The Reckless Reign (Book 3, The Culled Crown Series)

Chapter 43

Reubinon Palace, Pellarmus.
Eight days after the attack.

I was already back in my room and Isla was gone at sea by the time the package arrived. The maid carrying it said nothing about its contents or who had sent it as she laid the little parcel on the bed before me and excused herself. For a moment, I just sat there, cross-legged, looking down at the brown paper package—so simple next to the ornate bedding beneath it.

The note tucked into the folded wrapping was made of flimsy, cheap paper. And yet, I was so used to receiving letters from royals that I still expected a crest or some sort of emblem to be pressed into the envelope. But it only held my name, just Monroe, written in hasty, unrefined handwriting. Intrigued, I opened the envelope and flipped the little card open. Inside, in the same messy writing, were four words:

Isla liked the cigarettes.

I smiled to myself and tore open the package, already knowing what I would find inside. The red and gold sketchbook greeted me, the soft leather of it kissing my palms as I flipped it open and smiled down at the blank pages before me. I'd never really drawn anything and didn't think I had even a shred of creativity in my body, but for the first time in my life, I wanted to try.

I'd watched Kai work through his own demons by drawing. He'd filled sketchbook after sketchbook with small things—pieces of his life, things I now knew he was learning to reconcile with his past, and what he believed would be his future. He used to draw vines and flowers and running rabbits and cats and mice and all manner of other seemingly mundane things. But it had all meant something to him.

Sometimes he would draw in the places where art was meant to be, other times he was so compelled to create that he would doodle on the edges of maps, on documents he was supposed to be reading. In the creases of books and the furled corners of napkins. It was how he processed things. Like running, it gave him space to think.

And while I was terrified of my own dark thoughts and that beast that seemed to lurk in the shadows of my hopelessness, I too felt compelled to create something. So I curled up in front of the vanity and began to draw—simple things. Badly sketched, but it didn't matter, not really. These things were for me. For my eyes and my heart.

I drew the homestead, with its four walls and endless memories. The far tree line—which I'd never been allowed to cross until it was too late, until I believed I'd never get the chance to come home again. The vines that crept up Kinsley's face. A training dummy wreathed in flame. The tunnel and gates to the arena. A key. A knife. Fire. A tent full of bunkbeds and trunks and the shadowed form of a large, looming dog. Three borrowed jackets, all various stages of singed. The slumped shell of a burned schoolhouse. The river of tattoos on Kai's skin—a map of rivers that I now realized was from my home country and not his.

It was from our home country.

I drew, forcing myself to look past how terrible each sketch was. I didn't let myself bemoan my lack of talent. I knew what I was drawing and had no intention of ever showing anyone else—so if the images weren't recognizable, all the better.

With each sketch, I felt both closer to Kai and further away. It was like bleeding onto the page. And there was no one there to tend to those open wounds. They were too deep for even Nadia to heal. In truth, I didn't mind them. I knew that I had to make peace with them if we were to ever survive this.

And so, I wept. I sat and I wept—mourning my past self and my family. I mourned the girl who had fallen in love with the first boy who had given her even the smallest shard of affection. I mourned the girl that had turned spy and betrayed him. I mourned the girl that he'd locked in a prison.