Little King

Paeton

I'm alone, for the first time in a long time. I've escaped to the forest, finding comfort in the silence. I'm also not wearing any armor. I've been stripped of my silver chest plate, arm braces, and weapons. I'm wearing a simple dusty brown tunic and dark brown pants, something I might have worn back home. For some reason the silence turns to a steady hum, almost musical but not clear enough to be sure, like the droning of cicadas, but softer. Even with this new song, the forest is still quiet, my footsteps make no noise, I walk as if I'm gliding across the forest floor. 

Then the forest erupts in screams. I don't know if they're someone else's or my own, but the force of them slams into my ears. Then i see faces, so many faces. I see Trei, hung for his crimes, then I see him beaten and starving in jail. So many different ways he could be suffering right now. I scream, and I can tell these are my own, crumpling to the ground and shutting my eyes. "Stop it! Make it stop!" I plead, and Trei's face disappears, replaced with Adalade's. She's staring at me, dull eyes, a thin line of red traced across her neck. it stars to bubble and blood flows from it in thick streams, and begins to pour out of her mouth and eye sockets.

 I sob, begging for it to stop, and she's taken away, and my father appears. It shows me countless ways he could have died at war. Impaled on countless objects, captured and tortured, then my mother is all I see. Her face is blurred, since I don't clearly remember what she looks like, but i can see her clear, milky blue eyes and long brown hair. Her gaze is pleading and sorrowful, and she gasps and chokes through her sickness. Then I hear my name being called, begging, fear wavering in the voice.

"Paeton..." Kylo whispers, nudging me into a somewhat awake state. I turn to look at him, and he crawls onto my cot without asking, hugging me. "I had a bad dream." He murmurs, too much whining in his voice for a 14 year old. I hug him close anyway.

"It's okay, I'm here." I tell him, smoothing his curly dark hair. He looks up at me with clear brown eyes.

"I miss my family." He pouts, and I sit him up, staring at him.

"Kylo, look at me. You'll see them again, I promise. The king won't keep you in his guard forever." The words slide off my tongue like a toxin, injecting him with lies. I can't tell a scared boy that the only way out of this is death, injury, or by some miracle the king finds a heart.

When I first arrived at one of the camps for the King's guard, there were three people I met who have remained important. My General, Rook, a young girl named Geanna who is polite enough to smile at me, and Kylo. At first, I didn't approach him. I recognized those frightened brown eyes as the same ones that gazed over Adalade's body, but I can't blame him. He's a child, enchained in the king's guard by bad luck. He recognized me too. He was clever enough to avoid my gaze and steer clear from me, but the second I approached him in a friendly manner, he flung his arms around my torso and hugged me. He was a child.

I run my hands through Kylo's hair rhythmically, humming a meaningless tune under my breath. He wraps himself in the dusty brown blankets of my cot. I continue this until his breath falls into the quiet pattern of sleep. I slip out of my cot, laying his head back on my torn pillow. He stirs the tiniest bit, hugging the blankets tighter against his chest.

My bare feet rub uncomfortably on the wooden, creaky, floor as I sneak out of the guard's quarters, running my fingers on Yoko's flower as I pass my small dresser. I'm not sure if we're allowed to wander another kingdom's castle. I tell myself I'm new and I'm allowed to not know. The carpets near the guard quarters are rough and worn, trudged upon by generations of rough leather boots. With a silent curse I remember I'm not wearing shoes. I'm luckily not wearing my breastplate but my arm braces are tightened around my wrists. I'm wearing a gray tunic with Silverstar emblem embroidered on it. My hair is a mess of curls that seem duller than usual. Maybe it's the lack of sleep. Maybe I should go back and sleep. With a sigh, I continue down the hallway.