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After returning to the inn, I ordered soup, bread, and mead at the bar and tucked myself into a corner to read the papers.
There were three letters, all to Razak from his father. The other documents appeared to be lists of names. The first page had gotten wet while I’d been on the road, blurring the bottom half’s contents, making it illegible. I’d study it later. For now, the letters demanded my eye.
With my belly full, the fire blazing, and the inn’s bar filling with background chatter, I began to read.
Umair spoke of a search for power, and reading between the lines, he’d travelled to a crypt, buried in ice. He mentioned a font or well several times, claiming it wouldmake things right, andreturn the world to how it should be. In one letter, the king was scathing—ranting at Razak. Blaming him for the ruin of Umair’s heart. Umair was careful with his words, probably in case the letters were read by anyone but Razak. The more I read, the more it became clear the King of Pain had been writing to Razak from a faraway land, a land of ice, where he’d been searching for something he called the font. He believed it could put right an event Razak and he both shared, an event he blamed his son for. He called Razak wretched, a mistake, said he was spoiled like rotten fruit.
My own father had many, many problems, but he’d never cursed me in such a manner. I’d always been loved. There was no love in these letters. If anything, the King of Pain spoke of this font as though he coveted that more than the love of his own son.
In the final letter, Umair wrote:
Keep Zayan close. You both will be all that is left of me, if I do not unite the keys soon…
He’d made no mention of keys in the previous letters and hadn’t mentioned Zayan either. His tone had changed. This letter almost sounded like a goodbye. For all Umair’s scornful belittling, these letters were likely the last words of Razak’s father. A father whom nobody had seen in many years. Whatever Umair’s mission, it appeared as though he’d failed and probably perished in his quest for the font.
Perhaps Razak was following in his father’s footsteps, trying to find him and thisfont? Umair hadn’t mentioned godlike ambitions, such as those of his son. His motivations had been to set right events of his past, not to hoard power, or covet godliness.
I reread the letters again and again, searching for anything I’d missed among Umair’s words, until the oil lamps had burned through most of their fuel and all but a handful of patrons had left the inn.
The barman rang the bell for last orders. I tucked the letters away and set my sights on the documents titledCourt of War Benefits, complete with a long list of numbers, names, genders, and ages. Most of the entries appeared to refer to young children. I scanned the legible sections. Lark must have stolen the documents for a reason, but I failed to see it. When I reached the Overlook Inn, I’d show Draven. He’d know.
Between my ex-husband and I was a whole lot of road and several days to cover it before the next full moon.
I finished my mead and retired to my room. Tomorrow, I’d purchase a horse. And then onward, to whatever remained of the Court of Love.
* * *
It tookfour days and nights of riding before I passed through villages I’d been paraded along as a child. Then, streamers had flown from cottage windows, petals had been thrown over us, and the entire village had turned out to greet us. Most of the cottages appeared empty now. A few stray dogs rifled through discarded bags. Cottage doors hung open, banging in the breeze, and all the flowers had wilted in their gardens.
I’d passed several travelers on the road. One had told me to turn around, claiming there was nothing worth visiting on the road ahead. Those people had carried their belongings in small carts. If they were heading for War or Pain, then they’d have a harsh welcome. A farmer carting dead animals had spoken of how he couldn’t afford to keep his farm, now the markets had closed.
None of the people knew me as their prince. If they had, they likely wouldn’t have greeted me so kindly.
The deeper into Love I rode, the more desolate the land became.
Draven had carted me out of these lands, bleeding and unconscious. I hadn’t witnessed Love’s fall, until now.
Razak had done this. He’d dismantled my home and my reign, secret by secret, lie by lie. These people weren’t bad. They hadn’t deserved his wrath. Was it just about the crowns or had something more personal driven Razak to burn my court?
Whatever his motive, a jail cell in Justice was too good for that monster.
Anger boiled in my veins, growing hotter with every abandoned cottage I passed.
“Yargh!” I galloped my horse through another empty village, around fallen branches and abandoned belongings, until we raced through the town that hugged the palace gardens, and there, high up on the natural bluff, the palace towers jutted.
I pulled the horse to a sudden halt, making the animal screech and dance.
A shell of the palace remained, but it was blackened and hollow. Multicolored flags no longer fluttered from crumbling spires. My once magnificent white and gold world was now nothing but a rotting carcass, picked clean by Razak. The Court of Love had been flawed and shallow and on its knees, but I could have saved it.
Shouldhave saved it.
I dismounted, tied the horse to a fence post, and walked into the meadows. The flower heads all hung low. Their stems turned to dust in my hands. One lone butterfly danced in the air, seeking a bloom yet to die—a hopeful creature.
“What have I done?”
If I’d been a hero, I’d have killed Lark the first day we’d met, as boys, instead of trying to outsmart him and his brother.
But I couldn’t kill a man, and certainly couldn’t kill Lark, not even as strangers. Why kill a wounded creature if it could be saved?
