Chapter Six

 

 

 

 

Dylan

 

It’d been hard to get James back to bed. He’d been hysterical after finding out about his sister Anna’s illness, demanding to go to the Withering Palace. It wasn’t a place for children. It was akin to a haunted mansion more than anything, and a kid like James would suffer there. That was why he lived in the Scren Palace. When Shade had been here, it’d been fine. She’d been a calming force for her brother. Now he was practically an orphan once more.

I rubbed my face as I stared across the landscape from my bedroom balcony.

“Damn you!” I slammed my hand onto the railing, afraid my inner fire would burst from my glamour, out of control. My anger flowed like a beast, and I slowly stripped away the magic that held it at bay. Standing on the balcony of the Scren Palace, a place I never wanted to be without Shade, I cursed her to the winds.

“You didn’t have to leave. You could’ve stayed. Nothing is okay, and it’s all your fault.” I shook my fist to the air, but silence answered me. The only sound was the calls of the small creatures that lived in the withering forest. The land was as saddened as I was, but I was done with this mourning. I was through feeling like a discarded game piece.

This sorrow was drowning me, and I wasn’t going to let it anymore. Breathing hard, I let the anger pass, and the inferno inside me burned away until the flames were smaller and I could easily weave the glamour round my body once more.

I was still here. Still breathing. I wasn’t going to be afraid anymore. With or without Shade, I was a king of a realm of Faerie. If she could move on so easily, I would as well. I was going to solve this puzzle with Soap. At least our children would have two parents if not three. They would want for nothing. I knew that if it were up to me, I wouldn’t mention Shade to them at all, but Soap wouldn’t allow me that luxury.

He was sitting on the reading chair, clucking his tongue and mocking me. I knew he wasn’t real. He was a ghost, a haunt following me around. He was just a manifestation of my guilt.

“That’s right, just get it out. It’s unhealthy to keep it all cooped up inside,” he quipped, a mocking smile on his lips.

“Shut up. What do you know? You get to sleep through all this. You don’t have to sit here and rule a kingdom with a fake smile on your face. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay when you’re really dying inside. You get to bypass all of that.”

“Oh, yes, and remaining in a petrified sleep and missing out on everything is so much better.” He rolled his eyes and kicked his feet up. I was about to tell him to keep his dirty boots off the furniture but shook my head, looking away as I crossed my arms. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t real.

“Oh, I’m real all right. As real as you.”

“You’re just in my head. You can leave for all I care. In fact, please do,” I snapped. I didn’t want to listen to his voice anymore. In fact, it was probably better to see him asleep in his glass coffin rather than walking around talking and chatting, more alive in spirit than I felt.

“I may be in your head, but I’m still real. Your guilt makes me real. You really should be nicer to me. Things might have been different if you hadn’t harbored such hatred. We both had the same goals, the same love for Shade. I wish it had turned out better too.”

“You have no idea what I went through. You should have talked to me first, before asking Shade to marry you.”

“I know. I regret not doing so, but there isn’t much I can do now.”

“You got what you deserved.” I cringed at my words. Regret had seeped into me the moment they’d slipped from my mouth, but I straightened, trying to avoid how it made me feel. I should have come around sooner, talked to Shade and Soap before things had gotten so sour. I wished we’d never gone to the Heart of Fire and Ice.

“You can wish all you want, but it doesn’t change things. Now, what exactly are you doing to make things right at this moment? You swore you’d help me. I haven’t seen much progress in months.”

“I’m working on it, okay?” I was at my wits end and didn’t need him badgering me.

“You are at your end, indeed,” Soap chuckled, jumping up to his feet and gazing out over my kingdom. He nodded, approving of the scenery. “This place is nice. Too bad all I’m seeing of it is the ceiling in the other room. You should put some paintings up there; it’s dreadfully dull.”

“Shut up.”

“Then get out of here. It’s not doing you any good to be stuck here doing nothing. You can’t even help Anna but to send Ilarial to the Withering Palace, which you’ve already done. Get out of here. Take James out of here too. He needs his mind on something else before he goes crazy. Like you.”

“I can’t take him. He’s too young.”

“He’s thirteen. On the verge of manhood. He needs a father figure, and you’re all he’s got right now. So man up and be a father.”

“I’m already a father, to Jade and Lana. I can’t do anything for James.”

“The twins are fine. The servants can care for them just as well with you gone. They’ll be safe. The palace safeguards them now. You need to help James now. And… and forget about Shade, just like I have to forget as well.”

I looked up and stared at Soap’s apparition. I couldn’t hate him. He was like a brother to me. We had grown up together in the Teleen Caverns. I was supposed to take care of him and had failed him so many times. Now, even years younger than me, he was talking more sense than I ever had. I groaned and closed my eyes.

“All right. Tomorrow we’ll prepare for a journey to the archives. I’m sure Rowan will be delighted to see us. There has to be something there to help you. If not, well, at least I can say we tried.”

I opened my eyes to find Soap gone, the room once more silent and lonelier. I sighed. His ghost only came when I was truly stressed out and feeling dreadful. Sometimes I looked forward to seeing him. Maybe we would have been great as co-rulers of this kingdom with Shade. Maybe not. I guess we’d never know, but I did know that his suggestions were the most reasonable thing I’d heard in ages.

“Tomorrow, I’ll go to the archives with James. This’ll work. It has to.”

“It will, Dylan. It will.”