A servant rushed in and stopped upon seeing the wrecked room.
“Out,” Seyn growled.
The servant left hurriedly, and Seyn gripped his bedpost, collapsing against it. A sob forced its way up his throat. Then another, a horrible choking noise.
He had no idea how he’d ended up slumped on the floor. There was a sharp ache in his leg that probably meant that he’d sunk down onto some broken shard. There was a dull ache in his throat that couldn’t be as easily explained.
He didn’t know why his eyes were wet. There was no damn reason for it.
No reason at all.
Chapter 17
Twenty-one days later, Seyn received an official message from the Council, informing him that Ksar’s petition had been approved. The date for breaking the bond was in three days.
Seyn stared at the message for a few moments before carefully putting his multi-device back into his pocket.
Jamil stopped making funny faces at his daughter and looked up. “Bad news?”
“No,” Seyn said, putting on a smile and focusing his gaze on Tmynne. The four-month-old baby princess smiled back at him, her green eyes sparkling as she reached out to Seyn’s hair with a chubby hand.
“Good news, actually,” he said. There was no point in trying to hide the news from Jamil. As the Crown Prince, he sat on the Council himself. Every grand clan had two votes on the Council, one for the ruling monarch—or their consort in their absence—and one for the heir apparent. Unless Jamil had missed the latest session of the Council, he likely already knew the news. If Seyn tried to hide anything, he had no doubt it would only reaffirm his family’s opinion that there was something wrong with him.
There was nothing wrong with him.
He was fine. He was better than ever. Seyn was sick of his family treating him like a fucking ticking bomb. So he had broken a few priceless heirlooms; so what? It didn’t make him emotionally fragile or something.
It meant nothing.
He was fine.
“Ksar’s petition was approved,” he said and smiled wider. “I’ll be a free man in three days.”
He felt Jamil’s gaze on him, but he kept his eyes on Tmynne. She finally managed to grab a lock of his hair and made a triumphant noise.
Seyn chuckled. “Fine, but no hair pulling, all right?”
Tmynne pulled at his hair, hard.
Laughing, Seyn lifted her from her crib and hid his face in her sweet-smelling hair. He could feel that Jamil was still watching him.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Jamil said at last, sounding as uncomfortable as Seyn felt.
Seyn paused. He lifted his head and looked his brother in the eye. “About what?”
Jamil gave him an unimpressed look. “I’m your brother, kid. Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending it isn’t a big deal for you.”
“I don’t really have the bond anymore, remember?” Seyn said with a soft chuckle. “It will be just a formality.”
Jamil’s expression didn’t change. “Do you remember the Shadow War?”
Seyn’s brows furrowed in confusion.
The Shadow War hadn’t been a real war. It referred to the twenty-year period in Calluvian history that had taken place nine thousand years ago. Back then, there hadn’t been twelve grand clans; there had been just two, but the relationship between them, especially between their queens, had been so bad it put real wars to shame. Queen Eguiless and Queen Xeryash’s mutual hatred and rivalry had been legendary; it still was.
But what did that have to do with anything?
Seyn shrugged, bewildered by the sudden change of subject. “What about it?”
Jamil looked at him hard. “The queens hated each other for so long that their sole purpose in life became destroying each other. They were obsessed with it. But then Queen Xeryash died from a heart attack, of all things. And do you remember what happened to Queen Eguiless?”
Seyn put the baby back in her crib, needing the excuse to look away from his brother’s eyes.
Yes, of course he knew what happened to Queen Eguiless. They said she became very strange after her archenemy’s sudden death. She acted withdrawn and listless half of the time, and fell into mindless rages the other half.
“Hate is a powerful feeling, too,” Jamil said. “It’s a passion, too, just on another end of the spectrum. Some say it’s stronger than love, and that if you suddenly lose someone you hated for years, it would leave as big a void as if you lost a loved one.”
Seyn chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “What does that have to do with me?”
Jamil sighed. “All I’m saying is that it’s okay to feel strange about finally getting the freedom you’ve always wanted. You don’t have to pretend to be happy if you aren’t.”
“I’m not pretending,” Seyn said. “I’m happy. My life isn’t revolved around Ksar.” He hated how unconvincing and defensive his voice sounded.
Judging by the look Jamil shot him, he wasn’t convinced, either.