“The Midasan prince is our murderer,” I say. “If I bring the queen his heart as my eighteenth, then I could win back her favor.”
“A heart worthy for the princess.”
“A heart worthy for the queen’s forgiveness.”
I look back at the brooch. It gleams with a light like I’ve never seen. My mother wants to deny me the heart of a prince, but the heart of this prince would be enough to erase any bad feelings between us. I could continue with my legacy, and the queen would no longer have to worry about our kind being hunted. If I do this, we would both get what we want. We would be at peace.
I toss the brooch back to the mermaid. “I won’t forget this,” I tell her, “when I’m queen.”
I give them one last glance, watching as their lips coil to smiles, and then swim for gold.
9
Elian
FOUR DAYS SPENT SCOURING the castle library and I’ve found exactly nothing. Numerous texts detail the deathly ice of the Cloud Mountain and illustrate – rather graphically – those who have died during their climb. Which isn’t a great start. The only saving grace seems to be that the royal family is made of colder ice than the rest of their natives. There’s even a tradition in Págos where the royals are required to climb the mountain once they come of age, to prove their lineage. There isn’t a record of a single member of the royal family having ever failed. But since I’m not a Págese prince, this isn’t particularly encouraging.
There must be something I’m missing. Legends be damned. I find it hard to believe that something in the Págese lineage allows them to withstand cold. I know better than anyone not to believe in the fairy tales of our families. If they were true, I’d be able to sell my blood to buy some real information.
The Págese must be made more of flesh and bone than frost and ice and, if that’s the case, then there must be an explanation for how they survive the climb. If I have any hope of getting revenge for Cristian’s death, then I need to know the answers. With that knowledge, I could find a way to kill the Princes’ Bane and the Sea Queen. If I do that, the sirens left behind won’t have magic to guard them. Perhaps they’ll even lose some of their abilities. After all, if the Sea Queen has a crystal like the one hidden in the Cloud Mountain, then taking that should take away some of the gifts it bestowed on their kind. They’d be weakened at the very least and exposed to an attack. And after a time – however long – we could push the devils that remain to the far ends of the world, where they can’t do harm.
I close the book and shiver a little at the breeze. The library is always cold, open windows or not. There seems to be something in the very structure of it that’s designed to make me shiver. The library stretches to fifty feet, with white shelves that spread from the floor to the high arches of the ceiling. The ground is white marble and the ceiling is pure crystal that blankets the room. It’s one of the only places in Midas untouched by gold. Nothing but vast white, from the painted chairs to the thick cushions, to the ladders that climb to the volumes at the very top. The only color is in the books – the leather and the fabric and the parchment – and in the knowledge they hold. It’s what I like to call the Metaphor Room, because that’s the only explanation for the expanse of white. Everyone is a blank canvas, waiting to be filled with the color of discovery.
My father really is theatrical.
I hoped there would be something in the volumes to help me. The man in the Golden Goose was so sure of his story, and my compass was so sure of its truth. There’s no doubt in me that the Crystal of Keto is out there, but the world doesn’t seem to know a thing about it. Books and books of ancient texts and not one of them tells me a thing. How can something exist if there isn’t a record of it?
Fairy tales. I’m chasing damn fairy tales.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
I look up at the king. “It’s no wonder I don’t come home more often,” I say. “If you have your adviser keeping track of me whenever I’m inside the castle.”
My father places a gentle hand on the back of my head. “You forget that you’re my son,” he says, as though I ever could. “I don’t need a seer to tell me what you’re up to.”
He pulls up the chair beside me and examines the various texts on the table. If I look out of place in the castle, then my father definitely looks out of place in the stark white of the library, dressed in shimmering gold, his eyes dark and heavy.