Page 103 of The Ballad of a Bard

Didn’t want to hear him. She wanted to block her ears with wax and forget that he ever existed. Because what he said next, what he forced her to do, was the worst thing she could ever imagine.

The Prince inhaled deeply, “West is going to come visit you within the next few days. I suggest you act your part for the sake of your brother’s life. He’s going to try to get any information out of you regarding my mother’s untimely death and you’re going to give it to him without hesitation.”

The command felt oddly good, as if he wanted her to seem innocent.

“Why?” She asked bitterly, waiting for the othershoe to drop. There was no doubt in her mind that it would, and that he was merely waiting for dramatic anticipation.

He lifted his chin and grinned at her. “Because when West asks if you killed my mother, you’re going to say yes.”

Fifty

When Altivar came around again, Crimson knew that at least a day had passed. The sun’s position over the slanted window was just visible enough for her to make out the pale rays of the moon, followed by the golden light of dawn. But the Prince had brought something with him this time, something that struck her as odd as he neared her cell.

“Ah, I see you’ve noticed the flowers I’ve brought you.” He wiggled the bouquet close to the bars, the flowers too fat to enter the cage in their bundled state. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

Crimson didn’t answer.

He began to mess with them, stroking the petals in soft, uneasy patterns like he would with a pet. “Do you know what they’re called?”

She didn’t respond, looking at anything but him.

“They’re called True Norths.” Altivar smiled down at them, fondly as if he loved the flowers more than anything else in the realm. She wouldn’t put it past him, considering what he’d done to his own mother.

Her mind had spun out of control as she pawed over his admission, about the terrible truth that he forced her to tell West. For his sake, for everything she was, she hoped that West would just stay away and that she wouldn’t have to tell him. But she knew the Saint, and knew that after his display when they tried to take her away, he wouldn’t stay away forever. Crimson had cried again, sobbed throughout the night as she held herself and wished that West’s strong arms were wrapped around her instead of her own. She pretended to smell his moonlight on water and stardust scent, instead of the moldy dampness that lingered in the air.

“Would you like to make a guess as to why they’re called that?” The Prince pressed on, ignoring her state of disrepair.

The sapphire blue petals held a dainty star in the middle of them, tapering down into the dark green leaves and stem. There even seemed to be a faint shimmer reflected if she looked close enough, one that mocked the night sky in all its glory.

West’s eyes, they looked like his eyes.

“No.”

“Come now, you’re smarter than this.” He tsked, letting them fall slightly as he came closer. “Don’t tell me you can’t see the very reason for that delightful name.”

“Leave me alone.” Crimson was sick of his unnerving, endless taunting. She was sick of seeing no one but him, and would have preferred the quiet and isolation to his mean taunts that he pranced around her cell with. “Either get on with my execution or fuck off.”

He laughed then, and inside the sound was nothing but the musical delight of someone far better than him. Muse’s laugh, that’s what she heard. It made her sick, to the point where whatever was left in her stomach turned to rotting morsels. The aciditycrept up her throat and she struggled to keep it down.

“Oh what fun we’re going to have, Lyric.” He finished off his amusement with a chuckle. “But back to the question at hand.” Altivar held the flowers out to her again and began to pluck them off, one by one. He didn’t care in the slightest as he shoved them through the bars, forcing them in her proximity.

“Why do they call them True Norths?” Crimson bitterly asked, avoiding the petals as they fluttered to the floor in front of her. The very last thing she wanted was to look into the beautiful blue that held the very universe in the center of them. To be reminded of the man she cared deeply for and his miraculous eyes that never left her ever present thoughts.

The Prince’s lupine grin spread from ear to ear and horrified her. But not as much as his chilling words did. “Because the rumour is that they only grow in places where the Northern Star’s tears fall.”

Crimson’s world shattered as he said that.

As she understoodwhyWest might have been crying, the bone-rattling reason that she’d already suspected.

“I want to see him.” She quietly demanded.

Because if Altivar was going to make her take the blame for his mother’s murder, for his murderous acts, then she wanted to tell West everything. Wanted to tell him that she was sorry they couldn’t have been together for long, to ask him to take care of Cobalt after she was gone. She wanted to tell him that she was glad he didn’t love her, because it would have only broken his heart after she died.

But most importantly, she wanted to tell him that she loved him.

Because someone needed to know.

Someone needed to know that Crimson Bard, a nobodydaughter from a bastard of a Saint, loved someone. That she trusted someone enough to let herself love them, and that in the end, that was enough for her to go into the night.

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