Page 130 of Somber Prince

I felt her sorrow. And her regret. Her guilt too.

“I know you blame yourself for his death, Your Majesty, but no one else does. No one could’ve predicted that attack or what your sister managed to do with the juice of the golden hyacinth. Father did what any loyal husband and subject would do. He protected his queen and his wife with his life and died, forever the hero of our kingdom. I don’t blame you for his death, Mother. But I disapprove of what you did to him after.”

She heaved a breath, setting her mouth in a stubborn line. “He didn’t die that night.”

“Yes, he did. He was on his way to leave this world, and it would’ve been a mercy to let him. But you ordered to leave the dagger in his back. You had a shrine built around his body. You trapped him in death as you had him trapped in life.”

She fisted her hands, the beaded chains straining over her knuckles.

“I will not apologize for that, boy. I loved your father with every tendril of my being. I would not part from him. You know it too. That’s why you’re fighting me, risking your life, just to keep that sweet little Joy Vessel of yours.”

“It’s not the same.” I shook my head.

“It is exactly the same. You are no better than me.”

She was so mistaken.

“It’s true,” I said. “I stole Dawn from her world and brought her here against her will. I wished to keep her at all costs. In that way, you and I are alike. But in the end, I let Dawn go. I bled for her freedom, and I would’ve died for it. Do you know why? Because loving someone, really loving them, means putting their happiness first. She wished to be free, and I made it happen. All she had to do was take one more step away from me, and she would’ve been free from me forever. But she came back. She chose to stay with me. She realized she wanted us to be together. And now, I’ll do everything to make that wish of hers come true. Dawn is mine. As I am hers. We belong together.”

The queen smirked, mocking. “Your little Joy Vessel allowed you a taste of pleasure, and now you think you’re in love?”

“I know I am. Because I know what love is. Love is not entrapping someone just because it hurts when they’re not with you. It is not holding on to their dead body even after their spirit has left it.”

“As long as I had his body, I had hope.” She sucked in a breath with a sob.

“There was no hope, Mother. We proved it, but you refused to accept it. We caught the hag who’d brewed the poison and the priest who’d unearthed the ancient curse to go with it. The casts of their heads are still displayed on the spears at the city entrance, along with that of Father’s murderer, who used the dagger they had prepared for him and his wife, your younger sister. All four are now cursed for eternity after what you’ve done to them. The recipe for the poison and the exact wording of the curse have been recovered. We learned everything. We all knew, without a doubt, that Father could never come back. His spirit no longer belonged to this world, but it remained tethered to his body that would not decay for as long as the dagger was still lodged in it. He couldn’t cross into the afterlife because you couldn’t bear to part with his corpse. You chose to let him suffer just so that you could ease your grief.”

“It was all I had!” she repeated stubbornly. “He was the love of my life. He was mine…” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I grieved his loss. I’ll never stop grieving.”

“I mourned him too. I still miss him terribly. And back then, I wished with all my heart to hold on. But that meant keeping his spirit suspended in torture between two worlds. You insisted on that. Even in death, you refused to give him peace.”

“So, you think I should’ve let him go?” Her eyes narrowed, pinning me in place.

I sensed a threatening note in her voice, but the warning came too late. Her veil fluttered open in the front, releasing her tendrils. They lashed forward like whips, their ends momentarily merging with the ends of mine.

With my tendrils clipped, I couldn’t withdraw them. The queen didn’t suffer to stay connected to me for longer than a second. But even that second proved enough for her to find what she searched for. I had no regret over what I’d done, and she saw that.

“You!” Her eyes opened wide like two golden saucers. “It was you who pulled out the dagger.”

She lunged at me. And I didn’t stop her, making no attempt to protect myself from her claws. She slapped me across my face. My skin burned with long scratches from her nails. Her heavy rings bruised my cheekbones. But I didn’t fight it, letting her take her anguish out on me.

“You killed him!”

“My uncle did,” I corrected. “His own brother-in-law was the one who plunged the dagger into Father’s heart. That was the moment he died. He was dead for decades while you cried over his body in the shrine of your making. All I did was set his spirit free.”

Snarling like a wild animal, she punched me in the chest with both fists. The pain didn’t stop the memories from rising in my mind.

Every night, I came to the bedroom where the queen kept my father’s body. He lay on his front, with the dagger stabbed through his heart from the back. It hurt to see the man who had been miserable while trapped in the palace to continue being trapped after his death too. Standing there, looking at the corpse that was nothing but the empty husk of my father, I’d tried to envision the invisible thread connected to his spirit.

The thread was stronger than a chain. Unbreakable. Unless someone was brave enough to pull the cursed dagger laced with forbidden magic out of his heart.

No one had dared to touch it for over four decades. Not even me. The queen had tortured the four people responsible for her husband’s death, including her own sister. There was no doubt the same fate awaited anyone who’d dare take his body away from her.

For a while, I’d also hoped Father could be brought back to life. But that hope diminished after I’d carefully studied everything about the curse and the poison.

My uncle knew he had but one chance at it, and my aunt found a weapon more effective than Nerifir iron. Even if he’d missed the heart, a shallow wound from the dagger would’ve turned the queen into a mindless doll, breathing and moving but with no will of her own.

The dagger never reached the queen. Her husband launched himself between her and the weapon, shielding her with his body. It pierced his heart instead, and he died that very moment.

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