Page 34 of Crownless King

I met his eyes across the table, catching a flash of vulnerability in them. He was worried about this, about the depths to which his need for me had grown. But there wasn’t much I could say or do to alleviate his worries. All of this was new to me, too, and I had even less life experience to evaluate all these feelings between us. All I knew was that I wished for this to last. I wished to see where it would lead us.

“It’s lovely,” I agreed, looking at the peaceful picture of us sleeping together, the long curtains on the open window swaying in the breeze lightly. For as long as I lived, I vowed to remember this moment of utter peace and comfort the two of us had shared.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “no images of me ‘pounding’ into you have made it into the records after all.”

“Thank goodness.” I exhaled in relief. “It makes sense, I guess, to keep the house records PG-rated.”

He arched an eyebrow at my mentioning the PG rating but didn’t ask for a clarification as I started turning the pages again.

I moved toward the end of the book, closer to the earlier events. There was a gap in time in the records—probably when Voron had been in the Dakath Mountains, down in the Below—as just after a few flips, a picture of a young boy reading a book in a chair by a lit fireplace appeared.

“Is that you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

So much about this boy seemed familiar. He had the same challenge in his eyes, the same stubborn set of the mouth like Voron did. Only the boy’s hair was completely black. Not a single strand of it had turned silver yet.

He didn’t answer my question. Sitting at the table across from me, Voron the man was staring at Voron the boy—so much like him, yet so different, too, separated by over a century and a half of suffering and experience.

Voron’s lips moved as he looked at the scene unfolding from the book’s pages.

“Mother,” he said softly.

A tall, slender woman rushed into the room and shut the door behind her.

“Voron.” She crouched in front of the boy. “They’re coming for me…”

Her eyes wide with horror, she darted a glance at the window where large, winged shapes approached, obscuring the sky.

“Who?” The boy jumped from his seat.

The woman held both his hands in hers.

“Whatever happens, please remember I love you.” The words rushed out of her in a hurried, fervent whisper. “I always loved you, from the moment I held you in my arms.”

The winged figures outside soared closer. One of them kicked the smooth crystal out of the window.

The boy glared in that direction, but the woman kept holding his hands. She shook with trepidation and fear.

“Please, remember me.” Her hands trembled as she yanked a ring off her finger and shoved it into her son’s hand. “Whatever they do to us, don’t let it break you. You were saved for a reason. Remember that.”

The royal guards rushed through the window at the same time as the door crashed open. Splinters of wood flew across the room.

Gripping his mother’s hand, the boy looked lost and scared, but he tried to hide it. He stepped in front of his mother, shielding her from the guards who rushed them from both sides.

Some grabbed the woman and dragged her to the window. The rest yanked the boy from her grip, hauling him toward the door.

“Mother!” The boy who had tried so stoically to act like a man finally crumbled as the woman who’d cared for him since birth was torn away from him.

“Stay strong, Voron. I love you…” came from the window as they flew her out of the room and out of his life forever.

He bit a guard’s hand and kicked another one, but the men were so much stronger than the boy. As the guards hauled him out of the room, another winged man landed on the low windowsill of the tall window.

Draping his ink-black wings over his shoulders, he stood in the window, watching as the guards took the little boy away. The man’s long, silver-white beard blew in the gusts of the approaching storm. The black feathers of his wings rustled in the wind. A circlet of golden thorns graced his head. On the back of the circlet, the thorns were much longer. They rose up and branched out, like antlers.

“Who’s that?” I tore my eyes from the book to look at Voron.

His hands balled into fists on the table, but his expression was calm. Only his eyes appeared a bit glossy. He blinked slowly, meeting my gaze, and I couldn’t stand the suffering shining in his eyes. He never stopped mourning the loss of his mother. She didn’t need to beg him to remember her. He never forgot.

“Voron…” I got off my seat and took a step his way.

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