a king's game

chapter six

Payton is staring directly at the sun and the sight is scorching his eyes. No, not the sun. Everything gravitates towards him, everything bends and twists his way. Him, him, him. But he is not light, he is light's absence, darkness, nothingness. And so, so bitter cold.
He is made of anger, where Payton is made of flesh. Wrath flows through his veins, his every breath is stolen from another man, leaving them breathless, airless, dying.

There is a crown made of thorns and ivory white splinters of human bone. Thin vines, dark as ebony and naked of leaves, wrap around the bone, long and sharp thorns sticking out like the spines of a morning star. Yet so much more deadly.

Staring at the sun might make you blind.

But Payton is blind already, seeing light, darkness, nothingness and his mind fills it out with images of crowns out of bone and thorns.
It is his breath being stolen from his lips, sucked into the deep void he had mistaken for the sun. Instead of light he radiates bone chilling cold, yet Payton feels his skin heated from fever, sweat tracing the nape of his neck gently like a lover's touch.
It is all wrong, up is down and right is wrong. His body shivers from the heat, sweats from the cold.

But how could this be?
Looking past that crown of glistening human bone, seeing through the void, the darkness his maddened mind conjures, there is a man and he looks human.

The king is a human.
There is no truth left, just controversy.

The youth's breath is shallow, his heart beats against his ribs, trying to free itself of its cage of flesh and bones. With everything that is left - every tiny bit of life left in his limbs, he lifts himself on his arms, forcing himself to look up, up at the sun, no, the void.
And nothing makes sense any more.
There is a crown, a crown of raven wing black hair, so dark it seems to swallow the light in its vicinity. No bones, no thorns. Only a few strands of light, greying hair mottling into the inkblack void mocking of a crown.
How does a demon look like? He had imagined flaming red eyes, teeth as sharp as daggers, blood dripping from the tips as well as glossy threads of translucent saliva and a foul breath like sulfur and decay emitting from within the maw of a dragon like creature.

He wasn't prepared for the demon king to have human skin, smooth light brown skin covered with pinkish white scars snaking up his big hands and veiny forearms, disappearing under the plate of leather armour covering his mighty chest.

Looking up, the youth could tell the king would be towering him, even if he would stand by at least a head's length. But even though tall and bulky, there is no bestiality in his height, nothing demonic in his broad shoulders. No, he is human through and through, yet those cold eyes the colour of a sword's blade shortly after polishing carry a crudeness no twisted horns and fire breath could wield.

The demon opens his mouth, to devour him, to feast on his flesh, on his fear-

"And what should this be?"

Where his teeth are not the daggers Payton imagined them to be, his voice cuts like the sharpened blade of a sword through the air. Deep and husky, it carries malice and condemnation, enough to set the whole world aflame.

Shaking under the sheer effort of lifting his head from the ground, the youth takes in an angular face full of sharp lines and edges, jaw set hard with determination and the unmistakable arrogance of a man that had yet to face whom he considered a worthy opponent.
And one thing was clear like the diamonds engraved at the hilt of the dagger tucked in the king's belt - Payton was not and would never be the one to teach this man humility.

"Your Majesty."

A storm is raging in those grey eyes as they snap to a point just behind the boy.

"You may speak." His voice growling thunder, his every breath a command.

"Your Majesty, we found him on the battlefield - alive." This bass, those harsh pronounced words are oddly familiar, yet they carry a servility that is strange to the image of a proud, seasoned general that Payton's mind conjures.
"We tested it, over and over, and every sword, every axe we raised against him refused to graze even a strand of hair on the boy's head."

Whispers rise, buzzing like a bee hive in agitation.

"This boy-", the general says slowly, dragging out every syllable in complacency. "- Is a Burdened."

And suddenly, all hell breaks free.

The muffled whispers rise to astonished shouts.
But all those voices become just a part of his rapid spinning world, as the king's gaze shifts to lay heavily on Payton's frame on the ground.

One flick of the dark king's hand is enough for silence to settle. The silence is terrifying, filled to the brim with anticipation and excitement.