Page 31 of A Baron of Bonds
Through the halls of the castle,
I did find what I’d choose to claim,
As my love for Hyrithia.”
The song of our childhood returned to my lips easily in the very room I had slept in countless times. The Prince’s enormous bed, carved from the wood of an oak tree, still groaned at the foot, and the notches from our rough play as children, were still embedded in the four carved posters.
His room was unkempt, reeking of wine and stale clothes. I sighed heavily into his dark coils while he slept off his drunkenness. I continued to hum the song we would sing as children when we had little to no comprehension of the futures which awaited us.
Philius and I had been inseparable as children, and though we fought just as much as blood siblings did, we also grewtogether in our formative years as best friends, learning about our world side by side.
That all changed when Queen Rina had begun to raise us differently. By the time we had both turned seventeen, the Prince was off to parties and balls with the wealthy people of Hyrithia. There, he would make connections and learn what it was to be royal. His future daughter, after all, would someday become queen.
I had been put to use.
I was to help with the fires in the castle and tend to the fruit trees in the Queen’s gardens. We drifted apart, and that’s when Geyrand and I had grown in our own bond. Both of us were suddenly taken from our greatest friend, and we had found comfort in each other’s company.
Now, as I gently slid out from under Philius’s arm, I pulled his covers up over his chest. I paused at his hands, studying the black lengths of his fingers that melded into his mahogany wrists, the obsidian lines working their way up his arms.
If Heimlen was somehow still alive, I would kill him myself.
Seven years later, he remained the villain of my story as well as so many others. I only hoped the people of Hyrithia knew the truth of their “Savior”.
I kissed the top of the Prince’s head and left. I did not know how he lived his current life, but I could guess at it. That was a conversation he and I would have when he was rested. For now, I had a queen to subdue.
Queen Rina and her captain were waiting outside of his room as I closed the door quietly and breathed deeply. I turned to face her. Only the three of us stood in the hallway with the edge of night forcing its way through the great windows in their gilded frames.
“Where is Baron Revich?” I asked, feigning a vigor I did not feel.
“He is in his rooms,” the Queen answered, watching me with careful observance.
“Not a cell, then?” I knew I should not start this conversation in such a way, but my patience with this entire situation had grown irreversibly thin.
“You will remember who you address, Karus of Felgren.” Captain Yarah stepped closer, moving in front of the Queen with a sharp glare.
“Leave us, captain.”
The woman showed the slightest bit of indignation before storming off down the hall, leaving the Queen of Hyrithia and I to whatever came next.
“Karus,” she spoke softly, but firmly, as if trying out the sound on her tongue.
I nodded slowly and moved from the door, stepping closer to the woman who raised me, sheltered me, hid me from the world, and hid my potential from myself.
I wondered then if I still loved her.
I wondered if what had broken between us could ever be mended.
In all of our time apart, we had both faced the world and its adversities, confronting decisions and circumstances out of our control.
Behind the door lay her sleeping son, before her stood her adopted daughter. I was much changed from the one she gave to the man who had hurt her children and her people.
I had convinced myself she didn’t know. I had been assured at the time of my own discovery of Heimlen’s heinous deeds that the Queen did not know the origins of the Black Fever that had ravaged its way through her city.
But as we stood there together, silent in the royal chamber hall, I was not so sure. She held a painful, guilty expression and before anything else was spoken, I needed the truth.
“Did you know?”
She stiffened, opening her plum painted lips slightly and raising her chin. “Did I know what, Karus?”
