FOUR DAYS SPENT SCOURING the castle library and I’ve found exactly nothing. Numerous texts detail the deathly ice of the Cloud Mountain and illustrate – rather graphically – those who have died during their climb. Which isn’t a great start. The only saving grace seems to be that the royal family is made of colder ice than the rest of their natives. There’s even a tradition in Págos where the royals are required to climb the mountain once they come of age, to prove their lineage. There isn’t a record of a single member of the royal family having ever failed. But since I’m not a Págese prince, this isn’t particularly encouraging.
There must be something I’m missing. Legends be damned. I find it hard to believe that something in the Págese lineage allows them to withstand cold. I know better than anyone not to believe in the fairy tales of our families. If they were true, I’d be able to sell my blood to buy some real information.
The Págese must be made more of flesh and bone than frost and ice and, if that’s the case, then there must be an explanation for how they survive the climb. If I have any hope of getting revenge for Cristian’s death, then I need to know the answers. With that knowledge, I could find a way to kill the Princes’ Bane and the Sea Queen. If I do that, the sirens left behind won’t have magic to guard them. Perhaps they’ll even lose some of their abilities. After all, if the Sea Queen has a crystal like the one hidden in the Cloud Mountain, then taking that should take away some of the gifts it bestowed on their kind. They’d be weakened at the very least and exposed to an attack. And after a time – however long – we could push the devils that remain to the far ends of the world, where they can’t do harm.
I close the book and shiver a little at the breeze. The library is always cold, open windows or not. There seems to be something in the very structure of it that’s designed to make me shiver. The library stretches to fifty feet, with white shelves that spread from the floor to the high arches of the ceiling. The ground is white marble and the ceiling is pure crystal that blankets the room. It’s one of the only places in Midas untouched by gold. Nothing but vast white, from the painted chairs to the thick cushions, to the ladders that climb to the volumes at the very top. The only color is in the books – the leather and the fabric and the parchment – and in the knowledge they hold. It’s what I like to call the Metaphor Room, because that’s the only explanation for the expanse of white. Everyone is a blank canvas, waiting to be filled with the color of discovery.
My father really is theatrical.
I hoped there would be something in the volumes to help me. The man in the Golden Goose was so sure of his story, and my compass was so sure of its truth. There’s no doubt in me that the Crystal of Keto is out there, but the world doesn’t seem to know a thing about it. Books and books of ancient texts and not one of them tells me a thing. How can something exist if there isn’t a record of it?
Fairy tales. I’m chasing damn fairy tales.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
I look up at the king. “It’s no wonder I don’t come home more often,” I say. “If you have your adviser keeping track of me whenever I’m inside the castle.”
My father places a gentle hand on the back of my head. “You forget that you’re my son,” he says, as though I ever could. “I don’t need a seer to tell me what you’re up to.”
He pulls up the chair beside me and examines the various texts on the table. If I look out of place in the castle, then my father definitely looks out of place in the stark white of the library, dressed in shimmering gold, his eyes dark and heavy.
With a sigh, the king leans back into his chair as I did. “You’re always looking for something,” he says.
“There’s always something to find.”
“If you’re not careful, the only thing you’ll find is danger.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
My father reaches over and grabs one of the books from the table. It’s carefully bound in blue leather with the title etched in light gray script. There are fingerprints in the dust from where I pulled it from the shelf.
“The Legends of P‡gos and Other Tales from the Ice City,” he reads. He taps the cover. “So you’ve set your sights on freezing to death?”
“I was researching something.”
He places the book back down on the table a little too harshly. “Researching what?”
I shrug, unwilling to give my father any more reason to keep me in Midas. If I told him that I wanted to hunt for a mythical crystal in mountains that could steal my breath in seconds, there’s no way he’d let me leave. He’d find any way to keep his heir in Midas.
“It’s nothing,” I lie. “Don’t worry.”
My father considers this, his maroon lips forming a tight line. “It’s a king’s job to worry when his heir is so reckless.”
I roll my eyes. “Good thing you have two, then.”
“It’s also a father’s job to worry when his son never wants to come home.”
I hesitate. I may not always see eye to eye with my father, but I hate the idea of him blaming my absence on himself. If the kingdom wasn’t an issue, I would take him with me. I’d take all of them. My father, mother, sister, and even the royal adviser if he promised to keep his divinations to himself. I’d pack them onto the deck like luggage and show them the world until adventure caught in their eyes. But I can’t, so I deal with the ache of missing them, which is far better than the ache of missing the ocean.
“Is this about Cristian?” my father asks.
“No.”
“Lies aren’t answers.”
“But they sound so much better than the truth.”
My father places a large hand on my shoulder. “I want you to stay this time,” he says. “You’ve spent so long at sea that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be yourself.”
I know I should tell him that it’s the land that steals away who I am and the sea that brings me back. But to say that to my father would do nothing but hurt us both.
“I have a job to do,” I say. “When it’s done, I’ll come home.”
The lie tastes awful in my mouth. My father, King of Midas and so King of Lies, seems to know this and smiles with such sadness that I’d buckle over if I weren’t already sitting.
“A prince may be the subject of myth and legend,” he explains, “but he can’t live in them. He should live in the real world, where he can create them.” He looks solemn. “You should pay less mind to fairy tales, Elian, or that’s all you’ll become.”
When he leaves, I think about whether that would be awful, or beautiful. Could it really be such a bad thing, to become a story whispered to children in the dead of night? A song they sing to one another while they play. Another part of the Midasan legends: golden blood and a prince who once upon a time sailed the world in search of the beast who threatened to destroy it.
And then it comes to me.
I sit up a little straighter. My father told me to stop living inside fairy tales, but maybe that’s exactly what I need to do. Because what that man told me in the Golden Goose isn’t a fact that can be pressed between the pages of textbooks and biographies. It’s a story.
Quickly, I pull myself from the chair and head for the children’s section.