“If only it was that easy.”
There was no point forcing him to come with her, so Adalia just smiled and nodded her head. She could see that he was well and all in one piece and that’s all she came for, right?
The duo walked outside towards the Veil. The only sounds were small twigs snapping beneath their steps. They reached the Veil within minutes and, just as Adalia moved to step through, Matthias caught her hand.
“Promise you won’t come here again. It’s too dangerous. My father is getting worse by the moment, and I dread to think what might happen to you should he find you here. Don’t forget, he placed a very large sum of money on your head. Someone could be watching my cabin right now.”
Adalia swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. “I promise I won’t come here again. How will I know if you’re okay, though?”
“You’re just going to have to trust me, little dove.” Matthias squeezed her hand. “Now go . . . light guide you.”
He nudged her towards the milky curtain and Adalia fought tears as she glanced at him one last time before stepping through. “And keep you,” she whispered.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The fight
The last two weeks were just like any other in Oscuro. People went about their business with fake smiles plastered on their faces. Bodies, absent of feeling and thought of their own, moved through streets like the sea moves through every crack of sand on the ocean floor. The steady push and pull of monotone movement, that never came nor went.
What they did during the day baffled Matthias as he watched them from his balcony. Here, loyalty was non-existent. Brother turned on brother for a coin or a favour. Business owners would smile amiably while swindling the coin from your purse. Every person here was on their own, and trust was a fool’s game.
He moved from his viewing platform and headed inside. His mind and body were restless, ever since Adalia showed up at the cabin. She’d come like an answer to a prayer he didn’t know he’d asked for.
A smile graced his face at the thought of her. During the month of her absence, she’d grown even more beautiful—if that was even possible. It wasn’t just her beauty, though. The way shecarried herself with such confidence and kindness brought him to his knees. He could weep at how authority, power, compassion, and truth all pulled together to embody a pillar of undivided strength and beauty. And not once had she displayed a bitter side to her character. In her he’d found a friend, a saviour, and a muse. He could sing forever, write forever, and never capture his adoration in its entirety. His heart beat for only her.
But his father had abused her, physically and verbally. Surely she held some resentment towards all of them? To him?
Heading towards the kitchen, Matthias pondered his next move. He’d been playing the apologetic and doting son, doing whatever it took to keep the eye of his father on him and not her—it was working. The king was slowly paying less and less attention to him and diverting back onto his ever existing plan to take over the world and diminish the light.
Would his father always be this way?
A smell from the kitchen met him in the hallway and he scrunched his nose.
Entering the room, he surveyed many cooks and servants bustling about, red faced and damp hair from the humidity hanging in the air. A large, full pig was roasting on the fire. A lean female sat on a stool near the hearth and turned a thick wooden handle, slowly rotating the animal’s body, cooking it evenly.
Matthias squinted, and his lips formed a thin line. A roasted pig? That could only mean one thing—fight night. Once a month the king held a fight night between his fittest and finest warriors, a match to unconsciousness or even death.
Matthias hated it.
The king revelled in it.
Maybe tonight was a good night to make himself scarce, once and for all. Sure, he loved a fight, but the last thing he needed was someone goading him while his father watched on. For Matthias, fighting was a form of therapy, an escape. A place where he was seen as not just his father’s son, but when the king held these scenes of bloody chaos, it was more punishment than a sport.
Minimal sets of eyes looked up as he walked in, and none bothered to acknowledge him. Matthias moved to a small room to the right of the kitchen, the cold room. Selecting a few different cheese types and some cured meats, he placed them on a wooden board. Then he found some grapes and a few deep purple plums. After placing them on his platter, he left and moved to the massive, square wooden table that sat in the centre of the room, covered with food. Fresh bread had been baked this morning, and it was really the only thing in this entire kingdom that was reasonable to eat. After putting a small loaf on his board, he turned and left, heading back to his room. The only place that offered some sort of solitude.
He ate quietly on the balcony. The sun tried to warm him, but its rays lacked strength. Only in Oscuro, though—it shone with force inside the other realms. Until this moment, he’d never noticed before. After living for one hundred and nine years inside Oscuro, how was he to know the difference? But now that he did, it was uncanny.
Glancing down at his hands, Matthias realised what he needed to numb this ache inside his soul.
Placing the rest of his unfinished food down on the table inside his room, Matthias pulled his shirt effortlessly over his head and dropped it to the floor. Standing in front of his full-length mirror, he surveyed his upper torso and back. Yes, there was definitely more real estate he could use.
He dressed, checked the lock on his door was secure before he winnowed away.
The studio was wedged between two larger buildings on the outskirts of town and dimly lit as he opened the front door and stepped inside. A small blonde-headed woman looked up at him beneath her red-rimmed glasses and smiled. “Long time no see Prince,” she greeted him.
“Hello Abby.” He grinned.
“Time for some ink?” She smiled at him.
