ᴛʜᴇ ᴋɪɴɢ. ⁽ ᴬᴾ ⁾

he sucks in a breath. mavey. his fingers curl against his arms, and his face contorts, caught somewhere between a grimace and a smile. mavey. does he deserve a nickname, after all that he's done? after all the suffering he's caused? he doesn't feel remorse, but he can feel the guilt of the associated actions, the weight of the world around him. grandmother lerolan probably thinks him a monster. rightly so, he sat by as his mother killed her son, his own father. their father. " i'm damaged enough. even if she were here, there is little more mother could do. she'd tried. " she'd always tried, maintaining his image, deleting subsections of him to make way for perfection, an ever-evolving picture-perfect king. he hasn't been himself for years, can hardly attribute the him of now to the him of that childhood spent in shadows listening in to conversations in whitefire's halls. " ... i don't know if i'd be able to keep down anything you would bring. "

" you don't need cameras to have loose lips, tiberias. " cal trusts people too much. maven shakes his head with a sigh, frowns a bit, the most he's emoted in years, before he stares down at his hands, seemingly in thought. was he hungry? his own desires and wants have always been hard for him to distinguish. hungry for what? there are so many ways one can be starving. why is he letting his mind wander so far away from the question? " ... i don't know. i might be. " he closes his eyes, lets out another sigh. he already knows what cal was going to say, and while he's right... " ... just because mother isn't here physically, it doesn't mean that she's gone. " she's cursed me with her spirit in my poisoned brain, like a poltergeist, he wants to say. but he keeps it in.

" of course. but you aren't the type to make difficult decisions like this." he never was. strategy was one thing, something cal had always excelled at, placing chess pieces in precise points to secure victory in the smallest war, biggest scrimmage. tactics were something maven was never apt with. one of them could choose, and the other could follow through with those choices to victory. it’s almost tragic, maven muses. had his mother not made him into what he became, he and cal could have caused norta to flourish, as the king’s right hand man. his most trusted advisor, his brother. but such a farce is already played out too much. he was never apt at anything but concealing himself, and even that wasn't learned, that was taught, forced. imprints of elara left in him like scars. " i would ask what you have planned, but it's not wise to share secrets, and i'm sure you know that firsthand by now, tiberias. " his eyes focus forward — or, at least, appear to focus. his vision blurs a few times, another headache splitting his conscious. stop feeling, he can hear elara's voice. it won't do you any good.

it's almost amusing, when cal — no, he's tiberias the seventh, the king, now — walks into the room, his holding cell. he keeps himself from sneering, facade of calm seated upon his face like it was always meant to be there, even if his insides are turbulent at the sight of his sibling. the man he'd tried to kill. the man he should never have seen again. why is he even alive? " ... couldn't leave me dead, brother? did you need to kill me with your own hands? " he can't. he still cares. he's always cared — always had the capacity to. why does he taunt him like this? " she should have killed me. i asked that, remember? or is a death not in line with my wishes the punishment you have in mind for someone like me? "

yeah me too dude... me too im dead hes dead were all dead

hes alright but he died

enough to free my arm. i don’t think. i just swing wildly, blade ready, as his eyes fade. they seem sad and... satisfied.

as much as i judge victoria’s writing, i found the chapter after to be better written than his. while his POV does enlighten us a lot on his mental state and how elara’s interference affected him, even now, where he can hear her constantly (and seemingly berating him) in his mind… it seems to slink along at a pace that i don’t personally enjoy. it’s a nitpick of my own, but it also comes from the fact that first-person POV is a difficult thing to go about, especially in terms of show-don’t-tell. and… well, aveyard does a lot of telling without a lot of explanation of what’s happening. it’s better for screenplay than a novel, in my opinion.