The Kings Sin

== Summary Of Book ==
=== Quotes ===
"It is her destiny to kill." // “She was born to break the world.” // “When you put perfection and greed together, the result is nothing but darkness.” // “There will be no light without shadows.”
=== Blurb ===
Peace and immortality in perfect balance.
Defying death. Defying the past. Defying the future.
The King of a kingdom of light, father of his darkest sin; the princess, true heir to the Ethereal throne.
But she is locked up in chains, below the castle grounds, for a murder she did not actively commit.
However, her father decides to set her free.
Upon a single condition.
She will be the bringer of death. She will end those who oppose the King, and she will shatter the very world the people stand upon in order for her father to reshape it.
But she will not be his murderer. And she will not be his princess.
She will be death itself.
And death answers to nobody.
== Prologue ==
The metallic hinges of the doorway screech against the stone floor as the padlock drops to the ground with a penetrating crash. Sunlight filters into the room, brushing my pale flesh with a thick golden glow; before it extinguishes as if a quelled flame as the door snaps back to a close.
A figure looms in the doorway; well shaven, broad shouldered. A pearl white cloak curtains over their underclothing, a hood pulled down. In its place lies a crown, set slightly askew, adorned with jewels.
“Father,” I rasp, furious at how weak my voice sounds. I choke out a pathetic cough that scrapes against my lungs, expelling something onto the floor. I can barely recognize his twisted, nauseating features, even when they haunt my sleeping nights.
“Camelia,” he responds, his voice laced with concern. “You seem sick.”
The concern makes me want to retch.
“I am surprised you remember my name. After all, I’m just a sick monster-”
I lunge forwards, gripping the sharpened stone dagger in my hand, fury driving it towards his chest; but I am too slow, and he is too quick, and in the fraction of a second it takes me to waver slightly, he has already grabbed my wrist and thrown the dagger onto the ground, crushing it with his foot.
Despite the scene, he still remains composed.
“Attempting high treason now, are we? You were always led by twisted passion, heart over head.”
I clutch my wrist, rubbing the scarlet mark his hand has created.
“You should rot in hell,” I snarl.
“You will be coming along,” he retorts, his words cutting. “Now are you going to attack me like an animal - again - or stand up and speak to me?”
My eyes linger on a patch of ground just underneath his foot. I feel so powerless. So very at his mercy.
And I despise it.
“What do you want?” I mutter, my voice bitter. I stand up, brushing dirt from my legs. My father straightens up.
“I want you to come live in the castle with me and your brother. Your hom-”
He is cut off as I take a furious swing to his jawline, but once again, my fingers barely graze his flesh before he - infuriatingly gently - takes my hand, forcing it down.
“Camelia,” he warns, a look of somewhat slight irritation crossing his eyes - “Don’t make me hurt you. I will, and you know that.”
My legs feel like they have given up, and I crumple to the floor, closing my eyes to push back tears. I feel my fathers' presence, looming above me.
“You don’t have to live in the slums of the prison any more,” he whispers, his voice sounding genuine. “You can return to your family. You’ll be fed. Clothed. The world will fall in line at your arrival, Camelia.”
I take a shaky, unstable breath in; and out; and in; it feels as if I were to stop, the dam blocking my emotions would crumble, and I would be left in a river of tears and raw, undisguised upset.
“Why - why do you leave me - in this prison for years - to come for me now?” I snarl, but it’s not much of an insult. I more or less sound like an inquisitive child wanting answers.
“Because it’s time to come home, my darling-”
He pauses, and I feel his gaze linger on my face.
“Your family. We await you.”
== Chapter One ==
Eight years ago, I killed a boy.
I still remember his face.
Hazel hair, green eyes. Not striking in a way; more or less stereotypically beautiful, to put it, but in a gentle way - like he was the son of a maiden who had grown up in the countryside, raising him around family and woodland and sea.
The boy was the son of the Terlene Noblewoman. I had encountered the woman in question several times before; she bore a striking resemblance to her son, though faded in a way - as if age had caught up and muted her most striking features.
My father had organized a marriage with him - to seal the peace treaty of Ethereal and Terlene, I suppose. The two Kingdoms finally brought together through love.
I didn’t love him, though. I doubt he did either. It was a hazy sort of relationship, tenuous and strained. We shared no common interests.
He played the ocarina, I think. I played every instrument there could be. He liked long walks. I would rather spend the time at Masquerade Balls. He was a simple, quiet, young soul, bound by the walls of our Kingdom, yearning for freedom. To take off and soar.
I was content in the cage.
The only similarity I noted was his adoration for clothes, despite his unassuming nature. I remember, once, he showed me - quite sheepishly - an outfit he had been working on; a beige three-piece, striped with cream white, suited to modest dances or small parties. It was gorgeous.
That was the only time we genuinely bonded.
Aside that, our days were traced with many mile - long walks and coloured in with fancy dinners and gowns and lavish meetings. Duties as heir to the Ethereal Kingdom; future King and Queen of the Peace Lands; stiff wintertime talks and awkward summer discussions as the seasons melted through each other, blending into one, blurry mess of a life that didn’t seem worth living through.
And I wanted to break free of the cycle. I would have bled dry to cut myself out of it, flee the country; even leave everything and everyone behind. But I was trapped, a prisoner in my own Kingdom.
And this time the cage wasn’t enough.
So I ordered the maids to pack a lunch of lavish foods and gently place it into a basket, wrap it in a blanket. I ordered a Royal Carriage and the finest people to plan the finest day out to hopefully, please, fix this nauseatingly painful life I was trapped within.
So I smiled and laughed and ate as we lay under the golden sun, soaking up the rich, thick rays of light as the shore lapped at our feet.
And then we swam. Maybe that was the mistake. Because his foot caught on a rock as we swam, and he cried out, feeling it pull him down; his head slipping under the water; and I could feel his hands on my legs, scrabbling, panicked - but I kicked out. I kicked out, hard, and knocked him out; leaving him to drown.
When I returned, a mess of tears and sand and salt, all it took them was a single dive under the surface to find his body, passed out, trapped under a rock, the mark of my leg on his face - to throw me to the mercy of my father and mother-in-law.
They were furious. Blood boiling under their flesh. From what they saw - the bitter betrayal, murder in cold blood, shattering of an alliance - led them both to unite and sentence me, their own daughter, to an immediate, effective death by beheading.
But my father - out of something that clearly was not kindness - decided to hold my execution in ‘private’ and proceeded to smuggle me down, deep beneath the castle walls, into a prison where only rats thrived.
My dreams are filled with the beautiful fantasy of reaching and ripping his throat out before he can utter another one of his sick, sick commands.
----“You know, you would look so gorgeous implanted into my father’s neck,” I murmur to the knife in my hands. Sharpened stone from the very walls around me; I grasp it lovingly, for it is the only thing in this world I can trust any more.
I have decided to name it Chaos. For one day, it will bring Chaos to the ‘Kingdom’ my father rules; if it even can be called that.
I don’t know anything about the outside world. The guards that slide cardboard boxes of dry food through the slit in the door do not dare to say anything. The guards patrolling do not say anything out of pure respect for their job and leader. Only Seamus, who occasionally arrives to give me new clothes, actually speaks to me.
He calls me Cam instead of Camelia, which I don’t really like. Nobody ever calls me anything but my real name; nobody ever has, not even… not even the boy I was meant to marry.
Seamus has not come in two weeks. I do not know why.
Maybe upon my fathers orders.
I have not actually seen my father since he imprisoned me; it’s a curiosity how I can still see his face in my mind, so clearly. Maybe I’m driven by rage.
Maybe I am actually insane.
The thought drags my gaze over to Chaos. I speak to it. I am actually insane.
No wonder Seamus has not come over in a while; why would he want to? I am just a monster, murderer, malicious and cold-hearted.
I shuffle over to the back of the cell, where a thin bed stands, pressed against the crumbling stone walls. In the eight years I have been encased here, no person has ever been locked up with me - or even in the prison itself. I doubt they ever will. It must be so perfect out in the real world for nobody to be locked.
Or they just kill them on the spot.
Either way, I haven’t conversed with anyone but Seamus in the last eight years - and I doubt, I really doubt - that I ever will.