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

Chapter 2

Oredison Palace, Gazda.
Less than two weeks before Sanctus Aurelia.

Caine had been volatile those first few days back in the palace. The Erydian people were anxious. They had a new king, but his appearance had been unpredicted and had come as an unwelcome surprise to many. The temples were uneasy, the priestesses pushing for more information on Kai's claim to the throne. Everyone wanted to know about his intentions with the Culling. Would he continue it? What would be done with the remaining goddess-touched girls? Since he wasn't raised in Erydia, no one was certain he would follow our traditions.

With so many fires to put out and mine so effectively doused, Caine had left me to my own devices. The rules of my confinement were simple—I couldn't try to see Kai, I couldn't leave the palace, and I couldn't go down to the prisons. So, I spent most of my first few days just walking the halls of Oredison Palace, holding my breath for a glimpse of the new king.

I was so mad at him.

My heart was this aching, raw thing in my chest. And I couldn't seem to reconcile my brokenness with the fact that he'd done that—he'd cause this. The worst part was that I wanted him desperately. I missed having him on my side. I missed the sure, unwavering faith he'd always had in me.

Surrounded by so many enemies, both seen and unseen, I realized pretty quickly that I had no faith in myself. There was no faith, no hope, to be had. Instead, I was eaten alive by deep-set guilt and a longing for the man I'd thought Kai was—the one who had kissed me and held my hand through the darkest parts of the night.

I missed him.

I also wanted to kill him. I wanted to hurt Kai the way my heart was hurting.

I wondered if he ever laid awake at night and remembered the look on Uri's face as she'd died. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I'd spent hours trying to imagine things differently—we should have never let her out of our sight. I should have kept her by my side while we'd waited for the rebellion to start—we should have never aided the rebellion in the first place. But wishing didn't do anything to bring her back.

She was just dead.

Uri was just dead and I was just pacing the halls of a palace, looking for a boy I wasn't sure had ever really existed. I never found him, not really. And yet, he was everywhere. I saw the barest shadow of him in the portraits of a dead king. I saw evidence of his presence, sat across from him at the dinner table, but I never really saw my Kai. Not the man who'd kissed me. Not the man who'd claimed to love me.

I wondered if he'd died with Uri.

I wondered if he'd ever lived to begin with.

***
The Palace Library.

After breakfast, Heidi, Nadia, and Kinsley were escorted from the dining room and taken to their old palace bedrooms. Caine wanted everyone well-rested for the coming days. Despite the fact that I'd been abused and my friends had been imprisoned for over a month, we all needed to appear well-treated. We needed to seem happy.

Lies.

All of it.

Since Caine was busy forcing Cohen, Larkin, and Kai to sit in the same room without killing each other, I had the rest of the morning to myself. My guards, Igell and Ross, trailed me at a leisurely distance as I headed for the library.

The musty room with its large windows and mauve velvet curtains had become my favorite haunt. I'd grown up adventuring through books—and libraries had always been a thing of wonder to me. I'd never been able to fully imagine what it would be like to have an unending supply of books at my disposal. The lonely, frightened girl I'd been when I'd lived on the homestead, awaiting my fate, wouldn't have known what to do with herself if she'd been given so many small worlds to thumb through.