The Other Side of the Lie (EDITING, ON HOLD)

One-Hawk

Hawk stared at the blade in his hands, both drenched in silver blood. The blood came from the cold body sprawled on the floor next to him. The body of his father, a large silver stain marring the blue silk of his jacket, and his crown on the floor a few feet away where it had rolled. In Hawk's confused, groggy state of mind, he couldn't piece together the evidence to form a coherent explanation for why he was there.

He'd woken up from a drugged stupor, next to the cooling corpse of his father, the king of the Sky fey. Now, he was no longer king but had joined the ranks of the Fallen. Or has he, Hawk wondered. The Fallen were the warriors, the kings, any who had died to protect the kingdom. But his father had been murdered, he hadn't died in battle.

The slow, cold realization that all the evidence pointed to him as the guilty party penetrated the shock and lingering fog in Hawk's mind. But I couldn't have! He must have been drugged and then placed there by the true culprit, to frame him for the murder. Only, no one would believe him. Of course Hawk would deny the act. So would the real perpetrator. He had to leave. Immediately.

Hawk took half a second to take in his surroundings. He was in his fathers' study, the large oak desk behind him. The surface was, per usual, strewn with papers, documents, quills, ink pots, books, and a collection of signet rings. On two of the walls were bookshelves of the same oak as the desk, bursting at the seams with books on politics, military strategy, taxes, trade, history, geography, personal diaries and journals. A lone window at his back let in the first creeping rays of faint sunlight. A fireplace, cold now, resided to the right of the window that looked out on the mountains. A portrait of Hawk's grandfather hung to the left of the door.

The handle turned, the latch clicked, and the door cracked open before swinging wide. Evidently, a half-second was too long. The shocked visage of a servant girl greeted him. Her blue eyes went from his face to the blade to the wound in his fathers' chest and back to Hawk. Her face went as pale as a sheet and her mouth moved but no sound came from her lips. She swallowed as he knelt there, next to the kings' corpse with a bloody knife in his hand, some stupid part of himself keeping his body paralyzed. Then she did scream.

Guards rushed in after a moment or two, summoned by the servant girls' cries. They stood still in the doorway, gaping at their prince, blue eyes clouded with confusion. Hawk knew his own eyes, as blue as theirs, were filled with horror, fear, confusion, a chaotic jumble of emotions that warred inside him. The guards recovered from their initial shock and pulled Hawk roughly from his position on the blood-soaked carpet that depicted clouds dark with rain flitting across the otherwise clear blue sky.

"Traitor," one guard hissed. "Murderer."

Hawk struggled to keep from denying the accusation, struggled to keep his face a blank mask. He hoped it was emotionless, at least. Given his luck this morning, he didn't expect it to be.

He was taken straight to the dungeon, as damp, dark, and depressing as hell. That is if hell suddenly experienced a deluge that extinguished all the fires. On his way, Hawk caught a glimpse of his sister, Swan, in the hall to her chambers, staring at him with horror and worry. He was less than surprised when he received a visitor only minutes after he'd been shoved bodily into a cell.

"Hawk?" Swan's tentative whisper cut through the still darkness, a shuttered lantern casting a slim beam of light that illuminated Hawk's face and made him blink.

"You took your time," he commented, wishing he felt as confident and calm as he sounded.

"Seven minutes," Swan pointed out, worry briefly replaced by irritation. "Besides, I had to bribe the guards." She looked him over.

He was a mess. He still wore the clothes he'd had on the night before. Apparently, whatever drugs he'd received had put him under before he'd changed for bed. His blue silk jacket, identical to his father's, was ripped in a few places. The crisp white shirt was not so crisp anymore, having become bloodstained and had thoroughly silver-soaked cuffs. The matching white pants were filthy, torn, and spattered with silver beginning to dry to a dull, dark gray.