With a sigh, the king leans back into his chair as I did. “You’re always looking for something,” he says.
“There’s always something to find.”
“If you’re not careful, the only thing you’ll find is danger.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
My father reaches over and grabs one of the books from the table. It’s carefully bound in blue leather with the title etched in light gray script. There are fingerprints in the dust from where I pulled it from the shelf.
“The Legends of P?gos and Other Tales from the Ice City,” he reads. He taps the cover. “So you’ve set your sights on freezing to death?”
“I was researching something.”
He places the book back down on the table a little too harshly. “Researching what?”
I shrug, unwilling to give my father any more reason to keep me in Midas. If I told him that I wanted to hunt for a mythical crystal in mountains that could steal my breath in seconds, there’s no way he’d let me leave. He’d find any way to keep his heir in Midas.
“It’s nothing,” I lie. “Don’t worry.”
My father considers this, his maroon lips forming a tight line. “It’s a king’s job to worry when his heir is so reckless.”
I roll my eyes. “Good thing you have two, then.”
“It’s also a father’s job to worry when his son never wants to come home.”
I hesitate. I may not always see eye to eye with my father, but I hate the idea of him blaming my absence on himself. If the kingdom wasn’t an issue, I would take him with me. I’d take all of them. My father, mother, sister, and even the royal adviser if he promised to keep his divinations to himself. I’d pack them onto the deck like luggage and show them the world until adventure caught in their eyes. But I can’t, so I deal with the ache of missing them, which is far better than the ache of missing the ocean.
“Is this about Cristian?” my father asks.
“No.”
“Lies aren’t answers.”
“But they sound so much better than the truth.”
My father places a large hand on my shoulder. “I want you to stay this time,” he says. “You’ve spent so long at sea that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be yourself.”
I know I should tell him that it’s the land that steals away who I am and the sea that brings me back. But to say that to my father would do nothing but hurt us both.
“I have a job to do,” I say. “When it’s done, I’ll come home.”
The lie tastes awful in my mouth. My father, King of Midas and so King of Lies, seems to know this and smiles with such sadness that I’d buckle over if I weren’t already sitting.
“A prince may be the subject of myth and legend,” he explains, “but he can’t live in them. He should live in the real world, where he can create them.” He looks solemn. “You should pay less mind to fairy tales, Elian, or that’s all you’ll become.”
When he leaves, I think about whether that would be awful, or beautiful. Could it really be such a bad thing, to become a story whispered to children in the dead of night? A song they sing to one another while they play. Another part of the Midasan legends: golden blood and a prince who once upon a time sailed the world in search of the beast who threatened to destroy it.
And then it comes to me.
I sit up a little straighter. My father told me to stop living inside fairy tales, but maybe that’s exactly what I need to do. Because what that man told me in the Golden Goose isn’t a fact that can be pressed between the pages of textbooks and biographies. It’s a story.
Quickly, I pull myself from the chair and head for the children’s section.
10
Lira
THERE’S GLITTER AND TREASURE on every speck of every street. Houses with roofs thatched by gold thread and fanciful lanterns with casings brighter than their light. Even the surface of the water has turned milky yellow, and the air is balmy with the afternoon sun.
It is all too much. Too bright. Too hot. Too opulent.
I clutch the seashell around my neck to steady myself. It reminds me of home. My kind aren’t afraid of their murderous prince; they just can’t bear the light. The heat that cuts through the ocean’s chill and makes everything warmer.
This is not a place for sirens. It’s a place for mermaids.
I wait beside the prince’s ship. I wasn’t certain it would be here – killing took the prince to as many kingdoms as it did me – and if it was, I wasn’t certain I would know it. I only have the frightful echoes of stories to go from. Things I’ve heard in passing from the rare few who have seen the prince’s ship and managed to escape. But as soon as I saw it in the Midasan docks, I knew.