When he realized I was there, he turned to look at me. He didn’t make any attempt to be cordial, let his hostility burn like the flames in the hearth. His eyes were so blue, but they seemed bloodthirsty with rage. “The hour is late, so I doubt the contents of your words are noteworthy.”
My father had trained me in the sword, but I knew I was no match for Vulgaris, even though I was three decades youngerthan him. He was far more muscular than I was, and his experience was far greater than mine. I’d never fought a true opponent, but he’d faced the Mammoths before their exile. And even if I had the courage to face him, I’d never killed a man, and I didn’t want a man considered to be an uncle to be my first.
He dismissed me with his coldness, but I ignored the ice and sat in the chair. “This was not a spur-of-the-moment acquisition. You’ve been planning this moment a long time, remaining unmarried and waiting for the moment my father was gone.”
He gave nothing away, drilled his eyes into my face with the same viciousness. “Yes.”
I hadn’t expected him to deny it, but I hadn’t expected him to admit it easily either. I did my best to remain composed, but it was a struggle. To dismantle all my opinions and feelings for a person I’d known since birth was more than my mind could handle. This was the man who had stood beside me at the funeral, one of the men who had carried my father to his final resting place in the dirt.
And he’d been planning this the whole time…
“I would have spared you if I could. But I can’t change the chess pieces on the board. I can’t change the hand we’ve both been dealt.”
“Now I can never marry because I’m married to you. You took away the one thing that mattered to me. I would have rather you asked me to step aside instead of ruining my life like this.”
“And would you have done so?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“It matters not. That’s not how the crown moves. It’s bound by lineage or passed in a free election. Marriage was the only way I could seize it.”
He looked me in the eye as he spoke his truth, admitted all of his corruption and deceit. He didn’t do it with glee, but he didn’t do it with shame either.
“You would do this to your best friend? My father loved you like a brother.”
“I loved him, but as a man, not a king. He inherited a crown he didn’t deserve. Choosing to see the good in people that doesn’t exist is not how a king rules. If he wanted to live in the garden of flowers and rainbows, then he should have been a grounds keeper instead. He wasted his reign and accomplished nothing.”
“He exiled the Mammoths and secured peace?—”
“Iexiled the Mammoths. We had peace when we should have had war, letting King Acana sit upon his throne and ignore us like bugs at his feet. He is not our ally. He just lets us exist because we stay out of his way, but the second we become an inconvenience, he’ll squash us. A famine struck our lands a hundred years ago, and if it happens again, he’ll come for us. One day, he will come for us, mark my words.”
“You’re looking for a reason to take Warthorn, to take their dragons as your own. Don’t pretend this pilgrimage is about self-preservation, because I know what it really is. It’s about greed, power, and immortality. You would put our people’s lives on the line for a war you will probably lose, just for the chance to live forever. My father chose to appreciate the life he had—and appreciate it all the more because it wasn’t permanent. He found happiness in the love he had for my mother and me, forthe flowers in the garden, for the rising and setting sun. You’ve chosen a life of sadness and solitude, all because of power. You chose never to love and never to marry just so you could marry a woman who’s practically family. Fucking disgusting.”
That was the moment when he should shout at me, grab me by the throat and toss me across the room, but he did far more damage with that stare. His eyes sharpened to knives, and his mouth curled into an angry snarl. All the rage built inside him, and it had nowhere to go until it shattered him into shards. “That’s what you think?” He cocked his head slightly, the mania rising in his angry eyes. “I did not deny love—it was denied to me.”
I wanted to step back from his flames, but I was still seated.
“Your father wasn’t the great man you think he was. But I chose to let you believe otherwise.” His voice was different, low like a growl, his anger and frustration forced into his words. “Your father was neither brave nor smart. He chose the easy way out—as always. As for your other accusations, that this is about power, greed, and immortality—you aren’t wrong. I desire those things without shame. At least I’m man enough to admit it.”
I’d expected him to deny my accusations in this confrontation, to lie and lie and then lie some more. But the fact that he spoke the truth in such a straightforward manner destroyed my confidence. And if he was so honest about his intentions now, did that mean he was also honest about my father?
“Are we done here?”
The first of his words punched into my chest, cracked my sternum, and struck my heart. “I won’t let you get away with this.” This wasn’t how my father’s legacy would be dismantled,a treacherous brother in the shadows with a knife in the dark, a daughter banished into irrelevance. He wouldn’t take my future and my crown. He wouldn’t tell the world he’d taken my virginity when it remained intact.
For a brief moment, the curtains over his anger seemed to close. “Despite the ill you think of me, I wish you no harm. You can live a life of privilege in the castle, can sneak any boy you want into your bedroom at night, can dedicate your life to the people in whatever manner you choose. Even though it’s a poor use of your time, you can work in your garden and study the flowers to your heart’s content. Do not dedicate your life to opposing me—because I promise you will regret it.”
It was a threat veiled in flowers and kindness, but a threat, nonetheless.
“When I pass, the crown will be yours. Rule as you see fit.”
“But if you conquer Warthorn and claim the dragons for yourself, then you’ll never pass. You’ll become a dictator, and you’ll lie to everyone just the way you just lied to me.”
His eyes hardened again, regarding me as the opponent I truly was.
“You said my father always took the easy way out. But I won’t.”
It was the middle of the night when I finished the letter.
