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“My king,” Eagan says, inclining his head. “Would you like to take over the library tour?” Eagan asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer before moving for the corridor, leaving us alone.
“Why did you think it was cursed?”
Kylian sighs and wanders closer. “No king wanted to set foot on the land where they’d murdered the mages.” Kylian turns down an aisle.
I move to follow him. “That sounds like guilt, but I never imagined the monsters who burned mages on stakes were capable of feeling such a thing.”
“What we did to the Arcanum became our biggest shame.” He glances at me. “But Xavian insisted we take turns ruling there. Travel between our own kingdoms and Purgatory. There was a lot of grief among us originally. Not only had we lost the world we once knew, but we lost our fathers as well. Rebuilding a kingdom became our burden before we even knew how to be leaders.”
A brief glimpse of vulnerability flashes across his face, but I look away as we walk, trying not to think of Kylian as a boy who lost his father. “So it was Xavian’s idea to leave Purgatory unclaimed?”
Kylian nods.
“Yes and after going to his kingdom and seeing that basement for myself. I recognize what his curse is.”
“I don’t understand,” I admit.
“Preserving life goes against a demon’s nature. I’m sure Xavian wants to believe the reason he kept looking for a way to break the curse was purely to save his kingdom, but when he confirmed killing his father, I knew he kept looking out of guilt for what he couldn’t stop. Xavian doesn’t just absorb energy like other demons; he feels it. I believe that is why he suggested returning to the Mage Isles, because he could still feel the energy and power radiating from it.”
“You got all that by standing in a basement and watching the Demon King?” I ask.
“When you’ve known Xavian for as long as I have, it’s like collecting the puzzle pieces.” he chuckles.
“Maybe you’re giving the Demon King too much credit with all this talk of guilt and empathy. It sounds like he saw the Mage Isles as a source of fresh water and fertile land capable of housing thousands until the ocean takes it back as well.”
He pauses, and something crosses his face that I can’t quite read. “Maybe so. Some believe the Arcanum consecrated the land when they burned. That the magic used for their curse during the executions had soaked into the soil and created a barrier against the rising waters.”
“What do you believe?”
He doesn’t answer right away. We walk in silence for several paces, past shelves of medical texts, past a section labeled in a language I don’t recognize, past maps rolled and stored in cylindrical cases stacked floor to ceiling.
“I believe,” he says finally, “that the Arcanum planned it all along. They knew we’d find them. They could have fled. They could have fought us, and they probably would have won.”
“I . . .” My words die out, because if the Arcanum was powerful enough to drown an entire world, why would they let themselves be caught and burned? “For every life . . . needs a sacrifice,” I mutter, my mother’s words tugging at the corners of my mind. “They were the sacrifice that protected us.” A lump forms in my throat. My mother was powerful. The Arcanum was powerful. She would still be here if it wasn’t because of us.
Kylian reaches a hand toward me, but I step back. “If this was what we would become, why?”
Kylian’s hand drops and his own grief is evident on his face. “Because they were bound to the kingdoms. They took blood oaths with the former kings, tied their lives to them. The only way to break that would have been in death. Before finding you, I believed it was purely out of spite, but now . . .” Kylian steps closer.
“They needed to get rid of the old kings to ensure their bloodlines weren’t tied to the same monsters they were, to ensure a future for their daughters.”
“Well, their plan backfired because it seems we are still tied to the kingdoms they tried to sever us from.”
He takes another step closer. “You will not meet a single king saddened by the loss of their father, little mage. Overwhelmed by the mess they left behind, yes, but they were not a loss. I don’t believe the mages’ plan backfired at all. If it had, you wouldn’t have been granted a choice.”
“Choice?”
Kylian smiles. “I’m tied to you, little mage. You can walk away, and all I can do is follow until you decide I can have you.”
“So I get to choose if I want you, but you want me only because there is no choice for you?”
“No, I want you because you are mine.”
“You realize that is the same thing?”
Kylian laughs. “It’s not the same, little mage. You are the chains I’m bound to, and I have no desire to escape them. I need you. Not because of magic or fate. Because you are the only thing that makes me want to be more than the curse. Before you, I believed humanity was a weakness. It wasn’t until you that I realized I would rather be human and yours than be an immortal king alone.”
His hand lifts, and this time I don’t pull away when he cups my cheek.
