The corner of his mouth curved with humor. Mine did as well at the thought of a miniature Hadrian, studious and resolute.
“But I’d never seen a newborn before. I was mesmerized. I wanted to hold her, touch her, kiss her cheeks, run my fingers through the soft fuzz of her head. She wasn’t pink-skinned like Hadrian. Her skin was olive like mine, her hair rich and curly like mine. Like our mother. Cressian skin and hair. And my mother—” He paused as his eyes flickered over the rock. “I don’t know if it was pregnancy, or childbirth, or if I was justproud. But I had never seen a woman more beautiful than my mother in that moment. I can still see her in my mind, gazing down at me as I sat in her lap holding Jonet, her arms around us both.”
Kye ran a hand along the back of his neck, turning his face into his palm. “And then the King came in to meet his newest child. I remember my mother looking up as he entered the nursery, then frantically passing Jonet and I to a nursemaid. She stood in front of us like a shield with her arms out, like she didn’t want the King to see us. He just—shoved her aside. It was the first time I’d seen him do that to her.”
He blinked at the haggard floor, memories swirling quietly in his head. I leaned into the cliff wall, taking in his words, the weight in my chest growing. I’d only spoken to the King once, if it even counted as speaking. The engagement announcement he’d made to the lords and ladies of the palace hardly qualified as open conversation.
“He took one look at Jonet and grabbed my mother’s elbow, yanking her away. He kept saying,Another one, Cemre? Another one?He dragged her down the hall, and I remember the terror on her face. I still see it in my mind when I let myself. And no one stopped him. They all just stared in shock—Hadrian, the nursemaid, the servants. I didn’t understand why everyone just stood and watched as he marched her down the corridor, her feet sliding and her arms clawing at him to let go.”
“Hadrian was a child,” I said softly.
“I know. I even knew then—why he did nothing. But I couldn’t stop myself from running after them, throwing myself in their way. I yelled at him to leave my mother alone. The next thing I remember was waking up in the nursery.” His mouth lifted in a humorless smile.
Sudden horror carved up my throat. “He hit you?”
Kye tilted his head vaguely back and forth, weighing the idea. “I think he shoved me aside and I hit the stone wall. I don’t know for sure. I didn’t understand any of it, but I knew something had changed. My view of the world had changed. For weeks, I repeated his words in my mind.Another one, Cemre?At three years old, I didn’t know what it meant. What about Jonet had set him off, and how my mother had known it would before he’d even looked at her.”
He emptied his lungs sharply, his eyes finally lifting to meet mine, gauging me as I rolled the same words around in my own head, wondering at their meaning.
“I learned to fight because of him,” Kye said. “Because I knew that as second born, I could someday be a general for my brother. Swords, knives, fists. Formations of attack; formations of defense. Military tactics. War strategy. Counter strategy. Subterfuge. All the dirty tricks: deception, distraction, intimidation. I think Hadrian did the same. He studied politics and language and diplomacy to keep our father happy. Jonet became a porcelain doll. Something pretty and breakable that you put on a shelf to look at. Something that never speaks unless you put words in its mouth. We all knew our place. Hadrian had unparalleled expectations placed on him. I was expendable. Jonet was a bargaining chip for a future alliance. I think we were all just trying to survive without drawing his ire…until my mother became pregnant again.”
Watching him, I released a long, silent breath. After Jonet came Kye’s two half-siblings, Mallus and Breer. I’d never heard anyone mention Kye’s mother having a fourth child.
Kye shook his head, reading my thoughts. “The doctors said she died of pneumonia. Of fluid in her chest, leaving her weak with cough. But I don’t think she did. I think my father slowly poisoned her. And I think she knew it. But there was nothing she could do.”
He gyrated his jaw, avoiding my eyes. My chest twisted, suddenly heavy. I thought of my own father. Still madly in love with my mother, even after all the years since she died. What might it have been like, had I grown up with the opposite?
“I think…” He scratched his jaw slowly, breaking me from my reverie. “I think maybe all kings go mad. I don’t think they can help it. All that power in one person’s hands—I think it’s more than any one mind can handle. Somewhere along the line, kings believe they’re gods. They forget they’re human. They don’t realize that as their pride grows, their self-control shrinks. Everything becomes personal. Everything is a threat. Maybe it’sgreed. Or wrath. Or paranoia. Whatever it is…kings fall because of it. Not physically. But in their mind…they fall to madness.
“I thought I could escape it,” Kye said, tossing the stone over the cliff edge. “Sneak from the castle and live on a farm or in a tavern for a few nights at a time. I longed for the day my father died and Hadrian married. Then it would be mybrother’skingdom.Hispalace. And I’d be excused to go live in a manor somewhere as a prince lord like my uncle, Marcus. So, I snuck out of the palace and learned to hunt and fish. To forge steel and raise homes. To work with my hands. I know a little of everything, but not a lot of one thing.”
He flashed a self-depreciative grin, but it quickly dropped from his face. “I kept it up for several years, ignoring the King when he raged at me after I returned. I’d wait for things to blow over and then go do it again. The people found it amusing, which only angered my father more. But I didn’t care.
“Not until one night, when I was in Hadrian’s rooms, the two of us talking after I’d spent the day training in the yard as punishment for my escapades. He was laughing at my stories—I’d just returned from the mines, my pockets lined with jokes so detestable they’d make your hair curl. We’d done a fair bit of drinking. It was late and no one expected us to be awake. No one expected me to be there with him.
“We’d just blown out our candles. Hadrian went to sleep in his bed, but I laid awake on his couch, musing about what far-off place to sneak off to next, when the door opened and a figure crept inside.”
Kye’s jaw hardened. He leaned forward, scrubbing the dark stubble over his chin. “They made it to the bed before I was even on my feet, and I heard a knife unsheathe as they yanked the blankets back. I shouted, Hadrian rolled away, and they slashed at the mattress. Then the man turned and fled. I chased himdown the hall and out the door to the palace wall—but he flung himself up and over, dropping down to the rocks below.”
My eyes widened. “He jumped? Did he die?”
“Well, he didn’t fucking live.”
“Were his eyes—” I bit my lip. Kye waited. “Did you see his eyes?”
The fire crackled. Kye paused, his mouth still slightly open. “No. It was dark. Why?”
A small warning flared within me at how close the subject came to things I couldn’t talk about. “In the forest, you and Hadrian said you didn’t trust Thaan.”
He stared at me, waiting for me to continue.
“Eyes are one of the ways you can tell someone’s been seduced.”
“In what way?”
“They dilate,” I said, though I frowned at myself. Thaan was skilled enough to hide the clues of hisincantations. Skilled enough I hadn’t realized he’d made Kye avacousuntil the night of our wedding. Eyes might not be a clear indication. Still, the idea that the man had leapt to his own death… “How did he get in?” I asked.
Kye shook his head. “I don’t know. I was mad enough to find the guards and give them a lashing for allowing someone to sneak through, but Hadrian tugged me back to his room, barred the door, and spent two hours convincing me not to tell a soul.”
