Page 16 of Prize for the King
But that’s ten days away, I comfort myself. Ten days to either come to terms with what I’ll have to do, or try to run away. Ten days is a lot. Not enough to grieve a parent, but enough to plan and scheme.
V Whispers
I lie in bed with my eyes wide open. I’ve spent the day confined to my rooms, bathing, eating, then overseeing the packing of my coffers. I am allowed to take two, and being forced to decide which belongings to leave behind was a horribly mundane hardship on top of everything else that happened.
But it’s done. I’ve packed things I can’t live without: a silver wind-up music box with my mother’s portrait inside, a book of poems she gave me for my ninth birthday, and then my favorite dresses and underthings, an ornate hairbrush, a pot of soap. When there was room left, I added candles infused with rose oil and my two favorite books, both of them love stories filled with dashing knights and fainting princesses.
The night has fallen. A bit of blue moonlight falls inside, revealing contours of things, but not much more.
The Agnidari feast in the courtyard, the sounds of their celebration drifting in through the window my maid left ajar to let in the warm evening air. They are a rowdy bunch, singing songs in their harsh, unpleasant language, and bursting into braying laughter every other minute.
Even if they were quiet, I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Staying busy all day kept my pain on a leash, but now, I am forcedto face it. My eyes are dry, though. I wish I could cry.
Yet how? How do I cry for a father who died trying to kill me?
When the coffers were packed, and I was alone, the truth finally dawned, inevitable like the rise of the two moons over the horizon. I watched them, the lady small and dark blue, and her knight, bigger and brighter, with a purple halo. As the moons appeared, so did the sharp memory of what happened before my father collapsed dead on the marble.
The sword, pointing right at my belly. His scream.
“You will not take my prize!”
I lie in bed and wonder, baffled. How is it possible that I was willing to sacrifice myself to the enemy so my father would live, and he was ready to kill meso I would stay his?
It seems necessary for me to comprehend it so that I can grieve.
Why, Father? Why?
I groan and throw a pillow at the wall, screaming. “Why?!”
The door clicks open and Khay looks in. “Everything all right?”
I pant from fury and frustration, angry that he stays at my door, listening to my every sound, as if I’m a child that has to be watched even in my sleep.
“No!” I scream, throwing away decorum and good manners. “Why did my father try to kill me? Do you know?”
Khay comes in, closing the door behind him.
“I take it you can’t sleep,” he says with a small smile, grabbing a chair that stands in front of my dresser.
He carries it in one hand without effort, even though I know for a fact that the chair is heavy. Khay settles it by the foot of the bed, keeping a polite distance.
“Would you be able to sleep if your life was turned upside down in a day?” I ask, my eyebrows raised.
Khay thinks for a moment. “I think yes, if I knew a battle wascoming. We learn to fall asleep fast in the army, and rest well without dreams. But in times of peace, I might toss and turn a bit.”
“A bit.” I don’t hide my scorn, pulling my comforter up to my throat before I lean my chin on my bent knees. “So tell me why he did it. And don’t lie to spare my feelings. I know what I saw. That sword was aimed at me.”
Khay leans back against the backrest and puts his hands behind his head, stretching his long legs in front of him. “I wasn’t going to lie. Yes, he tried to kill you. My best guess is: he didn’t want Magnar to become the rightful heir to the throne. Since the marriage wasn’t consummated yet, your death would have annulled it. I might be wrong, though. Maybe your father simply didn’t want you to be defiled by the beasts.”
His lips curve in a smile, one I barely see in the darkness colored by the lady’s cool light. Outside, the Agnidari shout something together, drunken voices bleeding into a cacophony of male festivity.
I hug my knees closer to my chest. “You’d think that, would you?” I ask bitterly. “From what he said, yes.‘You will not take my prize.’But that’s… That is so selfish. So… So.”
Greedy. Cruel. Horrible. And for me, so lonely. Like finding out my father never treasured me for me, but only for himself.
I always liked it when he called me his prize. I felt special. But now… The word makes me feel uneasy, and I finally see what it truly means. A prize is a thing, maybe valuable, made of precious metals and stones, maybe displayed with pride and lovingly caressed…
