Page 78 of Dare

The creature’s maw split open, releasing a horrible sound. It latched onto my belt and yanked me toward the waves. Its mouth grazed my stomach, the pinprick of razor fangs about to dig in. I’d been in a daze as one of the knights skewered the siren shark, and my frantic grandaunt Silvia wrenched me from the ocean.

To the castle. To the infirmary.

The smug-looking noble boy ended up there as well, with a split lip. Though, he didn’t look smug any longer. The physicians had said he’d been attacked on a neighboring shore.

It hadn’t been another siren shark. Rather, I had deduced what had transpired. I knew the source of his injury, because there was more to this episode. Yet for both of our sakes, I would not impart that detail to this woman.

Later. Not yet.

Back to the story. As my paralysis wore off, I thought of the ones called born fools. I thought of my ailing parents withering before my eyes. I thought of the shark’s jowls.

I wept in bed, bleating that I wanted to go home, that I was going to expire. My grandaunts had assured me that I hadn’t been bitten.

But what if they couldn’t see the bite? What if insanity churned in me? What if I did die?

Nightmares replaced childhood dreams. Over time, relapses ensued, the panic rising out of nowhere. I would randomly check my stomach … and double-check it … and triple-check it.

Months. Years. They passed.

I watched the born with more contempt and my parents with more desperation. I researched, practiced, honed my skills. I discovered a cure that mollified my parents’ convulsions but not their physical torment. I treated disorders but hadn’t remedied foolishness or conceived an antidote for the bite of a siren shark.

Preventions against other ailments, yes. Madness itself, no.

For instance, the clear liquid in my vial. It cured a variety of poisons and venoms, though not the one I feared.

To this day, the terror that I’d been bitten and hadn’t realized it lived inside my head. Illogical. Irrational. However, the human brain was a convincing force. In sudden bouts, it dragged me under, my frantic state eclipsing reason. My mind often cycled, thus magnifying the paranoia and leading to palpitations, reducing me to a hunched figure on the floor. There, I would mutter about the shark attack, either convincing myself its teeth had penetrated me—and the effects were delayed—or reassuring myself over and over that I was fine, safe, alive.

And yes. My family knew. We kept few things from one another.

Despite my condition, they cared for me. Intolerance could be biased that way, particularly among the privileged.

But although my family tried to help, they did not know how, which caused them anguish. So rather than submit them to such distress, I chose to endure these bouts alone, barring a few episodes when they found me cowering on the ground in my suite.

To cope, I would consume the pendant’s fluid. Although technically it did nothing for me, the illusion sedated my blood. In that way, the vial protected me as my parents had intended, since they lacked the strength to do so on their own.

More than anything, it gave them solace. Their peace of mind mattered most of all. I knew that if something ever happened to the vial, it would dismay them, the turmoil endangering their feeble constitutions.

Across the fire, I mustered the fortitude to meet Flare’s gaze. “I do not say this to excuse myself. But you deserve to know why I lost my shit when you broke the vial.”

Well. That was part of it.

But again. Later.

I would treat this moment with the care and pacing it warranted. With patience.

As she wished, I exposed my demons. “My family is my lifeline. I shall destroy anyone who endangers them.” The next words sharpened like a blade. “Including your king.”

What does Summer have on you?

Then I told her about Poet’s parting question before I left Autumn. The spies Rhys had recruited throughout the Seasons. How I’d dealt with Winter’s offenders before they had a chance to uncover sensitive information about my condition.

“If they had succeeded, I would have been branded as unstable.” Before this woman, I let the confession slip from my mouth, drop by drop. “One precarious word or rumor would have marked me as a born fool.”

A born fool. A mad prince.

My treasonous secret. My bigoted hypocrisy.

Over the years, the more afraid I became of myself, the more I loathed the born for reminding me of my true nature. What I had feared, I’d hated in kind.