The Dark Princess

Milo

Brooke and I arrived at the castle near dusk, and I stopped her a few yards from the doors.

"Hey," I said, "what if I tied you up here to impress her?"

Brooke looked at me blankly for a little while then smirked and said "I think you would look better if I came in willingly." I decided not to continue the conversation anymore. She was scaring me a little.

We continued into the castle like nothing had happened, Brooke leading the way. The moment we entered the castle, the Night Men appeared. They're people made entirely of darkness. They escorted us to the throne room, where my mother was waiting. It took all of my willpower not to start scowling when I saw her. When she saw me, she tsked in disapproval. A year ago, I would have been ashamed by her constant disapproval. Now, it was expected.

"Milo, Milo, Milo," she said. "It's about time you got back." I grit my teeth to hold back a reply. I knew she didn't want to be spoken to yet. "How did you lose your eye?" Now she wanted to be spoken to.

"Your spell put a stick through it," I said, then, switching the use of my willpower to not using sarcasm, added "Your Majesty." She just nodded and waved her hand. I grunted as pain filled my ruined eye, and reached up to take  the eye-patch off as it went away. Brooke's eyes widened slightly as she saw that it was fixed. I resisted a smirk.

My mom turned to Brooke. "Now for you," she began, "I had my son take you here for really quite simple a reason. I need you to choose. I give you a simple choice, but since you came here willingly, I assume you know your options?" She looked at Brooke pointedly, inviting her to speak. I thought Brooke was busted.

Then, she surprised me. "I know only that you gather an army, your majesty, and when your son told me who he was, I decided to investigate. I had to deceive him to make sure he was who he said he was, however." I couldn't hide my surprise.

My mother laughed. "Well," She said, "Looks like you did a good job of deceiving him." I grit my teeth again.

Brooke changed the subject. "So, what were you going to offer me?"

My mother laughed again. "I was going to offer you a choice between a spot in my army or death. I'm assuming you choose to be in my great army." Here is where I was sure that Brooke would choose death rather than betray her princess. I hadn't gotten the impression that she was a traitor the long hours I had known her. Quite the opposite, actually. Again, she surprised me.

"Wholeheartedly," came her reply. I could swear I saw absolute evil fill her eyes as she said that.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next week was a nightmare. My mother obviously loved Brooke, and trained her in magic personally. As for me, however, she was even more dismissive and disapproving than usual. I didn't dare even speak in her presence for fear of being thrown back into the dungeon with a monstrous inmate. I went to the courtyard at least twice a day that week to put a few more condemned monsters to death. I was never even scratched. There was one such incident that ended the twice-a-day thing, making it more of a once-a-day thing. We were at supper, and Brooke had made some comment on my "incompetence at everything that didn't involve a sword". I had been clenching my teeth and fists for a few minutes since the comment, because my mother was there. As I mentioned before, I would have been punished just for speaking in her presence. Brooke made another mean comment, and I nearly lost it.

I stood up suddenly, not sure when I had decided to do so, and said something like "I'm going to the courtyard." I left before I could see my mother's look of disapproval.

When I got to the courtyard, I walked around the outside, opening the three most dangerous monsters' cages. We were running low on condemned monsters. I would have to fix that. The monsters burst out of their cages, determined to succeed where their brothers had failed. They wanted to live, and I wanted to kill them. Well, I didn't want to kill them, but I couldn't kill my mom. I turned and walked toward the weapons rack in the middle of the courtyard, seemingly oblivious of the monsters charging at me from behind. Then, as a monster reached me, I swirled around, slashing at the monster's tough hide. The sword didn't kill it, but that was expected. The monster reared back, howling. I reached in and jabbed its belly. Still not dead. Anger overtook my mind. My mother's smirk . . . slash! Brooke's snide comments . . . dead with the first monster. I could picture my mother's scowl at my first minor failure . . . chopped away with monster number two's wing. The second monster nearly got me with fire, but I rolled away in time. Brooke my mom's new favorite . . . stab. My now-dull sword went through the monster's head. I tore it out as monster number three arrived. I thought of the first few years of my life, when my mother still loved me at least a little bit. I thought of the days spent futilly trying to impress or at least satisfy my own mom. I thought of the day I finally gave up, sitting on the cot in the cell I'd been put into by the mother I decided not to love anymore. With a cry of utter anguish and anger, I lunged at the most dangerous of the three monsters. My anger gave me sufficient strength to plunge the dulled sword through the monster's rock-hard scales like they were butter. I fell to one knee, both hands on the hilt of the sword, plunged hilt-deep into the monster's flesh. Only then did I realize I was crying.

I left the corpses of the three monsters and my sword in the courtyard for the Night Men. To my surprise, I found Brooke outside the wooden fence designed to protect onlookers.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, my voice hoarse.

She looked a little scared, but a little bit guilty as she replied "I came to say sorry." I shrugged it off. I didn't really believe her. This was Brooke. Naturally loud, sarcastic, annoying, and . . . apparrently rude. No, I didn't really believe her. But . . . I admit I was a little curious.

I looked at her cautiously. "What for?"

She looked down. "Everything." Nothing more needed to be said. I knew at that moment that she meant it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of the week was even better than if Brooke hadn't been there, because she was. I went back to killing only one monster a day, just for practice. Then we got the assignment. My mother told us that a recruited witch had failed her, and that we needed to clean up her mess. The Elfin Princess was still alive, and we were to fix that. If we failed to kill her within a day, we were to destroy the castle. It was made of wood, so burning it would be ideal. She then proceeded to place a spell on each of us that would begin to kill us of sickness by day three. Two days after the sickness started, we would both die. After she placed the spell on Brooke, she looked up at Sasha and smiled.

"I won't fail you." As we walked out of the throne room, I told Brooke how impossible this was going to be.

She looked at me funny and said "Don't worry, I intend to fail . . . at least partway."