Chapter Two Idris #3
“Let me go!“ I try to shout, choking on my raw throat, but her cries drown out my voice.
The scene shimmers, agony-edged, and then I see Mervyn move another iron boot into the fire. He takes nails and a hammer from the table. I cannot pull myself out of this vision. He positions the first nail against the sole of her foot. He strikes.
She—I?—we want to pass out. We want to gnaw our own legs off.
But it doesn’t end. Pain beyond pain, burn beyond burn. And we are conscious every moment. The ocean in us recedes, farther and farther, and we are no longer starlight and moon-pull and magic. We are thin skin and broken bones.
My thoughts are soupy and hot when they come back to me. Her tears are salty on my lips. I am looking through her eyes. I am seeing as she sees. Two iron boots nailed into her feet.
“Now your dancing days are done,” Mervyn says. “I would have given you a kingdom, but you’d rather drown. So be it.”
Frost gathers across the image, and suddenly I am in my own body—my own mind—again.
I’m staring at the dark beyond Speir’s shoulder.
Cold tendrils slink through my clothes and freeze my bones.
They sting my lungs after the warmth of the forge.
When I exhale, there is only the smallest cloud to testify I still live.
“This is your heritage, Prince,” Speir says. “The tie that has bound your family to mine. And now that you’ve seen, I have a question.”
My arms shake, and my stomach heaves. I press my hand to my abdomen and swallow bile. Echoes of pain still race up from my feet, and my knees nearly knock together. I can hardly pay attention to Speir’s words.
“This question has been posed to every father and uncle before you, all along the direct line to Mervyn himself.” Speir studies me with mild curiosity, as if he anticipates my answer and is already bored by it. “Will you pay the price of the crime?”
My father’s order comes back to me, and I wet my lips. No.
But her screams ring in my head. Her pain howls like a hole in my own chest.
“What happens if I say no?” I ask, breathless.
Speir lifts a hand toward the ballroom windows. “I will ask your brother, come his eighteenth. And then I will ask your son, come his. And one day, the price will be due a hundred times over, and no choice will be given.”
Abram. I remember a golden day at the beach.
My mother, Abram, and I were trying to dig a hole in the sand so deep we could visit her country on the other side of the globe.
“Once we arrive, Idris,” she said, blowing hair out of her face and grinning, “I expect you to take care of your brother. The world is wild and strange, and little Abram needs looking after!” And though it was all play at the time, her command went straight to my heart.
She died soon after, and the command morphed into a sacred vow.
I have done everything to shield him from harm.
I have given everything so that he can be safe.
If he saw this, faced this choice, he would be changed forever.
He would become tainted by everything wrong.
Mervyn’s words ring in my head: That doesn’t seem like my problem.
My father believes that. He told me to say no.
But if my mother were alive, and knew what had been asked, and what the cost would be, she would have told me to answer differently.
“What happens if I say yes?” I whisper.
A smile tugs at the corner of Speir’s mouth. “You will pay the price of my queen’s loss with your life.”
My heart thumps, muffled. “I’ll die, you mean?”
“No. Well, not as such.” He rocks back on his heels. “But you will live out her dancing days, and mortal days are short.”
A lumpy weight gathers in the base of my throat. Perhaps it is no. But my mouth stays closed.
You always have a choice, my mother says in my mind.
I see her as she was when she spoke the words: cuddling a tiny, crying Abram to her chest, her dark hair neatly braided against her tanned neck.
She waves a stuffed whale toy—one of my old favorites—in front of Abram’s face, and his crying calms to coos. Look how your choice matters.
Mervyn chose as he did, even knowing others would pay—both his victim and his own family.
The choice has come back again and again, and my family has said no.
My grandfather, with his stern eyes always turned to the horizon, and my father, who held me as I learned to swim.
They said no and allowed the crime to bleed across the years.
Hadn’t I had a nightmare this morning? A nightmare about heat and hammers?
But it wasn’t a nightmare. I see that now. It was a memory. I knew this queen, this Hidden One, in my blood, even before I knew who or what she was to me.
If I say no, I become part of this—this cruelty stretched through generations. I pass it down to Abram.
If I say yes …
“What happens to my family?” I ask.
“The curse would stop with you.”
“But if I die,” I press on, “what assurance do I have that they’ll be safe? That the harm will stay with me?”
Speir touches a hand to his chest. “I give my word, on behalf of my people: You alone would bear the punishment. We have no interest in vengeance, only in justice.”
So my family would be protected. And my death—or absence, or whatever would happen—wouldn’t leave the throne vulnerable.
Abram could make a good king. I wouldn’t be betraying my responsibilities; I would only be moving myself out of the way.
The cost may be great for me, but I could pay it alone.
I could spare everyone following behind me.
Once, many years ago, my father was given this choice. And he chose to give it to me.
But I refuse to give it to Abram.
An undercurrent runs beneath these thoughts, sticky and dark. It is more feeling than phrase, more instinct than language. But I do not want to taste it, whatever it is.
I am done with thinking about it.
“My answer is yes,” I say. My voice comes out stronger than I expected. “I’ll take the punishment.”
Speir stares at me, eyebrows lifted. Then he smiles, teeth white in the darkness. “Interesting. Very well. I will return to collect your dues.”
“W-when?” I stutter, all my bravado draining away.
“Oh, I would not want to ruin the surprise.” He gives me a short bow. “Happy birthday, Prince.”
“Wait—what about …?” My mind is sluggish and cold. “Aren’t you going to forbid me from speaking of it or something?”
Speir laughs, the brief, humoring laugh one might give a child when they suggest something ridiculous. “Oh, tell whomever you like. I even release your father from his promise of secrecy. Announce it to everyone you meet. You will find no help.”
Then he turns and simply walks away. Doesn’t vanish, doesn’t drop into the ground. Just strolls into the darkness of the garden.
My legs shake. Iron shoes and screams. A debt to be paid—how, and when, I have no idea. I stumble into the library. The clock ticks—only a minute has passed. Impossible.
The door opens, and Abram looks in. “Oh! I didn’t expect you to be hiding in here—”
My voice wheezes out of me. I reach for a chair, my legs almost giving way.