The Soulless Prince [BrightWin]

2. The Well of Lost Souls

☽ 𖤓 ☾

BRIGHT IS STILL TOO YOUNG to understand the full extent of his mother's death, or perhaps he is just in a state of shock, unwilling to take in the unfortunate reality.

For a while things even seem to continue deceitfully as usual as the prince it left to his own devices when none of the lower servants dare to approach him, now more so than ever, because they do not want to turn into dust like the Queen by a mere glance. And in the inevitable chaos that falls upon the court of the Seventh Hell, while the deceased Queen's maids scramble to figure out how to deliver the unfortunate news to the King of Hell, the prince gets overlooked. Despite being afraid of him, the little boy is the least of the two evils in this scenario. If he might be able to suck their souls out, then the King can definitely shred their flesh into pieces with a snap of his fingers, sentencing everyone who displeases him to eternal damnation.

The head maid has a nagging feeling that she has forgotten something while she frantically gazes into the enchanted mirror, trying to find a trance of the King amongst the swirls of silvery smoke within its shady depths. As a man of many nefarious duties the Devil is quite a hard man to get a hold of and because of that the Queen's funeral procession keeps getting postponed. However, the Seventh Hell has been in a dire need of a ruler ever since violent souls started pouring in without control because of a gruesome war raging amongst mortals — there has never even been a peaceful century on Earth.

Thus, left out and all alone in the massive castle that rises from the reddish mud like a sore thorn with its grand, spikey rooftops that bear likeness to a gothic cathedral, Bright finds himself gravitating towards the Well of Lost Souls located just on the outskirts of the royal estate, where he can hear a cacophony of multiple voices telling stories of their long lost lives. Sometimes the stories make sense, but most of the time they actually do not.

Nonetheless, Bright finds them fascinating. It is a welcome respite from the misery and filth constantly perpetuating throughout the scorching air, settling into his hair and clinging to his fine clothes together with a layer of fly ash that discolors everything with flecks of gray. Bright has never seen snow but that is how he imagines it would look like.

And maybe there are certain things that the little prince is trying to flee from after all, acutely aware that he is spending his days on borrowed time, before he finally needs to acknowledge the painful truth.

That he is the cause of his mother's death.

That his cursed eyes have consumed her eternal soul.

Bright's heart clenches achingly in his chest. He is a true devil's child. A demon of demons. How many chances does one even get to look into his eyes before the cruel curse takes effect?

With these thoughts consuming him, the boy slides lower where he sits slumped in the red mud and lets the hollow voices from the well wash over him as he drapes an arm over his face, shielding the dark abyss swirling within his eyes from the world. The delicate fabric of his sleeve flutters in the warm wind, softly caressing his cheek.

Unexpectedly, Bright finds that there is this one soul that he likes to listen to the most. On especially hard days when the shrewd whisperers of him murdering his own mother get too loud in the echoing halls of the castle, he curls up against the crumbling wall of the well. He draws his knobby knees up to his chest and falls asleep near a patch of estranged flowers, while listening to the incessant chatter of the other boy. Well, he assumes that it is a boy because of the faintly lower tone of voice that has a penchant for squeaking when he gets too excited in his retellings, but other than that souls do not really have a gender. They just are, faint echoes of once vivid lives.