It’s been nearly two weeks.

No, definitely longer than that. Maybe.

I scrub a hand over my face, now rough with the remnants of forgetfulness. I can’t remember the last time I shaved, let alone the last time I stepped outside this office. Well, two weeks ago would be a safe bet. Because, presumably, that’s all the time that separates me from what was once my normalcy to my now-reality, though I can’t quite remember what’s happened between this life and the one I lived prior.

Parchment litters the desk I’d used as a pillow last night, covering the dark wood with paper cuts waiting to happen. Drooping eyelids make for scribbled handwriting, and I glare down at the slanted letters staring up at me.

Such angry words. Such bitterness squeezed between the lines of crumpled paper. Who would have thought I’d be capable of such cruelty, such crippling sadness?

Maybe Father would like this version of me.

The thought is a bitter sort of betrayal, a whisper of truth tickling my ear. Because this—this shell of a man and silhouette of a monster—is exactly what he wanted. Not the meekness he mocked, the Achilles’ heel that is my kindness.

I run an ink-stained hand down my face, scribbling between the deep lines of my skin. My eyes catch a cursive that doesn’t belong to my hand, scrolled across the parchment resting beneath my elbows. Kai’s harshness can be found even in the slant of his letters, the heaviness of the ink.

I don’t envy him. Not truly. Not intentionally.

Kai was the king Father wanted. It was as clear as the obvious distaste they shared for one another. Kai is every bit the brutal, the bold, the foreboding—every bit the king’s son. And I think that was exactly the problem between the two of them. Father hated that he wasn’t the heir. Hated that the king he wanted was thwarted by the son he had first. I wasn’t Kai, and it killed him.

And I know that part of him despised my brother because he was everything I wasn’t.

I stand, feeling nearly as shaky as the sigh I let out. Pacing to and from the window has been my routinely exciting excursion for the past two weeks. But today, today I’m feeling rather bold. Today I open the curtains before immediately regretting that rash decision.

I’m blinded by the dull light streaming through the cloudy window. Between blinks, I scan the grounds beyond, the home I’ve felt like a hostage in as of late. My eyes trail to where I know the Scorches stretch far beyond, to where I sent Kai to find her.

Her.

I think about her more than I should. Write about her when my thoughts can no longer contain her. Pore over every detail of our short, shared existence. Every deliberately deceptive word. The persistence of her playing with me. Father and his subtle encouragement to spend time with her. The feelings Kai is fighting while hunting her down.

The flood of thoughts has me pulling a relatively clean sheet of parchment from beneath its marred brothers and sisters.

And then she’s spilling onto the page again. A variation of words I’ve strung together before. A ballad of betrayal, a sonnet of sorrow.

I’m tired of writing from the villain’s perspective.