| |
The ship continued on for several days, heading up the western coast of Inahan. Dusk spent much of his time watching the coast slip by on the eastern horizon and re-reading the only book he had in his possession. He couldn’t find the courage to ask Captain Benbow if she had any more with her, although he contemplated asking Juniper a few times. They passed a few large islands along the way, always keeping to the deeper water to avoid any reefs or sandbars. The islands looked mostly uninhabited, their shores nothing but untouched white sand that faded into forest. The weather stayed fair, although chilly in the mornings. Spring was still working its way north and it seemed the ship was keeping pace with it.
Dusk kept mostly to himself aside from the few conversations he had with Juniper. He enjoyed his time with her, always asking her for stories of her past. She told him about a few of her missions for King Cecil back when she worked for the empire. Although he wouldn’t have guessed it when he first met her, she had been a deadly assassin with a bow and had single-handedly changed the political structure of Ditania on multiple occasions. Along with her wife, they had traveled far and wide, even into Inahan, to remove people the crown deemed problematic. But after her split from the empire, it seemed she kept mostly to helping the less fortunate of the world. Together, she and her wife had planted the seeds for the Legion of the Twilight, making allies of the Kingravens along the way. Dusk found he could sit in fascination and listen to her stories forever, but she was still tired. Juniper spent much of her days sleeping, but the weariness never seemed to peel away from her. With each day that passed, Dusk found himself taking less and less of her time, knowing she needed her rest.
As the sun set on their eighth night at sea, Dusk stood at the port side of the ship, leaning on the railing. Earlier that day the ship had swung out into deeper water, the captain mentioning a shallow reef that extended far beyond the tip of a long island they’d been passing. With his leather satchel over his shoulder, he waited for darkness to fall so that he could finally do what Mirinda had asked. The crown has light in the bag, but the weight of its importance to the future of Inahan was more than Dusk really wanted to carry.
“How’s the view?” Tara asked, stepping up beside Dusk, startling him from his thoughts.
“Beautiful, as always,” he breathed, checking himself for being so jumpy.
Tara nodded, leaning down on her elbows and looking out across the darkening sky where it met the sea. “Don’t you think it would be better with someone else here?”
“Nope,” Dusk replied curtly, knowing what she was getting at. “I’m just fine on my own.”
Tara sighed and opened her mouth to speak, but Dusk cut her off.
“Don’t start,” he said, his voice soft, almost fragile. “I don’t want to talk about it. You of all people should understand.” He paused for a moment, glancing in her direction. “I don’t respond well to being lied to. I’ve had enough of that in my life already.”
“Maybe I should have said something to you,” she sighed, letting her shoulders drop.
“You knew?” Dusk could feel the anger building in his chest.
“No, I didn’t know who he was.” She held up her hands, stopping his onslaught of emotions before they started. “But I had my suspicions. I knew he was hiding something, I just didn’t know what it was.” She let her hands drop to her sides, pushing a hip against the railing. “I thought maybe he had a checkered past or maybe he was married or something. We already knew he was an aristocrat, that was obvious. I just didn’t expect him to be the only son of one of the most powerful families in Ditania outside of the crown.”
“I didn’t expect to be his property,” Dusk hissed, glaring down at the waves drifting by. “I feel like such a fool. All this time I thought I’d escaped, that I was finally free,” he scoffed. “But all this time my master was sleeping just a few feet from me every night.”
“Dusk,” Tara said, her voice unusually gentle. “You know you’re already free, right? You have been for months.”
“Am I?” he asked, more venom in his voice than he intended. He held out his arm, pulling up his sleeve. “Do you see these marks? They mean I’ll never be free. Anybody who sees them knows exactly what I am and that I’m not worth the air I breathe to anyone but myself. As long as I bear these marks and the scars on my back, I’ll never be free.” His voice grew shaky. “Everyone who’s after me has made that clear. My life will never be my own.”
“That’s not true...”
“Yes it is!” he shouted, tears coming to his eyes. “Even Tephyss, who’s supposed to be the good guy, has taken the life I could have had away from me! Now that I have this crystal, I can never have the peace that I wanted.” Everything was flowing out of him and he couldn’t stop it. “Now I have Tiernan inside my dreams, telling me he’s manipulating me at every turn. I have magic that I don’t know how to control that could kill me at any second. The queen of Inahan wants me dead more than anyone she’s ever met. And now, to top it all off, I have to travel across the world to find another dragon and somehow learn how to put a stop to all this insanity that I never wanted anything to do with in the first place!” He breathed heavily, staring at Tara. “Now tell me again how my life is my own.”
“Get rid of it then,” was all she said.
“What?”
“The crystal.” She gestured to his chest, then opened her arms out to the sea. “Throw it overboard and be done with all of it since it bothers you so much. Instead of standing here feeling bad for yourself, do something about it. If you hate this journey as much as you say, be done with it.”
“I can’t just throw it overboard!” Dusk cried. “Somebody would find it and it would get back to the Circle eventually! Then we’d all be screwed!”
“So?”
“So?”
“That’s what I fuckin’ said,” Tara growled. “It’s not your problem. Just get rid of it. Easy.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes it is,” Tara replied, reaching forward and grabbing Dusk’s arm with a firm grip. “The problem isn’t the crystal, or the Circle, or the world. It’s you.” She gazed into his eyes. There was a softness there that he’d never seen before. “I know you’ve been through more pain than most people can ever imagine and I feel for you, I truly do.” She paused, still staring, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “But you are so bent on living in the past that you can’t see all the beautiful things happening in front of your very eyes.”
Dusk felt his eyes burning again.
“Nobody will ever be able to wipe the pain away that you experienced. It’s part of what shaped you into who you are. I’m not telling you to forget what happened, but I am telling you to live despite it.” She paused for a moment, letting the words hover in the air between them. “Life is hard and terrible and cruel, but if you don’t find joy in some small way, there’s no point in being alive at all. Stop denying yourself the joy that you’ve already found. You’ve made friends, traveled further than most ever go in their entire lives, and seen some things that defy explanation. Not only that, but you’ve discovered magic and there’s a dragon living inside your head. I’d say you have some things that deserve a little bit of happiness, even if they come with complications.”
“So what? I should just be happy even though people want me dead?” Dusk retorted more aggressively than he meant to.
Tara’s expression hardened and she let go of his arm. “No. What I’m saying is that you need to stop wallowing in your own self pity and grow the fuck up.” She turned and took a few steps away before doubling back. Leaning in, she held a finger inches in front of his nose. “There is a boy in our cabin that loves you, who was so terrified of what his position would mean to you, that he kept it a secret. He didn’t treat you badly for being a slave, which you couldn’t help anyway, so how dare you treat him poorly for being a noble when he didn’t ask to be one either.”
“I told you, I didn’t want to talk about this.”
With an exasperated sigh, Tara threw her arms up. “Fine. But you’re a fucking idiot if you let that pass you by.” She stopped, glaring at him. “While you’re busy feeling sorry for yourself, there may come a day that he’s no longer here for you to be mad at. I wonder what you’ll do then?”
Before Dusk could answer, she stormed off towards the stairs. Dusk glared as she disappeared below the deck, wondering what gave her the right to question him. She’d had a cushy life living as a lapdog to the nobility. For all he knew, she could be working for the Ronja family. Hell, maybe she was even sabotaging him in the background to make sure things always went wrong.
Dusk shook his head as he turned back towards the now dark sky, the stars popping into existence as the last vestiges of light faded away. He knew better than all that. Tara wasn’t trying to hurt him. If she’d really wanted to, she would have done it a long time ago. Even though he didn’t want to admit it, he knew she was just being honest. She’d never spoken to him like that before, with concern and gentleness in her voice. A few times she’d hinted at it, but Dusk knew what he’d just experienced was a genuine moment. But even that knowledge couldn’t stop him from feeling betrayed and used by Lex. There was truth in what Tara had said, but the sting of secrets could still be acutely felt in his chest. He wasn’t ready to accept an apology yet.
A wave splashed against the hull of the ship, misting seawater up into his face. Lifting an arm up, he wiped it away with his sleeve. The leather satchel bumped against the railing, reminding Dusk why he’d come out there in the first place. Flipping open the bag, he reached inside and pulled out the crown. He leaned on his elbows, holding the crown out over the water. In the darkness the sapphires looked almost black except for where the moonlight caught their facets, illuminating the deep blue stone from within. The silver was so clean and untarnished that it almost seemed to glow in the dark.
Dusk took it in one hand and held it out over the water, as if ready to drop it. But then he stopped. Was he really going to just throw it in the ocean? It suddenly seemed like a silly thing to do. He turned it over in his hand. The silver alone would probably be worth quite a bit of money and the gemstones could always be pried out and sold. Wasn’t that what he’d planned to do with the crystal in the first place anway? Besides, who was Mirinda to start giving him orders? She’d nearly gotten all of them killed with her required gifts. Even though it hadn’t been planned, his trapping of the queen made the hostile takeover of the palace much easier for Mirinda’s rebellion. In return all they’d gotten was a boat ride halfway to where they needed to go.
Pulling the crown back over the railing, Dusk tucked it into the stachel once more. He was tired of everyone telling him what to do and think. And he was tired of always getting the short end of the stick. This time he was going to do what he wanted. Ever since he’d run from the mines all he’d wanted was a peaceful life. Since Mirinda wasn’t going to give it to him, he’d take it for himself. The crown would easily fetch enough money to start a farm once he pieced it out and sold it. With everything he’d done for the rebellion in Inahan, accidentally or not, he figured he deserved it.
Then a darker thought wormed its way into his mind. If he really wanted to, he could always take the throne. At least then he’d never be treated poorly again. His life would truly be his own.