Chapter 32
The door slammed shutbehind me.
”Oh, Fynneares, is that you?”
My steps faltered as my mother”s light voice called out from somewhere in the castle.
”Fynneares?” she called again when I had yet to respond.
At last, I grunted, unable to string together a single thought, let alone voice a sentence.
I never wanted to interfere with Dani’s career or make her feel the need to make such a choice. I had never asked her to, yet she had made the choice anyway.
For me, it was never an either-or situation.
Dani might have thought I was overreacting, but I had been studying the Bull King and his movements for over a decade. Based on the little intel we received from our spies in the south, the man was unpredictable. He was conniving and cunning and always one step ahead.
That’s how he was able to break my family the first time.
Every year, my family would go to our summer home for a month to escape the bustle of the capital. In their absence, my parents trusted the advisors to keep the kingdom running.
My father always told us, ”Even queens and kings need to live once in a while.”
But on that fatal day, we had lived too much. Our walls were down. Caution had been left behind in the castle. At night, the fire rolled over the house, burning anything it could.
As the smoke filled the hallways and slithered beneath the cracks of the doors, wrapping around our lungs, Terin had succumbed to sleep”s embrace. Terin still had not gained solid control over his ability at the time. Unlike now, where sleep evaded him, sleep wrapped its heavy tendrils around his ankles, drowning him in its embrace. It took everything I had to drag my brother out of the house as the flames crawled over the building and ate away at its beams and walls.
When we at last made it outside, no one was there.
The smoke had not left my lungs yet, but I had to go back. I tried to go back. But as I ran for the house, the windows shattered as Graeson burst through the doors with my sister clawing at his face. She clawed and bit and scratched, hollering unintelligible words through a tear-stained face.
When she escaped Graeson”s hold like the little mouse she was, my sister crawled to the house on her hands and knees. But she was only three and had been inside longer than I had. Her lungs were weak, her body feeble.
She was too slow, too small.
And then the Bull King came. His iron helmet, in the shape of a bull, glowed red and yellow as the flames slashed and roared around him. He was unfazed by the fire as he sped forward on his horse.
Before Graeson and I could process what was happening, the Bull King snatched my sister and threw her atop his black stallion.
I tried to go after her.
I tried to run.
I tried to fight the burning in my lungs.
But I couldn”t.
I wasn”t quick enough.
I wasn”t strong enough.
My sister was taken that night because I had not been enough.
For centuries, our kingdom had been the safest place in Vaneria. Yet, in one night, that safety was obliterated.
Therefore, it didn”t matter if Dani”s upcoming mission was only for the purpose of gaining more information.
It didn”t matter if Dani was one of the strongest people I knew.
One needed more than strength to outwit a man who had been able to slither past Pontia”s defenses and discover where my family was without raising a single warning bell.
Yet Dani had brushed away my concerns, claiming it was her duty to go.
I knew about obligations. But more importantly, I knew all about failing them.
And perhaps that”s where my problem lay.
As a child, I thought the title of prince granted me access to everything I wanted. I slacked off on my training because I didn”t think it was worthwhile. The crown was all the protection I needed.
Or so I had thought.
When we were attacked, some of that changed. But in some ways, the ignorance and carelessness only grew worse.
As a teenager, I let my title open doors for me. I fell into bed with women because they wanted me for my name, my body, and little else. I had thought that was something to be proud of. I was wanted. I was useful.
For a while, that”s all I cared about—to be wanted while drowning between the sheets of whichever woman occupied my bed for the night.
In recent years, though, the charade grew more exhausting than it was worth.
Then came the deal.
When Dani said she had never been courted, I had made it my mission to court her properly. I always thought that the formalities of courtships were futile and obnoxious, filled with clichés and superficial thoughts. I had never realized it could be fun, though. That it could be filled with so much laughter.
I had never realized that seeing the flash of someone”s smile could twist my heart and paralyze me.
Until Dani, that is.
I couldn”t pinpoint the exact moment when Dani had crossed the line from being a friend to being something more. I didn”t even know what that more was. All I knew was the pain spiking in my chest.
I wasn”t angry at Dani. I was simply. . .numb. My body, my mind, my soul.
I didn”t want my mother”s gentle words, nor did I deserve them. So even though she called after me, I continued forward.
But the gods did not seem to care about what I wanted because as my palm landed on the railing, light footsteps echoed in the hall, growing louder and louder.
”I thought that was you,” my mother said.
I swallowed, trying to force the heartache back down my throat as my fingers curled around the railing.
”How was the dinner?” my mother asked.
A beat of silence passed, my vocal cords continuing to fail me.
She stepped closer. When she spoke next, her tone shifted in the only way a mother”s voice could, ”Fynneares?” Her hand fell atop mine, and my fingers tightened around the railing as my head spun.
I slipped my hand from beneath hers. ”I”m tired, Mother.”
My foot hit the first step, but that”s as far as I got before her delicate fingers wrapped around my wrist, tugging me.
”Do not walk away from me,” she said, not as a queen but as a mother worried for her son.
My shoulders sagged, but I relented and turned around.
”What happened?” she asked.
I leaned against the railing, the post digging into the middle of my back. ”Does it matter?”
My mother”s brows twisted together, light blue eyes dripping with concern. ”Of course, it matters.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, willing the pain to spike somewhere else—anywhere else but my shattering heart.
My mother quirked a brow.
”Dani and I. . .” I released a heavy sigh. ”We got into a fight.”
She nodded as if she had expected this, as if this was the only possible outcome of any of my courtships.
Was this why everyone close to me kept their shields up? Were they all hiding their true thoughts about my ability to care for someone other than myself? Did none of them believe in me?
I took a step backward and up the steps. ”I don”t want to hear it, Mother.”
”Hear what?” My mother pressed a delicate hand against her chest, feigning ignorance, as if both of us didn”t already know what she was thinking.
I cocked my head to the side. ”The ”I told you so” or the ”you should have planned for this.” Come on, Mother. Let”s hear it. Let”s hear how your son, the Crown Prince, has once again disappointed you.”
She stepped forward, the silk fabric of her silver dress sweeping across the floor. ”Now, why would I say that?”
My fingers curled around the railing, my knuckles blanching, as I said, ”Because it”s what you always say when I do something disappointing. By now, you should be used to it. I may be the Crown Prince, but I am an even bigger disappointment.”
My mother pressed both hands to my cheeks, tilting my face down. Her fingers were soft against the scruff on my jawline. ”Fynneares, you are not a disappointment. If your father could hear you now?—”
I jerked away, and her hands fell. ”Father isn”t here though, is he?”
My mother”s jaw ticked, and water glistened over her sea-blue eyes.
I squeezed my eyes shut, sighing as I rubbed my palms across my face. ”I didn”t—I”m sorry, Mother. I didn”t mean to say that.”
My mother tapped a hand against my cheek. When I opened my eyes, she offered me a small, sad smile. Pain still lingered in her gaze, but the anger I had expected was nowhere to be seen.
”Son, I have been through my fair share of heartaches to know not to take anyone”s words to heart when they are hurting. Your grandmother has heard more than her fair share of painful words from me, no doubt. But?—”
Here it comes, I thought to myself, the moment I’ve been waiting for—when my mother passes on her wisdom while simultaneously proving to me yet again that I do not deserve the title I was given months ago.
My mother inhaled. ”Stop those thoughts, Fynneares. I may not have your gift, but I have known you for your entire life. I can see it when the self-doubt creeps in and you begin questioning your self-worth and ability to lead.”
I stared at the ceiling, at the depiction of the summer sky splayed across the sprawling space. It was meant to give the illusion that the sky was within reach, that our limits were endless, even within the boundaries of the castle”s walls.
Or at least that”s what I had once thought as a child.
Now, I saw it for what it was: a farce—a mirage.
”I am no king, Mother,” I whispered at last.
”As you have said time and time again, but one day, you will be. You and Danisinia have been friends since you were children, I am sure?—”
”This is different,” I said, interrupting.
Her mouth flattened as she looked up at me. ”It might feel that way now, but it will pass.”
My head fell, the weight of tonight becoming too heavy to carry on my shoulders any longer. The soft chestnut waves fell in front of my eyes, shielding me from the world around me, but its halo cocooning me could do little to protect me from the thoughts within.
My mother placed a hand on my shoulder. Tears stung my eyes, and for the first time all night, I let them fall.
The tears I shed rolled down my face, falling down the contours of my cheeks and chin, not in a torrent, but rather painstakingly slow. The adrenaline coursing through my veins when I stormed into Dani”s childhood home was long gone. Without it, everything felt too heavy, too slow, too weighted. Each tear that slipped from the corner of my eye and left a slim trail of water on my face was more painful than the last.
”She’s—she’s my best friend,” I whispered, my hand falling onto the railing beside me for support. ”What am I supposed to do now?”
My mother didn”t say anything, only wrapped her arms around me as my soul bled from my eyes.