The Forgotten Light

20. Darksen

The wooden door slammed behind his back louder than he intended. Thandor, who was sitting behind a huge dark desk, lifted his surprised gaze to him from above the papers.

"Darksen, an entrance worthy of a king," he muttered and finished drawing lines on the paper. "What brings you to me at such a late hour?"

The Prince stopped in front of his father, glaring at him. "Why has the girl been released from the hospital and is working together with others without my knowledge?"

Thandor didn't even budge, he continued to lean over the sketch, assessing it with his eyes. Darksen clenched his fists, deciding to wait patiently so he wouldn't explode unnecessarily and draw any suspicion on himself.

But time passed, the silence being broken every second by the second hand of the old clock.

Darksen pounded the desk with his fists, leaning over his father. 

"Answer me!"

The king slowly raised his curious eyes. "I don't understand why you care so much about what happens to this human girl, your friend's killer. You have changed a lot since you took her captive."

"That's right. It was my hunt, so the girl is supposed to listen to my orders."

"My orders are to be obeyed by everyone, including her."

The Prince straightened up. So he was right to assume that it was his father who was acting behind his back. "Why didn't you say anything to me? And was it necessary to drag her out of bed while she was still healing?"

The king laughed and Darksen regretted his last question. Why couldn't he bite his tongue in time?

"She was well enough to stay on her own two feet. People are stronger than you think and will use your mercy to make things better for them." He looked emphatically into Darksen's eyes. "Not when I'm in charge."

Darksen smiled bitterly under his breath, shaking his head in disbelief. Their conversations were never normal. His father always either interrupted him in mid-sentence, dinning his royal wisdom into him, or simply cut off the conversation.

"How am I supposed to replace you in the future if even now I can't make my own decisions? You bar me from doing anything every time I..."

"Don't be dramatic," King interrupted him and stuck his nose in the papers again.

Darksen's blood boiled. He swung his arm and in the next moment saw his father's sketches swinging in the air and falling slowly to the floor. The golden robes rustled as Thandor started, looking at him furiously, and had already opened his mouth, but this time it was Darksen who began to speak first, enumerating on his fingers: "You don't care a hung about my opinion. I don't have your support. You turn my ideas away with a wave of your hand. You share your plans with me, but you hide most of the details anyway, keeping me at a distance. You don't give me a chance to make my own decisions. When will you finally stop telling me how to live and put me in control of my own life? I am your son, not one of your servants."

The prince took a deep breath, feeling relieved to finally get it all out of his system right in his father's face. He was no longer a child that Thandor could ignore, and when he did notice, give him orders that were supposed to make him better.

The king sank silently into a chair and rubbed the shiny tabletop with his large hands. He tightened the fingers of his right hand on the pencil and raised it to the height of his black eyes.

"Your second decision, which will be entirely up to you, and which I will greatly appreciate, will be sending the girl to the arena," he spoke in a poised voice.

He could have been reproached for his worst mistakes, his worst deeds. But Thandor knew that he was the one who would win anyway. No word had as much power as he did, and the King was fully aware of that.

"And what happened to the first one?" asked the Prince negligently.

The pencil, which the King held between two fingers, snapped and the two broken pieces rolled on the floor.

"Now you can decide whether you will send someone or go yourself and bring your slave here to clean up and properly arrange the plans and sketches you have just scattered so thoughtlessly."

Darksen threw a glance at the mess around the desk and then left without a word. Outside the door, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, holding the air in his lungs as long as possible, then let it out only when he felt a pain in his chest.

That night, Caster stood guard at the door of his chamber. When the Prince approached him, the soldier saluted him automatically. 

"Prince, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Not necessarily."

Darksen hadn't considered who would go after the girl, but it looked like he probably intended to do it himself. As if it was obvious.

However, something stopped him in the middle of the corridor. Would he manage to do it? Jolt her awake in the middle of the night and rush her to work? He realized that she would be putting his father's plans in order until dawn. And then there was the work in the fields awaiting her, which he sent her to do himself after Keiran had healed her shoulder.

Darksen cursed himself and turned back around. Every step seemed harder to take. Guilt crushed him to the ground.

When he faced the guard, it took him a moment to find the words. "Go down to the vault room where people sleep and bring the new slave girl to King Thandor."

He stood in the dark corridor until Caster disappeared behind a column. Then he entered the chamber and slammed the door with all his force. If the girl had not been human, the bang would probably have woken her up. Maybe she would have guessed that someone was just coming for her.

He knew that when he saw her in the morning, he would see monstrous fatigue and immense hatred.

And rightly so, because he hated himself now more than she ever could.

He felt terrible that she would be the one to pay for his mistake.

He was such a coward... He couldn't even go down there himself, look her in the eye and tell her what she had to do.

He was a coward who didn't understand anything about his life, couldn't find his place in the world, and the only thing he was good at was feeling sorry for himself.

He only hoped that she was stronger.