Slowly, he shakes his head, and I can’t tell at what. At me and my perceived stupidity? At himself for something that was beyond his control like having a human father?
With a sigh, he rubs at his temples again, the same way he had been when I first entered the room. “If you hate me for the rest of your days and believe nothing I tell you, so be it, but trust me when I say you can never trust a human, and you can never trust someone who isn’t of your blood. Even then, there will likely come a time when they turn on you as well.”
I realize all too late that theaunthe was speaking of was one of his sisters, either Kalli or Ursulette’s mother, Halira. But it doesn’t matter. Just like the former Magistrate Alphonse, no one knows where they are either. But I’d venture a guess that they didn’t just turn on their brother out of nowhere.
Even if they had, my father is wrong.
I’ve experienced firsthand what it’s like to form a family without blood connecting you. Sometimes all you need is to understand each other’s misery.
Like me and Caz, desperate to be accepted for who we are instead of molded into something we despise.
Like me and Ursulette, who lost our mothers too young and wish every night for just one final interaction.
Like me and—
I shake the thought away before it can fully form. Charlotte doesnotbelong on that list and I’m not sure why my mind even considered her for a moment. We’ve only known each other a few days, not the years that Caz, Ursulette, and I have had together.
And yet…looking into her eyes earlier, I feel like I’ve known her a lot longer. Like I understood her, and she me. But that is a falsehood that will never happen. Soon I’ll be fleeing the castle and turning to a life on the run, and she’ll be released to the Hunt to die.
My aunt or a stranger. I can only save one. And I have to choose family.
My father startles me out of my misery and guilt.
"We've received reports that the Shadow Crusade have been active again."
My brow furrows. It’s been years since anyone’s heard from them. They disappeared shortly after my father claimed the realm, but I always just assumed that was because they were slaughtered.
"Are they the ones responsible for the mangled noctis we've been finding all over the realm?" I ask him.
"I'm afraid we don't know yet. But it does seem to align with their handiwork, what with their obsession with dismantling the dead.” I don’t know what he means by that, but I decide against asking him, especially considering the dark shadows that spill over him next. “It must be. This seems far too personal."
Not trusting the simmering rage in his eyes, I do what I can to shift his focus back to the facts. "What are these reports you've been receiving? What do we know?"
The smile that splits his face is humorless, unsettling. "Why, we know they’re planning an attack, of course. I wouldn't be surprised if that regrettable cousin of mine was leading at the helm, intent on earning back his throne."
He must be talking of the former Magistrate and Fox’s husband, Alphonse, but the last thing I want to talk about is my aunt.
"An attack?" I ask instead. "When? Where?"
The hard set of his brow lifts as his gaze meets mine. “Since when are you so curious about our political warfare, son?”
I scoff. He acts as if I flit about the realm without a care outside of myself, never mind that I have friends and family whom I care for deeply, and that an attack on us puts their lives in danger, as well.
Let him think me selfish. I’ve been done trying to change his opinion of me for years now.
“Since my own livelihood might very well be at stake, depending on what they’re planning,Father."
It's so rare that I call him by that title. Only in moments like these when I want him to hurt as greatly as I have. It’s a fool’s goal though. Noctis like him are incapable of feeling anything so profound.
Instead of dismissing me with his usual annoyance at this point in our conversation, the king watches me the way a scholar might observe a newly discovered poisonous plant.
My indifference to him, mingled with the few glasses of wine I’ve had by now, do their best to numb my desire to care what’s on his mind and what he thinks of me. But the longer he stares, the more I start to wonder just what it is he's seeing. Not the perfect heir he's always hoped I'd become, that much is sure.
So what is it then that he finds so interesting now?
He doesn't say and I don't ask.
At long last,he turns his back to me and begins his regal departure down the royal carpet. "In time, you'll understand there’s more to concern yourself with than your own longevity," he says from halfway down the hall. "It won’t be long now that it’ll be you on that throne deciding the fate of us all."
