Page 66 of The Crown of the Dark Prince
“This isn’t what I expected,” I admitted.
“You imagined doom and gloom?”
Heat rose to my cheeks, and his grin widened.
“All souls come here, good and bad,” Caldrius explained. “Those who deserve happiness in eternity find it. Hyrax is not a monster, Theadora. He frequently visits these people, ensuring their well-being. They love hosting him whenever they can.”
“And the-” I paused, unsure of how to best phrase my question. “What of the bad souls? What happens to them?”
Caldrius’ steps slowed, and I slowed with him, my hand still tucked in his arm. He looked down at me, a shadow in his eyes as he sighed heavily. He tensed briefly. “Hyrax does nothing. When souls arrive, they judge themselves. They face their misdeeds. If they fail to come to terms with their actions and forgive themselves, their guilt consumes them.”
“What happens to them, then?”
Caldrius nodded toward a stretch of wilderness to our left. Dead trees stretched miles high into the sky, their branches twisting unnaturally. Wind whispered through the grove, breathing in the life from the nearby village and exhaling frigid air. I shivered, and Caldrius stepped closer.
“They go there, where their guilt eats away at them. It’s... gruesome.”
I frowned, staring at the ominous patch of forest. Shadows lingered at the edges of the clear divide between the wooded area and the vibrancy of the space we stood in.
"How gruesome?” I asked.
“They waste away until they’re mindless creatures, harming anything in their path. The villagers call them the Undone. I’ve had to eliminate several who wandered too close to the Villages of Life. It’s not a part of my duty I enjoy discussing.”
Wordlessly, he untangled my hand from his arm and wrapped it between his fingers instead, tugging firmly and stepped away, effectively ending the conversation. I stumbled after him, not quite matching his hurried pace at first.
“Did you have to go to the forest when you first died?”
A line formedbetween his brows as he looked down at me. “Why would you ask me that?”
For a moment, a pang of regret coiled in my stomach. “I guess I assumed you would have had to face what you did in the Mortal Realm.”
Caldrius was quiet, so quiet that I thought he might not answer me at all until he shifted his arm gently, the motion pulling me closer to him as he looked down at me. “No Thea, I didn’t go there. I didn’t have to because I felt no guilt for what I did when I was alive.”
Ice prickled the back of my neck and raised the hairs on my arms. Caldrius was responsible for the deaths of hundredsof people. How could he feel no remorse for that?
"You may not understand my actions,” he whispered, moving us towards the village again. "But the world was different when I was alive. The Gods walked freely in the Mortal Realm, and their presence, their power, changed everything. When I stole Hyrax’s Bident, I was serving my God. There was no greater honor.”
“And afterwards?”
The end of my question hung in the air between us.
How did he justify becoming such a tyrant that his own brother had to flee across an ocean?
A shadow passed over his face. “Let’s just say when the the Gods raised the Veil, they didn’t just remove themselves from the Mortal Realm. They took pieces of our world with them, pieces I wasn’t able to live without, but I was helpless to stop them. Tell me, who is more culpable - the madman or the God that drove him there?”
I chewed on my lip, unsure what to make of his words, but thankfully, he didn’t seem to need a response.
He tapped my hand gently before pointing to the flower bushes lining the road to the village. “Hyrax’s castle doesn’t have gardens like you’re accustomedto, but flowers are plentiful. I can identify them for you as we walk if you want.”
He wanted to change the subject, to divert our conversation away from the horrors of the past to instead focus on the beauty that was laid out in front of us. Wanting to shy away from negative memories was something I was all to familiar with.
So, I let the conversation fade away.
“I think I would like that,” I told him.
For the next twenty minutes, he spoke no more of Gods or ancient histories.
Our conversation dwindled as we finally reached the pathway leading into the village. I took the opportunity to watch him as he walked slightly ahead of me. Caldrius moved with a balance and grace that belied his height, his sharp jawline faintly reminiscent of Clay’s. It struck me how self-assured he seemed—both as a former king and as someone intimately familiar with this path.
