Page 186 of Fearless

And I am angry. Why am I so angry? He never loved me.

But he died before I got the chance to make him.

I’m sending my Enforcer after her—I don’t think he likes when I call him that. We haven’t spoken much since the moment I kneeled in the mud at Father’s side.

I feel something fraying inside me. Maybe it’s my sanity.

Paedyn,

Did you watch the light leave his eyes?

Those are my eyes. But you knew that.

I am angry. But you knew that.

And yet, part of me is still trying to hate you. But you knew that.

My Enforcer is coming for you.

Run.

They buried the king. Made me the next one.

I haven’t left the study in days. I’m not sure I’ve spoken to anything but paper in days.

Servants gossip beneath my window.

I dump my food there to give them something else to talk about.

Everyone thinks I’ve gone mad, and maybe I have.

Maybe

I

always

was.

Kai does not mourn. I see the concern on his face whenever our eyes meet, like he’s trying to understand why it is I grieve. He will never know what it means to be a failure. Father loved power, and that is what he saw in my brother. But me? I was meek. Kind. Nothing like the heir he’d hoped for.

A disappointment.

I am tired of grieving.

What did he ever do to earn my love?

Was it commanded of me? I only know what to do when he’s asked it of me. And he did not tell me to feel. No, I did too much of that. Too kind. Too weak. Too soft. Too unlike Kai.

I am sick of mourning.

I’ve been mourning the lack of his love all my life.

Everything was for him. All that I am and all I am becoming.

Father. King. You.

YOU.

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