The King Trials 2: Beyond.

Vince throws his head back with a laugh.

“Wait, wait.” He composes himself, visibly suppressing unruly chuckles. “He disappeared after hearing the sound of your sister’s voice?”

I look down at my hands, fingers twiddling.

“A charismatic, silver-tongued Herem, suave in his ways and sophisticated in his mannerism. He was dumbstruck, so petrified that he physically ran away?”

I raise a shoulder.

He hums considerately. “But then who was he referring to?”

My eyes freeze on a random spot before I reunite with his gaze. “Care to expound?”

He shifts, straightening. “He mentioned a steal-worthy line, the one about some jewels that you are only meant to keep, and others meant to behold. Who was he referring to if Hera Seliah only interrupted after your brief cavort?”

My stomach clenches. I mask my bewilderment, mustering a monotone, I say, “I do not know; the granular details are a tad indistinct. It was a long time ago.”

“As the day I met Alejendio,” he says, melancholy flares in his voice. His face is dubious. “But some encounters, some people are unforgettable. Those remembrances poisoned by grief can become something haunting.”

I sniff sharply. “Are you trying to wring out the last of my tears? Because I have none left to shed.”

“Not at all.” Tenderness coats his words. “Our memories are a powerful thing, as is our mind and our thoughts. You are what you believe, and what you remember is how you perceive all around you to be. The core of your belief system and the fulcrum of your identity.”

He exhales a serene breath. “You know who he was to you as others knew him for what he was to them. His repute will precede him. Even slain; death cannot touch him.”

I blink away the burn behind my eyes.

“But there is something I must ask of you,” he says, his tenor solemn, his expression hardened into a sombre look.

I look back at him quizzically.

“You thought I was—” his face scrunches into a tight cringe, “—gaudy? Do elaborate. What is that even?”

I shrug indifferently. “From afar, you appeared like a preening prude feeding off the crowd’s adulation. I rarely judged a person by their mere exterior but you, I disliked from only looking at you.”

He feigns a wounded look and places a quick hand on his chest. “Well,” he says with a flair of melodrama. “At least your sister thinks I am unbelievably handsome. I truly have been pursuing the wrong sister. Our return will surely rectify that wrong.”

My hand whacks him on its own volition. “Do not even think of going near her.”

He rubs his shoulder with a chuckle. “Rest easy, there is only one who I will chase, now and forever, my eyes and all parts of me belong to my future wife.”

I nearly choke on my own breaths. I do a rapid scan of the interior, Duce Merian, Markiveus, and Brennon are engaged in a conversation. Treyton sits in restricted solitude.

“Vince. Stop.”

He flings his gaze away, sighing exasperatedly, growing impatient.

“Stop what? Stop inconveniently laying my heart at your feet?”

“That is it.” I launch up, wobbling at the top. Extending my arms for balance as I hobble forward, across to the cushioned bench.

“Aurora, where are you going?” He says to my back. “Very mature of you. I should not have to tell you that running from your problems is an unwise strategy. What you run from you inevitably run into.”

I glance over my shoulder. “You are right,” I say with an insincere smile. “You are a problem.”

A sudden tremor rocks the carousine, sending me stumbling. Treyton reaches out and guides me into the seat beside him. I can feel Vince’s stare like a weight deposited on my back, clinging to me.

“Exceeded your quota of Vince for today?”

I resist the urge to look back at him. “Perhaps forever.”

He snorts and gives me a once-over, his gaze lingering on my head. “Apologies for asking. But if I may. What happened to your hair?” Confusion wrinkles his face; he offers me a rueful smile. “It appears… different.”

My mouth opens only to close. I shrug exaggeratedly. “Let us call it a beauty regimen gone horribly wrong.”

Convinced, he turns away from me to lean his back against the headboard, spreading his legs. After a neutral interval of silence, neither comfortable nor uneasy, it simply just is, both of us musing our own thoughts.

Treyton rolls his head to the side to look at me. “How are you faring...with ...everything?”

Here’s this question again.

I turn to face him and my side slumps against the headboard. “I am alive.” Devoid of gratitude, merely pointing out what is obvious. “I do not know if there is more to it. And what of you? What is the current psychology of Herem Treyton?”

He releases a humoured breath through his nostrils. “A macabre one. I suppose that happens to one’s psyche after killing so many.”

His face is overcast with a morose look. “I do not know what is worse. Being in the fight, wetting my blade with the blood of others. Or being a king and sending my own people to the fight, knowing that many will not return.”

He frees an acidic laugh. “I thought that being the supreme Ruler would have been incredible. To learn when to reign with an iron fist but at times, a velvet glove. To have the name of Urium strike fear the in the hearts of our enemies, our realm prospering with equality. I see now why High King Urus altered the Shalem protocols. There is a dark side to ruling. With moral consequences. The compromise of working with a lesser evil for a greater good.”

His eyes meet with mine, and an eerie feeling befalls me.

“The issue with working with the lesser evil is that it is still evil.”

When we arrive at the pier. The transition proceeds like so many I have had to endure. Nivalis ships are specially built to withstand its storms. Its agile frame is enamelled with sturdy plating, reinforced with Aelvebore metal. The crew members look more like soldiers, most of them fortified in silver armour.

Thankfully, this time I have my own quarters. Much more empty spaces than before.

The room has a glimmer of opulence, spacious with a round, floor-to-ceiling window that showcases the aquatic scenery veiled with a ghostly mist that prowls on the surface, vaporous tendrils groping the waters. But soon we will be propelled into the aether, soaring towards Urium.

Once my belongings are gathered. I rummage through one of them, passing one of the two scrolls, to the crown piece, the ornament that I stole from the Sagetai’s Sanctuary, off the head of that warrior-Esque figurine. I want to say that its coat is gold, but it is not. It’s a different precious metal, pearlescent and it resembles my tattoos as they are without their glow, they shine with a dull lustre—a feeble sheen but ethereal, nonetheless.

I truly did not know what to expect the moment I heard the High King’s decree after learning of the Dophan’s death. I could not deduce its tribulations, but neither did I have a personal motivation of what it is I wanted to accomplish, merely achieving what others had expected of me.

I wanted to achieve a new feat for my Regnum, possibly something better than what a son could have ever done in my stead. It was not only a chance but an obligation as not only as a Valwa, but as the sole pureblood of Valwa.

Either way, my fate is decided.

I went into the King Trials with a linear mindset, my Regnum my focus point.

But now I have been thrusted into something more entirely. Here I thought my training would have blessed me with a competitive edge. Without it, I would have surely been doomed. But now I wonder. I reflect on my father’s teachings, his wise counsel about the past; that in order to foresee what is coming, you merely have to look behind you.

And there is one thing that has been and that will always be.