Blakeshire (Insight #9)(2)
“You rang,” Zander said coolly as he nodded for me to breathe in the ginger once more.
Zander had all of his mother’s gifts, if not more. I’d goaded him more than once about being out of sorts. He could see the past and the future, but rarely could he tell the difference, and more often than not he chose not to speak of what he saw, stating that we each had to walk through hell to reach bliss. Most times, he was near silent. I would wager that I was the only one in this palace that had ever heard his voice, which had turned from angelic to a deep, balanced tone a few years back.
He brushed his long, unkempt hair out of his eyes as he sat next to me on the floor, and I stared at the voltaic ceiling. The cold was fading. I was gaining control once more.
“Why will the bastard not die?” I bit out.
“Clearly, he has,” Zander said as his gaze moved over my weakened state.
“Is it time to run now?” I asked while taking in another deep breath.
Zander had told me years ago that my blood would rule this world, but I would not. He didn’t understand why he said that any more than I did hearing his words. I took the lingering prophecy of his to mean that Donalt would rule within my body; he took it as an heir of mine would. Either way I was dead, so it didn’t really matter to me until a few months ago when my life somehow managed to get worse.
He perked his brow. “Run, before your heir is in place?”
“To have an heir, I would have to have a woman—and if you haven’t been paying attention, I’ve yet to figure out how to get one to stick around.”
“Really?” he said with a sinister grin. “Clara seemed to have a satisfied grin on her face when she passed your threshold this morning.”
I threw a wicked glare at him.
Another lesson Donalt wanted me to learn, at a rather young age, was how to hold a woman. Something most teen boys would have found as a perk of royalty. The mere idea was torture for me. Every time I even considered the idea, I would get sick to my stomach simply because I would see tantalizing green eyes flash through my mind. I would feel a deep-rooted betrayal rip through me. Fear of karma, of finding my queen and discovering she had given her virtue to another man, forced me to find less conventional ways to trick Donalt into thinking that I had fruitfully used the ladies in waiting as I was told to do.
I did that with the help of Zander. One of his gifts was influence. He could send a dream to someone, a very real, believable dream. It was a flawed power. It only worked on the minds of those whom you would swear were designed by the Creator Himself to be submissive. Through trial and error, we discovered one of the girls Donalt put before me had a weak mind. Clara.
Each night, she would come to my chambers and fall asleep in my bed, and at that moment she would dream. An entire night…among other things with me. All created in her mind. Zander never constructed the dreams; he only gave her the idea and let her build it. If I did manage to sleep, it was in a chamber below this one, a hidden, modest room.
When Landen and Willow attacked the palace weeks back, I assumed that Clara was one of the many that had fled or lost their lives that day, but Zander had saved her, telling me later that it took too long to find someone like her in the first place. I almost sent her away, knowing that having her walking the palace halls would not win me any arguments with Willow. But in the end I knew that Donalt was not really dead, that he had eyes on me at all times—if not his, the traitors in the court that lived here. So I kept her.
I was never meant to fall in love, but to be a king, and kings in my world were not faithful. Clara was a sweet girl. Even though what went on in my chambers was all a mental fabrication of hers, the royal balls and public appearances were not. She was the one the court saw me with. She was forevermore marked as ‘one of those girls,’ even though she had never been touched. I had taken any hope of her finding a true, noble life away. I had vowed to myself that once this was all over I would find her someone who was worthy enough to take care of her, worthy enough not to take advantage of her mind the way Zander and I had.
More than once, I had thought that Zander would fill that role nicely, but he had told me she was not his, as if he knew exactly who was his. I envied his curse just as much as I was thankful that I didn’t have it. My dreams of past lives were already too much for me to handle.
“As soon as I have the strength to stand, I’m leaving here. I’m going to get Madison Marie, and I’m bringing her home. Clara cannot be around. I don’t give a damn what member of the court is watching me.”
“Home,” Zander said with a nod, glancing around my chambers.
“What?”
His stare found mine. “Exactly what room are you planning to have her sleep in?”
I took in another deep breath, pushing out as much of the cold as I could when I exhaled. I could hear my father’s voice in my mind. Him telling me how important it was to build a home for your soul mate. How it connected you to them. That, by design, you knew what would give them comfort. Of course, when he told me this I had no idea that my heritage, at the least the heritage from his blood, was from Chara. A place where soul mates, family, and home were sacred.
So, naturally, I thought he was a fool when he and I, side by side, began to build a wing in this massive palace. At one time, simply to humor him, I asked if we could not just remake an existing wing; the palace was big enough, as far as I was concerned. I doubted I had seen every nook and cranny of this place, and I had grown up here. He told me no, and somehow he found permission from Donalt to build such a wing. Without fail, my father brought every single material here. From another world. Nothing in that wing was created in Esterious. It was fortified in every physical and mystical way. It had been sealed for the past two years. Forgotten.