KINGSLAYER

♕ 4 | 8 ♕

I shook him off once we were outside, still trying to be sure I did not hallucinate the entire encounter. "Well," Alexander said, looking at the front of the inn with shared mystification. "Thank the Hounds we got out of there. Did you see that figurine she held? Those people are all fuckin' crazy."

"Regarding witches and monsters and other abominations that belong in hell." Not people.

"Yeah, well. You probably do have a general air of malfeasance," Alexander replied very ironically. "Let's leave this shithole. There must be another inn nearby."

There was. Night had fallen by the time we reached it. We got a room and a hot meal for cheap, so the food was semi-flavorless and the room's floor was partially rotted from recent rainfall. At least if I was killed tonight, it would be by a sagging roof and not from extreme purists lighting my bed on fire.

Long after the candle was blown out, I laid on my moth-eaten blanket and stared up at the ceiling. Draven's locket was in the pack at the side of the bed; I had not touched it since earlier. I had not bothered to undo the braids circling my head like a crown either, so it would surely look more like a bird's nest than hair tomorrow. My mind kept circling back to the extremist woman's horrified stare, her white knuckles clutched around the symbol of her patron God as if it was her sole lifeline. Given the things I had seen and done, it should not have stayed with me. Hardly anything I ever did sat in the forefront of my mind and ate away at my sanity like this.

I can sense the evil around you. You've brought darkness under this roof. The words echoed, jeering at me. Normally, I would have accepted her insanity and moved on. But no one else was able to sense the existence of Draven's locket on my person—when she said those things, she had no idea I held the power of a dead God.

She simply...felt that there was something wrong with me.

Princess Jaylithia would not have cared. She would not have thought deeply about this matter at all, for she would have punished the aggressors already. But my eyes were opened for good. I never seemed to recognize my wicked actions until after I was punished for them. I always thought what I was doing was right until it was not right any longer. I never cared until it was too late.

My father. It always came back to Aegeus Imperator. Even without the knowledge of his crimes against the people of Navrika, there were times in which the sheer wrongness in him was palpable. One could just...feel it.

I was too much. Too unrestrained, too wild, too selfish. I never did anything in half-measures, nothing subtle. It was my curse to forever take things too far. And I would never truly rectify myself, because I never learned my lesson until there was bloodshed. It repeated over and over again. Eternally.

The thoughts became so dark that I sat up from my bed and quietly left the room, leaving Alexander sleeping soundly behind. The front room was empty and the fireplace was unlit, so I went out the front doors. I tilted my chin upwards. Clouds blocked the moon, giving the entire sky an eerie glow.

Following the sound of running water, I found the river at the inn's rear, moving faster than I expected. The breeze carried over the rippling surface, bringing its cold over me. I hugged my arms around myself against the chill. After a moment's hesitation, I sat in the dewy grass at the river's edge. It was not like I was sleeping tonight anyway.

Chewing on my cheek, I remembered the seer's soothsaying, how her look of horror matched the woman's from earlier. Only I actually believed in the validity of her work. Perhaps it was stupid to fall for the tricks of a conwoman as Alexander said. But it felt all too real to be an elaborate hoax.

For the love of the Gods, do not let it consume you.

My mother was right, all this time. She was right to guide me toward a reserved, meek life. Psychotic as he may be, I still felt inclined to take in with open arms the ruthlessness and ambition my father encouraged. I mentally berated myself. After everything he did to us, I still wished for the things he taught me over my mother's? This was a sign I was not yet out of danger from the darkness festering in me like an infected wound.

I should have listened to her. I should have kept myself out of situations in which I lusted after a sinful amount of power. I should have not retorted back to disrespectful nobles as I did. I should have kept a low profile as she did, chiming in only when necessary and establishing herself not as an immediate enemy to court adversaries but as a soft force working for the betterment of the court.

It was odd; as I promised myself to hold back more, I realized how little I felt the need to in these current circumstances. No one but Alexander dealt with me daily, and he could not care less whether I decided to put on the mask each morning or not. Most days, I even felt inclined not to. That was dangerous thinking. That was likely what earned me two warnings in such a short amount of time.

I had no idea anyone was near until a voice said, "Are you really taking what that old hag said seriously?"

Whipping around so hard it pained my neck, I looked up to see Alexander standing over me. Perhaps he was awake to see me leave after all. In that case, he chose not to kill me while I was unassuming. Progress, I supposed.

"No." I fixed my gaze back out over the water on the town across.

"And yet you're not asleep. You're out here brooding instead."

"Do not pretend you care. Go back inside."

"No." After a moment, Alexander sat beside me outside of arm's length. I thought he would fill the silence, but he merely folded his hands in his lap and angled his face to the luminous sky. The moonlight pronounced the hard lines of his features.

I looked away. "I do not care for a peasant's meaningless opinion of me." But I do care that there is something inherently wicked in me. I do care that everyone fears I will run my empire into the ground. Including you. Including myself. "Judgements like the one she gave simply make it harder to believe the new leaf I turned was successful."

"You fear you will complete what your father began." Something flipped uneasily in my stomach at how easily he was able to pinpoint the underlying meaning of my admission.

"I fear I still am the same bad person I was," I corrected before I could remind myself I was meant to be closing off more rather than opening up.

He exhaled a chuckle. "If killing people while thinking you're doing the right thing makes someone a bad person, I'm one too. And thousands of others."

"You killed thieves, murderers of innocents, rapists. It is not the same."

But he was shaking his head, the moonlight shining off his loose curls. "I...lied. Sort of. Yes, the majority of my targets committed crimes. Some of them didn't. My job is to kill who I was paid to. I don't ask questions." He shrugged. "Some arguably innocent people got caught in the middle. And jealousy and bloodthirstiness don't bode well for justice."

I felt his gaze flick over. "Though I'm not proud of it, the memory doesn't tear me up. I had to do what I had to do. And the way I see it, they would have died at the hands of another mercenary if I declined. I didn't say that at first because it was hypocritical. I just didn't want to have anything in common with you."

"And you do now?" I knew the answer to that already.

Instead, he changed the subject. "What do you want, Jaylah?"

"I told you already: I wish to be the most formidable—"

"No." Confused, I stopped talking. "Out here, you're nobody. I didn't mean as Queen. I meant what do you want?"

A stillness was struck throughout my whole body. His question assumed that the position of Queen and I were two separate entities, though I was not so sure. Was it even possible to be something other than what you were raised from birth to be?

Outside of the responsibilities of Queen and my duty to protect Oceana, I was unsure there was anything I wanted that was attainable. I thought back to Zensa and Adelié, how they had so much and yet nothing at the same time. Deep down, I did not think I would be satisfied with so little.

"I do not know," I answered, and it was partially true. "Perhaps I never will."