A disconcerting notion.
He sank down onto the floor and rested his head on his knees, desperate for all this to be over. All he wanted was to be free to marry whomever he wanted. Was that too much to ask?
But he knew that was never going to happen.
His stomach grumbled, and he remembered his plate of food, forgotten in the reception room. It wasn't the first time in his life he'd become so engrossed in something he'd neglected a meal, although it was usually a book and not a girl that was to be blamed. He had a remedy on hand.
His steps echoed on the stone floor as he made his way to a small cupboard next to his desk. He pulled out a battered biscuit tin, stolen from the palace kitchens when he was a child. Once a week, he refilled it with his favorite treat-baked date and walnut balls. A strange combination, he admitted, but they were a reminder of how far across the climatic zones his empire stretched. The empire he longed to rule. He grabbed a handful, dumped them on top of the cupboard, and bent to stow the tin. When he looked up, the confectionary had vanished.
In their place sat a book, nearly as tall as his hand and as thin as one of his fingers.
He glanced around the room. The lock on the door remained untouched, and he was alone. Every hair on Lukan's body stood. So who had put it there? A ghost? Someone like Thurban?
It had to be.
Small as the book was, it had an alluring cover, old blue leather with a portrait of an unknown man inlaid in the center. The colors had faded, but the image was still sharp.
Unable to resist the lure of new knowledge, he lifted it to the candlelight and saw elaborate calligraphy on the title page. The Illustrated Book of Chenaya. An exquisite gold and jewel-colored illumination decorated the parchment.
He swore as he read the subtitle: The Full History of The Dmitri Curse.
Breathless with shock, he did what he always did when he found a new book: flipped through the pages, scanned the text, picked up a word here, a sentence there.
Published in the year 20 Post Burning. His eyebrows rose. Lust and greed, he read, prompted Thurban to invade Norin. Nothing new there, so he turned the page. Beautiful Norin princesses will be sent to Chenaya as temptresses to see if Thurban's posterity, the crown princes, can curb their lust. He winced at that, then rifled through another couple of pages. Not even the threat of a-
The book slammed shut, squashing his fingers. A hand, gleaming like mother-of-pearl, rested on the cover.
Lukan's eyes widened as the hand grew an arm, then a torso and a neck, followed by a man's head, with the same regal face depicted on the title page. Transfixed, he watched as the rest of the man's wiry body, clad in a rich sapphire robe, emerged from the ether. He was of medium height, with short-cropped hair, the color of salt and pepper mingled. Intelligent, dark-brown eyes set in a hard, uncompromising face watched Lukan.
He couldn't decide whether to run screaming from the room or stand his ground to learn more. The fact that his feet seemed to have melted into the floor decided matters. He was going nowhere.
The stranger spoke, his voice measured but firm. It was the same voice Lukan had heard during his vision. "It pleases me you wish to read the words of my cursing, Crown Prince."
Skin crawling with a combination of fear and fascination, he stuttered, "Y-your cursing? Does that mean you're . . . Dmitri?"
"Aye." Dmitri extracted the book from Lukan's hand and tucked it under his arm, all the while studying Lukan.
Mouth opening and closing in panic, Lukan eyed him back. Then, deciding this meeting would be better served if he were sitting, he lowered himself into a chair. He even propped his feet on the desk, feigning nonchalance in the hope of hiding his fearful trembling. "Can this day get any stranger?" When Dmitri didn't reply, Lukan added, "So, you are a ghost?"
Lukan shook his head, marveling at how wrong Felix's insubstantial holograms of the Dreaded were. Dmitri's form-solid, radiating warmth-looked and felt nothing like a generated image. Felix had a lot to learn if this was a real resurrected person.
Dmitri frowned. "Don't insult me. I am no fabrication."
Lukan crossed his arms, hugging himself tight. Then, suspecting his body language conveyed more fear than confidence, he cocked his head toward the book. "I was reading that."
His visitor opened the manuscript, holding up a page illustrated with a man identical in appearance to Lukan, even down to the diamond next to his eye and the black-and-silver clothing. He carried the now familiar sapphire-blue banner, spangled with golden stars.
"The old Norin flag," Dmitri said. "Nicholas the Light-Bearer was their symbol of knowledge and freedom. It flew on the pinnacle of every Norin university before the invasion. Inspiring, isn't it?"
Lukan swallowed hard. It was beautiful. It didn't take much imagination to plot the lines between the stars to see Nicholas's powerful body or the flaming torch he held.
Dmitri pointed to a comet sweeping into the sky behind the man's head. "The Pathfinder. You have heard of it?"
Lukan nodded. He had worked out that the comet always appeared some years before Nicholas the Light-Bearer took the northern point of the skies.
"Good. Then you will know when you see it that my curse is on the brink of being fulfilled."
Lukan swallowed again. Secretly thrilled to be immortalized, he asked, "Why's my image in a book written almost four hundred years ago?"
"You would have to read it to find the answer. My followers wrote this after my brother executed me. It's the truest record in existence of my curse."
Lukan licked his lips-they were desert dry-and kept his eyes fixed on the picture. "It seems like my day for seeing myself in strange places. I saw a-a hologram, or I think that is what it was, about-"
"Aye, you heard my voice. Not hard to fathom that I showed you the vision," Dmitri interrupted. "And trust me, it was as real as we, standing here now." Dmitri leaned forward. His breath brushed Lukan's face, adding veracity to the man's words. He fixed Lukan with a penetrating stare. "Your uncle manipulates you all with his diabolical creations, but it is up to you to decide what is real or programmed."
Lukan chewed his lip, still unable to believe he was actually having this conversation. It seemed the words he'd read in Maksim's journal were indeed true. The dead still walked and talked. "So, if you showed me the vision, why do I hear Thurban's voice in my head?"
Dmitri took a moment to reply. "Crown Prince, you support Felix's efforts to create a world where truth is a lie and lies are the truth. So, what are your thoughts on all that deception?"
"I always thought I knew my views, but now . . . it's all so confusing." Lukan probed the buttons on his waistcoat, deriving comfort from the familiar silver knobs.
"Aye, that it is. You understand better than most what happens in your uncle's lair and in his secret laboratories and factories. Consider your future subjects' terror when the Dreaded torment them. Some may say the voices in your head are fair payback for what you have permitted Felix to do to others."
Lukan's skin prickled, but he didn't want to acknowledge what torture their technology must be to the unlearned. Having borne Thurban's voice in his head, he had some inkling of how they felt. "How am I supposed to stop my uncle? My father gave him his mandate. I have no control over what happens in the lair, or elsewhere."
Dmitri eyed him, making Lukan even more uncomfortable.
Lukan changed the subject. "Your vision showed two outcomes. I am interested in the part where the lightning destroys Lynx's son. Is it possible she won't create the traitor who overthrows my empire?"
"‘Traitor'? That's such a pejorative word." Dmitri gestured to a chair leaning against the wall. "Mind if I sit?"
"Surprised you even asked."
"I will always ask, Crown Prince. Human choice is inviolate. I was born, lived, and died to guard its sanctity."
Dmitri flicked a finger, and the chair slid across the floor, stopping next to Lukan. He tried to hide his astonishment, but still his mouth gaped. Dmitri sat but didn't relinquish the book.
"To answer your question, Crown Prince, you appear in the record because you are mentioned in my curse-in its antidote, to be more precise."
Delight at being singled out trilled through Lukan. At last, someone recognized his worth. Then, it struck him that other crown princes could have a mention. It doused his excitement. "What makes me so special?"