No Wings to Fly [ON HOLD]

Chapter 11

I let go of the person’s hand and looked up at them, immediately recognizing them to be Ridgedog. I took a couple of steps back whilst he looked at me in confusion.

“Is everything alright?” He asked. I nodded and stood up straight, trying to look a lot more confident than I actually was. “I thought that you ought to know some things.”

“Martyn, he’s been keeping something secret from you. Something very important, might I add, and frankly, it’s quite rude of him to not tell you what he’s been doing! Sometimes, I hold these events. The Survival Games. Everyone in this little kingdom I rule over is thrown into an arena and forced to survive until only one is left standing.”

“I don’t understand how this has anything to do with me though?” I said, getting increasingly confused by the second.

“Martyn is an earth spirit, you know this, correct? When you arrived, he could sense that there was another spirit around. One of you on your own harness an enormous amount of power, more than capable of winning a game, but he knew that with both of your powers combined, the amount would be colossal.”

“I still don’t understand why any of this is important?”

“Martyn won the last game, however when he had defeated his last opponent, someone still stood by his side. Toby. Martyn knew that he hadn’t truly won until there was one else left except him, and that meant that he had to eliminate his best friend. Now from what I’ve seen, most people are unable to do this, and they wait until I have to send something in to remove one of them, but Martyn wasn’t about to fall victim to my boredom, and he killed his companion.

I didn’t know how to react to this. I just looked at Ridge in confusion in horror. Neither of them ever acted like a massive act of betrayal ever happened between them.  

“Winning the games changes people. People feel like they need to continue getting the strength and power they get from winning, so they become willing to do pretty much anything, no matter how inhumane it is, just so that they able to continue receiving the power that they ‘need’.”

“Now, as Martyn had the knowledge that you were here, he knew how easy it would be to win the next games if he had you on his side. He came to me, asking about you, whether you even knew that you possessed any powers, what your name was, that sort of stuff. He then proposed a deal. I’d make sure that you wouldn’t die from now until Martyn won the games, and in exchange, once he won, you would become my… protégé of sorts.”

“So… that’s the only reason he hasn’t killed me, he just wanted to use me so that he could win the games.” I mumbled, feeling pretty deceived.

“People get power-hungry, and it’s a thing that won’t leave them. It corrupts people the point that they are willing to exploit another person so that they can get what they want.”

“I can’t even do anything impressive like he can though! My parents forced me away because I wasn’t like them, I was weak and useless. I was seen as a traitor to my family, they didn’t want me to ruin their line of perfect blood. I was the one who never showed any signs of being like them, able to cast magic or manipulate wind. They could fly, and I had to stand and watch as I was mocked by my siblings, because I wasn’t special like them. Finally, I found a place where that doesn’t matter, and I thought that I could live my life as a normal person, when suddenly it turns out than I can unintentionally send tiny gusts of wind when I get angry. Now I find out that one of the few people that I almost trusted was going to use me just so that he can be an almighty earth prince, when there wasn’t even any point, as I am not able to satisfy anyone.”