Page 30 of Somber Prince

“Oh, that. No. It’s not a sickness. Just a condition. It’s called heterochromia. It’s harmless, in my case anyway.”

“So, there is no cure?” I tried to conceal my disappointment.

The more time I spent with her, the more stimulating I found her company. But I would prefer not to be continuously unbalanced by her appearance.

She gave me an unimpressed look.

“There is no need for a cure. The color of my eyes doesn’t bother me. Does it bother you?”

I sensed a challenge in her voice, feeling that an honest answer might not be well received by her. Yet I chose to be honest, anyway.

“It’s unsettling. Any imbalance in the world is unnerving, but a visual one is the most apparent.”

Her forehead furrowed. She crossed her arms over her chest defensively. Yet she looked more puzzled than angry.

“What is it with you and the need to balance everything?”

“Contentment is the highest positive emotion that shadow fae are capable of,” I explained. “There is a feeling of satisfaction in achieving balance and symmetry.”

“I see. So, you find my ‘asymmetrical’ eyes offensive? You know what?” She plopped on her bed, looking exhausted. “You don’t have to look at me. You don’t even have to be here. Why did you even invite me for dinner if all you wanted to do was to present me with the decomposing head?” A shudder ran across her shoulders.

Her mentioning the dinner reminded me she still hadn’t eaten anything. My intentions were to make this morning as pleasant as possible for her, but now she risked going to bed hungry.

“You have to eat,” I said. “Please, return to the dining room with me. I’ll order Serus’s head removed from the table if it offends you.”

I shouldn’t have mentioned the head. She shuddered again, her expression closing off completely.

“Thanks, but I’ll pass.” She bent down and untied the straps of her sandals, then kicked them off her feet. “Can you leave, please? I’ll just go to bed now and hope once again that all of this will disappear like a bad dream when I wake up.”

* * *

Starlight, my camel, walked steadily along the foothills of the city. She was significantly smaller than the pack camels used by caravan merchants, which made her perfect for one rider. I also appreciated Starlight for her calm disposition and steady gait. Her unusual white fur made her stand out against the black sand of the desert at night, which in turn would make me an easy target in a battle against raiders from the desert. But we weren’t going into a battle.

I steered Starlight around the slanted wall of Teneris. The above ground part of the city stretched wide and long. It would take us days to ride along its entire circumference, which the city guards did regularly.

Oskura and I were surveying only a section of it tonight. I’d just wished to get out of the city for a while to feel the cooling air of the desert on my skin. Starlight’s steady gait always helped me think. Since last morning, however, all my thoughts had been going in the same direction, and the ride hadn’t helped me figure out why.

“Have you ever met someone disturbing to look at?” I asked Oskura. “Yet you couldn’t get them out of your head to the point that the only thing you can think about is your desire to see them again?”

Oskura glanced at me sideways from under the cover over her head. The night breeze was light, but it brought a steady stream of fine dust with it. Both my general and I had the top layer of our garments pinned over our heads for protection from the sand.

“Sure,” she said. “Remember that ugly slimy lizard I stepped on during our patrol once? It whipped its tail around my leg, burning me with its toxic slime. The lizard was pretty gross to look at, I’d say. And yes, I couldn’t stop thinking about it as I lay burning with fever for days, waiting for the poison to work its way out of my leg. I never stopped wishing to see that bastard again so that I could kill it.”

Not quite what I meant, though perfectly in line for my general.

“But what if it wasn't a lizard, but a person? And she wasn’t gross or slimy, but just…difficult to look at, and?—”

“And instead of whipping you with a slimy tail, she slapped you with her hand?” Oskura finished for me, giving me a knowing look.

I rolled back my shoulders under her stare.

“Have I become that obvious?”

She shrugged. “You’ve been more silent than usual, Your Highness. And the two times you spoke to me this evening were both about that disorderly Joy Vessel. Also, she’s the only human whose name you cared to learn.”

I realized I hadn’t even thought about asking for the names of the others.

“We’ve wronged her, Oskura, and I can’t figure out how to fix it.”

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