King of Me (17 page)

Unsure if I’d be able to observe the horrific event about to pass, but unable to walk away or stop myself from praying for a miracle, I sat high up in the last row of stone benches next to a group of women wearing white head scarves. They were much older than me and among the few spectators who looked dismayed. The rest behaved like a wild mob, ready for a boxing match between champions. I couldn’t believe it.

Barbarians.

I sat on the edge of the bench and wiped away a tear, my mind still searching for a way to stop this.

“It is all right, dear,” said the silver-haired woman to my side. Her eyes were dark brown and her skin worn by the sun.

I made a polite smile, but said nothing.

“You are the one Hagne spoke of, aren’t you?” she asked.

I looked over, and all four women stared. “I’m not sure.”

“You are Mia, the Seer.”

I stood up. “I think you have me confused.”

“This is Hagne’s work.” The woman grabbed my wrist and pointed to my tattoo. Not the one that King had placed on me, but Hagne’s. “Sit,” she commanded, “do not force my hand.” Her touch sent static through my arm.

I didn’t have the energy to fight, so I sat. “What do you want?”

“Is it true that Hagne tried to kill you?” she asked.

Of course, I tried to kill her first, but that wasn’t the question.

I nodded.

“Is it true she had eyes for Callias?”

I nodded.

The woman turned to her companions, and the ladies mumbled frantically. With the roar of the crowd, I couldn’t hear a damned thing.

The woman faced me once again. “So the king killed her with just cause.”

“Yes, I believe so.”

She nodded solemnly. “I am ashamed that we did not deal with Hagne in time.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“We knew she’d been…let us say, using her gifts in unsanctioned ways. She was tainted, as are all Seers who betray their oaths.”

“I’m not following you,” I said.

“Those of our kind who use their gifts to gain power or wealth are defying the gods and the natural order. They become crazed animals who must be put down.”

“You’re all Seers?” I asked.

“We are the elders.”

I had so many questions for them about Seers and how our gifts worked, but there was no time. “Then you can stop this,” I pleaded.

She shook her head no.

“Why not? They haven’t fought yet.” I pointed toward the arena.

“The challenge was issued by Callias.”

“Yes, because Hagne’s family threatened to rally the people into a civil war. The king thinks this is the only way to avoid massive bloodshed.”

“I’m sorry, my dear, but it is too late. The wheels have been set in motion.”

“But you just said—”

She held up her hand. “Our people are unhappy that the king ended Hagne’s life, one of our own, without consulting us first.”

“But you’re saying her death was inevitable.”

“Yes,” she said, “however the king has violated an agreement with our people, and there must be a fight to set things straight, or there will never be peace again.”

This was ridiculous.

“Besides,” she grinned, “everyone knows that our king is the better swordsmen. He will prevail. And Callias has been a thorn in his side, a jealous fool—”

“And a thief!” chimed in one of the other women.

“And a womanizer!” barked another. “He has three unclaimed children that we know of. We will all be far better off with him gone.”

“But the king isn’t going to win,” I said, panicked.

The four women stared, clearly not understanding.

“King will let Callias kill him,” I clarified.

“Why would he relinquish his divine right?” one of the women asked.

“It’s a long story,” I answered. “But you have to—”

“It is a shame, then, because our people will not stand to be ruled by Callias. They would rather burn the island and everyone on it to the ground.”

I blinked as her words dangled in the air. If Callias ruling would cause civil war…and the Seers knew that Hagne was nuts and…My head hurt from spinning so hard.

I had to stop this. I had to. The only way to really change course was for King to live.

But Callias died in the first version, and that didn’t work out either.
King had been married to Hagne and then challenged for the throne by Callias. King won the fight but discovered that his wife had been behind everything and cheating on him. In retribution, or perhaps to smother any flames of civil war, he executed Hagne’s entire family and then took her out, too.

But if King dies, it changes nothing.
I had to stop him so we could rethink this. We had to. Because clearly King had no idea his brother was loathed by the people.

“I have to stop the fight.” I ran down the steps of the coliseum, but arrived to a high railing that separated the first tier from the second. “Shit! Where is it?” I turned and spotted the stairwell and darted down, slamming into a brawny man with thick black curly hair, holding a spear. He looked just like future King’s driver.

“Arno?” I said.

“I am called Sama.” With his large size, he easily forced me back.

“Let me through; I have to speak with the king.”

“Only the Minos family and the council are permitted to pass.”

Dammit!
“You’re a Spiros, right?”

He nodded.

“I know you’re supposed to protect the king. He’s about to die—I swear it—and if he does, it all goes to shit.”

He glared at me.

“I’m not crazy. I’m a Seer. And I see the future!” I lied.

“I cannot let you pass.”

The crowd roared with deafening screams—the same sounds I’d heard when a football team enters their home stadium.

I covered my mouth. “Oh dear God, no.”

I turned and ran upstairs to the balcony overlooking the arena. The male members of the crowd had already pushed their way forward.

I wiggled through a mass of sweaty, smelly, shirtless male bodies. “Move!” I barked repeatedly until I reached the front.

There, to my horror, was King. His shirtless, muscled torso glistened in the early morning sun. He wore only a simple blue sarong. No helmet. No body armor. Just a big bronze sword.

“King!” I screamed, waving my hands in the air like a madwoman. “King!” But he couldn’t hear me let alone see me in the midst of an ocean of onlookers.

My mind buzzed. If I couldn’t reach him, I couldn’t tell him that he wasn’t saving his people or anyone and history was going to repeat—the Minoans would disappear if he left Callias in charge.

“King!” I screamed again, just as Callias entered the stadium. The bastard wore a dark brown leather breast plate and a bronzed helmet as he strutted in like the hero of the day, waving his arms and sword. The crowd booed him.

“Fuck. Fuck. Think, Mia. Think.” If they were all going down, then I had to do something to save King. Anything.

I glanced up at the row of silver-haired Seers looking on with emotionless expressions.

I pushed my way back through the wall of cheering subjects and leapt up the steps two at a time.

“You have to help me!” I screamed at them.

The women stared.

“Please. Please don’t let him die,” I begged.

“But he must, my dear girl. This is his fate.”

Fate. Fate.
What did that even mean?

Nothing to a woman who’d seen the laws of the universe broken as easily as a child might pull apart his or her favorite Lego set.

“Curse him!” I screamed. “Curse him to walk the earth until he finds a Seer who loves him.” Meaning me. Facing him in the future would be my cross to bear.

The woman closest to me frowned. “Why in the world would we do that?”

“Because he is
my
fate.”

“What you ask is impossible. To cast such a curse, you must have rage and hate for the person. We do not.”

I thought about it for a moment. “I do.” I had enough loathing and anger toward King, the evil version, to last a lifetime. Maybe an eternity.

The woman gave me an odd look, then glanced at the other three Seers and got the nods. When she looked back at me, she simply smiled, bent over, grabbed a small chunk of stone that had cracked off the corner of the bench, and then handed it to me.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked.

“You must use an object that is from the earth, something that will endure the test of time as the anchor for the curse.”

Shit.
I felt my blood pressure drop.
This is the Artifact.
History was repeating.

It doesn’t matter!

“Then what?” I glanced over my shoulder as the crowd roared wildly. King and Callias now fought, their swords clashing as they danced around each other like well-seasoned boxers waiting for the perfect punch.

The old woman shrugged. “You use your gifts to channel all of your pain, hate, and rage toward this man. Whatever injustice he has done to you, push it back to him. Then you cast your punishment.”

“You mean I just wish it? Are you sure?” I asked.

“The gods will decide the rest,” she said.

The crowd roared, and I glanced over my shoulder. King was on the ground.

No!
Stone in hand, I rushed down the steps back toward the mass of bodies who’d now silenced. A pin could drop and be heard.

Now to the front and with a clear view, I watched in horror as Callias raised his sword to strike the blow.

I thought of the monster, of how his deceits and lies had changed me into someone I loathed. I thought about his disgusting hands on my body and the way he laughed so cruelly when I screamed. I thought of my rage over how he’d not saved Justin when I’d come to him for help. Then there was the pain I felt for my parents. I poured every ounce of anguish and despair into my words, willing them to make their home inside of King. “I curse you!” I screamed, the tears pouring from my raw face, momentarily halting Callias’s victory. “I curse you, King, to walk this earth in search of my forgiveness and love!”

King’s blue eyes met mine, and in that moment, I felt so hollow, yet so wholly connected to him. A gentle smile flickered across those beautiful, sensual lips, and time, once again, stood still.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” I whispered, not knowing if I spoke the truth, but knowing that this was my wish.

The sword came down, and I looked away. I didn’t need to see what came next. Instead, I looked up at the old Seer woman, my eyes pleading for her to tell me if I’d succeeded.

The woman’s dark eyes filled with pity, and she shook her head as if to say that she didn’t know.

I released the air in my lungs and sank to my knees, sobbing. The crowd howled with horror and disbelief. Their king was dead. And so was I, as far as I was concerned.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Unlike the time I’d spent with King—the man who felt more real to me than my own existence—the two days following his death were a strange surreal blur of utter agony. Random people came by and left flowers outside King’s chamber. Some came inside and laid them at the foot of his bed, where I stayed clutching that damned rock to my chest, weeping and praying he would appear before me, materializing from some dark shadow in the corner of the room.

He didn’t.

And every time my eyes searched for him in vain, the crack in my soul widened further. There wasn’t a place big enough on earth to hold the amount of heartache I felt.

Would he come back?

The only thought that brought me hope was knowing his absence didn’t necessarily indicate I’d failed. Once, King had explained how showing himself required a tremendous amount of energy and power—thus the reason for his sundial tattoo. But that fact didn’t guaranteed I would see King again, which is why I tried to make the bracelet work by channeling all of my energy into having it take me back to the hours before King’s death.

Nothing.

Maybe I needed strength to make it work, but my heart felt too broken to lift even a finger. I couldn’t stop crying.

On the third day, however, King’s sublime face, with those exquisite dark features, appeared like a mirage, luring me to sit up and climb out of my deep dark hole.

“You’re here,” I gasped. I jumped from the bed, threw my arms around his warm body, and pressed my mouth over his.

King quickly gripped my shoulders and pushed me away. “So you are the infamous Seer: Mia,” said the voice that sounded heavy, male, and melodic. But different somehow.

“King?”

His eyes, a familiar vibrant blue, were filled with sadness. “Callias,” he corrected.

I wanted to claw his face and rip out his heart. The man looked exactly like King, but he wasn’t.

“Leave,” I growled.

“I see that you miss him, too.”

“Miss him? Miss him?” I yelled. “You have no clue what I feel.”

Callias raised his palms. “I know what you must think of me.”

I pushed him hard, and likely not expecting it, he stumbled back despite his large size. “I think you are disgusting, evil, and a self-serving coward.”

For a moment, Callias appeared angry, but his rage quickly defused into amusement. He laughed into the air.

“What the
hell
is so funny?” I scowled.

“My brother said you were a wildcat in a woman’s skin, but I didn’t believe him.”

“King called me a cat?”

“Draco meant it as a compliment, I assure you.”

Hearing King called by his real name startled me. Maybe because it made him feel even more real to me.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“I really don’t know, to be honest.”

“Maybe because your world is falling apart and everyone hates you for killing their beloved king?”

Rage filled his eyes. “I loved my brother. And think what you will, but executing him is the only thing he ever asked of me—begged of me. So yes, I did it. For him.”

“You should’ve said no.”

“Have you ever said no to him?” he seethed.

Yes, I had. “He didn’t listen to me.” I sat down and cupped my face.

“So you understand what I say.”

I nodded.

“And you understand he has left me all alone to pick up the pieces, but I am helpless to stop the destruction that comes.”