“Both,” he says. “I spent my childhood in a certain amount of isolation. My imagination was an important part of my survival. But then, I’ve also been shut in. Lying in bed, trying to heal.”
“But you didn’t have a friend to come and draw you back out?”
He shakes his head. “No. And my parents were dead, so that meant that I was king.”
“How old were you?”
I’m hungry for his story.
I know that it’s printed in history books and the like. I know the dates, but somehow, looking at him, really taking in the reality of it, I need to personalize it more.
I need to hear it from him. His feelings on what happened, the facts beyond what the press printed.
“I was thirteen when I officially became king. There were advisors who handled things for the six months prior to that, the press, official statements. I was too injured to do much of anything.”
“Lucian…”
“It’s all right. It was a long time ago.”
“But it hasn’t faded.” I lift my hand and touch his scars.
“It has,” he says, taking hold of my hand and lowering it. “What you see, that is nothing in comparison to how it was.”
“What were your parents like? I don’t mean as king and queen. I mean as parents.”
He makes a low noise in the back of his throat and looks up at the ceiling. “Busy. I loved them very much. My mother was exquisitely beautiful. My father tall and strong. I wanted to be like him. They had grand parties. And I remember watching them from the balcony in the ballroom. Gazing down at all of the opulence. Then the wars started and they closed the palace. My mother grew fearful. She stopped dressing up. My father became short-tempered. I understand, of course. The toll that it took on him. And truthfully, their anxieties were not misplaced. I was taken from the palace. By someone that they trusted. Held captive, tortured. I’m the reason my parents are dead, you see. Because they did try to rescue me. And when they did, it left them vulnerable to attack. It was demanded that they both appear to come and claim me.”
“But they let you go?”
He laughs. “No. My father was not a fool. When he went that day, he had men lying in wait. Unfortunately, they could not save my parents. But they did save me.”
Imagining him as a boy, one who had been hurt like that, then lost his parents, wounds me. But I know he doesn’t want me to weep over him. He’s telling me this with grave matter-of-factness. And I know that he won’t welcome me being overly soft about it. So I just try to listen.
“That was actually what ended the war. The death of the king and queen. Other nations intervened at that point. They squashed the rebellion.”
He takes a breath. “The very sad thing is I understand what the rebellion wanted. I’ve tried to give some of those things to the people. More freedom. More resources, though based on what you have said I still fall short. However, I cannot feel entirely sympathetic to their cause. As you must understand.”
I nod. “I understand.”
“Books were my only friends,” he says. “And something of a guilty pleasure. Particularly after I became king. They didn’t want me reading stories. They wanted me reading up on world events. On diplomacy. But I was still a boy. In many ways. Surrounded by adults. Responsibility.”
The picture he paints is so poignant, almost especially so because of how evenly he tells it all. Like this is another story he’s reading to me, not painful memories from his past.
“How did…how did your myth start?”
He lifts a brow. “My myth?”
“Yes, you know. Everything people say about you. That you’re the Sea Serpent of the Mediterranean. The dragon of the castle on the rock, half monster, half man, all mad.”
“Hmm.” The sound is somewhere between a hum and a growl. “When I wouldn’t make appearances, it started. They were right too. It was because I was disfigured. Because I had fits and rages and mercurial moods. If I’m honest, I was half mad after my parents died. After my torture.”
“Why did you let it continue?” I ask, my chest aching. “Why did you…cultivate it?”
He rubs his chin, as if he’s seriously considering it. “It suited me. I wanted to be frightening. I wanted to be someone who gave enough to the people that they would be happy, but also someone who would be seen as invulnerable.” He pauses for a long moment. “Do you know, the worst thing about torture, it’s not the pain. It’s the lack of control. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to be strong enough that the videos they sent my family wouldn’t compel them to risk themselves. I wanted to be strong. But I begged for my life.” He takes a sharp breath. “I begged for my life. I cried when they burned me. When they cut me.”
I want to kill them all. A rage I’ve never felt before floods my veins. I wasn’t alive when this happened, I’ll never meet the men who did it, likely long dead, but I want to raise them from the grave to destroy them.
How could they do this to him?
