Page 12 of Heir Of Sun And Moon
Good.
“Which is all the more reason I need to go back today, to prepare for my next one,” I snap. My frustration rises as I draw my brows together. “What is it you’re really trying to say?”
“You’re not happy doing them anymore,” he replies, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the table in front of us. “Why don’t you take a break?”
“I don’t want to take a break,” I fire back. “You say you don’t see me as happy, but then are you really looking? Doing these experiments, trying to find a solution to this problem that doesn’tjustaffect me,thatis what makes me happy.”
“No,” he counters, the word dragged out by his deep voice, “it’s what makes you obsessed. I can tell the difference in you after one of your experiments fails. Do you truly believe it isn’t obvious to anyone paying attention the way you beat yourself up over it?”
I scoff, but there’s an annoying truth to his words. I never realized he had been watching me so closely. I hadn’t thought he’d have this observation ready to attack me with as soon as he needed it. It makes me feel cornered, and like a trapped wild animal, I lash out.
“At least I am trying to do somethinguseful, Daje. Can you say the same?” I forcefully push my chair back and stand, stepping back from the table. “Some of us may be content to play the roles given to us by our fathers, but I would rather work towards something that would actually make a difference in people’s lives,” I seethe, unfairly reminding Daje how his father created an advisor position just for him.
My chest tightens at the look on his face. He may have hurt my feelings with his blunt words, but I purposely sliced at him with a sharpened tongue. Neither of us speaks for a moment before I turn and leave, walking around the porch, down the stairs, and onto one of the many stone paths that lead away from the palace. My hands tighten into fists at my side, each word spoken between us on repeat in my head. I walk and walk, not really paying attention to where I’m going, until the pathway opens up into Galdr’s central shopping square. The sheer number of people here makes crossing the wide road tedious, but I finally make it to one of the many taverns.
The bar is built into an albero tree, with two windows and a swinging door on the front. Pushing through, I let my eyes adjust to the slightly darker space. Spelled flames in small orbs hang every other foot in a zigzag pattern on the ceiling. Patrons fill every table and chair spread throughout the establishment, loud music from a small band vibrating the tree bark walls. It smells of incense and sweat and like mead has been spilled on every surface in this place. Yet like a moth drawn to the small flames above me, I make my bad day worse by heading to the bar and taking a seat next to a man that I absolutelyloathe.
“Hello, Bahira,” he purrs the moment he realizes I’m next to him. “Interesting seeing you here. Last time I checked, it wasn’t a library.”
I don’t bother hiding my annoyance or the eye roll that comes with it. “Gosston, interesting to see you look relatively clean today,” I counter, ordering a drink from the bartender. “I didn’t realize you knew what bathing was.” My eyes take in his appearance, his stark flowing white tunic and black trousers. Curly black hair falls to his shoulders, the strands untamed except for where he has them tucked behind his ear.
He snorts, not hiding his irritation with me either. We sit in silence, both drinking our pints of mead, though I go through mine much faster. When I’ve ordered the fourth one, Gosston speaks again.
“Tough day?” he inquires, sounding alarmingly sincere.
“You could say that.” I turn to look at him. Under the light of the spelled flames, his lighter olive complexion takes on a yellow hue, making the purple circles under his eyes stand out more drastically.
“What about you?” I ask because I’m already three drinks in and clearly not thinking well.
“You could say that,” he repeats with a small tilt of his lips. He signals the bartender over, and before I know it he’s handing me a shot of some kind of liquor. “Here’s to bad days,” he salutes, clinking his glass to mine and downing his shot. I do the same, and we each turn back to our meads.
I wake up the next morning to the sound of Gosston snoring and the pounding headache of deep regret.
Chapter Seven: Rhea
Themorningaftertheking visits me, I expect to be somewhat bruised and sore, especially on my face and ribs, but my body showsnosigns of the beating it took. All I feel is a slight headache. I have noticed my healing after punishments from my uncle is becoming more accelerated. But even now, looking over my skin in the vanity mirror, I’m still surprised to not see even a hint of a fading bruise. I take one last look at my complete lack of injury before I go downstairs.
Since I awoke, that odd dream and what the ethereal woman spoke to me has replayed in my mind.Trust the stars over the ancient trees to guide me from the false king. And look to the east for the answers I seek.What could that possibly mean? Sitting at a small table, I write the words down so that I don’t forget them. Something about them feels significant, though I can’t exactly pinpoint why.
Later, I rest in the library, getting lost in book after book to keep my mind off of… well, everything. How would I spend my days if I had not been born a princess to parents who were murdered? If I had not then been thrust into a tower by my cruel uncle and kept here against my will, guarded by men who are sworn through magic and blood to keep me here? Would I still spend much of my time in a library pondering the history of our realms and the intricacies of blood oaths? It is an interesting thing in and of itself—magicin the Mortal Kingdom. It supposedly comes from the Continent, though all the history books I’ve read have never explained how that came to be or why mortals can only access it by giving up their blood.
My attention goes back to the current book in my lap. In the story, the protagonist is in love with her best friend, but she doesn’t believe she is good enough for him. So she goes on an adventure through her world to try her hand at becoming different versions of herself in an attempt to be something she thinks he could love. However the best friend confesses he adored her as she was. He didn’t want to change her; he just wantedher.Is it possible that this kind of love exists outside of stories? The thought that, if I ever get to leave this tower, there might be someone who isn’t put off by my lack of social, personal, and relationship skills weighs heavily on my mind. It is nice to daydream that there might be someone out there that would like me for me, despite how broken I know I am.
When the sun starts to dip, coaxing the moon out of its hiding place, I light a candle so I can finish my book, reading to the very last page and then blowing it out. Bella is already asleep upstairs; she had popped her head into the library a few times before returning to the balcony to soak up the remaining sun. It is something she has loved to do for as long as she has been here. While I am so grateful to have her in my life, helping save me from truly being alone, I can’t stop the seedling of guilt I feel for the years she’s been with me—a wild fox trapped in a small, stone cage. It was that thinking that had led me to beg Alexi to free her, to let her out of the tower all those years ago.
The night Bella nearly died is something that will forever be burned into my memory; not only because it was horrific, but also because it was the first time that I realized I wasdifferent. That I wasn’t just a mortal, but instead I had somethingotherflowing in my veins. Something that shouldn’t be there, that didn’t make sense. And on that night, I had called upon it somehow. Swallowing anxiously, I move upstairs to draw a bath and relax before bed, lighting some candles in the bathroom for light. Once the hot water fills the tub, steam swirling and twisting above it, I slide into the water and close my eyes. Despite the way my muscles relax in the bath, flashes of that night—when things both changed and didn’t—begin to play in my mind, one after another.
When I was seventeen, Alexi told me he had spotted her on the castle grounds one night, skulking through the garden trying to hide within the flowers. He grabbed a bow and arrow, intent on hunting the white fox down, but the minute he had met her gaze through the various blooms, he felt she was different. Something in his gut told him not to kill her, and he listened. When he lowered his bow and dropped down on one knee, Bella had slowly made her way to him. She was docile—keen even—and that night he brought her to me.
I named her Bella after a favorite book character, whose name in the story meant “hope.” I was so ecstatic, so beyond happy to have another living being here with me, so hopeful for a future without that constant void of loneliness. Alexi had tempered my excitement by warning me not to let the king see her, that my uncle would take her away or, more likely, kill her if he knew she was here.
For a few days, I did nothing but relish in having this new being here with me. I talked to Bella as if she were mortal and could understand what I was saying. All that was missing was her ability to speak back to me, but even then, she always had a way of communicating.
Despite the joy of having a friend, I felt guilty keeping a wild animal confined with me. I questioned if, when she stared out of the tower windows, it was longing she was feeling. If, when she laid out on the balcony in the sun, she missed frolicking in the woods. If she hated being trapped here as much as I did. Her energy even seemed to deplete with each day that passed. It hadn’t taken long to convince myself, but I felt deep down that she would be better off not stuck in this prison alongside me. That she should be able to return to her true home. So I told Alexi he needed to set her free.
At first, he had been hesitant to take her from me, having seen the change her company had brought me even in just a few short days. But I was adamant. I didn’t want to deny Bella her true nature, to have her suffer the same fate I had been given, just because I was lonely. I didn’t want to be her captor.
Bella fought him at first, refusing to follow him through the door. But when she walked up to me, her nose bumping against my thigh, I ignored her. I held back sobs, as it broke my heart to hear her whine and try again and again to get my attention, but it was for the best. She deserved to be free.
