Crunching footsteps caused me to turn. A pair of Collweyan girls waved as they jogged by. I sat on a patch of grass and picked up a rock and with a flick of my wrist, flung it. The pebble bounced once and then sunk.
A second pebble hit the lake top and bounced four times before it went under. I turned to Zyacus, who tossed another rock, I didn’t look to see if it skipped.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, not unkindly.
He sat beside me and gazed at the water. “Looking for you.”
“Is something wrong?”
He smirked, looking down at his hands. “Why would something have to be wrong for me to look for you?”
I tapped my foot against the rocky, muddy shore of the lake. I supposed I always expected the worst of him. “It doesn’t, I only thought—”
“You thought that I couldn’t possibly want to find you simply to enjoy your company.”
I wasn’t sure where the sudden turn of behavior came from. I’d seen glimpses of this but I’d always thought he had an ulterior motive of some kind. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe I should actually give him a chance. He was at least making an effort.
“What is it like to be the prince of Hesstia?” I asked. Most of what I knew was the worst of his kingdom, the history. My grandfather, imprisoned for ten years for the use of magic, where he was nearly starved to death after being forced to kill others in a fighting arena for sport. Zyacus’s uncle, who was king at the time, nearly executed my mother, Madison and Papa in front of the kingdom; my father saved them.
Silence filled the air between us for a long few moments. I thought he wouldn’t answer.
“My father made sure I was the best I could be.” His throat bobbed. “When it was apparent I didn’t have an affinity for magic right away, he took away my toys so I would focus. Most of my free time was filled with lessons of some kind. He forced my tutors to make sure I was well ahead of what anyone would expect. If that meant I was hit or burned with a hot poker then healed or went without food for the day for messing up then that is what the tutors did.” He paused and I felt sick to my stomach. “‘You are the first prince of Hesstia to use magic,’ Father said, ‘you must be the best. You must never let them take our land.’ Of course he wasn’t there when the tutors hurt me. I don’t think he meant for that to happen. I don’t know why I never told on them.”
“I—’’ I stammered, unsure what to say. I wanted to take his hand, to comfort him but I didn’t. “I never knew. I’m sorry they were cruel to you.” I also never knew that King Enden was worried we Delhoon wanted to take his land. There has never been talk of invading Hesstia to my knowledge.
He shrugged and finally looked at me. “I suppose I should thank them. I have excelled because of it.”
I dug my toes into the soft soil and gritted my teeth. “There are much better ways to motivate someone. Especially a child.”
“Well, when Porthos raised his hand against me when I was fourteen, I blasted him across the room and held a dagger to his throat, he never tried again. I think he was waiting for me to do that.”
“I’m glad you did.” I only wished he’d done so sooner. When I thought back to a time when our parents met up for a few days on kingdom affairs, he being a ten-year-old boy pulling my hair, or putting a dead frog in my soup, or throwing mud at me, perhaps he was only doing what he had learned. To be mean. Maybe then he didn’t know better.
He went on. “My mother is kind. She used to sing me to sleep when I was a young boy. We’d dance together at parties. I’d stand on her toes because I didn’t know the steps.” He smiled at the memory. “She always called me her savior.”
“Savior?” I asked. It seemed like a strange name for a child.
He licked his lips. “She didn’t tell me why until last year. My mother was taken from her family and sold into slavery. My father found her at a brothel and brought her to the castle. But he... wasn’t kind. He treated her as what she was to him, a slave, even when he knew she was a princess from Collweya. But once she told him I was in her belly, he never hit her again, and they married. Of course I think the only reason he married her was to secure an alliance with Collweya and get an advantage over Delhoon for the war. I think she married him to escape the perpetual cold of Collweya and become a queen.” He paused waiting for my reaction, watching me.
“Is he kind to her now?”
Zyacus shrugged. “He never hurts her. I think he cares for her. But he doesn’t look at her the way King Boaden looks at Queen Daelyn.”
My parents loved each other deeply. They always had, and I never knew how much I should appreciate that until now.
“I will not marry for political gain,” Zyacus said firmly. He picked up a rock and threw it. “If I marry it will be for love or not at all.”
My fingers dug in the dirt to find a pebble to throw. “When your kingdom depends on you, it makes choices more difficult. Aside from the abuse, I understand why your father did what he did.” Even if I wasn’t sure why Zyacus opened up to me, it made my stomach flutter. It made me… wonder. “Despite his faults, I, for one, am glad he made the choice to allow magic in Hesstia. Look where
