“Unfortunately for me.”
His smile did not reach his eyes. “Though that is not all. I feel the need to protect you.”
My mouth fell open as my face scrunched up in disbelief. “In what world are you protecting me?”
“So far, both of ours.” He exhaled through his nose in a brief laugh. Did he just try to make a joke?
Any trace of humor left his face. “I was hoping you would see by now.”
“See what?”
He didn’t respond, but what drifted up to the surface of his eyes was enough to tell me how he felt, though it did nothing to explain what it meant. Disappointment. Pity?
We held each other’s gaze for a moment. He wasn’t very talkative tonight. I’d have to pry what I wanted out of him.
“Why did you come to another world? You successfully carried out a coup, why not take over Svealin or any other kingdom in Dreigo?”
“Would you want to remain in the world that stole the only one who ever loved you, a world that hunted you down to rid itself of you until it discovered you had some use it could exploit?”
I let out a soft breath. His impenetrable barrier splintered, and what seeped out was not so foreign to me. For a moment, I could feel something from him, something I could relate to. Something human. My world seemed content for my disappearance too, and now I certainly would be hunted. Extinguished.
“Alaric.” He stiffened at my use of his name. “Do you want to know what I see?” At his lack of protest, I continued, “You have so much pain inside you. You’ve blocked it from moving, from living out its life, from dying out, and it’s only continued to build. It has all piled up until it has finally spilled over, leaching out onto others. Your pain is a tidal wave, and it’s taking out everyone around you.”
A wisp of anger lit up his eyes until he concealed it with a smirk. “And what do you think I should do?” I did not miss the patronizing tone.
“Let your pain live. It will die eventually.”
My words wouldn’t get through to him. And why would they? And why did I want them to? He had been the source of my suffering. I should want him to hurt. But he used his pain as a weapon, and it only hurt everyone else around him. And unlike him, I didn’t want my pain reaching out to others. I did not want him to hurt.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, you’re quite right. The only problem is, I know exactly what I am. It’s hard to look evil in the eye and not become evil yourself. I wasn’t strong enough.”
I was stunned for a moment at his confession. I didn’t expect someone like Alaric to admit to weakness, but he seemed fine to accept it, and all too willing to accept his dark path.
“Did you kill the king?”
His slow grin was all the unsettling answer I needed. He had killed his own father. But his father killed his mother and was intent on killing him until he could use him. Perhaps I could find some sort of warped comfort within the reasons, but he said it himself. He melded into the evil he attempted to right.
“And you’re content with what you are?”
“I don’t have any other choice.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I do.”
There was a finality to his words. A finality I did not want to accept.
“And what will you do with the evil you have obtained?”
His eyes unfocused until he looked through me. “If I hold power over everyone, no one could ever take anything away from me.”
His words tugged at a fragile part of me. “You want control?”
I felt the moment his eyes set upon me once more. His lip twitched into the beginnings of a smile.
“The longer you sit in the dark, the more you will blend in until it consumes you whole. And you will think you have the control with all you have taken, but it’s the darkness that controls you.”
