they could live. It was the order of things, she said.

  He wished she were here now to explain what was on the other side of that door.

  The king lifted the latch and pushed it open. He positioned his son in the doorway and held his shoulders, either to steady him or to keep him in place, Azure couldn’t be certain.

  It took a moment for the prince’s eyes to adjust. It was dark in the building, and the only light came through cracks in the mud that held the walls together, and a flickering lantern that hung on a rope from the ceiling. There were more lanterns, at least a dozen of them, but none of them were lit.

  The building was very small, about the size of his bedroom, yet it held several beds all lined up along the walls. He thought the beds were being used for storage, because of the burlap sacks that were draped over them, and judging by the smell, the bags contained compost or rotted fruit.

  One of the bags moved, and a low groan reached feebly into the air. And with that, Azure understood. The bags were breathing.

  “Papa?”

  “Go on,” the king said. He was guiding him inside, and Azure forced himself not to dig his heels into the dirt to keep himself in place. He forced himself to take one step and then another. “They’re tied down. They won’t hurt you.”

  Azure was not afraid that they would hurt him. He was afraid that he would have to see them.

  They walked to the body that had moaned. It was directly under the lantern light, and Azure could see the surgical stitches that ran the circumference of his forehead. His head was shaved and the stitches continued around to the back of his head.

  The boy was only a little bit older than Azure.

  “This is a hospital?” Azure guessed, and he was proud of himself for not sounding as ill as he felt.

  “This is the recovery ward,” the king said. His tone was almost dulcet, as though he were reading aloud a passage from a children’s parable that would help the prince understand. “There’s an operating room farther down, but I won’t be able to take you there. It has to be kept sterile.”

  Azure didn’t want to see the operating room. He didn’t even want to see this room. He felt that somewhere along their hour-long walk from the clock tower to this gate, he and his father had crossed a bridge and found their way onto another floating city, under a different sun. This could not be the same kingdom where he and his sister spent so many frivolous hours giggling and chasing deer through the trees.

  Azure had never seen illness like this, much less in someone his own age. “What was wrong with him?” he asked.

  “He had a disease in his mind,” the king said. “He didn’t like the girl he was betrothed to.”

  This frightened the young prince. His sister hated the boy she was betrothed to; she referred to him in her brother’s confidence as Prince Ignoramus. Sometimes Iggy for short. Did that mean she was diseased too? Or maybe they both were, because he had never been especially fond of the girl to whom he was betrothed either. She was a bright, confident thing, almost taller than him, with a toothy smile. She treated him as though he were the most interesting thing ever to breathe, and Azure always felt
that she was an actress in some elaborate play.

  “What was wrong with the girl he was betrothed to?” Azure asked, keeping his voice steady.

  “Nothing at all,” the king said. “The decision makers are always right. The disease was invisible. It festers in the brain.” He tapped Azure’s temple, and his finger felt like a scalpel. “Once the disease is cut away, healing begins.”

  Azure stared at the boy. His eyes were swollen shut, his lips cracked and bleeding. His skin was as pale as an unearthed root. He didn’t seem cured. He seemed broken beyond repair.

  “Will he go home?” Azure asked.

  “That is up to him,” the king said. “His hair will grow back, and it will be as though he has no scars at all. There are tests he will take to determine whether or not he’s ready to return to his betrothed.”

  The boy didn’t seem as though he would ever be ready. It didn’t look as though there were any life left in him at all.

  Azure wasn’t sure he could stand to know, yet still he asked, “What if he isn’t ready?”

  The king patted his son’s shoulders. “Then he’ll go to the tributary, as all of us will one day.”

  The tributary, where souls went when they left their bodies. Azure didn’t allow himself to wince.

  He began to feel guilty about his own pristinely combed blond hair and his heat-pressed shirt with its gleaming buttons, and his stainless white pants. If he’d been the boy in the bed, he would have been appalled at such a clean thing standing before him while he was made to suffer.

  “There are many diseases of the mind,” the king went on, as though he were discussing the hour of the day. “There are some people who show no emotional capacity of any kind. Those who kill, those who would harm for pleasure.”

  Those well and truly did sound like diseases, Azure thought. But he found himself pitying this boy, whose only crime had been one to which Azure could relate. Perhaps his true crime was not being secretive enough, Azure thought. He would never tell his father that he didn’t like his betrothed. He would beg Celeste not to speak about hers either.

  And he would not tell his father about the boy who had smiled at him a month prior, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony, with the shy brown eyes Azure had so admired, and the lovely doll-like blond curls. He thought about that boy still, like an image printed in his head. He hadn’t even told Celeste about him, and he surely wouldn’t now. Not ever.

  He was grateful when they left the building behind them. The closer they got to the gate, the cleaner the air began to smell, like grass and dry earth.

  “You have the pensive silence of a king,” his father told him, sounding quite proud. For that, Azure smiled. But he was not pensive. He was frightened. He could never be what his father wanted in a prince, but he could pretend, and surely that was enough. One day, when his father was gone and Azure was the king, he would redefine what being a king meant. He would have a son of his own and he would not take him inside that gate. The only people in those little buildings would be the ones who killed, who harmed. Not the ones who merely admired.

  They pressed on in silence, and Azure let the king think it was pensive.

  When they reached the clock tower, the king grabbed his son’s shoulders and gave him a rough but affectionate shake. “I’m proud of you,” he said, and it was such a rarity that Azure wanted to hug him for it, even if he was horrified by what was happening under his command.

  “Thank you, Papa,” was all he said.

  “It is a burden, being king,” his father said. “But it has its rewards. You’ll learn that this is all for the best. I’ll bring you back on another day, when the surgeon is available to explain his process.”

  “Yes, Papa,” Azure said. His stomach was starting to ache, and he was relieved when his father left him, and he fled eagerly to the courtyard to find Celeste.

  She had her skirts gathered to her knees and she was wading through the poppies when he found her. She looked as though she were floating in blood. He was going to ask her what she was doing out there, but then he saw her betrothed standing at the base of the garden with his feet set on the cobblestones. He was fiercely allergic to flowers.

  “Come on back, you stupid girl,” he said. “I’ve told you, I can’t be late going home and I demand a good-bye kiss.”

  “Then I demand that you come out here and get it yourself,” Celeste said pertly.

  Her betrothed paced the courtyard like a caged animal.

  He would have been a perfect match for Celeste, Azure thought, if only he didn’t speak. He had pretty eyes just like hers, and endearingly pink cheeks, and a graceful physique. But his big flaw was that he believed that by simply being male, he was the superior match, and oh, he was wrong. Celeste was taunting him in her graceful way, swishing her skirts and humming as she danced amid the flowers. She let a caterpillar crawl onto her index finger, and she very audibly kissed it. Her betrothed bristled with rage.

  “You are a useless thing,” he said. And then he grabbed Azure by the arm and began trying to twist it behind his back. “Come give me my kiss, or I’ll break his arm. I’ll do it!”

  “Hit him, Az!” she cried.

  The prince had never hit anyone before, and he didn’t want to, even if he wouldn’t have minded watching someone else punch his sister’s betrothed in the mouth. And if this had been the day before, he may even have been passive enough to let the boy break his arm. But he had just seen what happened to children who weren’t strong, who didn’t fight for themselves. He wasn’t sure where he found the strength, but in a blink, his sister’s betrothed was on the ground, blood trailing from his split lip.

  There was silence. Even Celeste stopped her fidgeting and watched him.

  Her betrothed touched his lip and stared at Azure, appalled. “You hit me!”

  “You’re lucky that’s all I did,” Azure told him. “I’m the prince of Internment, not you. You’ll be royalty only when you marry my sister, and there’s no blood in your ring yet. I could have done worse. My father could have done worse too. I’ve seen it.”

  Humiliated, Celeste’s betrothed pulled himself to his feet. He was a fungus of a person, but he was resilient. He met Azure’s eyes and he was red with anger, but he said nothing. He turned his head and spat at the cobbles, and then he walked away.

  Once he was out of sight, Celeste ran through the poppies, keeping her skirts up. Active as she was, she had a talent for keeping her clothes and hair immaculate.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” she squeaked.

  At eleven years old, she was nearly his height, with all the same features, and her giddy grin was a symmetrical contrast to his worried frown.

  “You’re the one who told me to hit him.”

  “Since when do you take orders from me?”

  “I don’t. But someone had to do it. He just walks about this city begging for someone to punch him.” He looked at the cobblestones where the boy had fallen, and then at her. “Besides, I don’t want you to be the one to hurt him. How would that look? Maybe you should try to be nice to him, even if you have to pretend, and even if we’ll make fun of him when he’s gone.”

  “He’s repulsive,” she said. “He tells me to kiss his cheek and then he tries to look down my dress.”

  It turned Azure’s stomach that the boy with the stitches had done nothing of the sort, and yet the boy who tried to accost the princess was commended for his social standing and his high betrothal. Worse was that going along with it was the only way his sister would be safe.

  “Just listen, for once,” Azure said. “Do as Papa and Mother ask. Just be nice to the boy. There are worse things.” He was imagining stitches on her forehead, and bruised eyes, and her glossy blond hair shaven from her head. He believed their father would do it; the king loved his children, but he loved his city more.

  “What do you know anyw
ay,” she said, not really asking. “Do you want to see if we can find a deer? One of these days we’ll tame one and it’ll let us ride it. I read that that’s possible.”

  Azure snorted. “Where, in a fairy tale?”

  She breezed past him. “Well, if you don’t want to . . .”

  “I do,” he said. “You’re quieter and you can climb, but I’m faster. Maybe we can.”

  She ran ahead and he followed her, but when they entered the woods, he led them along the path. He took her in the opposite direction from the metal gate. If he had his way, she would never see it. He would try to forget it himself, and perhaps it would haunt him less with time, but it would always be there, just like the fox with the rabbit.

  His father would call his empathy a weakness, but maybe it wasn’t, Azure decided. A king was not meant to rule over only the foxes and leave the rabbits to be killed. A king should be haunted by the frailty of small things.

  “Do you suppose I’ll make a good king?” he said, as they snuck behind trees looking for deer.

  “Not as good as I would be,” Celeste said. “But you’ll be decent, I suppose.”

  He thought of the boy he had seen at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. He imagined the both of them being left to rot in that awful building if they had exchanged anything more than a fleeting glance. He imagined what would happen if he told his father the truth, which was that he’d rather be betrothed to that boy than to the girl he was fated to marry.

  “I’ll do away with betrothals first,” he said.

  “Don’t be dumb. How will everyone find a match, then?”

  He looked at her. “You hate your match.”

  “Yes, but that just means I want a better one, that’s all. When you’re king, your first order of business can be to have me marry someone better, and you can pair my current betrothed up with something more fitting. Like an angry bramble fly looking for something to sting.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement,” he said, raising his chin.

  “I’ll be your top adviser,” she said. “Goodness knows you’ll need me.”