Page 39 of Royal Lies

The burning behind my eye was inevitable. I'd felt it back then. The millions of lives suddenly blinking out of existence. I simply had thought it was another war but then the news cameout about Dracool and their departure from the realm. Soon after gossip about their new King Alexander spread. I was busy at the time those particular whispers knocked on my door so I never confronted him about it. Plus, as I've said, what's his business is his business, as long as he doesn't involve me.

But now he has.

In all my eighteen years, ok so maybe I was a bit older mentally than eighteen, but hey my body sure is eighteen at the moment, I have never ever once believed Alexander could do such a thing. I still believed in him after all. Yes, despite him trying to kill me I thought maybe the separation might have done him some good. When I heard the stories of him. How he raised an empire. How he, despite his emotionless state, helped the poor and cared for his new civilians. Sure I don't know why he attacked us, but maybe that attack was just a misunderstanding. Maybe he was trying to just meet with us, the new rulers of each court. I should have known something was up the moment I spotted him in my garden back when the Summer Court had been the Griffin Court.

For years, I fooled myself into such idiotic excuses despite the obvious signs. Perhaps I still cared for Alexander, maybe that was the reason. I wanted to foolishly cling to the hope that my brother, my dear brother, who besides the queen, still cared for me even when the rest of my family despised me. I always found it funny, odd, how in all the years of our conversations Alexander never once showed his face in this dreamscape of mine. It wasn't as if he couldn't. This was a conversation between our subconscious so, in hindsight, I would expect to see some form of a body here talking to me.

Yet, only one stood, only one sat, only one drank tea, talked, and conversed with me in this dreamscape, myself. While Alexander was this disembodied voice in the air like some grand announcer.

"Why! Why do all these things? Why kill them? Why me? Eli-. Ok, maybe not Eli. Eli, I understand. He never really liked you, wanting to hurt him would make sense. But Akasuki, Fletcher, and that witch, they didn't even touch you. They never once hated you. They always supported you. Hell, you loved Akasuki, despite her already being with Eli. Which quite frankly was a dick move. I mean you were hitting on an engaged woman. But back to my point! You tried to murder us, for what? And don't give me that bullshit. It is not for my own good. You had to know we would seek vengeance once you inevitably retreat, you-" I narrowed my eyes back at the empty seat across from me, at the disappointed sigh hanging in the air above it.

Ice froze over my veins, as I looked back at the empty space above the extra chair. The hidden meaning was obvious as I shook my head. By the shadows, it's worse than I thought.

"What did you do? Who did you make a bargain with?! Alexander what in the name of shadows did you do?!" I nearly slammed the glass cup to the ground in the boiling simmer of my rage.

Alexander's soft, determined remorse-filled voice was all the answer I needed, "I'm sorry, but I needed to do what I needed to do. For the betterment of my people."

Well, doesn't that just drive the dagger home? Any hope I had, and despite wishing that Alexander would go back to being my brother, anything like that was gone. Ripped from my soul as I stood. Glancing down at the table set as if it were the embodiment of the boy I once called my dearest brother. White now turned black. His silence was everything all wrapped in some twisted little bow. I could practically imagine his slumped shoulders, green emeralds determined yet filled with grief for the soldiers and civilians he's killed. The torn look of a once-good man.

"Eli was wrong. You're no soft-hearted boy. You're a killer. A murderer protecting his own skin." I spat, turning to somehow find a way out of this dreamscape of a nightmare. Nothing. Nothing but empty white walls and a sun.

Wait, the sun? In all my visions there was always a symbol of a sun. How could I have missed that?

A sun, above a room where it has no place being. On the embroidery of the tablecloth. Painted onto the handle of the teapot lid. There's always one sun, one way out. But I wasn't done. I needed more information, more time to figure this shit out. I need to keep him distracted and confused. I don't even know if my hypothesis was true. Maybe I'm just going mad after talking to him about the same matter through the years.

"It's not what you think. Everetta listened to me. It was for the better good of my people. Foryou. If I hadn't tried- If I hadn't done what I needed to do-" Alexander’s voice was like the gush of a river, always pouring out lies upon lies upon lies.

He must have done so a million times throughout his life. Trying to justify his actions to himself. I would like to believe it was only after my death that he had turned so vial.

Never mind his useless ramblings. The sun. Despite it all being in my mind everything was set out to be so realistic. Which a dream should be but in all dreams there's just that small spec of peculiarity that lets you know that you’re dreaming. Realization struck me as I glanced over at the tea cups smashed on the ground.

I smiled cruelly, “You killed him, didn't you? You killed your other half. You, what game are you playing Alexander, what bloody game is this?!"

I already knew he did, so all I was doing was confirming it and buying more time. As I stared down at the ground trying hard not to look up at the sun. A sun that should not exist insidea room. A sun shines best when beaming from the sky, not in a cloudless white room.

"You know the obsessed version of yourself might have been insane, mad, crazy, killed millions to fill an ocean too, but he's never tried to lie about what he's done. At least he doesn't fucking convince himself that what he's doing was for ‘the greater good’, whatever that is. So why? Why did you kill him? Better yet for who? Who did you kill him for? It couldn't just be to kill your own citizens, to kill me, Eli, Akasuki, Fletcher, anyone really. No, that kind of sacrifice, that kind of ruthless murder could only mean one thing. You were trying to run, to build a new realm, but why? Who is it you're running from?" I wondered aloud as I stared back at the silent room. I knew I was repeating my words but we've done this tangle so many times I was only saving these questions for when I found my way out. This gamble better be right. Who am I kidding? I'm mother fucking Everetta, I'malwaysright.

Stretching my fingers under the table cloth I felt around for the grooves I knew would be there. The sun in the sky is too hard to reach so the only plausible thing would be the sun on the teapot lid. If so then how come whenever I've touched it nothing happened through our countless meetings? The same goes for the cloth. Thus, they must be clues as to what I need to look for, the sun. If everything with the symbol was open where I could touch it freely or see it then it must be somewhere hidden, easy to reach. A place where one wouldn't think to place a sun symbol, because why would you place it under a table where no one could admire the detailing? Now the question was who left these clues for me? Did they know Eli had me trapped in my mind? Was Alexander? No, he's the one doing this to me. He's not one to mask his actions with another. Lucarious? Though, I highly doubt that narcissist would help anyone if he didn't get something out of it. The witch would much rather see me deadthan help. Someone from my saintess days? The sun was the national sign of my royal lineage, which meant the sign had to be for me. But who could have had enough magic to hide a symbol inmymind? Never mind that. I'll have to thank them later.

I nodded, all my thoughts answered in my mind. Keeping up the furrow to my brows I tried not to show the excitement in my eyes as my hands traced over the ruin. I reached for the sun hidden under the tablecloth. That's the key, the sun is the key to escaping this room. A sun ruin right beside the moon, awake and asleep. What a brilliant genius this fae must be. I can't wait to meet them before I end them. Can't have two geniuses running around this realm. Then again things might be more fun if there was more intellectually manipulative fae running amuck.

"Goodbye Alexander. I hope that for your sake we never meet again." I was finally done with this farce. If you ask me I honestly couldn’t tell you what his answer to my question from before was, I wasn’t really paying attention, and I didn’t need to because he wasn't going to truly answer it. I slammed my palm against the sun ruin.

Frozen in place I glanced around the room. The pristine gray-colored walls. The sapphire and golden embroidered curtain that masked each wooden shelf, made of the finest wood in the kingdom. Only the best to hold such great books and potions. I was back. No, not conscious yet. Thank the magics.

Now, time to figure out how in the world I can retain my memories of the past when I eventually awaken. Stumbling out of my bed, a body beside me. In a dream, such things as warmth and touch are absent, non-existent, yet, my heart still swelled at the figure whose back was the only thing I could visibly see in the dark.

I wanted to trace my fingers across every corner of this man's body, a man that I loved and will always love. For he was the only one to really love me for all my crazy chaotic energy and all. Iwanted to see his bright blue eyes that held so much warmth yet could still maintain the cold chills of the Winter Wolves. But now was not the time. Not yet.

Why might I be placed in a scene, where my lover is in my bed beside me? Well simple, it's in my head I think about what I want. If I want to enter my subconscious dreamscape in this scene then I can. Deal with it. Besides, it's not like the man on the bed was really real. Like he was real but only in my mind. He was merely a placeholder for my real lover out in the realm.

Scrambling out of bed I hurled my magic towards the shelves upon shelves of books. Again my mind, my wants, and my books. Why might there be a mini library in the room? Well, books always gave me comfort. So again I say, deal the fuck with it. It's my head. Also, this ain't my bedroom.

Besides, where else is the best place to study besides here in Flynn's little research center and my experimentation room? Located at the bottom of the Wolf Court castle, which I guess is now known as the Winter Court castle.

Why is there a bed here? Silly it's a castle of course there's a bed. Also, Flynn and I may or may not have fallen asleep on top of the tables so many times Eli moved a bed in here.

Long story short, in this lab, we made a portal of sorts, ok more of a ruin really, that helps keep this room between two courts, mine and Flynnies, that's my nickname for Flynn. Anywho we made it cause well, why shift so many books around from one area to another when you can just transport the entire room.

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