Page 131 of Somber Prince

Forty-three years later, I stood over the corpse of my father, thinking about the unimaginable torture his spirit was going through night after night, decade after decade. I thought about how many years of that still lay ahead of him, and I knew I had to stop it. Even the queen’s wrath no longer mattered. My father deserved peace.

So, I gave it to him. I pulled the dagger out and placed it gently on Father’s back, saying my last goodbye.

“We’ll meet again,” I remembered whispering.

And at that moment, the weight that had been pressing down on my chest for decades had lifted. Father’s spirit left this plane of existence, joining the shadows on the other side. He was finally free.

I’d been prepared to deal with the consequences of my actions. But by the time the queen found out what happened, Father’s body had partially decomposed. Parts of the flesh had turned to shadows, with the dagger lying among the remains. Everyone believed that time did its job, that the body started deteriorating despite the dagger being in it. No one was blamed then. But now…

Now she knew.

Part of the reason I’d kept it a secret was that I knew it’d devastate the queen. And it did. She howled as if I’d stabbed a dagger through her own chest. As she raised her fist to slam it against me again, her veil fell away. Long strands of her hair fanned back, like wisps of ink-black clouds. They floated over her shoulders—hair strands mixed with shadows.

“Mother?” I caught her wrist mid-strike. “You’re aging.”

It was no mistake. Filaments of black shadows clung to her temples. They spread through her hair like smoke from an incense. Looking closely, I noticed the fine lines around her eyes and in the corners of her mouth that she tried to hide under the veil.

Now, I felt that tug of longing that’d been missing from my heart before. My mother’s days in this world were coming to an end. She might have months left. Maybe a few years. But the countdown had already begun. Her aging process had started, taking a toll on her looks.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling it with all my heart.

Sorrow descended upon me. Most of my life, my mother had spent in mourning and isolation, grieving the dead and lost to the living. And soon, I would lose her for good.

She freed her arm from my grip, then adjusted her veil, drawing it over her hair.

“You won’t leave Kalmena,” she said, frightenedly calm. “You’ll be punished for the loss of the Joy Vessels harshly, as you deserve.”

She yanked on the chain of the bell by the door, summoning the guards.

“Mother, please, listen to me.” I took a step toward her, but she backed away from me as if I were the evil itself.

“Take him,” she ordered to the guards. “Let Princess Alzali carry out the punishment ceremony as planned. Then leave him in the courtyard for as many days as how many Joy Vessels he lost.”

I had eighteen Joy Vessels to begin with. I only managed to keep one. My mother was condemning me to spend seventeen days under the direct exposure of the sun. Without water or shade, half of those days would be enough to kill a shadow fae.

Dread gripped my throat. My mother sentenced me to the slow death by torture with thirst and heat.

“You’re not punishing me for the loss of the Joy Vessels,” I said. “It's revenge.”

“A life for a life,” she hissed, staring at me with so much hatred, I wondered how it didn’t burn me on the spot.

I shook my head. “Executing me won’t bring Father back. It will only make you my murderer.”

Dawn was right all along. There was no balance in murder. No matter how many people my mother killed trying to avenge my father, he would never be alive again. And she would never find peace.

Chapter Thirty-Four

DAWN

Prince…

Execution…

The words rang in my head, pounding like a hammer inside my skull as I stumbled back to the bench under an arch of flower garlands.

Lucia caught the change in me right away.

“Dawn, what happened? You’re white as a ghost. And where is your water?”

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