Page 51 of The Devil In Blue
“I enjoy the books very much,” I said. “I hope it’s alright that I spend time there.”
He shrugged. “It was your favorite place in the world. I built it for you, after all. My own addition to this palace. Before, it was simply a dusty room with piles of disheveled books.”
“You mean… you built it forher.”
I didn’t sound nearly as stern as I had hoped.
Rune scoffed, rolling his head back and staring at the ceiling for a moment in mild frustration.
“I suppose your scar means nothing,” he said, still smiling, but there was no humor behind it.
“I don’t understand the magic here. You could have conjured something to match my scar.”
Deep down, I was starting to accept it wasn’t a coincidence, though.
“That room has been here since before I was king. There was no conjuring—”
“Then it is some kind of trick,” I cut him off, feeling cornered. “I’ve had this scar since I was young. Since my father’s sword was dropped into a fire and he pulled it out to fight, burning his hands to protect me before being cut down. I rolled onto the hilt and that’s the story of it.”
“Is it what they told you?”
“They?”
“In that pitiful asylum you resided in for so many years.”
“Petris told you…”
“Is that what they told you to say to me if I should ever get my hands on you again?”
I furrowed my brows at the implication. “Get your hands on me again? What is it that I truly am to you?”
He shook his head with a sigh like he regretted his own words. As always, Rune was heated, letting his emotions eat him alive. I couldn’t blame him. I often longed for my emotions to do the same. I’d always bottled them up and they festered like a rotting wound, decaying more every day.
“I’m tired, Briar,” he said. “So tired of longing. Of holding back. Of wanting to burn the world.”
I felt something at those words. Something I didn’t expect. Pity. But more than that, I felt sorrow. For both of us. He imagined I was someone I wasn’t and I barely even knew who I was. We were both lost.
“I am sorry for you, Rune,” I said.
“Sorry for me?”
He was growing angry again. I needed to quell it. Soothe it. Break the cycle where I would scream in confusion and he would push me toward the edge of my madness. When he stepped forward, hands curling into fists, I clutched the blanket and forced words from my lips.
“What was the song?” I asked, stopping him. He lifted his head, taken aback. “I really did enjoy it.”
My heart was racing, but somehow, I managed to get my words out evenly and calmly.
Rune blinked and took a deep breath as if trying to calm himself. “It is calledBell Ringer.It is about a man cursed to ring the bells at the gates of eternity. But eternity turned him bitter. Then sad. Then angry and hateful.”
“And hateful he remained?” I asked.
Rune’s eyes softened a bit, his shoulders relaxing. “No.”
“The end of the song seemed a bit aggressive. I assumed—”
“I didn’t finish,” he whispered.
“Oh.” I glimpsed the viola sitting behind him and then shifted my gaze back to Rune, taken by the way his eyes tore into me, digging deep and mercilessly. “Can I hear the end?”
