Terrible blessing. A strange pairing of words, but she was right. It was a wholly terrible sort of blessing. To never have to deal with my father again, but also to never be able to experience the satisfaction of him being forced to change.
“For all I know,” she said softly, “my father died believing that he did what’s right where I was concerned.”
I shifted, moving to lie beside her on the sand.
“Believing that ostracizing me, disowning his granddaughter... That it was the height of his piety. We
never got to reconcile. Our final words were... Well, I didn’t even speak. It was just him, telling me that I had to leave. Telling me it was the punishment for my sin. That Lily was a punishment. Perhaps it was something too large to repair. I don’t know. But I would have very much liked for him to say he was sorry. To know that he knew he was wrong. Even if we could never have a relationship again, I would’ve wanted that.”
“My father was a man beyond redemption,” I said. “But I think I was waiting for that as well. For him to understand that he was the villain. But I believe that he died under the illusion that he was going to defeat me in his way. That he was the center of the story. And that he was the one who deserved triumph in the end. And that is...”
“It’s not a good story,” she said. “It’s a terrible story. No one would want to read it, unless they were looking to feel sort of self-important. Unless they were looking to marinate in the gray areas of life, in which case I can only assume they don’t have much experience with them. It’s only a good story if it’s not your reality. And for us...”
“It’s uninteresting to watch them continue to be the heroes in their own worlds,” I said.
“Very,” she agreed.
“He was not a good man.” I repeated it, mostly to myself.
She sat up, sand covering her bare body.
She looked so beautiful. She was different now, fuller breasts, fuller curves. She had a dusting of sand over her breasts, and I wanted to brush them off. And then put them in my hands. I was fascinated by her stretch marks. It made her pregnancy with Lily more real to me.
I wanted to focus on that, and not on the situation with my father. Not on the truth of him. Of my childhood.
But that darkness... I could not control it.
And everything was about to come spilling out.
“Do you know how elite military soldiers are trained?”
“No,” Marissa said. “I can’t say that I do.”
She was clearly confused by the direction the conversation was going.
“In almost every country, a variant of these methods is used. But it is not just physical strength they must learn to withstand. They must learn to withstand physical torture. Because they are at risk for being tortured in order for the enemy to gain information. Torture is not simply shoving bamboo under people’s fingernails. It is psychological as well. And the military in Pelion is well trained to withstand many forms of torture.” I gritted my teeth. “My father believed that the ruler of Pelion must be trained to withstand it as well. He believed that I must be no less trained than our military. He started my training when I was a boy.”
“When you were a boy?” She looked so horrified and I had regret that I was bringing my ugliness into her world. But we were the only people here. And she was the only one who had ever listened.
And for the first time in my life, I wanted to talk. Really talk. About what had created me. And what I really was.
“Yes. It was his belief that you created strength in a man early, or he would be compromised at the foundation. He approached me that way. As if I was something he was building. And I...I knew no different.”
“Your mother...”
My heart felt like it was being squeezed. “Much like your mother, she did not have a say in most of her life.”
She didn’t try.
I clenched my jaw tight. There was no opposing the King. I’d had to go to great lengths in order to maneuver into a position where I might oppose my father. What hope would she have had?
Marissa looked away. “I think she would have put a stop to physically harming me.”
“But you don’t know. When powerful men with dangerous ideals ensnare those around them, when they feel powerless, what are they to do?”
I had repeated the same mantra to myself countless times over the years.
I ignored the hollow ache in my chest.
Like always.
“There were beatings, to be sure. Administered by some of his most elite soldiers. They knew how to make it hurt, but to avoid killing me. Very important, as killing me would defeat the purpose. But the beatings were easier to withstand than the other things. Being locked in a box with sound playing on a loop. Babies crying. Endlessly. I couldn’t escape the noise. Sometimes they would strip me bare and hose me off with water as I lay on the cold ground. Shouting at me... Things I couldn’t even understand.
“And they would demand that I denounce my father, and I would refuse. And that was how I won. Every time. That was how I proved my loyalty to the throne.”
“Hercules...”
“No one has ever pitied me before,” I said, marveling at her. “It is something of a novelty.”
“Because everyone sees one piece of you. Everyone sees the money. Everyone sees the power, the money, the prestige. They don’t know this.”
“My upbringing was strict. Isolated. And then I was turned loose when I was fifteen. My father was confident that I had been trained, and he sent me out into the world and told me it was my buffet. I had the foundation I required.”
“Why do you suppose he did that?”
“Truthfully? I think because he wanted to have it confirmed that his own debaucher nature was somehow ingrained in his blood. He wanted to watch me go out and do the very same. Have any woman that I pleased, buy expensive yachts and jets and go to the most exclusive parties and indulge myself in drinks and mood-altering substances. He wanted to believe that was the best a man could be, even when he was the very best man. He used me in a variety of ways, and that was just one of them. He created with me a perfect soldier—so he thought—and he created a mirror that showed him what he wanted. But inside I have always been different. I have always known that he was wrong. And when those men told me to denounce my father, I did it a thousand times inside. I didn’t speak, not because I was afraid, but because I knew that my father could not see into my mind. Because I knew that I had to stage my coup in the neatest way possible. I feared, always, that any bad behavior would blow back on my mother, and later my sister.”
“You feared for your mother’s safety?” Marissa asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“But she did not fear for yours. Or she was too afraid to act out and protect you. How can you worry for her?”
I shifted, and so did something in my chest. “She was not created to be strong. I was. I was not going to allow what he did to me to break me, Marissa. You must understand that. I had no control over it. No control over what happened to me. But I could allow it to forge me into the blade that would eventually kill my father. I didn’t know that it would be quite so literal. I had imagined that it would be political in nature, and it very nearly was. I suspect... I suspect in essence he wanted me to feel that it was me who made that fatal blow.”
“Because he knew that it would hurt you.”
“Perhaps. Though, I think hurt is too strong a word. I’m not sure that he believes I possess the ability to be hurt. I’m not sure if I do either.”
“You are hurt. I saw you when you came down from the house. This hurts you terribly.”
I shook my head. “Animals feel pain. It’s not the same.”
“You think you’re more like an animal?”
“Elemental. As I was trained to be. I do not feel far beyond what the basest creatures do. I do not have the ability.”
“I think you do. I’ve watched you with Lily.”
“It is beneficial for me to be kind to Lily.”
I felt nothing when I spoke her name, and I was glad of it. I suddenly felt hollow, and I was glad of that as well.
“That’s not the only reason,” she said.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you know me,” I said to her. But I was saying it to my own self as well. For it was easy to lie here with her in the sand, a moment out of time. Which was what we had
always had. But when we returned, we would be returning to the palace, and I would be King. I could not afford to take that lightly, nor could I afford to assume that I knew everything about myself or what I was capable of.
I had been created by the hand of a monster, after all.
And the real danger was assuming that I could control the matching creature that lived inside myself.
That darkness.
She said nothing, but the way she looked at me clearly spoke the words for her.
She was intent on seeing the best in me. And I wondered if it was because she had consented to be mine again.
If she had to tell herself that on some level I was a good man or feel sullied by what had happened between us.
Marissa was a good woman.
Of that I was confident.
If anything had changed over the course of the week at the island, it was my certainty of that.
I had spent five years thinking of her as a defector. As one who had betrayed me in a way that no other woman had—because no other woman abandoning me would have felt like a betrayal.
But I had relearned her.
And perhaps the best thing was having confirmed that I had been right about one thing at least.
She was exceptional. She was like no one else. And that meant that I would have to be careful.
She was the one who would have to take the largest part in raising Lily. Because she was the one who would shape the best ruler, one who had not been touched by my father at all. I would make a conscious decision to correct what I could, but Lily would be unspoiled.
Of that, I was certain. Of that, I was resolved.
“Let us go back to the house,” I said.
“Will we need to return for your father’s funeral?”
I leaned in, and I kissed her, fiercely. “That man has stolen enough from me. He will not steal this too.”
That seemed to soothe her, and she leaned against me. Trust. She should trust in me, as did Lily.
I would do my utmost not to disappoint them.
But that would mean keeping my distance.
But we had until the end of this week.
And I would take that with both hands, and her as well.