Ten days after Han's return, the much feared news came. The prince had died. His illness had gotten so bad that it had eventually beaten him, leaving his 29-year-old son with all the unfinished business, as well as near-complete control of the province. The young man was not alone in governing, of course: he had to report to the king, and was flanked by various advisors and his trusted Wizard.
The news had pleased almost everyone in the small family living on the hill.
None of them had ever liked the prince, believing his management of the province to be bad: he had never cared for the health of the people, just as he had never invested in improving the roads, aqueducts, and all the necessary infrastructure. Even his army seemed to do its own dirty work, and the soldiers were often undisciplined. His only interest had always been his own.
Even of his own son he had cared little. He had only brought him up as his successor, to look after the money and honour of their family. He had never treated him as a real child or teenager and had never cared about his happiness or health.
Now that the prince was dead, everything had passed into the hands of his son Arden, the new prince of the Middle Valley. Very little was known of him, almost exclusively of his passion for art.
Everyone hoped he would do a better job than his father.
Even in the House on the Hill there was that feeling of hope for the new prince. None of them -except Narith and Han- knew of his intentions regarding the new law and the fate of the angels. The two, so as not to worry the rest of the men before they had to, had decided not to say anything. They preferred to keep that secret only to themselves, without unnecessarily alarming the other members of their family. They preferred to spare them the anguish, the fear, the thousand thoughts.
They began to count the hours of peace they still enjoyed.
Before every storm, before everything collapses and shatters beyond repair, there is a moment of absolute peace and tranquillity, a brief instant when time stands still and the world holds its breath.
And they felt that instant, they felt the tension rising and, along with it, their nervousness increased. They waited for the agitation at the palace to reach its peak, its highest peak, only to be shattered into hundreds of pieces. They felt the fragility of that moment of peace and saw the fracture that began to crack and crumble.
They hoped it would never happen; they hoped the moment of saying goodbye to their normality would never come. They were not ready to see Noah fall in front of them, they were not ready to see the fear that would settle in his eyes. They did not want to see Mikhael spend hours studying spells to cast on the house, just as they did not want to see Estel lose sleep and peace of mind. Everything, just to protect Noya's life and safety.
But it would happen, they knew. They knew that one morning they would wake up and everything would be different. It was inevitable.
To the detriment of Narith and Han's mood, however, absolutely nothing was happening. That moment of peace was lasting too long, and they couldn't take it any longer, couldn't keep their nervousness and stress at bay.
The others had noticed it too.
Narith had become more irritable and grumpy, while Han had entered a phase of absolute muteness. No one understood the reason for this change in mood because they both refused to speak on the subject, even denying the evidence. What confused the rest of the family the most was that pessimistic attitude in such a nice situation. Nice because the new prince was showing support for the people.
Only two weeks after his father's death, the prince had begun to take his first steps, favouring the restoration or reconstruction of those aqueducts and bridges that led directly to the capital. He had accepted the request to reclaim some swamps and had invited several artists to make the palace and its gardens more welcoming, and musicians and dancers to make the court more lively. There were rumours that he had also commissioned the construction of a library, perhaps to encourage the people to educate themselves and thus raise the level of the province.
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Feathers -eng ver-
FantastikA past that doesn't remember, a night, some blue eyes. It's all Noya knows about his life, before being forced to relive it all over again. After years, Noya's reality seems to finally go in the right direction: the monsters are far away, his new fa...
