“Um...” He scratched the bridge of his nose with a finger. “I haven’t been paying attention to the time lately.”
“Around noon,” Elina offered, then lowered her voice, “or later, whenever he gets hungry.”
“Oh. Well, I’m an early riser,” I said. “Maybe we should sleep in different rooms, after all.”
I regretted the suggestion the moment I made it, remembering last night.
“No,” Kye protested promptly. “I’ll get up with you. But I will stay out of your way, Elina. You won’t even see me until you’re done getting Maren ready.”
“Alright then.” Elina inclined her head. “We have a deal, Your Majesty. I’ll be here every morning, as long as you will kindly stay out of the room I’m in.”
Kye’s shoulders dropped with obvious relief at her answer. “Thank you.”
After Elina had left, taking away the bucket with glass shards and the broom with the dustpan, I asked him, “Do you know Elina well? The way you talk... It’s like you do.”
I wondered if that was the reason he chose her to help me over anyone else.
“We grew up together,” he said. “Elina’s mother was one of my mother’s chambermaids. I figured she’d agree to come by, for the sake of our old friendship, if not for anything else.” He grinned. “And I was right.”
“Why didn’t you just order her? You’re the king after all.”
“And watch her creep in here every morning, shaking in fear, doing her job hastily, then rushing out the moment she could while tossing frightened, hateful glances my way?” He shook his head. “I’ve had enough of that from people to last me a lifetime. Besides, I couldn’t do it to her for the sake of our old friendship either.”
After breakfast, Kye went to talk to the guards by the door. I suspected it was about the tentacle monster’s visit last night. It affected him too, even though he tried to downplay it.
Since daylight killed the Abyss monsters, there was nothing to fear while the sun was shining. So I decided to explore the palace in hopes of learning more about the place that had become my prison.
The finality of what Kye had told me last night was impossible to accept. I refused to believe that I could never go back, that my life as I knew it was now gone for good.
When I thought about that, my throat tightened so painfully, it was hard to breathe. My chest filled with endless sorrow, andI couldn’t live like that, constantly teetering on the verge of a breakdown. I had to do something. Maybe plotting an escape would occupy my brain in a more productive manner? Even if it turned futile at the end.
Exploring the palace made of glass proved more difficult than I thought. The numerous ramps that curved along the walls, connecting the many levels of the building, were often too steep for me to climb. The glass floors were too smooth and slippery. The staircases often lacked railings, which made using them treacherous. The see-through walls didn’t make the maze of spiraling hallways and corridors any easier to navigate. I saw where I wanted to go, but I still had to find a passage in the labyrinth of solid glass where exits and openings weren’t always obvious.
As the sun rose, the air inside the palace heated uncomfortably, and I decided to cut my exploration mission short.
It was around midday when I found an exit to the patio that looked familiar. I recognized the open space just outside the room where Kye and I took our meals. The ground here was covered with thick glass tiles that must’ve been rock before the cursed king stepped on them.
A wild garden surrounded the patio with shrubs and flowers that hadn’t been tended to in a while. The vegetation ran down toward a low cliff by the water, creating a picturesque view despite its unkempt state or maybe because of it. Everything untouched by glass was beautiful, bursting with color and life.
I spotted a narrow path of glistening glass between the plants and shrubs. The string of misshapen shimmering footprints left in the sand looked like the king walked down this way often but tried to touch as little of the ground as possible, as though to protect the wildlife from his curse.
The patio and the grounds beyond it seemed to be deserted. But then, a soft humming reached me. I immediately recognized the velvet undertones of Kye’s voice in the sound. His singing was impossible to mistake for anything else just as it was impossible to forget.
Without even fully realizing what I was doing, I followed the melodious sound, walking toward the edge of the cliff.
The melody wasn’t flowing smoothly. It stopped, the notes tripping over each other. A few words appeared. Then the same section was repeated again and again, with more words added each time. It sounded as if Kye was trying to remember a song he had forgotten.
The cliff wasn’t steep when I neared the edge. The ground here descended toward the water in wide steps carved by the tides and the surf over centuries.
Kye was sitting on something that looked like a fallen tree trunk hanging over the water. As I came closer, I realized it was the dead branch of a coral that had been turned to glass by Kye’s touch at some point.
His words finally found their order, lining up into the lyrics of loss and longing:
“...And on the ocean shore in vain,
I wait for ghosts of love long lost...”
Yearning seemed to stretch from him to me like a shimmering tendril. It curled around my heart. An unnamed need surged inside me, begging for the return of something I never knew I’d had or lost.
