KINGSLAYER

♕ 6 | 7 ♕

Act 1 Chapter 67
ALEXANDER

Alexander laid back and stared at the ceiling of the tiny cabin, wishing he had that numb state of shock back. He focused on counting the slats of wood so that his eyes wouldn't close and he wouldn't have to face how completely fucked he was. It was all too real now.

This could not be normal. How could one person take so much hurt? If it was a physical ailment, it would have killed him already. Perhaps it still would.

He wished he was sick. He wished he had a cough that made him hack up chunks of his lungs. At least then he would have a reason for it all. At least then he would be able to point to the part of his body that hurt, because it wouldn't be the entire thing and none of it at the same time.

Alexander hid it well. He knew he did; there were no scared whispers of the other passengers when they saw his heart was torn right out, no questions about his exposed insides. He'd been ripped open, flipped inside out, and no one would ever know due to how frighteningly good he was at presenting himself as anything other than what he really was. And while everyone else might have the luxury of dealing with the persona he carefully fitted over he shaking child in his bones, Alexander couldn't escape him.

The constant wondering was like picking a wound so raw that it would never heal. Still, he could not stop from hurting himself with it. While the 'what ifs' of getting there sooner haunted his every waking thought, those questions only bloomed into worse ones. Veronika was five when the invasion happened. Mishi was two. Alexander knew Veronika has a fixation on the number nine and had an extensive vocabulary beyond her years, and that Mishi hated peas and used to play with her dolls by the stove so they wouldn't get cold. They vexed him to no end, but he had watched them grow from infants into children. Did they know the little peculiarities that made him him? And the worst one: did they even remember him at all? Or did he hinge his entire existence upon saving people who had long since forgotten everything he was?

If he'd saved them, it wouldn't matter. He would have left them alone forever if it meant knowing they were unshackled. But he would never know—who they grew up to be, whether they were in pain when they took their final breaths, if his mother sang to his sisters as they went. He would never know if his mother held onto the stupid hope that he would come to free them from their nightmare.

Alexander wasn't there. Death was the only thief he could not outwit.

And because of it, he would forever hold that lost battle in ever breath he breathed, every fingerprint he left. His own mind was a battlefield and he was forever doomed to be defeated. Though his eyes squeezed shut, he refused to weep again. The first time had been pathetic enough.

He held his breath until his mind spun and clenched his fingers around his arms so tightly he hoped they'd bruise. Just to prove he had jurisdiction over something, even if it was just his own suffering.

All he wanted to do was sleep and never wake up, but he was afraid of that too. It was horribly irrational, sure, but he still feared hearing heavy footsteps coming down the hall. How could Alexander still fear him? The worst the man could do was kill him. But it took one thought of stepping foot on the same soil he prospered on to remind Alexander just how much the shaking child inside still cared.

Frankly, it was only a matter of time before he was caught. But now he had Jaylah. She is his queen, he reminded himself. And I am too helpful to give away.

Everything he ever loved was not his to have. His freedom and dignity, his family, his home, his conviction to create a better future for himself. This hope for a new beginning of killing Daggen and securing permanent power for himself was too good to be true. It would be gone soon, he feared. Or would he drive it away himself?

Alexander's fingers found the cool metal of the family crest around his neck, proof that generations ago, his mother's family had been a force to be reckoned with. It used to be the only physical thing he had to touch and remember they'd existed. Often it was the only thing helping him fight to keep his head above water. It was pointless now. He had half a mind to chuck the necklace into the sea. Then the both of them would be drowning together.

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The journey to Oceana took three days. There was no better way to pass the time than reading out loud from a catalogue from the ship. Alexander read it so many times he was sure he had it memorized, but Jaylah insisted he keep going. Not having the energy to retort, he simply did as she asked.

When he glanced up early on the third day, he caught a glimpse of a jagged darkness cutting the blue expanse of sea and sky in half.

Jaylah was just as on edge as Alexander, but in a different manner. It was as if they switched bodies—her restless and aching to be on land once more, and him with limbs so tense he had to force them to move at all. The flippancy had been sucked from his every act. Everything was tiring now, even just being awake.

When the ship had pulled into the harbor and the drop of the anchor ricocheted through the floor, Alexander followed Jaylah above deck, where a hundred other passengers were already crowding. Sea birds called ahead. He took in a deep breath of the ocean air and let the saltiness of it sting his eyes and nose. He hadn't realized how trapped he felt inside the tiny room until they came up here, where the fresh air expanded infinitely upward.

They stepped onto the solid wood ground of the harbor and made their way inland to the coastal city of Theodais, which was made minuscule by the impossibly green mountains looming over its russet roofs. They were at a distance, but he still had to crane his head to peer through the sun at the peaks so high in the sky.

"The Ithara Mountains," Jaylah said, noticing his interest. Despite her usual nature to be as excitable as a corpse, Alexander knew she was made sociable enough by their arrival at her home to open conversation to him.

"I've never seen them so close." Not to mention that he'd barely seen them at all; he had not been permitted in large open spaces because of his untrustworthiness.

If she sensed the change in his tone, Jaylah gave no indication. "The view from the top is as if peering down from the heavens. It is equally difficult to come back down."

"You stayed there after the massacre," he recalled.

"With Klymene, our tutor, yes. There are small groups of cabins peppered amongst the greets from the time before cities spread so close to the coast. They have long since been abandoned and weathered by nature. But we fixed one up in a place that we would never be found. For a time, it was home."

They entered the city, which was all white cliffs, tall trees cut into spiraling shapes and bustling passengers from the harbors. "She's still up there?"

"I suppose so. There has been no contact since I descended the mountains to my palace. She was meant to wait until I was coronated to return, so I do not know what has become of her."

"You merely waited up there for months to avoid your father's assassination attempts?"

She rolled her eyes, but a thin smile showed through. She really was in a good mood. "You make it sound as if I lounged around and twiddled my thumbs. I did no such thing. There were chores to be done, food to be grown, schemes to be made."

Her uncharacteristic divulging of personal information made Alexander able to hold his head above the black water a bit better. "Tell me more."