"You are actually very pleasant when you act like this, Thya," Adonis remarked, his tone surprisingly soft for someone like him. It caught me off guard—so much so that for a moment, I thought I had misheard him. Those words, coming from his lips, felt foreign, almost misplaced. And yet, they were there, spoken aloud, hanging in the air like a fragile thread of warmth in the otherwise cold distance that defined us.
For as long as I could remember, I had asked him to call me that—just once, just to humor me. And now, here it was. The name, soft and unguarded, slipping from his lips for the very first time. It wasn't laced with sarcasm or disdain, as I'd always feared it would be if it ever happened. Instead, it was strangely genuine, almost tender, though I doubted he meant it in that way.
Hearing it sent a small but powerful rush of joy through me, a flicker of light in a place I had long assumed to be void of it. It was as if a small, hidden corner of my soul, long forgotten, was being illuminated for the first time. I hadn't realized how deeply I had craved this acknowledgment from him, no matter how trivial or fleeting it might seem to others.
It was in that moment that something shifted within me—something subtle yet undeniable. A small, inexplicable weight seemed to lift from my shoulders, a burden I hadn't even realized I had been carrying until it was gone. Without meaning to, I smiled. Not one of those careful, calculated smiles I used to mask my feelings or manipulate a situation, but a real one. Genuine and spontaneous. And it felt… good. Better than I thought it would.
"It's good to know that," I replied, my voice light, my words almost unintentional. The corners of my lips curved upward just slightly, and though I kept my tone even, a trace of warmth slipped through.
Adonis studied me for a moment, his sharp, discerning eyes narrowing ever so slightly, as though trying to decipher the sudden change in my demeanor. His gaze was cautious, calculating, as if he weren't sure whether to believe the moment or dismiss it entirely. "Can you walk just fine like this?" he asked eventually, his words carefully measured, tinged with a note of something unfamiliar—concern. It was faint, barely there, but I caught it. It surprised me more than his earlier comment.
I tilted my head slightly and nodded in reassurance, shaking off the strange shift in atmosphere. "I was born with all of my senses extremely heightened," I began to explain, my tone steady and calm. "And thanks to the fact that I spent most of my life with the blindfold on, I can actually sense everything around me as if I were seeing it with my own eyes." I paused briefly, allowing the weight of my words to sink in before adding, almost as an afterthought, "But not using it is still better."
The last part wasn't for them. It was for me. A quiet truth I rarely admitted to anyone, even myself. There was something oddly comforting in forcing myself to live without those heightened senses, to exist in a world without relying on them, even if just for a while.
Adonis scoffed sharply in response, a sarcastic laugh escaping him like a whip cracking through the air. "How unfair," he muttered bitterly, his tone laced with sarcasm.
I raised an eyebrow, the faintest flicker of amusement tugging at the edges of my lips despite myself. "What exactly is unfair, Prince Adonis?" I asked, my voice soft, curious, though a faint edge crept into my tone. I already knew what he meant—what he would say—but I wanted to hear it from him. There was a strange satisfaction in watching him wrestle with his frustration.
He didn't disappoint. "You shouldn't have been born with those senses of yours when you already had this curse," he bit out, his tone sharp and brimming with irritation. "It's simply unfair. It makes me sick. You make me sick."
There it was—the venom, the frustration, the disdain. His words should have hurt, but they didn't. Not anymore. I had built up too many layers of armor for that. Instead, I felt a strange, almost perverse sense of satisfaction. His irritation, his bitterness—it amused me in a way that surprised even me.
I sighed deeply, the sound escaping me like the release of a long-held breath. "Indeed, it is unfair," I said, my voice calm and measured. "However, the biggest unfairness in this entire situation, Prince, is that I was born with these eyes of mine. But what can we do? The Gods made me like this. I did not ask for it. After all, who would ask for the power to see people's deaths?"
My voice softened as I spoke, a faint bitterness threading through my words. It wasn't anger or self-pity—just the cold, hard truth. A truth I had carried with me for as long as I could remember.
The silence that followed was heavy, the weight of my words pressing down on all of us. But I wasn't finished. I turned to Adonis, my gaze steady and unflinching. "How would you feel," I asked, my tone colder now, more deliberate, "if you woke up one day and all of a sudden, you were able to see your own family's deaths? You can't look at their faces anymore. You can't even look at yourself in the mirror. And it all happened out of nowhere. How would you feel?"
His jaw tightened, his expression flickering with something I couldn't quite place. He hesitated, and for a moment, I thought he might refuse to answer. But then he groaned, his frustration spilling over. "I would hate it. It would be terrifying," he admitted, his voice low and tense. But then, as if unwilling to let himself appear too vulnerable, he added sharply, "But it's not like you became like this out of nowhere."
"Wasn't it?" I asked softly, my voice barely above a whisper. There was a sadness there, raw and unguarded, that I didn't bother to hide. "You really thought that?"
The faint sound of him gulping reached my ears. He had no answer—not right away. The silence stretched between us, heavy and uncomfortable. It was Sohan who finally broke it, his voice hesitant and unsure. "Was it out of nowhere?" he asked, his words tinged with doubt and curiosity.
"Yes," I replied quietly, my voice steady but laden with the weight of memory. "I was alright, sleeping with my mom and my dad. And when I woke up... my head hurt like hell, and my eyes were bleeding nonstop." I paused, the memory clawing its way to the surface, raw and unrelenting. "But the worst part was that, the second I woke up, Mom was looking at me. And with no control over it, it was the first death I saw. My mother's."
The words hung in the air like a storm cloud, heavy and suffocating. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to push the sadness aside, and managed a small, bitter smile. "I don't expect you to believe me," I continued, my tone hardening slightly. "It's just my point of view in the story. But it's not like any of you ever bothered to know that, right? To know what it was like for me?"
"Thya..." Sohan began, his voice trembling slightly, but I cut him off gently, my tone even but distant.
"It's alright," I said firmly, though my voice softened around the edges. "Really. I'm an adult now. What happened when I was three years old—the pain, the trauma, the loneliness—it won't change if anyone pretends to be interested in me and in my story now."
I turned away from them, straightening my posture and focusing my attention on the hallway ahead. "Let's not talk about me," I added quietly, my voice barely audible. "It makes you uncomfortable. I'll avoid it from now on. My life isn't important, so let's focus on the trails, alright?"
Without waiting for a response, I started walking. My steps were steady, my head held high. "Come, Princes," I called over my shoulder, forcing a cheerfulness I didn't feel. "The Queen must be waiting for us!"