Page 40 of The Crown of the Dark Prince
Caldrius was so unlike the men I was used to seeing at court, who were so consumed by what others thought of them. He sat with me socasually, comfortable in his space and in my presence. He was entirely self-assured, so much so that he didn’t bother with formalities or titles, neither mine nor his.
He sat with me as one might with an old friend.
“Not your choice, I presume?” He asked.
“No, it wasn’t. Not that that fact matters to anyone but me.”
“I refused my arranged marriage.”
I jerked my head up so sharply that a cramp settled into the flesh of my neck as I met his gaze. He smiled sadly as I began kneading out the tension.
“My father wasn’t happy with it. He had wanted me to marry some duchess or princess, but the day I met Isidore changed everything. Her parents sent her from the kingdom’s outskirts to serve as my mother’s seamstress. Her talents were undeniable, even as a Mortal, and so eventually she was tasked with making me a jacket for my engagement announcement. Tell me, Thea, do you believe in love at first sight?”
The air was suddenly too warm, too thick.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
He chuckled. “Well, I can promise you it exists. Isidore became my sun, and everything besides her was total darkness. We left the palace that night and were married in secret.”
“I didn’t know you were married.”
His eyes darkened as they looked through me, lost in another time and place. “You wouldn’t. It wasn’t written in most history books.”
“What happened to her?” I asked with a frown. For a man who had loved his wife so much, he wore a terrible amount of grief, visible like a dark cloak around him.
And how could anyone in the Underworld experience grief?
This is where souls came after their death, so shouldn’t his wife be with him here now?
His face contorted, pain turning to anger. To rage. “I know what they say about me in the Mortal Realm. They paint me as the villain.”
“You were the villain,” I blurted, unable to stop myself.
His dark eyes scanned over me, lingering on my lips before coming back to meet my gaze. I shivered involuntarily, as I so often did when he focused his attention on me. The intensity with which he looked at me stole my breath and left me uneasy and confused.
“Haven’t you learned not to trust your history books by now?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
He shrugged. “You’re the daughter of Hyrax. They haven’t exactly painted him in the best light either.”
“The fact that I descended from him doesn’t change what he’s done.”
“You speak as if you were there. You know only what you’ve been told about him, about us both. Have you never questioned who’s telling you the truth?”
I stood, leaving my emptied glass on the table as I made my way to the door. I wasn’t sure where else there was for me to go in this realm, but I knew I couldn’t stay here with him any longer.
“Hyrax says you’re quite fond of that prince of yours?”
I froze, fingers clenching the doorknob tightly. “I don’t see how that’s your concern.”
“I think he’s probably related to me somehow.” He ran a hand over his jaw, scratching the skin on his neck gently, as if he was considering it. “Maybe you should ask him about what happened to my wife.”
Iwoke with a jolt, gasping as I lurched out of my bed. As the dream faded and the familiar sights and sounds of my bedchamber settled over me, I couldn’t swallow away the unease that lingered.I didn’t want to believe Caldrius. I didn’t want to believe that the history books misrepresented him and that he wasn’t the monster they depicted.
Because if that were true, then I’d have to open my heart to the possibility that Hyrax was also a victim of falsified histories and I wasn’t sure I was ready to forgive the God for lying to me.
As much as I didn’t want to believe Caldrius, though, part of me wondered if I should. When he told me to ask Clay about his wife, sadness was visible on his face. He displayed a kind of sadness that couldn’t be faked. It was palpable in the purse of his lips and the downcast nature of his eyes. After centuries, his heartache was so still real I could almost feel it myself.
