Bailey Baz's Arc

Chapter 25 of 44

Bailey left the throne room with the crown still on the armrest. The sword hung loose in his hand. He had beaten the King. He still did not know who he was. Cora walked beside him. Bram followed with his hammer. In the courtyard, an old man waited by the gate, leaning on a cane, one eye hidden behind a thick glass lens. "There you are," the old man said. Colt Brennan pushed off the wall and came toward Bailey. His good eye squinted hard. "I told you I'd meet you when this was done." Bailey had saved a child from the swamp long ago, and that child's grandson had followed him ever since, ready to give anything he asked. Colt gripped Bailey's arm. "You look like a boy who won a war and lost himself doing it." "I don't know who I am," Bailey said. "They call me Prince Colton. The name means nothing to me. I have no memory of this place." He looked back at the palace. "I can't sit on a throne that belongs to a stranger." Colt nodded slowly. He reached into his coat. He drew out a small leather book, worn soft at the corners. "My grandfather Evan lived to a hundred and three," he said. "He talked about you every day of it. The boy who pulled him out of the reeds. He wrote it all down so I'd remember." He pressed the book into Bailey's hands. "He knew you before you froze. He knew you as a boy." Bailey opened the book. The pages held a child's stories, set down by an old man's shaking hand. He read them there in the courtyard while the others waited. Evan had known him laughing. Evan had known him afraid of the deep water, and brave anyway. Evan had watched him carry a smaller child on his back through the mud when Evan's legs gave out. The boy in the book was kind. The boy in the book was stubborn. The boy in the book chose others over himself, every time, before there was ever a debt to make him. Bailey closed the book. His hands did not shake. "He remembered me," Bailey said. "Not the warden. Not the prince. The boy." He looked at Cora. "This is who I was. Before the swamp. Before any of it." "Then you know now," Cora said. "I know I wasn't made kind by a curse," Bailey said. "I was kind first. The swamp only used what was already there." He turned toward the throne room doors. For the first time the empty seat did not feel like a stranger's. "I have his stories. I know what kind of boy I was. Now I have to decide what kind of man that boy becomes." He walked back inside, the book in one hand, the sword in the other, and this time he did not stop at the foot of the throne. He sat upon the throne and Crane placed the crown on his head. Then everyone bowed. “Behold King Colton!” Bram yelled.