A Wicked Game [The Crown Saga II] (Under Editing)

Melodies of Faith

Caiden's words kept ringing in my head, causing ripples of concern to scratch my troubled mind both night and day. Not even the Battle Arena seemed to rid me of the crawling anxiety.

I hadn't heard from Caiden since the day he'd vowed to handle my family's situation. I hadn't seen him either, so no opportunity had arisen for me to ask what plans he had to ensure their safety. The thought drove me insane.

I cursed my fidgety fingers when I dropped my fork for the third time. I didn't even bother picking it up again, as my appetite had failed me anyway.

"What am I supposed to do, Piper?" I muttered through a suffering breath. "I can't even hold a fork properly. How am I supposed to make it through a session with Master Arthur and prove myself worthy after he—"

I snapped my mouth shut to cut myself off. Piper couldn't know what happened inside the four walls of Art's studio. The contract I'd signed prohibited me from discussing those things with anyone other than the king, Art, and Evie.

Not even Caiden could know. Regardless, he probably knew more or less everything that happened inside that studio, as Art couldn't seem to care less about the rules his brother had drafted for me. However, I didn't have the same status as Art, so I didn't dare push my luck further than needed.

I groaned despondently, pressing my face against the bruised base of my palms. "Should I just cancel the session?"

"Careful, Will," Piper said, chuckling as she pulled my baggy sleeves out of the sauce residue on my plate before cleaning them with her napkin. "You may have been a little beside yourself the past few days, but you'll be fine."

I glanced lazily at her, exposing my stained sleeves to her glowing eyes.

She chucked again. "Prince Arthur may be tough on you, but that only proves how much he cares. You should've seen some of my masters back in my academy days. They couldn't have cared less."

"Masters?" I asked, arching my brow. "Plural?"

She nodded, avoiding my gaze. "The academies are full of Iridis students with the potential to become Heliac's next queen," she explained as she pushed the food around her plate. "My academy was confident that the next Water Iridis to represent our academy would be another girl in my class named Grace. They put a lot of time and effort into her training and left the rest of us to do as we pleased."

"That's terrible," I added, hesitant to address the question that she probably already knew teased my mind.

Instead, she raised her shoulders and smiled. "My masters were okay, but one was above the rest. He taught me to disregard what others expected of me and fight for myself. So I trained on my own outside of classes, and when the time came to perform in front of King Alaric and Prince Atlas at my final exam, I—much to my academy's surprise—outperformed Grace."

The past hardly seemed to affect her, but I couldn't find the words to describe the horror settling in my gut. I knew the academies were rough places, but this was beyond anything I'd thought to imagine.

"I know you're working hard, Will. I'm not sure what I got myself into when I interrupted your session last week, but you're bound to give yourself some credit," she added, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. "Most of us have been training for years to make it this far; you've only had a few months. It's well beyond anything I've ever heard of, so you must be doing something right."

I suppressed the urge to pout. Her hopes for me were so high, and I couldn't tell her I'd already failed to master a weapon as basic as the staff. She didn't know how much I stood to lose if I didn't meet the expectations set for me either.