A Terrible fate

Part 13

He would show us the hidden rooms and passages that led down to the kitchens, the best spaces to hide and pop out of to surprise our parents, and the best ways to get around the guard when we wished to slip out into the less protected areas.

I was never told exactly how it happened, but he had given up the throne in favor of my father's ruling. He had four sons, the eldest and three youngest of my cousins. Andranik was the oldest one, six years older than me and my brother. He had the same pale blue eyes and nearly gray-blonde hair that his father had. He was far less mischievous than my uncle, I was told that he took after his mother when it came to his personality and temperament.

He was level-headed, calm, and could sit still for hours.

It doesn't sound impressive but it's a necessary skill for any royal or noble child to have, and he could sit still all day long if he had to.

He was very protective of his younger brothers, always hovering around them and picking them up by the scruff to carry them along with him.

He had the best books, and always let me borrow them to read whenever I wanted to. He was good with swords and his lessons and was the best of us at dancing.

He would have been having his nineteenth birthday soon. The only one out of our whole family to have a winter birthday. There would have been cake and dancing and presents abundant. He would have gotten some new swords, which always ended up in our cousins' rooms before long as they begged him to let them use them, books for his personal collection, cloaks, and jewels, and maybe even a small crown because he was set to rule his father's duchy when he came of age.

It would have been wonderful.

But it was all gone now.

Instead of turning another year over he was gone. I think I began to cry again as I remember the last time I saw him.

Golden brown skin wrapped in fine blue clothes as he lay slumped by his brothers' side. One of them curled up against him, his throat slit, the other crumpled beneath him, the broken shaft of one of my grandfather's spears sunken into his heart. The youngest of the triplets was bleeding into a puddle on the floor, cradled by my uncle's limp arms.

The triplets were the kindest, youngest, most beautiful souls to live. They were younger than me and my brother by two years. All three of them were deaf and mute to different degrees. The oldest had the most hearing and was what was called 'selectively mute'. My father had told me that it meant that he could speak, but he didn't and so he would now have much difficulty speaking if he tried to. The middle one could not speak and could only hear a little, he was the noisiest one though, always humming and chuffing and shuffling around making noises with his hands like snaps and clapping. The youngest was completely deaf and mute, but he was the sweetest one.

Uncle had found the three of them amongst the ruins of a burned village that had been raided years prior. The three of them were in horrible shape, I can still remember the sight of their little bodies scarred and rotting almost, as they were whisked away for some warm baths and lots of rest. The triplets were three when they were found, and my uncle fell in love with them, immediately taking them in as his own. Andranik was much the same, nearly ecstatic to have his own little brothers. He was always a little jealous when it came to the cousins who had siblings, and now he had three whole little brothers to call his own.

The three triplets were named Sahid, Amal, and Hanan. The eldest was Sahid, for sacrifice. He was always sneaking his things to the younger two. Food, water, clothes, toys, blankets, pillows. Anything he had went right to them, and when my uncles and father started to stop him from doing that he did it in secret.

Mother said Sahid did this because that's what he always had to do before they came here, to keep the younger two alive and happy he gave them everything he found.