Page 44 of Of Songs and Silence

It’s a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. One I desperately cling to in the days to come.

* * *

Though my timeis ostensibly filled with lessons, meals, and tours of the palace, there’s an ominous feeling in each of my grandfather’s assessing glances, like the tenuous calm just before a hurricane lands.

I haven’t forgotten my questions—about my mother, my father, my bond with Ari. Neither am I foolish enough to think that chasing answers is an easy risk to take. Ari’s warning resounds in my head with each interaction.

Don’t trust anyone at the palace.

So, I don’t. I keep my head down, gleaning what I can from every interaction while desperately trying to keep my shields in place.

Even though he swims with me to each summons, each meal, each lesson, and sleeps just on the other side of my bedroom wall, I find myself missing Ari more and more. It’s beginning to drive me mad. This constant restlessness, the call to go to him that I cannot answer makes it impossible to sleep.

To eat.

To breathe.

“How are your lessons coming along, Melodi?” My grandfather’s voice rips me from my spiraling thoughts, and I check my shields.

Relief trickles in. They are firmly in place, as they have been since I left my rooms this morning.

“They are going well, Grandfather.” I force a smile, and he nods.

He insisted on a tour of the palace after breakfast. Ari follows us at a distance, and I try not to look back at him or think of him at all.

Another few minutes pass in silence before Cepheus leads us into a private room that reminds me of a museum. Or maybe a graveyard. Giant statues line the floor, carved from some type of pristine, glowing white stone. There are warriors and kings and queens, but they’re not what catch my eye.

Instead, my attention is fixed on the massive sculpture of a serpent that winds around the room. It has four legs, two at either end of its elongated body. Scales line its back like daggers. Gleaming eyes stare out beneath a scaled brow. Fire streams from a gaping mouth with hundreds of sharp teeth.

I think back to the book in my room about the Great Dragon, wondering if this is the creature it was referring to, if it’s out there, somewhere still.

“I’m glad,” the king responds, pulling my attention away from the statue. “You seem to be settling into life here well. Better than I expected, considering that you were taken from here.”

I swallow hard. It’s a risk, but it’s the closest thing he’s given me to an opening since I arrived.

“I wish I knew what happened that made her leave,” I say, and his violet eyes turn to stone, his fists clenching in front of him.

“Melodi,” he warns, his tone cutting like a sharpened knife through butter.

I dip my head respectfully, just as I have each time before. He tilts his head to the side, his calculating gaze studying me. Then he sighs with something close to indulgence—feigned, of course.

“She was weak,” he answers my question flatly. “And she didn’t know her place.”

Her place to be an ornament, to do his bidding without complaint.

“Then again, none of the children learned that lesson particularly well,” he goes on, running a hand over the glowing trident of some former king. “Except Danica, and of course, she is all but useless otherwise.”

“Where are they now?” I know I’m pushing my luck, but I’m so deeply curious about what other family I may have.

I’ve assumed his heir is in a different estate, or perhaps visiting the villages. When I see a cold, cruel smile pass his lips, I realize how very naive that assumption was.

His eyes glint when they lock onto mine. “They’re dead. They either killed each other or exhausted their usefulness to me.”

My stomach sinks.

It’s not just the statement that stops me short, it’s the tone and the delivery. The casual manner he dons when referencing the deaths of his family. His children. It sounds so much like something Mother would say.

And why did they kill each other? For the throne? For something else?

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