Page 75 of Dead Crown
“Like what?!”
Jaki glanced around the room. “Uh…is there something Reesing did or said? An event only someone close would know?”
Lumi looked away as he suddenly remembered something. “Uh, I think I have an idea.”
Jaki put his arms out for Jacqueline who had quieted but still wore a pinched expression like she might start wailing again. “Can I take her for a minute?”
Lumi let him and followed Jaki out to face Elswere who was standing by the fire with a face like a thundercloud.
“Well?” he demanded as his tail swished. “Are you going to tell me some nonsense about the family that anyone could find out?”
“Do you still have Mother’s things?” Lumi forced out.
Elswere’s jaw tightened. “Some.”
Lumi could barely bring himself to look at Elswere. Standing there was actually harder than allowing his Uncle to fuck him before. He didn’t have a facade to desperately cling to, and he had to struggle to think. “When I was little…I used to like looking in her jewelry box.”
“Mentioning a shiny trinket anyone could have seen isn’t-”
“Let him speak,” Jaki said with such an edge, Elswere looked shocked for a moment. Jaki shifted from foot to foot and patted Jacqueline’s back.
“She had a necklace,” Lumi said in a rush. “I thought it was ugly, and she said it was one of her favorite pieces, and she didn’t want to change anything about it. The string was old, and she hadn’t replaced it because she wanted to keep it the same. The paint was fading from the beads too, so she kept it in her box so it would stay safe. She sat Tivar and me on the bed one day to show us, and she said it was precious because a commoner in the city had given it to her.”
The lines around Elswere’s eyes grew deeper.
“Before she had children, Mother, Father, and you were riding through the city one morning, and a woman’s necklace broke. The beads went rolling everywhere. Mother made theguards stop too, and she got down from her horse to help her collect them all, and she made you and Father help too because she couldn’t see them all. The woman was so happy because her Grandmother had made it. Later, the woman came to the Castle. She’d split the beads into two necklaces, and she gave one to Mother to keep.”
Lumi didn’t think the beads were quite so ugly once Mother explained why she liked the necklace so much. A gift didn’t have to be shiny and perfect because the intention mattered more. Mother also hadn’t helped with the intent to get anything in return, and seeing the lady smile had counted for more.
Tivar hadn’t seemed terribly interested. Lumi, being four at the time, had enjoyed looking at the blobby little flowers, swirls, and shapes painted on each bead.
Elswere’s tail sagged. “I was there, and…the necklace is still up in the attic with the rest of the things she left here before going into hiding. East Forest never got this far to rob and ransack the place. I took control of the Castle-” He looked away for a moment. “You never said anything. Three years…”
“Father.” The single word made Elswere glance at Jaki who shifted Jacqueline to rest against his shoulder.
“Not one bloody word? As soon as you stepped foot in the Castle, you should have been telling me everything. You let me think-”
“I couldn’t say anything,” said Lumi. “I had to do what he said because if he got a hold of me later...”
“Just what could Tivar do to you from West Iceland?” roared Elswere. “You’re not scared to be here now, are you?”
Lumi flinched, and Jaki quickly put an arm around him. “Father, you don’t know what it’s like to be taken as a child and forced to spend years chained in a room while…things are done to you over and over because the other simply wants an heir to use. I don’t think you know what it feels like to truly feel asthough all of your choices have been stripped away while you’re shackled to a bed every fucking day, so don’t you dare ever yell at him like that again.”
Jaki paused as he heavily breathed, and Lumi’s throat further tightened. “It was a commoner who looked close enough to me in the fire. And the other body was his Mother. Tivar found the cat fairy bodies in a village East Forest attacked. My Mother’s…I don’t know. Tivar said her horse threw her. I don’t know what really happened to her or where her body is. He took me away and kept me locked in a room for years. If I didn’t obey him, he’d do worse things to me.”
Elswere suddenly headed for the door while mumbling something.
“Father?”
The door clicked shut, and Jaki tightened his arm. “He’ll need time to come to terms with this, all right? I’ll go talk to him in a bit and tell him about the Crown too.”
Lumi stared at the floor. He’d never really known his Uncle until he had to crawl into bed with him and fake his desire. The heat had carried him through it all.
Everything he’d done there had been another memory to pack away while he enjoyed his fake freedom.
“He hates me,” whispered Lumi.
“I think he hates himself,” said Jaki. “There are a lot of things he could have done differently before, and he probably thinks he should have recognized you even though he hadn’t seen you since you were a tiny thing, and his eyesight has grown poor.”
