Book Nerd

Chapter two: Heartless Mage

Otis

7 years ago

" Otiec read to me," the little prince asked me. Somehow as head mage I get stuck on babysitting duty. Watching the prince of 4 years. 
When I don't answer him he walks over to me and hugs my leg and looks up at me with wide eyes and says " please!" I sigh and give in.

" Fine little prince," I take the book from him and take a seat next to the fire in the rocking chair, it creaks under my weight. The prince sits in front of me and hands me the book.
" Alright, are you ready, I will only read you this book once." I give him a point look.
He nodded his hands in his lap.

I'm supposed to make sure he reads his historys today. Instead I am reading him a fairy tale.
" Once long ago there was a wishing star; it was not a normal wishing star. No it was The Wish. a being of good and light." I continue reading about how she helps all these people with their problems. After I'm done he does as told and gets back to work from his classes.  Now three weeks later I read him a fairy tale every time he gets his work done afterwards, so I keep doing it.

" you have a very good story voice Otice!" He is all cheery and innocent.
" Do I now  little prince?" I respond.  For some reason the little prince is not scared of me but a grown man cowards at the sight of me. Children are odd like that. He nodded his little head.

" head mage Caskscar," commander percy walks in " the king is waiting for you in the mages tower to talk." I nodded to him and left.

I never say goodbye to the little prince but I hear him say every time " bye Otice!" then usually just Barely that sometimes I almost miss it; a guard will say to him  harshly " its head mage prince."  As I walk to the mage tower I think of what the little prince said about my "story voice". Maybe in another life. Maybe I would have smiled at that and then practiced to make the little prince happy. Sadly thats not me, I am known as the king's shadow, a silent merciless shade who could cares less about protecting the people and cares more about surviving my king.

" Yes, your majesty; you called for me." I bow to him; king xiks.
" Caskscar we have lot discuss; the people are out of control again" he turns and looks at me with a manic smile
" I think the shadow needs to remind them exactly who is incharge"
Standing in the tower looking at one another, us talking about how the execution will go.

I have to confess; I do have a heart sadly, I just forgot how it works. Same with how to feel anything but emptiness. Painfully I am Otis Caskscar I can't feel; Can't care. for a Caskscar They are the most powerful mages in shade; some say stronger than the king but their duty is to protect the king. A Caskscar does not have a choice in the matter.

Four months after the plan to keep people in line; I'm back with the little prince reading him stories.

" Otice why does the prince in this story slay the villain, he was just sad?" the little prince asked, tilting his head to the side.
It's a good question. The story we are reading today is about a prince of the sun kingdom coming to save the the maiden the people in his village loved ( well in the story it said the prince loved her but me and the little  prince look closer and saw that he loved her because the people loved her)
From the duke of the night; once the prince got there he saw her dead in front of the duke. The duke said he did not kill her but the prince knew it was a lie and he ended up killing the duke and saving the day. We do not know if the duke killed her or not.
" I don't know little prince. Most likely because he needed a enemy." I responded.
" That's stupid the duke was the one who truly loved her; people just thought he was evil." the prince huffs.
" We don't know the duke loved her." I say.
" he was crying over her body in the picture. See!" he pointed to the picture in the book were the duke is hovering over the maidens body.
" he does not look like he is crying, little prince." he's about to say something when Sam comes rushing in.
" The castle is under attack!" he paints out. " little prince-'' sam cuts me off " NOW headmage!" looking between the prince and the door. 
I sigh. " make sure the prince gets to safety." and if he gets hurt I will sever your head from your body; I say to myself. I ran off to go help the king.  Sadly the prince's safety is not my job. A Caskscar protects the king, not the little prince.

That is the day the little prince was stolen from us and taken to the other kingdom of Malcom. For the first time in my life I mourned the loss of anyone. I did not even mourn my fathers death or the deaths on my hand; I showed respect but did not mourn them.

Four years after

" Carkscar go get the fairy from the dungeon" the king orders I nod and go get the fairy.

Now my days are filled with gray or red; mostly red. At night when I can go to my room and sleep I read one of the many fairy tales to myself. So if one day the prince comes back I'll be an even better storyteller. Most days I blame myself for the prince's capture and wonder what has happened to him. We can't get to the other side of the vast river dividing the kingdoms and a fog so thick it's like a wall of its own. I hope he's free and happy; I hope he has his own fairytale with a happy ending. How sad is it that the person who is supposed to have a hole for a heart is the only one who cares about the so-called weaker prince. Three years ago a new prince was born. He, I already can tell, is darker than his brother.

Even at the age of three he is a tyrant, hurting animals , hurting people.

I miss the little prince.
I would never tell anyone that. They could skin me alive to find out but I'd never admit it.

For I am Otis Carkscar, the king's heartless shadow.

Present day
" What do you think about the evasion plan head mage?" Ask the captain of the guard " we move to the east" is all I say.
We set up camp three hours ago to plan out the take over of the western village of Nor; they have not been compliant with the king's new laws and are planning to rebel. 

We are going to corner them on the cliffs then they can choose to jump off and hope they live ( they will not) or surrender to the king and double their tax.

I took the west with 20 others.  while the general takes the rest of the men to the east and some watch the cliffs.  We have a total of 40 men which is more than enough. The village of Nor is small but has some of the strongest men and women. " spread out more, split up if you have to but don't go too far in the woods'' the general tells all of us. The everwoods are known for making people disappear, thankfully we should not have to go in there too far.  Some legends say the woods is an entity, some say it was cursed.  Some people come out of the woods claiming to see dead loved ones or people they wronged. 

As we start fighting and pushing the Nors people to the cliff, I spot one trying to sneak off, no one else sees him so I go after running as fast as I can.  Leaves crunch under my feet as I run, I'm getting close, the guy doesn't even look back. fool. Then he's gone. Vanished. I look around and see that I am in the everforest. I turn back to get out of the wood; running panting. Then a gust of wind picks up yellow,red, and orange leaves. I stop since I can't see and  trip on a log and black out.