Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ASTER
T here were few enemies in the castle, but I wasn’t foolish enough to believe they couldn’t be bought. I’d sent my most trusted advisors to investigate the disturbance in my study. If it had been Morgana, that was ideal.
But that sort of terror was not easily caused.
The heavy wooden doors creaked as I pushed them open, revealing the dimly lit room where my father lay in his ornate bed, his frail form barely stirring at my entrance. The once-mighty King Asterius Sinclair was somehow worse for wear since I last visited him. This illness ravaged him, and I knew it was entirely possible he’d pass long before we returned home from Avendatis.
I knew if I wept, it would not be due to the loss. It would be entirely because his demise was like spying into the looking glass of my own fate. The glamour faded and his sunken, hollow eyes turned to me just enough to take note. He groaned. It was this sick, ghoul-like moan that would have kept me up at night if I held any love for him. Approaching his bedside, I noted the way his breath came in ragged gasps, the rise and fall of his chest shallow and uneven. The curse that plagued our bloodline did not discriminate; it consumed us all, starting with the eldest, weakening each subsequent generation until there was nothing left but a legacy of suffering.
“Father,” I said, just above a whisper. “I come to inform you that I am taking the captive to Avendatis in search of our cure.”
Though he wasn’t able to verbalize more than a wheeze, his face contorted with utter disgust. He loathed the Avendatis crown—and I did not blame him. They were the reason Verdantis nearly fell.
“And there is more. The girl, that arcanist I spoke to you about last time I visited. Do you recall?”
His eyebrow-less expression stiffened, and he almost shook his head. Almost. He was truly the shell of the man I feared growing up.
I sighed, shaking my head and letting it hang forward so I could stare at the ground. Last time I saw him, I thought about freeing him of this misery. I felt cruel for such a desire, but now, I all but felt guilty I hadn’t ended him. “We tested her blood, and the doctor just delivered the results. She is not a Sinclair—but she can touch the shadows, Father. Her bloodline is like ours—but their fate may not be cursed. They may hold an answer, a cure. We will still venture to Avendatis, because the privy council has raised all hell in search of this wretched mirror, but I believe… I believe?—”
“Belief… is… weak. ”
His voice. It was a crackling whisper, a haunting tale that should be forgotten to the wind. My head snapped to him, and I saw my frown reflected on his face.
“You… are . Fool.”
I blinked. I stared at the skeleton of my father for so long that I thought the silence would swallow us whole and put an end to this agony. Perhaps I would end it all—perhaps I would stop searching for the cure and spend my time on the throne alone, with no heir, with no wife. I’d do everything to hold onto the throne, weaken the line of succession, perhaps even poison the men eligible for the crown just to secure it further.
And then I’d let myself fade away.
Our legacy. Our crown. It would end with me. This was the power I held, and with my father too weak, too feeble to sign the papers that decreed another Sinclair prince as his heir, I was his only hope.
I leaned over my father. He turned his head away as I neared, as if sharing the same breath as me was dire. More dire than his rotten blood and bones. “She is our answer, King Asterius.”
His name was toxic. It hurt me to even chew on.
“Perhaps I will help her find that brother she seeks. Perhaps we will find the cure, just so I can destroy it.”
My father wept at the idea. I grabbed him by the chin, his bones cracking with my gentle touch. He was made of glass and ash and bitter, evil cruelty. There was nothing redeeming about my father—not anymore. He moaned in pain.
My spit spewed from my gritting teeth as I hissed, “Die.” A pause. My body trembled, and I let go of him with a harsh move. “I hope you die while we are away, so you never get the pleasure of finding out what the cure entails. I hope you gaze up at us from the hells you are destined to reign over and watch as I let this bloodline fade away. You are weak, Father. I hold the power. I could kill you, but this would be too kind a fate.”
He wheezed. He wheezed and cried and tried to lift his hand to strike me, but he wasn’t able to even free it from the blanket that confined him.
“I hope you suffer in silence, Father. Fool. ”
I backed away, watching his thin, cracked lip tremble. He believed me—he believed every single word, just as I hoped. My father spent his life making sure I understood fear. How to wield it, how to make others succumb to it. He taught me that mercy was unacceptable, that love and kindness would ruin the crown.
And then he sent me away.
Years. I spent years testing what he’d taught me as a child.
I broke free of it. But as I pushed past his chamber doors and stormed toward the armory, I felt that instinctual desire to burn it all creeping up my chest. I convinced myself that cruelty was taught, but as the shadows hissed at me to break, I feared it was born into me.
I feared that I, a man who sympathized, cried, and desired, would crumble into the mind-numbing, evil patterns of my parents.
I feared . I feared myself.