Hi friend, and welcome to a bonus chapter of Hero Heart! This piece is set after the events of the book and contains major spoilers, so if you’ve been meaning to read Hero Heart, go do that before you come back here.
Happy reading!
They let him sleep in, at least.
It was the day after his coronation—King Wren. It still made him shudder to think about it. The past week and a bit had been a whirlwind of faces and preparations. By the time it was the party itself, after the all the official proceedings her over, he’d been almost too tired to celebrate.
Almost.
His mouth felt dry. How much water had he drunk yesterday? Probably none. Only cider. Maybe something stronger. It all tasted the same by the end.
He rolled out of bed, feeling dizzy. His body throbbed; leftover wounds from his recent ordeals. The room blurred. But after blinking a few times, he realised the room wasn’t blurry, just messy. Probably about time he cleaned the room. Though it was a spare room, one of many in Serendal Castle, it was still large and decorated with paintings, furniture and clutter that made it feel a little more lived in.
Apart from the bed, Wren had claimed a small bit of floor for himself, dumping the few clothes he had in a pile, along with the contents of his bag. He supposed he could hang up his clothes. If he must.
He picked up his coat. Something fell to the ground with a soft thump. His book of tales. The muscles in his chest twinged with the memory. While the book had taken most of the blow and stopped Alden’s sword from piercing his heart, Alden had still thrust with enough force to bruise Wren’s chest.
He bent, slow as his body required, and picked up the book.
His heart broke.
There was a hole in the book. Even as he stood there staring, the book started to slip through his fingers, and several pages fell to the floor, leaving him holding the ripped cover and the few pages left.
Alden’s sword had left a wide gash, severing the binding and tearing the pages. He swallowed against the bile rising in his throat. The book he’d had since he was a few weeks old. The only thing he had from his mother, from his brief past life.
Destroyed.
A tear slid down his cheek, burning his skin, fuelled by the fresh rage he felt for Alden. He held it close to his chest as if strength alone could knit it back together. When he pulled it away again, it was still in tatters.
Light-headedness took him. He needed food.
Each step down the stairs—and there were a lot of stairs in Castle Serendal, could he decree ramps only?—sent a wave of pain over his body. When he finally made it to the bottom and into a long, dusty carpeted corridor, it took him a moment to remember which direction the kitchen was. Left. Maybe.
An increasing hum of voices told him he was heading in the right direction. The noise made him feel like he was back in Sharsey. And he might as well have been: as he entered the dining hall, several men and women ate at tables, and he recognised every one of them from the burned remains of Sharsey. They now lived in Serendal and worked around the castle under Orsen.
They raised their heads as Wren entered, making to stand, but he raised a hand. Don’t get up. For the love of the Heart, please don’t get up. They lowered themselves back down and offered a respectful nod instead of the bows they no doubt had planned.
Wren passed a table spread with food. A small pile of toast, a couple of eggs, tomatoes and rashers of bacon. But he bypassed it and headed straight for the kitchen on the other side of the room. He pushed open the wooden door and a warm savoury air wafted over him.
Erin was at one of the benches, slicing apples. A large man with fiery red hair, from Sharsey’s kitchen to Serendal Castle’s.
Wren leaned against the bench next to him. Erin didn’t look up, but he nudged a few apple slices in Wren’s direction. He bit into one. Slightly sour. The Heart was still healing; it was going to take some time to recultivate the land and farms that had been abandoned and for things to grow again.
‘What’s troublin’ ya?’ Erin grunted without looking up.
Wren finished eating another apple slice and reached for a third before finally mumbling, ‘Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the fact that nothing will ever be the same again?’
Erin placed the apple slices into a large bowl and started covering them in a mix of spices and sugar. The scent of cinnamon tickled Wren’s nose.
‘Change is overwhelming,’ Erin replied, reaching for a wooden spoon. ‘It happens, and often there’s nothing we can do about it ‘cept make the most of what comes next.’
Wren considered this.
‘Thanks, Erin.’ He pushed off from the bench as Erin grunted a goodbye.
As he returned to his room to dress for the day, he almost bumped into Layla in the entrance hall. His stomach flipped again, but this time it was a much more pleasant feeling. She grinned at him, cheeks flushing pink.
‘Hey,’ she chirped.
‘Hey,’ he replied, trying to summon the same amount of chirp. ‘Big day today?’
‘Yep, I’m just about to meet the head physician now. It’s nice I can do it here, so close to home.’
Wren mustered a smile. ‘You’ll make a great apprentice.’
Layla didn’t miss a beat. ‘What’s the matter?’
He had told her about what happened in the cavern of the Heart with Alden last week, but not in any great detail. Not yet. He wasn’t ready to relive it, even to himself. He pulled out the book to show her.
‘Oh, Wren…’ Layla said softly, reaching out as if to touch the book before bringing her hand back. ‘Your mother’s book. I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m going to get it fixed.’
Layla glanced at it dubiously, but she only said, ‘You could try the library in the city? They might know what to do.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ He carefully put the pieces of the book away.
She shuffled her feet. ‘Well, I’d better go or I’m going to be late. See you at lunch.’
‘Good luck.’
She hovered for a moment, leaning in slightly before leaning away again. Her fingers twisted together in front of her.
Wren stepped closer, gently bumping their lips together. The sensation, still so new to him, sent warmth pooling in his chest. Awkwardness forgotten, she adjusted her head slightly and parted her lips. He didn’t want it to end.
Eventually, she pulled back and whispered a final goodbye before she dashed past him and down the hall towards the physician’s quarters.
Once dressed, Wren stepped out of the castle into the warmth of the summer morning. He hadn’t left the castle much over the past week. Mostly because he hadn’t physically been able to, but there was also a bit of dread involved, of people recognising him in the streets and in the shops, acknowledging him as King of Tialdor.
But he wanted the book fixed.
Serendal’s library was down the path from the castle, standing solidly between the museum and a café. Wren took a moment to stare up at it, made from white stone, windows neatly lining the front. The buildings were so big in Serendal, larger than any city Hero had taken him to on the rare occasion. Wren could be under the tallest trees and feel mighty himself, but beneath these stone buildings, he felt tiny.
But he’d been born here. It was home now. That had to count for something.
As the sun burned the back of his neck, he quickly hurried inside. Coolness enveloped him, natural light from the windows lit the bookshelves, the people inside not raising their voices to more than a murmur.
So. Many. Books.
Wren could only stare, scanning the dozens of shelves that stretched towards the high roof. So many stories. So many possibilities.
‘Can I help you, young man?’
Wren snapped his neck back down to meet the eyes of an elderly lady with greying hair and large glasses.
She squinted at him. ‘Wait… Are you…?’
‘Er… yeah.’ His cheeks warmed at the look of awe on her face.
She bowed. ‘Your Highness.’
‘Um, yeah. So, I have this book.’ He approached her, holding what was left of his mother’s book of tales in his hands like an offering. ‘Can you fix it?’
The librarian—Emmeline, her name tag read—gently lifted the cover of the book from Wren’s hands, leaving most of the pages behind in his palms.
‘Oh dear,’ she tutted. ‘Rose might be able to help you, but… These pages are sliced through. She’s not going to be able to repair them. You might be better off just replacing it.’
Wren snatched the book back from her. Replace it? No. Not possible.
Emmeline sighed. ‘Rose is just over there.’
The woman she pointed to was in her thirties, short brown hair obscuring her face as she sorted through books in a trolley.
‘Excuse me, Rose?’
The woman looked up, large brown eyes fixing on Wren’s face.
‘Are you able to fix this?’ he added quickly to distract her from any recognition. ‘It can’t be replaced; it’s one of a kind.’
Rose took the book gently from him and studied it with interest. ‘Binding nearly severed… threads exposed…’ she murmured almost to herself. ‘The pages aren’t torn cleanly. Pieces are missing.’
She was speaking as through Wren hadn’t agonised over every destroyed detail.
Finally, she met his eyes. ‘I could… maybe put a new cover on it?’
‘No, please,’ Wren said, hearing the desperation in his voice. ‘It needs to be this cover.’
Rose raised an eyebrow. ‘So, you’re looking to fix the book without changing anything?’
‘Um… yes.’
She glanced back at it dubiously. ‘Well… I can thread it back together. The cover, too, though it will be patchy.’
Wren glanced down at the remains of the book in his hands. He tried to imagine it becoming a patchwork version of what it once was, and found the thought made his heart twinge.
‘As for the pages…’ Rose raised an eyebrow as she examined them again. ‘I could… stick them back together, maybe?’
A strip of tape or glue over his mother’s words. There’d be something between the ink from her words and his fingertip.
He thanked Rose and left the library, feet dragging him through the streets.
Back at the castle, breakfast was over. People moved about, well into the swing of their daily chores. Knowing someone was going to need him for something at some point, Wren dashed quickly up the stairs and into a small supply closet. It hadn’t been used during the years Alden lived in the castle, if the layers of dust were anything to go by. Motes floated in the air, lit by the small skylight, and went up his nose. But he didn’t care. No one would think to look for him there. He sat on an overturned wooden crate that was stamped with a soap company brand and opened to the first page of the book. The small area of text on the front page was intact; Alden’s sword had pierced the paper just below it. Small mercies, he supposed. Gently, he ran his hand over it; the texture was familiar, but not, jagged edges jarring the path of his fingertips.
To my darling son Wren,
In case we are ever parted, I want you to know that I am always with you. I hope this book of tales guides you for when the time comes that the throne is yours: How to be just, how to be kind, how to be strong, and above all—how to love and be loved, because love is the greatest force of all.
You are loved by me, always.
Your mother,
Asana
‘There you are.’
Wren glanced up at Layla’s voice. She was in the doorway, watching him with an amused expression on her face. ‘If I can’t find you, I know to just look for small cupboards.’
Wren offered half a smile, but his heart wasn’t really in it. She came and sat beside him, arm pressed against his, eyes on the book in his hands. ‘Any luck at the library?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It would never be like it was, anyway.’
‘It’s been through a lot,’ she murmured. ‘Just like you have. Like we all have. Of course it will never be what it was.’
Tears pricked the back of Wren’s eyes. He kept them lowered, but Layla placed a warm hand on his arm.
‘You knew the stories by heart, didn’t you?’ she asked after a moment.
‘Yeah. I did.’
‘So, write them again. Or maybe…’
‘What?’
She quirked an eyebrow at him. ‘You could always write your own story?’
Wren snorted. What would his own story even be?
Erin’s words from earlier drifted to the forefront of his mind. Change is overwhelming. It happens, and often there’s nothing we can do about it ‘cept make the most of what comes next.
It still wouldn’t be the same, but he felt like it might help, if he had some sense of control over the stories. It wouldn’t be someone who wasn’t familiar with the book adding their own mark on it, recreating it. He could make it what he knew it to be.
‘Yeah. Maybe,’ he answered noncommittally. He placed the book beside him and turned towards her. ‘How did today go? Are you ready to take over as Head Physician?’
***
The next day, Wren headed back into the city and purchased a blank book. Its dark green cover reminded him of the forest. Despite sleeping in a comfortable bed in a temperature-controlled room every night, he often found himself longing for the forest; for the quiet and the feeling of soil beneath his bare feet.
It wasn’t until later that night that he had the chance to open the book. Orsen had accosted him as soon as he set foot back inside Serendal Castle, whirling him through several kingly duties. After dinner, Wren sat at the small desk in his bedroom by the light of a taren lamp. The new book was open in front of him, pen poised in his hand, ready to put down the first words of A Prince’s Heart.
But that’s not what happened.
I hope this book of tales guides you for when the time comes that the throne is yours.
The book had guided him. His mother’s voice, her words on the page. She’d written the tales because she’d known there was a chance she wouldn’t see him grow up. But now he was on the throne. He was King of Tialdor. He had saved the Heart.
Change is overwhelming. It happens, and often there’s nothing we can do about it ‘cept make the most of what comes next.
Wren lowered the pen to the page. It was time for new stories.
Once, in Tialdor, there was a boy raised by a hero…