“Because it is beautiful,” said his father, looking past him, as if he was seeing some other place, some other world. “The first years are more wonderful than I can tell you, Jan. You are beloved of the people. Feasting and dancing are the order of the day. But there comes a time when you grow tired, when what you are giving is more than what you have been given. Then the people grow petulant, like little children who have gone too long without a nap. And, eventually, you are empty, and it is time for a new king.”

“I’ll set you free,” said Jan, drawing the sword he had claimed on the ship.

His father shook his head. “Not that way. It’s too late for that. I want you to do something much more difficult.”

Jan felt his grip on the blade begin to falter. Fear blossomed in his heart “What?” he asked softly. “What do you want me to do?”

His father looked directly into his eyes. “Forgive me,” he whispered.

Jan felt a deep heaviness inside him, a weight on his heart that threatened to sink it in the heaving sea of his sorrow and anger. To wait so long, to come so far, aching for his father, for what he had never received from him—and now, after all that, to find not that his father was going to come home with him, nor that he had become a great ruler and wanted to share his kingdom, nor that he had a treasure to enrich their lives, but rather that he wanted something more from his son, and the hardest thing of all at that, this was a bitter discovery indeed.

“Jan,” said his father softly. “Look at me.”

The boy stared into his father’s eyes. They were like the sea during a storm, dark and troubled, and strange currents ran beneath their surface.

“I brought you here because it was the last thing I could do for you,” said his father.

“For me?” cried Jan.

His father stretched his fingers toward Jan. The boy hesitated, then reached out and took his hand.

“Forgive me and you will be free,” whispered the king. “You can go on to grow and live as you must. But forgive me not and I will haunt you as long as you live. You will carry me like a stone in your heart for all your days, and everything you do will be twisted out of shape.”

“You brought the boy here to threaten him?” growled Samos.