Page 8 of From the Myths of Kings

“What do you mean, the plan has changed?”

His father’s voice was muffled and distant, but the boy was an expert at eavesdropping. He and his sister had become quite proficient at listening when told not to. When they were younger, the two of them often crept out of bed and scurried up to closed doors, listening for voices under doorways with their hands clapped over their mouths to keep from giggling. But something told the boy that this was no laughing matter.

“You’re to meet now, Your Majesties,” came another voice the boy didn’t recognize. “There won’t be another opportunity, I’m afraid. They’ve found out about our rendezvous with Eleyera. Tomorrow will not be fit for secrets, so you must do it now.”

“My children are with me,” his father hissed. The boy could tell his father was very, very angry. “Can’t it wait until Meysam? We’re not far from the city. Lodgings have already been prepared for them. We’ll continue with the original plan, and we’ll meet with her tomorrow. Or, at the very least, we can drop my family off at a secure location and I’ll meet with her tonight if it truly cannot wait.”

“Apologies, Your Majesty,” came the other voice. “But this needs to happen now. Eleyera is insisting on it.” The faceless person sounded more panicked now, their words coming out clipped and harsh. “She’s already here.”

“Damn,” his father cursed. He blew out a long, frustrated breath. Usually, his father made that sound in his study when he was very frustrated over a political treaty gone awry, or when the boy spilled ink on the carpet in the library.

Quick as a shadow, the boy’s sister slipped across the aisle of the carriage and took a seat next to him. She plastered a reassuring smile across her face that didn’t quite meet her eyes. She took his chin between her hands gently. “We’re going to play a little game, would you like that?” The boy nodded, growing excited at the prospect. He loved games, especially when he got to play them with his older sister. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d done this. Normally she was withdrawn and aloof, locking herself in her room for days on end without speaking to anyone.

“All right, this is a game where you try to think of your favorite things in the whole world,” his sister said. “Now, you mustn’t be distracted by anything outside the carriage. It will be very difficult to ignore the voices outside, but I think you’re up to the challenge. I’ll go first.” She thought for a moment, drumming her fingers against her chin. The boy couldn’t help but stare at the ridges of burned flesh spiraling around her hands. She’d gotten those scars in the Tournament two years ago. He remembered how they had found a Tellusun Healer to help mend her flesh, but even they couldn’t make her skin as unblemished as it once had been.

“One of my favorite things is watching the sunset from the sky bridge,” his sister said.

“The one over the waterfall?”

“Yes, the very one,” she said with a nod. “Your turn.”

“I love it when father takes me flying,” he found himself saying. He flexed his juvenile wings for emphasis. They were much smaller than his sister’s matured ones, but still strong enough to hold him aloft in the sky.

The boy liked this game. He was thinking so hard about his favorite things he could hardly hear anything outside of the carriage. But the moment he remembered he wasn’t supposed to be listening, his eyes drifted over to the window. He tried to fight the urge to listen as his sister instructed, but he couldn’t help it. He was rather good at eavesdropping, after all.

He saw a woman standing outside the carriage. She looked strange. She didn’t have any wings, he noticed. Her skin looked different, too. It shimmered where the moonlight touched it, like iridescent paint had been smeared on her cheekbones and collarbones. She was a Mer. Her dark hair was pulled into a tight braid that hung over one shoulder, threaded with shimmering strands that looked like sea glass. Her eyes were pale blue, the color of moonlight reflecting on a serene lake. The voices of his mother and sister faded out as the boy focused on the strange woman, his ears straining to pick out the words he could see moving on her lips.

“—is a lie,” the Mer woman was saying. She shook her head. “We must destroy?—”

“—how do you know—,” came his father’s voice.

“Do you still want to play?” his sister interrupted. Her eyes flashed in the shadows. “It’s your turn again.”

The boy tore his eyes away from the window and focused back on his sister. But he could still hear a snatch of conversation outside.

“—there is a secret. A prophecy. The sirens were?—”

“Rook.” His sister shifted forward, blocking his view of the window with her moon-gilded silhouette. He noticed her hands were trembling even though she tried to hide them in the folds of her skirt. A seed of unease rooted itself in the back of his mind. His older sister was never afraid.

He was just about to tell her that one of his favorite things was when she used to read to him before bed when an explosion rocked the carriage and blinding white light seared his vision.

His mother burst into the carriage, blood spilling from the corners of her mouth.

“Rook!”

Rook jolted awake violently. His skin was flushed, as though the heat of the explosion from the dream had followed him into the waking world and burned at his heels. He could almost taste ash on his tongue. The scent of charred wood and tangy burnt metal was thick in his throat. His mother’s scream still echoed in his ears, threads of panic and terror pulled taut in her voice. He tried to steady his ragged breathing. The dream had felt so real and visceral. It was like Rook had been transported to that night, an invisible outsider peering into that cramped little carriage with vivid clarity. He thought of that awful night often, but he’d never relived it the way he just had in the dream. Each word exchanged was clear in his ears and each emotion was felt deep in his chest, as raw and poignant as the day it happened eight years ago.

Rook swiped a hand across his face. Sticky sweat beaded on his neck and forehead. Hel’s teeth, he was a mess. Rook had been plagued by strange dreams almost every night since he’d been stabbed by Selussa and felt the touch of death. Sometimes they were fragmented pieces of his own life, blurs of fond childhood memories or traumatic events. Other times, he glimpsed nonsensical moments from other people’s lives or witnessed strange mythological scenes he couldn’t begin to understand. They were always lucid and unnerving.

Rook sat up in bed, trying to tether himself to reality with the feel of the sheets beneath him and the sunlight creeping across the room, softly diffused by sheer curtains.

You are in the capital of Tellusun, he told himself. They died years ago. You are no longer a helpless child.

But hard as he fought to relinquish the memories conjured by the dream, he kept returning to the flow of bright crimson that trickled from his mother’s mouth. Shortly after the explosion, she had placed her beloved dagger in his small hands. It is yours now, she’d said with her last dregs of breath. I did not intend for you to have it so soon. But now I bestow it upon you in the hour of my death. Protect it well.

Rook frowned and balled his fists into the sheets. Self-loathing bubbled up in his chest. He’d done a terrible job of protecting the dagger in the end. He’d even died for it, and yet it still hadn’t been enough. For the hundredth time, he wondered if his mother had understood the significance of the weapon. Had she known she held the Dagger of Aris at her side, one of the four Relics used to banish the Titans from Revelore? Surely had she known, she never would’ve given it to a weak young boy.

And then there was the strange woman who had stood outside their carriage that night. He never learned the true purpose of their meeting, or what she’d said to his parents that night, but he’d learned who she was in the days that followed: Eleyera of Elorshin. The Mer Queen.

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