Chapter 9 #3
“It was a mistake, Kye,” he said somberly. “An innocent mistake made by a woman who loved you with all her heart. All she hoped for was for you to become the king that Olathana deserved.”
“Not like this.” Kye stared at his hands with disgust, as if they were splashed with poison or covered in blood. “Anything but this. She should’ve just ordered my execution instead. She could’ve talked to me first.”
“But she did. Many times. She tried to talk sense into you. She begged you to act responsibly. And what did you do?” Arnon poked an accusatory finger in Kye’s direction as his voice grew sharper, colder. “You sent them to Sarnala and got them all killed, Delmar too.”
Suddenly pivoting to Arnon, Kye roared like a wounded beast.
“Kye...N-nephew,” Arnon’s voice shrank. Terror made him stutter.
Kye advanced on him, like a predator prowling toward a prey.
Arnon flinched, holding out his hands as if trying to defend himself from Kye’s deadly presence. Backing away, the prince took one step too many and fell into one of the pools with a splash.
Did the fall save him from being turned into a glass figurine?
Deep inside, I didn’t believe that Kye would do that to his own uncle. I hoped he wouldn’t. But I didn’t know Kye well enough. I certainly had never seen him this...devastatingly broken.
With his fingers hooked in his hair, he sank down onto the floor as if all strength had left him.
Prince Arnon moved to the other end of the pool. He didn’t swim in strokes like people normally would. Instead, he just raked a hand through the water, and a low swell carried him across. He climbed out, careful to keep his distance from a kneeling Kye.
The prince’s clothes were soaked now. Puddles gathered on the glass around his sandaled feet, but he ignored that.
“Your mother couldn’t bear for the prophecy to come true,” the prince said, cautiously keeping the pool between Kye and himself. “She tried to change your fate.”
“And instead, she fulfilled the prophecy even faster,” Kye replied flatly. “I never wanted to believe it, but essentially, every single part of that vile prophecy has come true, hasn’t it?”
His head dropped between his hunched shoulders, he didn’t look up as his uncle carefully sidestepped him along the wall.
“It wasn’t the queen’s fault,” the prince said cautiously.
“No, it was not,” Kye agreed. “It was mine. Is that what you want to hear? Do you want me to admit it? Regret it? Repent maybe? But what’s the point in any of it now? What would it change? Nothing.”
Coming as close as he dared, the prince stopped, looking like he really wished to leave now but was afraid to trigger another outburst in his royal nephew who was sitting in his way to the exit.
“Your Majesty...” the prince started hesitantly.
Kye slowly rose to his feet.
“Go,” he said. “Find a few guards brave enough and pay them whatever they ask. Tell them they can come in after dinner, just before I go to bed. They can leave the moment I’m up in the morning.
I won’t enter the great hall while they’re here, and I won’t come close to touching them.
I don’t even need them to fight the monsters if they appear again.
I’ll fight the creatures myself. All I need is for someone to wake me at any sign of danger.
” He rubbed his eyes, his voice dropping.
“I’ve been up for three nights now. I need to sleep. ”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Prince Arnon bowed ceremoniously, turned to the exit, and...finally spotted me.
I straightened and walked down the corridor into the great hall, pretending I’d just walked into the palace instead of eavesdropping on a good chunk of their conversation.
“And you are?” The prince arched a dark-gray eyebrow.
Turning over his shoulder, Kye followed his uncle’s gaze toward me.
“Oh, there you are, my butterfly,” he said lightly, the devastating sadness draining from him in my presence.
I winced at yet another nickname. No one had as many nicknames for me as Kye did.
Even Liam mostly called me by my name, using “babe” on rare occasions, which I also disliked.
Kye seemed to have a whole arsenal of silly endearments, ranging from cringy to patronizing, to cloying, and he kept coming up with new ones all the time.
“Butterfly” wasn’t the worst of them, though.
Besides, it proved hard to feel displeased with him when he looked at me like I was the only ray of sunshine that brightened his existence.
“Don’t you look lovely?” A smile sprang to his lips as he took in the ribbons in my hair.
“Oh, thanks.” I almost forgot about my new hairdo.
I brought my hand to the ribbon on my shoulder, glancing at the prince uncertainly. He stood nearby but said nothing, just eyeing me for a few moments.
“Oh, right.” Kye turned to him. “Allow me to introduce my highly esteemed uncle, His Highness Prince Arnon, the current regent of Olathana Kingdom. And this is my dearest guest, Maren.”
“Blackwell,” I added, offering my hand to the prince. “Maren Blackwell. Nice to meet you.”
The prince took my hand but seemed unsure of what to do with it. I offered it to him for a handshake, but he tried to turn it over as if for a kiss. Not letting him succeed at that, I shook his hand firmly, then retrieved mine promptly from him.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the prince muttered before hastily saying his goodbyes and leaving promptly.
“He could’ve at least dried his clothes before leaving,” Kye noted grumpily. “Now they’ll say I came unhinged again and tossed my uncle into the pool.”
“Has that happened?” I asked. “Do you actually toss people into pools?”
He shrugged. “Occasionally. But most do it themselves. Some run away. Others swim away. No one wants to stay here for long. Admit it, you would’ve flown away too, my pretty butterfly, if you had a choice.”
I would’ve if I could, but I didn’t admit it out loud. I didn’t want to bring him down again after the intense conversation he’d had with his uncle.
“Did you argue about me?” I asked instead.
He rubbed his chest, suppressing a sigh. “Oh, we argue about many things, my darling. All we do is argue whenever he comes by, which is probably why he hates coming here.”
“What do you argue about?”
He waved a hand. “Everything, really. Arnon is the Prince Regent. He’s the one who’s currently wearing the proverbial Crown of Olathana.
‘Proverbial’ because I broke the actual crown, as has been prophesied,” he added slowly.
“In fact, I went even further than the prophecy said. I broke two crowns, my mother’s and my own. ”
“Why did you break it?”
He paused his gaze on me, his lips pursed for a moment. A storm brewed in his eyes that made me instantly regret asking the question.
“Because golden filigree is exceptionally fragile when turned to glass,” he finally said.
“You touched it.”
“That’s all it took,” he confirmed. “I kept my crown on the stand by my bed. When I woke up that cursed morning, I took it from the stand to put it on my head like always did, and it shattered in my fingers. I had a splitting headache, a dry mouth, and a terrible hangover. Then I saw a glass statue in my bed, and realized it was the woman I spent the night with.”
That must’ve been awful. I covered my mouth with my hand, unable to comprehend the horror he must’ve felt.
“I was terrified. And so fucking confused,” he said, shaking his head.
“Then I realized I didn’t feel the water.
I couldn’t even swim out of my rooms that were in the underwater part of the palace.
I climbed up the seaweed and the coral branches while they turned to glass under my hands.
Then I ran through this hall, roaring as everything around me was turning to glass.
The marble of the floor, the flowers on the walls, the pillars of the ancient coral that had lived and grown for thousands of years.
I ran to my mother, because even then I knew she was someone who still loved me.
Even when she yelled at me, even when I didn’t listen, she always loved me.
I ran into her arms. I hugged her. I pressed my chin to the Crown of Olathana on her head.
.. And Olathana lost them both. Its beloved queen and its priceless crown.
I murdered the one and shattered the other. ..”
His voice broke. He turned away from me. Then I heard a faint clinking of glass on glass at his feet.
‘Kye?” I stepped in front of him.
A tear trembled on his long eyelashes. He blinked, and the tear fell onto his cheek, then turned into a solid drop of glass before hitting the floor with a quiet clinking sound.
He was right. He killed everything. Even his tears died as glass.
“But no one can change the past,” he said firmly, then marched out of the hall in long, determined strides that I couldn’t keep up with.
Yet I ran after him anyway. It was an impulse, nothing more. I owed him no compassion because he’d made a hostage out of me. His past was heartbreakingly tragic, but even he admitted that he was the only one to blame for it.
At the same time, I knew that if I were the one in tears, he would’ve tried to comfort me. He did soothe my tears before, and I couldn’t let him do it alone now.
I searched for him by the water on his favorite coral branch. He seemed to derive comfort from the view and sounds of the ocean. But he wasn’t there.
Instead, I found him in our bedroom. He was lying on his glass bed, with his arms under his head, watching the dancing lights and shadows on the high ceiling above. There were no more tears in his eyes. His expression was calm, too calm, almost like the mask of death.
I walked over to him.
“Don’t come too close please,” he said, not taking his eyes off the ceiling. “The closer you are, the harder it is for me to resist hugging you.”
I stepped back to the middle of the room.
“What can I do to make you feel better?” I asked softly.
He sucked in a breath, sitting up.
“Oh, sweetheart...” he exhaled.
The mask of death slipped off instantly. So many emotions warred on his face from gratitude to longing to simply relief.
“Everyone knows what I’ve done,” he said gravely. “Every single person in this kingdom has their own ideas about what they want to do to me. No one has ever asked what they can do for me.” He shook his head in wonder. “I don’t deserve you, my darling.”
“That’s right,” I agreed. “You don’t. But everyone deserves at least some degree of understanding and compassion from someone.”
“Even the monster who killed his own mother?” He swallowed hard, waiting for my reply.
“Kye, you hugged her,” I protested. “You didn’t kill her. The curse did. You absolutely deserve sympathy for your loss, not the blame for it. I’m sorry no one has acknowledged that for you yet.”
He mourned the loss of his mother while being branded as her murderer by the entire kingdom and shunned for it. No one deserved that.
He ran a hand over his forehead, and I noticed how utterly exhausted he looked.
“You’re tired, Kye. You haven’t slept for three nights now.”
“Fae can survive without sleep for a long time,” he dismissed.
“Survive doesn’t mean thrive,” I countered. “Have a nap. Rest. Nothing will come from the depths during the day, right? You don’t need to protect me while the sun is up.”
“What are you going to do while I’m sleeping, my butterfly?” he asked gently.
“Don’t worry. I won’t run away,” I promised, managing a smile.
There was nowhere to run, and he knew it.
“I’m more concerned about you dying from boredom. There is really nothing for you to do here. Hardly even a chair to sit on. I shall get the servants to bring you some furniture.” He made a move to get up, but I waved at him to lay down again.
“Later. We can furnish this place however you like later, after your nap. There are a table and chairs in the dining room, and I can always sit outside. Maybe I’ll have some tea or something.”
“The guards at the front doors will get you whatever you ask them for. Pencils for drawing, books to read, thread and needle if you want to embroider something.”
“I’m not much for embroidery.” I shook my head with a laugh. “But I could use some books. Where would they get the books?”
“My uncle had moved the royal library to his palace long ago. There are plenty of books and scrolls on any subject you like.”
“Maybe there’s something that will help me figure out how to break your curse?” I asked hopefully.
“Stubborn as always,” he muttered with a soft chuckle, laying back onto the bed. “You see, my brave little minnow, I’m starting to believe that this curse isn’t meant to be broken. It’s not just a curse but a punishment to be simply endured for as long as I shall live.”
The resignation in his voice gutted me. As an outsider, my hope was fresh, and a solution seemed very much within reach. But he’d been living with it for longer than a human lifetime, and he’d learned how useless that hope was.
Kye’s iridescent eyelashes fluttered close.
“Sing for me, butterfly,” he murmured sleepily.
“Oh...no, you don’t want me singing, trust me.” I laughed awkwardly.
My singing voice could never compare to his, not even close.
“I don’t even know any lullabies,” I added.
“Didn’t your mother sing you to sleep?”
I tried to think of a single instance of that happening and couldn’t recall any.
“No,” I said. “Never. A nanny usually put me to sleep until I was old enough to go to bed on my own.”
“Then sing anything, any song. Please. Or not even a song, just hum something. I just want your voice to be the last thing I hear before I fall asleep.”
I wasn’t much of a singer, but everyone could hum, right?
So I hummed. I hummed softly as the siren king finally drifted asleep for the first time in three days.