Page 28 of Palaces and other Prisons
She tied off the bandage. “Or are you worried he will stay, and give you a family, and you need to learn how to be more than king?”
Annoyance surged, but he bit back on it. Her barb had struck too close. If it had glanced off him, he wouldn’t have felt a thing. “Perhaps. In which case it doesn’t matter what I do, there will still be pain.”
He lifted his arm. How much more could he handle before it became too much?
CHAPTER 20
The next day was busy with Ifer and Ul meeting with councilors and arranging food supplies, which left Dawson to sit in the library and stare at the stained-glass window while listening to the librarian talk like he was magically going to learn Ul’s language.
Sometimes he thought he almost understood, but not enough to make words…because then he tried to find the words and there were none. He didn’t understand how Ul went from feeling the vibes of the words to making words. And he couldn’t ask the librarian because they hadn’t spoken enough for him to speak English.
The librarian must have been told to talk to him, because the chatter was never-ending. He brought out what Dawson assumed were his favorite books and seemed to be discussing the illustrations of plants and animals within them.
Dawson shook his head after the librarian turned the page to what looked like the ugliest mermaid Dawson had ever seen. Is that what they really looked like? “Krakke?”
“Krakke.” The librarian pointed at himself.
“Krakke.” Dawson tapped the book. Where were the krakke in the book? He needed to know more about the blue-skinned tentacled king.
The librarian shuffled off and returned with two more books, and happily explained the difference between them to Dawson, as though he’d be able to make an informed choice. Whichever one had the most pictures and explained more about them in a biological way was going to be the most useful.
Dawson rocked his arms the way Ul had.
The librarian gave him a sly smile and flicked through the pages of the smaller book. There were a lot of pictures that he skipped past before stopping on one that was an underwater scene. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, but then it became clear that the pale blobs with a blue shadow inside were eggs.
The krakke laid eggs underwater.
He pointed at the picture, and then the librarian, trying to look more confused than usual—he was not sure how good his acting abilities were—but the librarian gave him that smile again and flicked back a few pages.
This must be an anatomy book or something because the diagram was very well labelled. On one page there was something that resembled a skeleton of sorts, though it had far too few bones to be human, and the bones weren’t in the right places or even in the right shapes. Because it was a krakke skeleton, and they were not human. So how the hell did they breed with humans?
It didn’t make sense.
He’d never heard of anything like it. But just because he didn’t understand it didn’t make it less real. There was no avoiding the massive window in front of him.
The librarian was still talking, pointing to parts of the drawing, including what appeared to be a curled penisprotruding out of an opening. He did not need to understand words when the librarian pointed at him and then at the opening.
Dawson’s cheeks heated as he realized the elderly librarian was giving him the birds and the bees talk rather too enthusiastically. Had word gotten around about Ul’s pink freckles and the rock pool incident?
Did everyone think he was the king’s new…lover? Was that even the right word?
The librarian narrowed his eyes as if appraising him. Ul’s name was mentioned, so the librarian was definitely discussing the situation. In that moment, Dawson wished that he could suddenly understand every word, if only to correct assumptions. Even Ul didn’t know what he wanted, or at least that’s what he claimed. As a king, though, wasn’t it part of his duty to have heirs?
Was it the right thing to agree and give him that, since it appeared no one else could? It was a lot to think about, and far more than a fling he had thought it was becoming…yet at the same time, he was glad Ul had told him the truth, when it would’ve been so easy to lie and he would’ve never known.
He wasn’t even sure what bothered him the most, or if they were even things he should be bothered by. There was the biology thing, which was different as he had never met somebody who was male and female and laid eggs. He’d never met someone with tentacles before, either, but somehow that was less of a jump in his mind. Which probably said more about him, as well as his own beliefs, prejudices, and lack of education. And since he didn’t consider himself one of those ignorant, loudmouth, bigots who hung out in pubs and complained about the weather and immigrants in the same sentence, he needed to wrap his head around the fact that the krakke only had onegender. And even though he considered himself gay…maybe he was less gay than he thought?
Which was fine. He could deal with that, since he was definitely attracted to Ul.
The other issue was the idea of having children and then leaving them. Children that hatched out of eggs. He didn’t know how to raise children like… Well, he didn’t know how to raise any children. Children of any kind were not something he’d ever expected. Having grown up in a house where there were too many of them and not enough bedrooms or food or money, all he knew was he didn’t want that kind of life for his kids. But if he did have children with Ul, they would grow up in a palace and be the future rulers of this island.
That was a trip to even consider.
His father would tell him he was getting too big for his britches and that he needed to pull his head in and keep his ego in check.
The librarian tapped the book and then wandered off. He probably had real work to do instead of babysitting him. The soldier stood off to the side, acting as though he hadn’t heard a word of the gossip, but then he was probably paid very well not to hear.
Every doubt that Dawson had circled back and pointed at him. His life experiences and his assumptions about himself. Was he a dickhead?
