Kieran

“Hello?”

I am enveloped in white. All around me is nothing but a white so bright, and yet it’s not bright enough to blind me. There are no walls, no horizons to draw the distinction between land and sky. When I walk, it looks as if I am walking on air – but my toes sink into something as soft as sand.

“Hello, love.”

My ears prick at the sound of Lady Selaena’s voice. I spin on my heels.

She stands before me, hands folded in front of her as if in penitence. For some reason my mind is able to register the sweeping azure dress she wears as the same one she wore the first time we were presented to each other by our parents.

I bow my head in greeting. “My lady.”

Her lips spread into a thin line, although her eyes gloss over. For a moment I wonder what I have done wrong.

“You fool,” she says. “Did you know you had a full day to live? Could you not have waited until then to end your own life?”

Wistfulness clasps around my own heart at her bluntness. In truth, I was ready to spend a thousand more years with Astrid if I could’ve. I couldn’t tell her I loved her when I was still breathing. It would have hurt her too much. Now I can only hope she knows that everything I did was for her sake.

“I couldn’t just let her die.”

Selaena’s smirk mingles with her sigh. “And so you decided to take her place. Tell me: does it hurt to know her love couldn’t save you?”

“A part of me secretly hoped some miraculous exception would be made,” I shrug. “But, no. Not really. It is what it is, right? C’est la vie.”

She studies her bare feet, her silk hair falling over her shoulders. I allow myself to finally reconcile the woman before me with the girl I used to know, the friend she used to be. She has grown much since then – as have I. In the silence that passes between us, our eyes meet to exchange a kind wish for each other’s happiness.

Because she looks so sad, I stretch my arms out to gesture to the desert.

“Is this the afterlife?” I say blithely. “It’s kind of boring.”

She is not humoured. “This is the final stop you must pass through before what comes after.”

Her gaze flickers away from my face and towards something over my shoulder. Before she can lift a hand to point, I am already turning around.

Another girl stands before me. She is young, but her eyes carry a certain age that almost disables me from recognizing her face. But how couldn’t I? Hers is the face that has haunted me all my life.

“Anna,” the name comes out in a hoarse whisper.

She lifts her arms up, rosy cheeks pushing up in a big grin.

“Wren.”

I run to her. My arms wrap around her petite frame and I pick her up to spin her, the way I used to do to get my way with her. And, as she always used to do, she chortles gleefully.

When I set her down, she is still laughing.

“What took you so long?” she asks me.

“I know. Believe me, I know. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Oh, ‘tis no matter. What is important is that you got to live the life that was taken from me.”

My grin falters. She reaches up to tuck a stray lock of hair away from my forehead with a delicate hand. She is still smiling, but the age in her gaze solidifies.

“That’s what you did, right?” her tone is still saccharine. “That is why you hated every breath you took.”

I stagger backwards at the blow she has dealt. She drops her hands and cocks her head to one side, her smile turning in the opposite direction.

“I…” I blink. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Kieran Pietre Erik, Crown Prince of Gaerin,” another voice, rich in gold and hard as steel, thunders from my left. My head whips towards the sound.

A solemn man appears out of thin air. He does not approach me, but for some reason it feels as though he starts to tower over me more and more. Those cerulean eyes are set in stone under his crown.

“You burned our empire down. Everything the generations of kings have worked for – every foundation I toiled to lay in the hope that you might someday find an ounce of humanity in yourself…”

“No.” I clamp my hands over my ears. “No, Father, I swear I never meant to -”

“Regardless of whether you held the right to the crown or not, you still single-handedly brought our kingdom to ruin. You have failed me. You failed the people who depended on you. Our people. Our home – you destroyed it all. You killed so many. You, my only son.”

Every syllable pierces my chest like ice shards.

“I had plans, Kieran. For you, for Anna, for our kingdom. I had dreams for us. I was going to take care of everyone. I was going to keep them safe. But you ruined it all.”

When he steps forward to reach out for me, I holler like a restless wraith and turn to run, but my ankles sink deep into white sand. My knees buckle. I claw and crawl forward as his accusations boom at an unbearable volume.

Soon, my own desperate shouts are drowned out by the raised, relentless denunciation of the king.

All this is off.

They do not speak lies. But perhaps I only expected what I craved the most: their forgiveness. A comfort I don’t deserve.

Maybe this is my own personal hell.

“Wren.”

I lift my head. Through the blurriness of my vision, a figure kneels before me. Petal-like hands brush the tears off my face and I inhale the faint scent of lavender.

“M-Mother?” my voice is as broken as the rest of me.

She runs a hand through my hair. I don’t know if I should plead for her to hold her condemnations or if I should just crumble into her embrace.

When she tugs at my shoulders lightly, I do the latter. Her arms cradle my torso as if I am a mere child. I bunch a fistful of her caramel curls and the fabric of her dress into my hands.

“My baby boy,” she hums into my ear, running a hand up and down my arm as I weep into her shoulder. “It does not befit a man to remain in his past for the rest of his life.”

“I never meant to hurt you, Mother. I...I’m so sorry.”

“Shh.” Her fingers grip my shoulders. I am gently pried off her hold so that she can behold my face.

“My, how you’ve grown.”

Her expression is serene as she smiles without an inch of sadness. I don’t even dare to blink, lest I lose her again. My hand grips hers so that she won’t disappear like my father and sister.

“It is time, Wren,” her breath caresses the top of my head. “It’s time to accept the consequences of your crimes and move on. Put your struggle aside and acknowledge responsibility for the agony you have brought on for everyone around you.”

She watches me intently. Expectantly.

The agony you have brought on.

My eyelids grow heavy. They start to close. After all this time, I now realize that I am and have always been so, so tired.

Images of everything that has led me to this point flashes before my mind: the night I promised Selaena my fidelity, gifting her a blue rose before the guards came to take her away. The terror in Astrid’s ailing father’s eyes when I left him to the mercy of the monster. The scar tissue that runs all over Bayorn’s body. Astrid screaming her mind into oblivion at the vision in the throne room. Eli’s trembling hands when he told me he outlived his mother. The faces of every soul sacrificed to the monster each night.

“Do you accept the punishment you deserve, beast?”

And then new scenes flash before me, like scenes from a movie.

Eli squealing gleefully as he barrels into me on the frozen pond. Isabelle dancing around the room. Astrid’s breath against my chin as I step on her feet while she teaches me to dance, her breathless laughter as I watch her jive across the speakeasy. Bayorn chasing after Imogen with paint smeared over both their faces.

My mother laughing at an uncouth joke I made while my father frowns, his lips twitching in an attempt to hide the. My sister scolding me whenever I messed up on the lyre. The friends I’ve met through the mirror; Aurelia’s grin when I taught her how to ride a horse. The rare laughter Selaena gave when I tried wasabi for the first time.

My eyes fly open.

“No.”

My mother’s hand pauses. Her smile remains, but her eyebrows furrow. “No?”

This time, it is I who cup my hand over her face. It hurts just to touch her.

“I am not the beast, Mother. It is my punishment, yes. And I have already paid the price. I…” the words get lodged in my throat midway.

Do I dare admit it?

“I...I’m sorry. And perhaps I will always be sorry. But if you will not give me the forgiveness I have hungered for all this time, if- if nobody will…” I swallow.

“Then I will be the one to give it to myself.”

A sharp sensation fires up my every nerve.

I double over, coughing. At first the fire is everywhere all at once. For a moment, I fear I am about to transform again.

But then the pain starts to localize: the sting settles in my side.

Two hands rest lightly on my shoulder blades. I crane my neck to look for them – for my father and sister, who smile down at me. Now they no longer punish me; the acid in their features give way to amity.

My mother dips her head to kiss my forehead, oblivious to my pain. She lingers there for a heartbeat. Two. Three.

“Kieran.”

All at once, the pain recedes. My mother brings me to my feet with surprising strength, but it was not her voice that called out to me.

Imogen smiles.

Sorrow racks my chest. I rush forward, and she greets my embrace with equal strength. We both mourn into each other’s shoulders.

“No, no,” Imogen speaks first, pulling away to steady me. “We must not weep, for we are finally free.”

I take longer to rein in some control. When I look at her, at the crinkles in the corners of her eyes and her warm smile, my soul shatters.

“I couldn’t protect you. I… Eli…”

“Is safe,” she cuts me off. “And now he will grow into the man I have always hoped him to be. That is all I wanted. Truly. And you must not feel remorse, Kieran – I know you. You must only remember that I am proud of you.”

I nod numbly. She uses her thumbs to dry my face.

Then Imogen smiles over my shoulder, and my mother comes to stand beside her. My sister comes to take my hand, and soon I am surrounded by lost love.

“We have long forgiven you, Wren,” my sister’s bell-like voice soothes my thoughts like aloes. “You are loved.”

“We are always with you,” Imogen says.

My mother and father cup my face in each of their hands.

“You may rest now.”

My vision fades into white.

At last, I fall into the deepest slumber I have ever known.