Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
MORGANA
I was the first to settle into the observatory cart after restless sleep. The train jumped around the railway far too much, and each time the idea of sleep even crossed my mind, terrible nightmares plagued the darkness behind my eyes.
So, at first light, I slipped out of my sleeping compartment to explore the various carts. There were a few servants readying the dining area, and for a moment I wondered if we were accompanied by anyone else.
But this was a royal train. Of course they cooked for the Ton.
I scurried off as soon as they acknowledged my prying eyes, finding my way to cushioned loveseats and plush chairs that faced large, clear windows. I watched the sun peak above the mountains of Verdantis’ countryside in awe.
Not even ten minutes into the quiet calm of it all came a, “Lovely, isn’t it?”
The hairs on the back of my neck raised at the cool, tempting voice behind me. I did not turn to face the crown prince. I didn’t even acknowledge him with a hum. I merely stared out the window, recalling the days Galen and I traversed through the small villages of those very mountains before settling in Verdantium.
“Are you hungry?”
Another question. Another stretch of unanswered silence. The floorboards creaked beneath Aster’s weight as he shifted further into the train car, standing behind my seat so he could steal a glimpse of the beauty I selfishly wished was my own to behold. Warmth bounced between my fingertips at a terrible thought?—
Perhaps I could steal his sight. Then it would be my own. He’d never be given the gift of beauty again.
Yes, a terribly tempting thought.
“The mountains north of Verdantis’ borders are nowhere near as grand. It grows so cold the closer you get to Kryeries that the railways are too dangerous for royals to consider.”
“What would a royal want to do in Kryeries?” I finally muttered so quietly, I wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t heard me at all.
“Many things,” he said in haste. The cushion pillowed behind me as he leaned against it, the warmth of his hand like a ghost. Hardly there, but close enough to the nape of my neck to notice. “Notably, that is where we attended the University of Arcane Magics.”
“A scholar. I thought they were supposed to be smart?”
When a chuckle cracked out of him, I smiled subtly. I heard his knees pop as he kneeled, and I almost wanted to twist toward him and capture those crimson eyes with shadows that danced throughout. But I remained.
Silent. Still. Sulking.
“I attended the University as a child through my young adult years, as you’ve been told. That said, I was not raised as a scholar.”
“That much is certain.” Finally, I turned to sit with my knee propped on the cushion, my glare softening at the sunken skin beneath his eyes. He looked years older when lethargy consumed him. If I was any more a fool, I’d ask him what kept him up at night. Instead, I said, “What business does a university have teaching a child?”
He held my stare for a long while, neither smiling or frowning, but eventually a grimace curved onto his lips. “Nothing good. But, without it, I wouldn’t know the traditions and sacrifices expected of me to the degree I do. My father is many things, but a teacher is not one.”
“What evils did they show you?”
His eyes widened, but eventually he looked through me, as if he could still see the mountains we passed by. After situating his forearm flat against the back of the loveseat so he could prop his chin on it, his gloved hand captured the light in my periphery.
“I fear you will see me as a monster if I confide in you.”
His words were almost like a sick, twisted confession. As if confiding in someone—especially a person meant to be his captive—was more dangerous than anything else we’d done. For some reason, this angered me. So much so that I almost slapped him. I had such a desire to shove him to the ground in anger at what he’d put me through many times. Well, actually, I had done such a thing . In the fountain.
But I saw loneliness in him. It was hollow.
“Perhaps it’s time you prove to me whether you are as monstrous as the rumors say.”
A small smile inched onto his lips, but the sadness lingered everywhere else. “Every child in my family with the gift of shadows is sent to the University after they learn to speak and read. We get our own housing, classes, and professors. They wait for the next generation in silent patience. We were not permitted to mingle with the other pupils until we were sixteen. Even then, it was earned. Supervised.”
“And when were you sent away?”
“When I was six. My sister too—she was five.”
Ten years of practical solitude? Family and professors were all he had. My chest ached at the thought. I knew that pain. Not to such a degree—on the journey away from home, Galen and I had the choice to mingle and make friends.
But they never lasted.
I think that was why I found it heartbreaking every time I thought about Isaac’s goofy laugh or Thena’s cold, dry humor. They were stability to me. They were my family.
Looking at Aster, I didn’t think he had the luxury of friendships. I doubted he knew the meaning of the word.
“Tell me more.” I cocked my head. “I do not hear monstrous stories, Aster. I only hear a depressing upbringing a child should never be put through.”
He may not have been a monster. Perhaps just a liar.
Aster shook his head slowly, darkness clouding the minimal light he had in those crimson eyes. Brick by brick, I saw that wall erecting before us once more. I frowned and sighed quietly, turning back to the windows.
“Tell me about the rumors, Morgana.”
My ears perked. “I beg your pardon?”
“The rumors. That I am a monster. What have you heard?”
I blinked and chewed on the question. “For the first few years here, many doubted the king had any heirs at all. That the bloodline would die with him, or be usurped by an unfit ruler. When I grew older, I reckon around the time you returned home, stories were resurrected that the king’s children were home. Some people said you were a shadow walker, born of death and skinnier than a skeleton. Others said you were a tempter who lured women out of bars so you could feed the shadows that plagued you with their souls. Then, those with any wits to them merely gossiped about the things your family would do every coronation.”
Silence.
Deathly cold silence. Then, his voice cracked with a broken question before he found his words.
“What sort of things?” he asked quietly. Weakly, in fact.
I paused. “They are just stories, Aster.”
“Tell me.” He paused this time. “Please.”
I closed my eyes, heart thrumming in my chest. “Some said your family reaps one hundred souls to extend your short, plagued life. Others thought the newly crowned king was a vessel for the first emperor to reign indefinitely, and that in order to complete the possession, a village must die. All in all, new kings foretell lost lives.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think they are stories.”
“Most stories hold truth, do they not?”
I opened my eyes and turned to look at him. His glazed eyes finally refocused on mine. “Does this one, Prince Aster?”
Aster frowned. He finally stood and turned the corner to sit on the chair next to me. “Our coronation is meant to appease the Goddess of Death. My father, his father, and the ten other fathers before him all thought that calla lilies and massacres to feed the blood lust within our magic was a key to understanding the cure. It is what we were taught at the University. First, how to control the blood lust of our magic, and second, how to survive the trials that awaited us. For my sister, it was basic fighting skills. Wielding lessons. For Atlas and I, it was how to beat a clock. So, yes, Morgana. My family does sacrifice hundreds of lives every coronation to feed the plague.”
I wasn’t sure what I should feel. My breath kept catching in my throat, and my heart continued racing, but I stared at Aster indifferently. I didn’t see him as a monster—and perhaps that was because he hadn’t actually committed a massacre such as those stories told. But he was raised to. He would have to.
He was raised to do many evil things.
Did it make me equally as evil if my nerves were something else entirely?
“And what do you think?”
“I think—” Aster sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, it doesn’t matter what I think, does it? I’ll be forced into it anyway.”
“Many good monarchs turn the tides. Decent ones at least attempt to. It is the bad ones who settle for complacency. So, let us pretend you are not complacent. What do you think about this ceremony?”
Aster beheld me, jaw going slack, if only for a second. He stammered for his words before bracing his arms on his knees and lowering his focus to the floor. “I think it does little good. My father and grandfather both deteriorated at the same age and they both did monstrous things in the name of a cure. I’ve been racing for answers, but with the king so…”
Aster trailed off, and the frown told me he thought he’d said too much. I hadn’t seen the king since being taken. I knew what that meant.
“I fear I’ve run out of time to find a peaceful alternative.”
It was a whispering plea. An ultimate confession that I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t told anyone else. “Is that why you’ve taken me?”
His attention lifted to mine slowly, pain riddling his entire face. I almost thought I saw tears. When he blinked, however, gone was the damp sadness. Neutrality—nay, numbness remained. I ached. I knew what this sort of loneliness felt like. I shouldn’t care how lonely someone like him was. But I did. Damn him to hells, I did.
Aster nodded. “And for that, I am sorry.”
It was my turn to feel the sting of tears. But, for some reason, I didn’t regret the one that slipped down my cheek. I didn’t even blink them away. “You should be.”
Aster moved from his chair, kneeling on the floor in front of me in a swift motion, and took one of my hands. I gasped, straightening my posture and pressing into the back of my loveseat. “I need you to work with me, Morgana. To train with me and Erynna these next three days as if they are the only days that matter. We must do what we need to do when we are in Avendatis, but when the politics can be ignored, I need you to try to master this darkness inside of you.”
“Why?” I breathed so quietly, I wasn’t sure if it was a coherent question. “So I can cure you? Is that it?”
Aster shook his head once. “In a perfect world, Morgana, you are my answer. An easy, peaceful cure. An antidote, even, that removes any possibility of such a terrible plague. But I am not an optimistic man.” He squeezed my hand, the smooth leather glove warm against my skin. “But even Erynna would be fated for an untimely death if it weren’t for her training, not of madness but of something more volatile. Something you felt in the morgue when you took that arcanist’s life. You have seen what this magic can do. You’ve felt the bloodshed with your own hands.”
That truth stung, but I shook my head.
His other hand rested on my knee. “So you wish to master this magic for me?” I hissed as another tear fell down my cheek. “To keep me locked away so I do not murder half the town?”
“No. Morgana, no.” He reached the hand on my knee to my face and wiped the tear away before it fell off my chin, his shadowed eyes dancing across the bridge of my nose, to my lips. “I vowed to you freedom. I just need to know you can survive this if we are never to cross paths again. And, on a more selfish note, I need to know if… if you are my answer. You are my last hope, I fear. You and the godsdamned, cursed mirror. “
The quiver in my lips ceased, and my glare softened. I didn’t want to believe his words.
But had Aster ever really lied to me? I loved to call him a liar. But was that just a reason to hate him? To paint him as a villain?
Even at the ball, he’d introduced himself to me with his true name.
He didn’t tell me he knew Galen personally. But was that a lie?
Or was that simply holding his cards close to his chest?
“And what if I find you to be a monster?”
“I’d say you’re smart.”
I choked on a laugh, my own eyes falling to his mouth. I wanted to see the words fall off his tongue. “What does it make me if I say you are anything but a monster?”
“Then I’d say you were a fool.”
“And fools do… foolish things?”
Nights ago, he’d torn away just at the phantom touch of a kiss. He hadn’t rejected me like Atlas had.
But it burned all the same.
Hells, I didn’t even want to kiss Atlas. I merely wanted the skin to skin. Warmth. To feel a person’s touch .
Aster didn’t answer. I reached for the gloved hand still dancing over my cheek. I laced my fingers around his.
“And fools do foolish things, Aster?” I repeated with confidence that hadn’t been there prior.
“Stupid things, yes,” he whispered.
So I whimpered as the nerves dared me to stop, grabbed his face, and kissed him.
With it—such a soft, delicate, nervous, uncertain kiss—the nightmares behind my eyelids ceased. I wanted to hate it, and part of me did.
But I loved the peace it brought forth.