Page 51 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
“Thenleave!” Owen spat. “Go somewhere else. Return when it’s over. No one is making you stay!”
But how could Caerwyn leave? How was that ever a possibility?
He could have pulled rank, of course. He could have insisted. His mother was queen, he was the crown prince. Owen had no right to order him.
But Owen was the only father he had ever known, and right now… his only parent.
He caved. He returned to his mother’s bedside. He prayed, he stayed. He turned empty with sleeplessness.
One morning in the faint bluish light, she opened her hollow eyes and looked at him. Too weak to speak, and yet he knew she was channelling all her energy into that look—that last, desperate plea.
She wanted it to be over.
Caerwyn didn’t know if he could do it. He’d never harmed another human being before, never hurt anyone he loved. What was he supposed to do? Take the pillow from the bed and smother her with it?
He couldn’t bear to think of it, couldn’t bear to press it to her face, to think of her bony limbs flailing beneath him, moving for the final time, her life snuffed out by the life she’d given.
He couldn’t do it.
But he had to help her.He had to.
He clenched her hand, wishing he could suck her pain away, to draw out her life like he was sending it somewhere, not extinguishing it.
Something fell over him, like a dark, snappable cloud. He felt like thunder was rolling overhead. A pull, a tug, a hard, twisted knot unlatched inside him.
The veins in his mother’s hands blackened. Her skin turned grey. All at once, the spark in her eyes vanished, turning milky white. Her entire body trembled, then stilled.
She was dead. She was definitely, completely dead.
So why was she still moving?
Caerwyn stumbled backwards, screaming, alerting the guards posted outside. The ladies-in-waiting jolted awake, shrieking at the sight of Her Majesty rising from the bed, struggling towards Caerwyn with her mouth hanging open, like she planned to devour him whole.
“What sorcery is this?” one of the guards asked.
“I… it was me,” Caerwyn muttered numbly, confused about everything but that. Somehow, he’d done this.
“What?” the guard ceased his arm. “This is nonsense, Your Highness—”
His mother’s corpse stepped towards him, and the second guard ran her through.
Caerwyn screamed again.Don’t hurt her,he wanted to yell, even though he knew that was ridiculous, pointless. His mother was beyond hurting. His mother wasn’t here anymore.
But her corpse continued to move, sliding down the sword.
“The head!” shrieked one of the ladies-in-waiting. “Take off her head!”
The guard holding Caerwyn dropped him, drawing his sword. He sliced the neck straight from her shoulders, and the Queen’s head rolled over the flagstones and landed on the rug nearby.
Her nose brushed against the pattern of bears and crowns—the same pattern Caerwyn had followed with his fingers as a tiny child, naming each of the animals and counting them one-by-one as his mother praised his efforts.
Caerwyn turned, and vomited over the floor.
“Steady now, Your Highness,” said one of the guards. “The monster is defeated.”
But that wasn’t true, wasn’t right, because the only dead thing here was his mother, and Caerwyn was the one who had made her that way, and he was still alive.
He clambered to his feet, moving towards the door. The other guard shouted out, and suddenly there were hands on him, trying to hold, to soothe, to stop—
