He waved a hand. “Everything, really. Arnon is the Prince Regent. He’s the one who’s currently wearing the proverbial Crown of Olathana. ‘Proverbial’ because I broke the actual crown, as has been prophesied,” he added slowly. “In fact, I went even further than the prophecy said. I broke two crowns, my mother’s and my own.”
“Why did you break it?”
He paused his gaze on me, his lips pursed for a moment. A storm brewed in his eyes that made me instantly regret asking the question.
“Because golden filigree is exceptionally fragile when turned to glass,” he finally said.
“You touched it.”
“That’s all it took,” he confirmed. “I kept my crown on the stand by my bed. When I woke up that cursed morning, I took it from the stand to put it on my head like always did, and it shattered in my fingers. I had a splitting headache, a dry mouth, and a terrible hangover. Then I saw a glass statue in my bed, and realized it was the woman I spent the night with.”
That must’ve been awful. I covered my mouth with my hand, unable to comprehend the horror he must’ve felt.
“I was terrified. And so fucking confused,” he said, shaking his head. “Then I realized I didn’t feel the water. I couldn’t even swim out of my rooms that were in the underwater part of the palace. I climbed up the seaweed and the coral branches while they turned to glass under my hands. Then I ran through this hall, roaring as everything around me was turning to glass. The marble of the floor, the flowers on the walls, the pillars of the ancient coral that had lived and grown for thousands of years. I ran to my mother, because even then I knew she was someone who still loved me. Even when she yelled at me, even when I didn’t listen, she always loved me. I ran into her arms. I hugged her. I pressed my chin to the Crown of Olathana on her head... And Olathana lost them both. Its beloved queen and its priceless crown. I murdered the one and shattered the other...”
His voice broke. He turned away from me. Then I heard a faint clinking of glass on glass at his feet.
‘Kye?” I stepped in front of him.
A tear trembled on his long eyelashes. He blinked, and the tear fell onto his cheek, then turned into a solid drop of glass before hitting the floor with a quiet clinking sound.
He was right. He killed everything. Even his tears died as glass.
“But no one can change the past,” he said firmly, then marched out of the hall in long, determined strides that I couldn’t keep up with.
Yet I ran after him anyway. It was an impulse, nothing more. I owed him no compassion because he’d made a hostage out of me. His past was heartbreakingly tragic, but even he admitted that he was the only one to blame for it.
At the same time, I knew that if I were the one in tears, he would’ve tried to comfort me. He did soothe my tears before, and I couldn’t let him do it alone now.
I searched for him by the water on his favorite coral branch. He seemed to derive comfort from the view and sounds of the ocean. But he wasn’t there.
Instead, I found him in our bedroom. He was lying on his glass bed, with his arms under his head, watching the dancing lights and shadows on the high ceiling above. There were no more tears in his eyes. His expression was calm, too calm, almost like the mask of death.
I walked over to him.
“Don’t come too close please,” he said, not taking his eyes off the ceiling. “The closer you are, the harder it is for me to resist hugging you.”
I stepped back to the middle of the room.
“What can I do to make you feel better?” I asked softly.
He sucked in a breath, sitting up.
“Oh, sweetheart...” he exhaled.
The mask of death slipped off instantly. So many emotions warred on his face from gratitude to longing to simply relief.
“Everyone knows what I’ve done,” he said gravely. “Every single person in this kingdom has their own ideas about what they want to dotome. No one has ever asked what they can doforme.” He shook his head in wonder. “I don’t deserve you, my darling.”
“That’s right,” I agreed. “You don’t. But everyone deserves at least some degree of understanding and compassion from someone.”
“Even the monster who killed his own mother?” He swallowed hard, waiting for my reply.
“Kye, youhuggedher,” I protested. “You didn’t kill her. The curse did. You absolutely deserve sympathy for your loss, not the blame for it. I’m sorry no one has acknowledged that for you yet.”
He mourned the loss of his mother while being branded as her murderer by the entire kingdom and shunned for it. No one deserved that.
He ran a hand over his forehead, and I noticed how utterly exhausted he looked.
