“The ability to think and talk—” Aeidas shuffles in his chair, his patience obviously tested.
“I was able to think perfectly before your experiments, too, thank you very much.” The rat lifts his snot haughtily.
“So a dear friend and a...” He opens his hands in a surrendering gesture.
“An advisor. And you are?” Tiny beady eyes lock with mine.
“I am Talysse.” This is probably a delirious and incredibly vivid dream. Hopefully, I made it to the safety of my room before passing out.
The rat glares at the prince, and the latter just shrugs.
“Do tell me, dear Talysse, is it true that the cats in the human towns are as big as lynxes?” Desmond asks politely. His posture and demeanor remind me of a miniature courtier, and I nearly burst into laughter.
“Lynxes? I have never heard of such a creature before.” I thoughtfully tap my lips with a finger.
“Lynxes. Majestic creatures, though Desmond might disagree. Gone, like many others.” His voice drops. “Which reminds me of why we’re here. Talysse. There is something I need to show you.”
“Look, this is a lynx, Talysse!” The squeaky voice calls me to another table he’s swiftly climbing. The rat points with his tiny, distressingly human-like paw to a book filled with colored pictures.
My eyes widen. A graceful creature with beautiful eyes stares at me from the colorful page. So many lives were wasted, and the whole world turned into a wasteland due to the Fae desire for more power.
“I brought you here to show you how it was, Talysse.” Aeidas is close behind me, the warmth of his body seeping through my shirt. “Take your time and look around; see all that’s been lost.” He gestures to the books and the paintings.
“All of this is lost because of the Fae, Aeidas,” I state the obvious.
“I do not deny my kind’s fault, nor do I reject the responsibility,” he states, his fingers brushing his Ancestral Mark, “yet some of us are missing…all this.”
Well, that’s news.
“Isn’t Unseelie profiting from the curse? Keeping us all on a leash, dependent on the magic you control?” A deep furrow appears between his dark brows, and, to my surprise, he nods in agreement.
“Some might call me a traitor to my kind, Talysse, but I would do anything in my power to bring it back. I will go down in history as the king who would break the Hex.”
Wait. What?
The silence stretches, thick and charged, between us. Even the birdsongs and the chirping of cicadas and crickets have ceased.
Now I understand why he brought me here to share this. He would lose his crown and his life if his family and this whole wretched court learned about his ambitious plan. All Unseelie and their allies are interested in keeping the status quo, controlling and milking the resources of all provinces while offering them meager protection against the dark.
This is far more dangerous than those cursed Trials.
“Why confide in me, Aeidas? Because I’ll be dead soon, and you need justification if it happens to be by your hand? Will you sleep better after if I join your cause now?”
“I cannot…stand when you look at me like I’m a power-starved maniac.” The prince drags a palm over his face. “I need the crown to bring all this—” he gestures around, “back.”
Desmond’s beady eyes study me, and he raises a furry brow. The rodent also seems conflicted with Aeidas’s choice to trust me.
“That’s why you brought me here? To convince me that it all is for a noble cause? That I should gladly sacrifice myself?” I bark a bitter laugh. “Fae or human, you men are all the same. Always chasing some noble cause without caring for the lives lost in the process. Good luck with getting your crown, Prince, but I’m also planning to win this. And I’m not doing it to chase some shadows on the wall, but for something very real: saving my little sister from marrying a monster and giving us both a dignified life.”
His eyes glitter like gems reflecting starlight. A smirk stretches his lips, and for some reason, it annoys me. His rat climbs up his shirt and settles on his shoulder.
“I’ve never expected you to surrender, Talysse. You might be an outlaw, but you’d never settle to be a pawn in someone’s grand plan.”
“Mock me as much as you want for having dreams that are…down to earth, but your plan has a fault.”
He crosses his arms and smiles with that royal confidence that I find maddening. “Oh. And what might it be?”
“As a crowned king, you might have all the resources to search for ways to reverse the Hex, but it is impossible. Many have tried.”
