The Shadow Prince

chapter thirty-nine HADEN

When Daphne is gone, a hollowness fills me that I cannot explain.

I drive. Out of Olympus Hills. Out onto the open road. Faster and faster. Trying to outrun the storm that chases me from the inside.

I don’t know where I am going until I find myself outside the music shop again. I go inside, bells jangling as I let the door slam behind me.

“Can I help you?” the man at the cash register asks, startled.

“I want it all,” I say. “I want to buy a copy of every album you’ve got.”

The man raises his eyebrows over his thick-rimmed glasses. “Everything?”

“Yes,” I hiss. Is this human an idiot? “That’s why I said every album.”

“Um. Okay. Uh. CD or MP3? I’m assuming MP3, since you can’t fit the whole store in your trunk. You probably don’t even have a CD player in a car like that, huh?”

I shake my head.

“We’ve got more selections on digital recording anyway. It’ll fill up half a dozen of these MP3 players,” he says, pointing at a row of devices, which look similar to my iPhone, in a display case.

“Then give me six of those, too,” I say, and set the credit card Dax gave me on top of the glass case.

“Are you sure about this, man? Your parents aren’t going to freak when they see the bill or anything, are they? And I’m going to need to see some ID.”

“I don’t live with my parents.” I set the driver’s license that says I’m twenty-one next to my credit card. “Don’t forget anything. I want every single song you’ve got.”

The man glances from the ID to the card to my luxury car, which sits in the parking lot, and then back to me. “Sweet,” he says, a huge grin overtaking his face. “You are in for one wild time, my friend.”

Hours later, I sit in my car on the beach. Waves crash outside, and wind from the approaching storm pounds against the roof and windows. One of the MP3 players is wirelessly connected to the stereo. I play song after song, trying to open myself up to each one. To feel the emotion they evoke like I did with Daphne in the booth. Some of the songs make me cringe, but others conjure emotions I have spent most of my life trying to bury: sadness, anger, awe, fear, joy, desire.

Love?

Daphne didn’t mock me when I cried in front of her. She didn’t think I was disgusting. She didn’t tell me to stop before I embarrassed her. She seemed like she genuinely cared.

She cared about me.

The hour nears midnight, but I’ve barely burned through a fraction of the music I bought. The car’s control panel warns me that I’ve let the battery get too low. Just as the music starts to fade, I jolt the car with a burst of electricity, restoring it to full power. I turn up the volume. Louder. Louder. But no matter how high I turn up the sound, no matter how many emotions I let flood through me, I cannot drown out the thought that has clung to me since Daphne played me that last song in the booth.

I’d known it all along. Pushed way back in my mind so I wouldn’t have to think about it. But opening up to her like that—letting her see one of the rawest portions of my soul—and her not rejecting it, I cannot deny reality any longer. The truth is, if Daphne eventually agrees to come with me, if I am victorious in my quest, if I get everything I’ve ever wanted—whether she’s a regular Boon or this Cypher who the Oracle spoke of—she will die.

Just like my mother.

Just like every human who has been brought to the Underrealm—most barely making it through the first two years. Humans cannot survive without the sun.

They all die.

And so will she.