Inheritance

Part 2. Chapter Sixty-Two: Worry

I've come far from hiding behind Pollyanna when we were at Castle Maribel, at least. He thought to himself, but that didn't mean that he had gotten used to new people. He wasn't even entirely used to Pollyanna. His whole body was just as overstimulated when he spoke to her as when he spoke to anyone else who wasn't Kori.

Why can't I adjust? Why can't I stop myself from being so scared of other people?

It was a mixture of things, he supposed. Everyone was hostile toward him due to his heritage, but it was a different kind of rejection he feared from them—one that didn't make as much sense to him. He was afraid he would say something that would offend them—something that would make them reject him based solely on who he was, and not his heritage.

Are normal people this insane? Eory questioned as he sat down, cross-legged, in the lightless hallway. Tears formed at the corner of his eyes. I'm so tired. Please just let me sleep, goddesses.

He prayed fervently.

His sleepless nights had only gotten worse since he had left the tower.

Sleeping was easy when he was a child and he still lived with his mother, father, and brother in Castle Maribel. Sleeping was harder when he got locked in the tower.

He had nothing to worry about, and yet he still worried to the point where sleep evaded him on many nights. He worried about the homework assignments Kori set deadlines for, he worried about being locked in a tower for the rest of his life, and he worried about the evilness within him hurting Kori.

He longed to feel heaviness close his eyes; he longed to feel his muscles relax, he longed to stretch his legs under a warm, soft blanket, and he longed to sleep peacefully throughout the night without being woken up by his own, worrisome thoughts.

His mind turned back to his brief life in Castle Maribel.

A strange memory suddenly resurfaced from his family days. But it wasn't his own memory, it must have been Taylor's.

"Shall we have her marry her cousin?" Mother asked father while a young Taylor pressed her ear to their quarters.

"We can't do that if we plan to make her a man." Father replied. "We can have her marry one of the noblewomen."

"No! It must only be family! We must not dilute our bloodline!" Mother hissed.

"There are so few of our bloodline left!" Father retorted. "We are getting killed off by disease faster than we can blink!"

There was silence, and then mother said lowly and threateningly. "Arrozan blood must stay pure above all else. We'll make her cousin into a girl."

Eory snapped back to reality. Black magic surged relentlessly in his veins at the uncovering of Taylor's memory.

His blood curdled, his stomach turned.

Pollyanna had told him while she related the tale of her past that his ancestors only married other Arrozans, but he didn't know that they had kept the practice up to his birth.

He felt bile rising in his throat at an unpleasant feelings.

He didn't know why it was sick, but his body told him that it was. He clapped a hand to his mouth—he could feel bile rising in his throat.

The new information exhausted him, he climbed to his feet shakily and went back to bed.

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When he awoke, the things he had to do repeated endlessly in his mind as they had throughout the night. He felt if he didn't get to them immediately, something horrible would happen. I should at least eat something before I continue trying to translate Moonpool...