Prologue
I stand in his office. The very office where I first saw him.
I’ve been invited back to his castle. He gave me a few days at mine before coming here.
The Sun King sits in his chair, offering me the one across from him.
My eyes sweep around the room.
He doesn’t bat an eye at my reluctance.
He knows that I can’t trust him.
“My army is failing,” he says the second my butt lands in the cushion of the seat.
“And?” I ask.
Wouldn’t he have thought the conversion through?
He smiles, sadly, tearing at my heart.
“You must think me crazy. To turn to such a power,” He brings light into the room through the window to show his power. But it’s tainted.
Where it should be as yellow as the sun, a darkness overtakes it.
He nods at my silence, “I’m dying. So is my power,” he says slowly.
I feel my power thrumb awake. Does he plan to kill me?
I’m too tired to care. Maybe he’ll make it quick. Pleasant even.
“Why did you invite me here?” I shake my head.
“Not to trap you,” he promises, “I want to discuss why I will no longer make my soldiers fight against Odin.”
“Why?” I ask cautiously, recalling how his soldiers just walked right off the field. Ellio himself was not in sight.
“I am no more than a pawn to Odin. Forced to convert, forced to fight a war that I want nothing to do with. My kingdom will fall if I do not stop.”
“You did it, though. You fought against us. You showed me things,” a chill runs down my back.
He laughs.
It starts low in his stomach, then he uncontrollably starts to laugh.
I look around. We are alone.
He looks at me as if I should join in, rumbling from the joke that I cannot understand.
He slaps his knee, and it echoes down the hallway.
Then, just like that, he stops. No joy present on his face.
“My only goal now is to find my next heir,” he says, like he never had a giggling fit.
I fear it might be too late for him to do much of anything. I don’t say it. He has to know.
His eyes look over me, “No ruler has ever ruled two courts.”
He crosses his hands in front of him.
I’m distracted by the twitch of his one good eye.
I can no longer look at him.
I have done this to him. I can still hear his screams when I shoved that knife in.
He inhales, “If I should fail to pass the position on, you will find someone in my court worthy.”
“And why would I do that?”
I’ve barely gotten into my own castle. I don’t know how to run it, or the first part about stepping into a position of power.
He tilts his face so that I can see the ugly side. The side that has a stitched hole where his eye should be.
I swear I can smell his rotting flesh. I gag, but don’t look away.
I force myself to look at his face. The extent of the damage that I had done.
My body starts to shake as I try to maintain my composure.
I almost look away, but then, somehow, the eye that isn’t there opens.
Something unearthly with no obvious end looks at me. Stares right into me. My very soul shifts.
A breeze blows my hair back.
The Sun King’s other normal eye closes.
“Because you owe me,” it says through half whispers and half rumble that I feel in my bones.
Ellio grabs a vase and launches it at me.
He doesn’t miss.
The glass breaks onto me, covering me in several pieces.
My elbow stings; that’s where he hit me when I covered myself, the rest shattering into my lap.
I duck underneath the chair, maneuvering to the floor.
I crawl through the shards, feeling every individual piece as they rip through my arms.
I feel my feet scramble beneath me, and I run to the door.
It’s oddly quiet. Too quiet.
I glance back at the King. He sits, his other eye open, as composed and as ready for a meeting as he was when I first entered.
