The King’s Priestess

Chapter3

The book didn’t feel like paper in my hands. It felt alive. Each page I turned breathed, as though the drawings were shifting just beneath my fingers. The book had drawings on each page as I turned. At first she thought it was her hunger, her tired eyes making tricks out of ink. But when she blinked, the sketches were still moving.

The book smelled faintly of smoke and rain when I opened it again. The pages weren’t filled with neat lines of words like any other book I had ever read. Instead, every page carried a drawing, and beneath it a few lines that felt more like whispers than sentences.

The first drawing after the king was of a vast city built in white stone, with towers that seemed to scrape the clouds. Beneath it, the words read,

"All things built in light will one day fall to shadow, unless guarded by the chosen."

I read it aloud in a whisper, and the air in my small room seemed to shift, like the words carried weight. My skin prickled.

The next page showed the king again, this time kneeling, his sword broken in two, his crown cast aside. His face looked so real, his agony so sharp, that I had to press my fingers against my chest. Beneath it,

"Even the strongest can fall, but what falls may rise again, if there is one who remembers."

I shivered. It was as though the book knew me, knew the bruises on my body, the heaviness in my chest, the way I longed for someone to remember me, save me, lift me out of this miserable life.

The more I turned the pages, the more I felt the drawings move, not literally, but in my mind they breathed. The king’s eyes seemed to follow me, the kingdom seemed to echo with sounds, and the forests whispered. I laughed nervously and shut the book for a second, pressing it against my chest.

“Am I going insane?” I muttered to myself.

But no, I couldn’t stop. I wanted to live there, in those pages. Not here, in this cold house, where every shadow meant fear and every knock on the door meant trouble.

I wished I could fall into it. Into that world, the one where girls like me didn’t shiver in cold rooms with cracked walls and stomachs twisting from nothing but water. In the book, girls weren’t weak. They weren’t hated. They were wanted, chosen, powerful.

My chest ached with the wish so hard it almost felt like I might break through the page if I pressed hard enough.

The door creaked.

My blood froze. I didn’t need to see him, my body knew. The heaviness of boots against the wood floor, the smell of sour drink before he even stepped into the room.

My father

I hadn't seen him in months. What was he doing here?

My hands clutched the book tighter, as though it could shield me. But my eyes flickered up, catching him standing there. His shadow filled the doorway, his face a blur of anger he never explained. Always ready, always waiting to strike.

My body shook. The air in her chest wouldn’t move, like my ribs had locked together. I gasped but the breath stayed stuck. My heart thudded too loud in her ears, making everything else blur. The room tilted.

“Girl,” he spat. “What are you hiding there?”

My panic swelled. I tried to speak, to move, but my tongue wouldn’t obey. My hands trembled so hard the book slipped from her grip, falling open on the floor.

My eyes darted to my grandmother. She was sitting by the fire, her old hands folded neatly in her lap. Her face blank, eyes glazed, watching but not watching.

Help me. The thought screamed inside me. I wanted to shake her, to force her to see, to beg her to stand, to save me. Just one word, one step. Anything.

But my grandmother only stared, still as stone.

The panic broke me. I folded in on myself, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come. The walls closed in, the sound of my father’s rage growing sharper, louder.

Then..him.

The boy again. Out of nowhere, like he’d stepped through the smoke of the fire. He pulled me away from the shadow of my father, his hands steady on my arms. His voice was low, soft, cutting through the noise in my head.

“Breathe. You’re alright. Breathe.”

My lungs caught. The air rushed in, sharp and painful but real. My chest heaved as I fought it down, my vision steadying only on his face.

And he looked… different. Not just the boy I had glimpsed before. He looked like someone carved out of my book’s pages, like he belonged to that other world I wanted so badly. The way the firelight hit his jaw, the curve of his mouth, his eyes locked to mine as if he’d been waiting all this time.

My father’s curses faded as he left in anger. The room bent itself smaller until it was only the two of them.

“Thank you,” I whispered, though her throat ached.

He nodded once, quiet. We didn’t speak much after that. We just sat down beside each other on the floor, the book between them, I didn't reach for it. The silence should have been heavy, awkward. But it wasn’t.

It was a silence that knew things. A silence that carried weight but didn’t crush. One that spoke like words never could, I see you. I understand you.*

Finally, he broke it.

“I know you.”

My head jerked toward him. “No, you don’t.”

“Yes.” His gaze didn’t leave mine. “From when we were kids. By the river.”

My stomach twisted. Memories scraped up, raw and sudden. Days I had dragged myself down there, bruises burning my skin, tears hidden in the water. I never spoke. I just sat. And he… he had been there. Silent too. Never questioning, never pitying. Just existing beside me.

“I remember,” I whispered.

“We never said a word,” he went on. “Not once. We just sat. Every time you came down with your face beaten, I sat with you.”

My throat closed.

“Until that one day,” he said, softer now, his voice catching. “You were crying. Saying no one would ever like you. Because you were always hurt, always looking broken.”

My eyes burned. I remembered. I remembered the way my own voice had cracked in the air, the way my skin had stung with fresh bruises. The way I had wanted the world to swallow me whole.

He looked at her, then, like the boy he had been and the man he was now all at once. “I tried to kiss you. To show you it didn't matter.. To me at least”

My breath faltered. I hadn’t thought of it in years, but yes, I remembered. The way he leaned toward me, the way I had frozen in surprise, my lips trembling at the thought someone might still see me as worth touching.

My eyes flickered down to his lips now. His did the same to mine. The air between us sharpened, close and electric, pulling.

Our faces leaned in, slow, like gravity had decided for them. My heart beat so fast I could feel it everywhere, in my hands, in my throat. His breath brushed mine.

And then…

“Hungry!”

My grandmother’s voice ripped through the room, sharp and sudden, cracking the moment like glass.

We both jerked apart, the heat between us breaking, breathless, startled.

My grandmother was still sitting there, eyes wide now, her lips twitching as if she hadn’t spoken in years. She looked at us both, then said again, in a rasping whisper…

“Hungry.”