Free The Stillness of the Sky by Starla Huchton Page B

shifting back and forth from prince to giantess, completely baffled by their apathy. “Do neither of you care in the least? About anything?”
    “I care about a great deal of things,” Oria said with a sniff, crossing her arms. “That’s a cruel thing to say.”
    “It’s crueler that you sit here, tucked away in a castle while others die for no reason,” I said. “It’s much crueler that you ignore it when others suffer for your selfish acts.” Though I knew I should mind my tongue, as a giant could easily silence me with little effort, I was so appalled that neither of them cared, I couldn’t stop myself from speaking.
    “Selfish?” She gaped at me. “How am I selfish? What could I do about this silly war? It’s not my concern.”
    Standing, I paced the floor of the cage. There had to be a way to make them see the truth in it. “It’s your concern because it’s your fault, the two of you.” I stopped and looked at Aaron. “Is it worse to take up your birthright and possibly be a less than stellar king, or to run from it and have your father certainly destroy everyone and everything because of it?”
    “There’s no possibly to it, Jack.” He scowled at me. “I’d be a terrible king.”
    “How would you know?” I asked. “You’ve not even tried. I do things all the time that I don’t want to, most people do. I wouldn’t have known I had a talent for it if you hadn’t made me sing last night. No one knows what they can do until they try, Highness. That’s rather the point of trying and working at a thing.”
    “But why try to be king when others are better suited for it?” Oria asked.
    I planted a hand on a hip and grimaced. “I’ve not much talent for baking, but without money to buy it elsewhere I had to learn how to make bread. It isn’t always about what we want, it’s about what needs to be done. The challenge is in finding a way to love the things we must do. For example, I took great pleasure in my visits to the mill for flour. If I needed to make bread, it meant I could visit with the miller’s wife, and she always had a spare sweet for me when I would. The rest I might not care for so much, but small things like that made the work worth it.”
    With a tired sigh, I sat back down in my chair. “It’s up to us to find happiness within our lives without causing suffering to others. How can you be happy knowing your actions have caused so much pain?”
    “To be fair,” Aaron said, “I didn’t know I had until yesterday.”
    “All the more reason you should be keen to help now,” I said. “Even if you won’t return, isn’t there something you could try to do? Your father might listen if he knows you won’t be coming home. He might not stop the war at once, but he might step back a little.”
    “Spoken as someone who’s never met my father,” he said, then quietly finished his cup of tea. “No, I don’t believe his pride would allow him to do much more than become even angrier.”
    “So you refuse to do anything at all?”
    “If he leaves to explain, they’ll never let him return,” Oria said. “Worse, the giants will be none too pleased with me either when they learn of this. There are very few ways of getting to the castle, but they certainly exist. I can’t defend if there’s an invasion.”
    She set an elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand, her lower lip extending in an apologetic pout. “So, you can see why I can’t let you leave, then.”
    My mouth fell open. “You can’t… What? Why?”
    Aaron shrugged. “If you leave, you’d tell people where I am, and we can’t have that. Don’t worry, though, you’ll be very comfortable here, and the food is excellent.”
    Heart racing, I tried not to panic. Calm reasoning would see me out of this, I was sure, but it was difficult to think past being told I was now a prisoner.
    “It’s not a bad thing, Jack,” Oria said, her wide smile genuine with her belief. “Now you’ll be able to sing