I hope that is why she does it.
Sharing a cell in the dungeons with my brother hasn’t been the way I expected. It is nothing like the times I stayed here before.
No torturing.
No drawing.
No loneliness.
No being self-conscious.
My brother is heartbroken. He says he isn’t, but I can see it in his eyes.
It has been years since we have been talking. But now we are here together, arrested for the same crime we finally put our indifference to the side. We talked.
About our father, Mom, Hazel, the future and also the past.
It might be weird and despite it being awkward most of the talks, I feel more comfortable around him than I have ever done before. Just like he wants to check all the boxes of the list he opens his mouth, shifting uncomfortably at the other side of the room.
“So you and Eliane?” he asks, his hair still muddled, purple eye bags under his eyes. I raise my brow at him, surprised by the question since he was just asleep, ignoring the hard sound that woke him up.
“What about her?” I hiss, balling my fist, wanting to defend her.
He opens his mouth but closes it fast again, and I relax my hands. Manes, I need to calm down.
“Sorry,” I murmur, standing up from the mattress, strolling around the room, looking down to the floor as I start talking.
“What do you want to know?” I ask, voice back to its normal tone.
“Do you love her?”
I stop, freezing as I turn around to face my brother who just asked a really daring question, mostly because the rest of our chats were nice, but stiff. It is probably one of the more straight up question he ever asked me. I straighten my spine.
And do I love her?
I throw my head back, my brother’s eyes tracking my moves. I think the sting in my chest says enough.
I am starting to love this girl.
I face my brother again, looking for the correct words to tell him how I feel, what the trials, our body and forced working together have done to me. How I hate myself for loving her because she deserves so much better, someone who can give herthe world. But even how much more I hate myself for not kissing her. For not showing the affection I so badly feel for her.
“I get it,” he says smiling, nodding his head, like he exactly understands how it is. I don’t try to explain myself, because the mourning in his eyes tells me he might be right. Instead, I walk towards the door of the dungeon. A paper lies on the floor. All that noise from the guards just for a little envelope. I tear it open along the edges. A newspaper.
I sit down next to Zephron, making it possible for him to read as well. My jaw locks in place, the title catching my attention.
DRIMYÉEKLY PAPER
KING OF DRIMYÉ DEAD
and the long-lost queen takes his place.
The trials have come to an end, but that’s not all. The king was brutally murdered. Rumor has it that his two sons stabbed him through the heart after recalling the manes. We cannot confirm or deny if this is true. Some other strange things happened too. The sun was taken and it hasn’t reappeared.
