City of Lost Kings

Prologue

The king always knew his slow descent into madness would one day consume him.

Destroy him.

He just did not know it would be so soon.

"You’re going to be late."

The voices nipped at the king’s ears as he made his way down the corridor.

"The mad king is always, always running late."

“Enough,” Desmond whispered aloud, swatting at the air as if the voices had manifested like flies buzzing around his head. He burst through the throne room doors, late, just as the voices predicted and his heart skipped a beat.

For there, upon the dais, stood a group of councilmen and the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Finally,” a councilman grumbled.

“Forgive me, I lost track of time.” Desmond walked up a few steps to meet them.

“All is well.” King Godrick of Novaria stepped forth. “King Desmond Orathka, I present to you, my eldest daughter, Kamari Zeliath. Princess of Novaria. May your marriage bring peace to our kingdoms at long last.”

Desmond hardly heard a word the king said, too distracted by the buzzing in his ear and the erratic beating in his chest. “A pleasure.” Desmond extended his hand, his heart leaping to his throat when Kamari’s skin met his.

“Your Majesty.” She curtsied and Desmond fought the urge to yank her to her feet, to remind her that she will be queen, and will bow to no one, including him.

In the weeks that followed, their days were filled with premarital traditions. Teas, and dances, and games. Normally, Desmond would be put off by the idea of being around so many people for so long, but he quickly found bold Kamari made him.

He was enamored by her. Struck not only by her beauty but by her curiosity.

Her genuine kindness. He couldn’t get enough of her.

He studied her like one of the maps in his library.

The tiny freckle she had near her lip. The dark spirals of hair that sat cropped above her shoulders.

Her eyes, the color of scorched earth, called his attention at a glance.

The way she tilted her head back when she laughed and stars, her laugh.

It was the only sound that drove the voices to silence.

So he made it his priority to make her laugh every day.

He drew her pictures. Wrote her letters and slipped them under her plate at dinner. He plaited her hair and they swapped stories of their homes. Their childhoods and families and duties they were born into.

Desmond couldn’t recall exactly when they fell in love, only that over the year that followed, they did. Despite their marriage being forced upon them, despite the stain of war their fathers had brought to their kingdoms, it was all forgotten when her hand was in his.

“You are nothing like I expected.” Kamari drew a line across his bottom lip with her thumb.

“No?” Desmond’s stomach sank. Could she see him for who he really was?

Mad.

Decaying.

Slowly losing control.

“And how am I like?” he dared to ask as Kamari studied him under the soft light of their bedroom.

Desmond worried, under such scrutiny, if she would be able to see the secrets that lined his eyes or the darkness that was inked into his heart.

He hadn’t told her of the voices. He wasn’t sure he ever would.

He couldn’t imagine the way she’d look at him if she knew.

It would be quite torturous, he decided, if she looked at him any other way than she was looking at him now.

Eyes heavy, lips parted, a smile creeping over them.

“You’re kind.” She inched closer until the tips of their noses brushed. “Romantic.” She kissed him long and slow on the mouth. “And you make me happy.” She drew back enough to look him in the eyes. “And how lucky we are to be happy, Desmond?”

Happy.

Happy was such a foreign word to Desmond, he hardly understood the concept. He spent so much of his life just trying to survive.

Survive his father.

Survive the war.

Survive the voices in his head.

Survive the pressure of being crowned a king when he was better fit for the shadows.

Kamari’s lips brushed his again, and as heat spread across his skin, he decided that despite the hardships of his life, of living with a mind that didn’t feel like his own, her lips on his must be happiness.

Yes, he thought. I’m happy.

He clung to the thought like it was something tangible.

Kamari is the light that will keep me from drifting. My moon that will keep me grounded.

And for a long time, it worked. Her laugh and her voice were so intoxicating, he hardly heard the voices at all. They were a distant memory. A nightmare he was finally free from. They fell into a routine, she at his side, making decisions together for a better Vargah. A better Novaria.

For a year they stayed this way. Growing deeper and deeper in love, until he could no longer keep the voices out.

Desmond sat at his desk shaking off another bout of fatigue.

"You cannot stay, Desmond."

He shooed the voices away, but they pressed on.

"Leave now."

"You will be better off."

"Come with us."

“I don’t answer to ghosts!” He threw his pen atop his desk and stood.

“I don’t answer to voices in my head. I will not answer to you.

” He glared into his empty study, but he felt their presence in the chill of his skin and the sweat on his brow.

In the spiraling, sinking feeling of dread in his stomach.

Silence stretched from corner to corner, the darkness a rising storm in the small room. Pressure rose in Desmond’s chest, pressing and pressing until he couldn’t breath.

"You know very well, Desmond Orathka, we are not in your head."

Desmond picked up his pen and sat. Scribbling any and every detail he could into the final pages of his journal.

Desperate to put onto paper what he dared not say aloud.

He wrote feverishly, his words bleeding together on the parchment.

For years, he journaled every moment of his life because he knew, deep down, his life would not be long.

Sweat dripped from his brow. His fingers shook and ached. The darkness grew behind him and within him, gripping his chest like a vice.

Time, time, time.

He was running out of time.

But still he wrote. He wrote despite their warnings not to, he had to put it onto paper. He needed her to know. A sharp pain erupted behind his eyes. He cried out, pressing his hands over his ears.

“LEAVE ME ALONE–”

“Desmond?”

The swell of darkness retreated to the corner, shrank down until it was nothing, and Kamari was there in her silk nightgown, like a beam of moonlight, brushing his tangled hair from his face.

“Desmond, are you alright?” Worry etched its way between her brows and Desmond had a thought to kiss it away.

“I’m sorry, my love.” He cleared his throat and took her hands in his own. “Just getting some thoughts out.” He smiled and hoped she wouldn’t see the fear behind it.

“You know you could tell me, right?” Kamari wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. “If something is bothering you.” She brushed his hair from his face and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “If something is hurting you, I need you to tell me Desmond.”

The voices were there, humming in his ears like vile insects.

"Do not tell her."

“I’m just tired, my love.”

Kamari’s brows pinched and he knew that she didn’t believe him, but then her face softened and she kissed the tip of his nose. “Then come to bed.”

When she turned to go, he couldn’t help himself.

He grabbed her wrist and brought her into his lap.

“I love you Kamari Orathka.” His fingers tangled in her mess of curls as he kissed her.

Keep kissing me, he thought. Kiss me until our lips are bruised and our lungs are burning.

Kiss me until we are nothing but bone and dust. If you keep kissing me, I won’t lose you.

Instead, she pulled away and because he had no power when it came to his wife, he let her go.

“And I love you, Desmond Orathka.” Breathing heavily, she stood. “Five minutes,” she said. “Don’t keep me waiting.” Her grin shone through the darkness and Desmond memorized the shape of her lips and sway of her hips before he went back to his journal.

"You know what you need to do, Desmond."

The voices were gentle now. A soft caress against his neck.

"You have always known what you needed to do. It’s the only way to keep her safe."

“Safe from what?” He barely recognized his own voice. Weak and full of defeat.

The voices slithered up his spine, tucking themselves tightly in his ear.

"Keep her safe, from the truth."

Desmond glanced down at his journal, to the nonsensical notes and drawings. Mad, the people called him and perhaps they were right. The truth was there, right in front of him.

He buried his face in his palms and choked on a sob.

His mind had not been his own for some time now, but tonight was different.

There was a sense of finality in the dark of his study that made his chest tighten and his heart race.

Like if he closed his eyes, even for a moment, he’d be lost for good.

Desmond sucked in a sharp breath and shoved the journal deep in his desk, in a secret compartment he hoped no one would find.

For years he had written every detail of his life, and now, what he wrote tonight, he wanted to bury it like a shameful secret.

He stared at his hands, ink staining his fingers.

They trembled as he wiped them against his pants.

“I can’t leave her.”

"Come Desmond."

“Will she be okay?” Please let her be okay.

"That is up to you," the voices purred.

"Come," they said again.

And this time, he obeyed.