When I was a boy, my mother would tell me a tale about a woman living a free and liberating life. She’s happy in her own world, getting by as best as she can…then one day, there’s a knock at her door.
At the door is a king—a sizable man with eyes as dark as coals and hair as black as raven wings. And it’s when that king appears that the story takes a darker turn.
Because in her story, the king doesn’t just knock. He eventually kicks her door down, and the beautiful woman panics, having no idea who he is or what he wants.
According to my mother, this free woman had built a cottage between two territories of Vakeeli, an illegal act she wasn’t aware of prior to his arrival. Someone had stumbled across her cabin in the forest and reported it to the king of Blackwater for a few rubies, and the king took it upon himself to seek the person who’d disobeyed the law.
The king expected to find someone he wouldn’t care about—a person he could shove aside and take the home from just to make a reasonable profit. But when he laid eyes on the free, beautiful woman, he instantly fell for her.
However, the woman did not fall for him. In fact, she was afraid of him and wanted nothing more than for him to leave. The king saw her resistance as a challenge and made it his mission to get the woman to love him, so he left that night, but returned many times after, leaving gifts, food, and riches in an attempt to win her over.
The woman wanted none of it. She loved her simple life in the forest and loved growing her own food. And as far as riches, she didn’t need them. She either had or could make everything she desired. Plus, the king was not her type. For starters, he was married, and she informed him of this in hopes that he’d stop showing up.
None of the woman’s rejects sat well with the arrogant king, and he drowned himself in drinks. When he was full of liquor and frustration, he stumbled to her cabin in the middle of the night.
It is there that the king called to the woman while standing at her door, begging her to come out, begging her to love him. The woman stepped out and told the king to go home—that he was drunk and wasting his time.
Infuriated, the king barged into the woman’s cabin, dragged her to her bed, and had his way with her. No matter how much she fought, he overpowered her, and eventually she stopped fighting and lay there, waiting for the nightmare to be over.
Realizing his error after he’d sobered up, the king ran back to his kingdom, leaving the woman to cry alone in the night. Two full moons later, she discovered she was pregnant. Panicked, she sought the Mythics of Whisper Grove, wanting to rid herself of the foreign being inside her.
She begged and pleaded, not caring that getting rid of the baby would send her to The Trench. She didn’t want the king’s baby and refused to carry it. After the nightmare of that night, she no longer wanted to live. This baby was forced upon her, you see, and she wanted nothing to do with it. But all the Mythics denied her—all but one.
This Mythic was a smart man, kind and cheerful. He told the woman he’d help her get rid of the baby without anyone finding out. But it was as he began creating an elixir to rid her of the baby that he told her he could feel the baby’s power in her womb. The baby she was carrying was going to be special and would grow up a protector, with a special gift no one else would carry.
The woman didn’t care. She didn’t believe him. She was set on getting rid of the child and never speaking of it again, so she took the elixir and ran home.
Later that night, as the woman stared at the bottle, ready to abolish the king’s mistake, she felt a fluttering in her womb. She felt this beautiful, innocent life inside her moving, and tears crept to her eyes. And when she closed her eyes, she saw a baby boy in her arms, with cerulean eyes and inky hair. The baby looked at her with so much love—more love than she had ever encountered in her life—and she thought, “It is not the baby’s fault he is in my womb.”
Because of what she saw, the woman tossed the elixir into the fireplace, and for the next six months, she carried the baby, giving birth to him in her cabin with the aid of the kind Mythic who promised to help her.
And when she saw the baby was indeed a boy and that her vision had come to life, she swore to protect this boy with all her might, and to never let the king find out about him. For if he did, she knew the wrath the king would take. A bastard son, born out of wedlock. It’d make him appear immoral and he’d kill the boy, or worse—punish him in some way for ever being born.
The woman kept the boy a secret for as long as she could, but as the boy grew, it became harder to keep him in hiding, for he was an adventurous child, stubborn, and she saw many of the king’s traits in him. Despite it, she promised she would raise the boy to have a tender heart, so that no matter what he went through, or how much he suffered, he would care for others in the same way he would want to be cared for. Because she knew it was coming…his suffering. She knew she couldn’t protect him forever, because there was one enemy who wanted to take her from him. And if he couldn’t keep him, neither could she.
This is the story my mother would tell me, and I was happy for the boy, never realizing he was me. And the Mythic who’d helped the woman—that was Manx.
For years, my mother said someone would come for us. She’d drive herself mad, pacing the cabin. She used to let me to stay with Manx every day until one day, my visits to him came to an abrupt stop and she told me to never speak to him again.
I realize now that it was Manx’s plan all along to bring me to life. He knew what I would be before I was even born—knew the power I possessed and wanted it to be his—so he convinced my mother to keep me and grew close with both of us until my mother figured out, he was Decius. That’s what all those late nights in the libraries were for, the pacing of the cabin, the handle of the dagger in her hands as she watched the door, waiting for an unknown enemy to attack.
I see that now as I stare into his eyes, and the cold wraps around me like snakes. Manx is not the compassionate man I thought he was. All this time, he’s been hunting me, pushing out anyone who cares about me, and waiting for his moment to strike. The realization is such a disappointment.
What good am I if I’m only here to be used by men like him and my father? Perhaps this is the better option, to let him take my body, my mind, and kill me. I’ll only be used time and time again…
But there’s Willow, and he cannot have her. Take my heart and rip it out of me, I don’t care, but my mate will not be his.
When I get out of this icy mental trap Decius has me in, he’s as good as dead.
