How to Make a Sinner Sleep

001 | royalty; the stray who holds the doll's lost heart

Reed Chauvet thought he would never love a living soul for his heart was carved out at birth by his own father's hand. This beautiful doll with hair spun from gold and a chilling blue gaze could not be considered living.

Then, once upon a time, the beautiful doll saw a flicker. A surging, wild, and frightening flame condensed in the vibrant green gaze of a boy with nothing.

He both envied and pitied that filthy child.

This is an excerpt—the time before their fates misaligned.

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The Crown Prince is all too aware of the expectations woven in the gazes that peer at him, all containing their own motive, all with their special thoughts.

He is a teenager who stands too straight, too tall. Too frightening, with eyes too cold.

Too beautiful, too intelligent, oh what a perfect doll he is. A puppet of the throne, delicately shaped and shaved of all his imperfections.

He understands this. That to survive in the palace is to carve out everything that he is.

His value is his perfection.

He is untouchable; he stands on the top of almost everything and everyone, and one day—one day he will stand on top of his father himself.

The day he picked up the stray child with burning, fierce eyes that were so unlike him, they charmed and allured him with everything that he was not.

That was a boy who embodied flaws and imperfections—rebellion and viciousness.

Reed doesn't know why he chose Kaden. It was a mistake, to stare at the boy's eyes and feel envy at all he was, and all Reed was not.

In the beginning, the child was a rebellious thing, refusing to eat, searching for ways to escape and gazing fearfully at Reed as if he would bite.

He would.

Then, one day, Kaden's escape led him to falling from a towering tree, hoping to leap over the wall.

Reed didn't know why he ran so desperately that day, slamming into a tree. He didn't know why he decided to get on his knees, searching under shrubs for a loaf of bread that would be beaten and bruised.

Kaden chose to remain in the palace, seduced by food.

Reed, lately, has taken to the strange hobby of observing the wild child who clings to a filthy loaf of bread. The child that does not take anything for granted.

It is his one hobby, his once solace that he's chosen himself. The King does not stop him—not yet—appeased that Reed is obediently carrying his duties in the palace.

Kaden, Reed notes, likes to read despite his skill being a little lacking. It isn't awful, however.

The child's background is not as simple as it appears.

It's only because watching the boy pout and roll around like a fool is entirely frustrating that Reed starts frequenting the library, reading and explaining the words that Kaden does not know.

And what he doesn't know is a lot. But it isn't frustrating—what is frustrating about teaching an infant how to speak?

Every word that Kaden speaks, the letters on the paper that he remembers the shape of—all taught by Reed.

That thought delights the Crown Prince.

And really, it doesn't mean much when Reed decides to eat his lunch with the child. The child is a suspicious and yet innocent, all at once, character. He refuses to eat with the others, and therefore Reed simply has to eat with the boy.

And no, he does not find it amusing when the boy's eyes curve delicately with happiness, relishing every bite of food.

He certainly is not pleased with how the boy doesn't waste any food, save for olives which the boy scrunches his nose and presses his lips together.

It can't be helped that Reed takes the boy's olives off his plate, eating them himself.

Everything is routine, everything is calculated—even this imperfect child.

And alright, he's opened the locked door after a year to quiet knocking on his door, and a child clutching a pillow with dishevelled hair and red eyes.

But the boy's crying is hard to listen to, and Reed is a methodical prince who chooses the best solutions. So what if the solution is lifting his covers, allowing the small child to burrow into his blankets?

Kaden doesn't dare to draw any nearer to him, clinging to the edge of the bed.

And yet, the boy curls tightly, his breathing easing as if Reed's presence can be a comfort.

Kaden's nightmares are frequent, but he only dares enter Reed's room when it peaks, once a week. Reed says nothing but opens his door, leaving the once-always-locked door slightly ajar for his little visitor.

Then, one day, Reed wakes panting, thrusting his sheets up and eyes wide and horrified.

His state is a mess, his perfect hair tangled and his calm gaze trembling. His body shudders, feeling the ghost of hands trail over him, moulding and shaping him.

He gasps, and swivels his head towards the sleeping child. Kaden can not be awake. He can not see him in such a state—miserable and flawed and imperfect and everything he cannot be.

There Kaden lies, a small figure in the mass of thick blankets, blinking his quiet, watching green eyes.

Reed stiffens, the teenager tightly clutching his blankets. And he waits, knowing it will come. The disappointment that he is flawed, the realisation that he is nothing like he pretends to be.

Kaden reaches out and Reed resists the urge to look away—when did he start fearing disappointment in that worshipping emerald gaze?

The boy tilts his head and then beams, reaching out and awkwardly patting Reed's head.

The teenager's neck bends, head lowering as his eyes stare blankly at the white sheets. The small hand continues to tap his head awkwardly, stiffly.

There he sits, being comforted by a boy who clings to the edge of the bed and avoids drawing close to people.

The small hand is a warmth on his head that he's never known. At some point, he doesn't know when it is that his arms reach out and pull the child closer.

He doesn't know when his arms start trembling, but he feels the small bundle in his arms, all so fragile, stiffen in confusion before wrapping his short arms around Reed's back.

Reed hugs the boy closer—and he's careful not to hold too tight, careful not to injure, careful not to make sure the boy is uncomfortable—

—how does one hug somebody?

The teenager almost laughs at the wonder.

He holds the child quietly, the fear receding from the lingering of his nightmare. How could something so precious exist, how can this small child ease away his hauntings with a mere breath?

There is an aching in his chest, a strange, foreign pulse that beats on his left side.

In this filthy and deranged world, how can such a treasure exist? But Reed knows the answer—the truth.

That treasures cease to exist, crumbling to pieces of what they once were, torn to shreds by society and the living, stained with the blight of existence.

He holds the boy close.

He vows to himself then and there, that no matter what cost, he will be the treasure chest that shields the treasure from the world. No matter how his flesh burns and his mind wavers—he will resist to the end.

And then, that morning as light seeps into the room, cascading like a blessing over the two—one teenager, one boy—their fates settle.

Reed Chauvet, the perfect Crown Prince, finally finds his flaw.