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"You see, it's the slow knife that cuts the deepest" --Talia al Ghul
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Damian shivered as his mother wrapped her arm around him. "I expected nothing less of you, my son."
Damian practiced self-control in not even glancing at Jon. He didn't deserve to look Jon in the eye after what he'd done, but that wasn't it.
He didn't dare to hope that the emptiness had broken for a second because of his doing. He didn't dare to hope Jon had got the message. He didn't dare to hope that something remained between them.
Hope starts where facts fall short.
His grandfather nodded at him and gestured to Jon for the servants to come and lead him away. "Talia, bring Damian to meet our royal guest. You can inform him there and congratulate her, as well. She will be Queen once more in a week."
"Of course, father." Talia placed his hand on the small of his back and led him out of the courtyard. "When you were small, you asked me for tales of Alexander the Great. Do you remember?"
"Yes, mother." They were his favorite stories as a child. The conqueror had seemed larger than life itself, but his mother made it seem as if he could grasp it all in his tiny palm.
His mother seemed pleased by his remembrance. They walked at a brisk pace. His mother's strides were shorter than his—he had finally grown into a build like his father's—but more graceful. She walked with the tasteful tilting of her hips at every step and the slick slide of her foot forward. Lesser members of the League of Shadows lowered their heads at they passed.
"Your empire is nearly at hand. You are not so far off from your destiny as you may think. I knew from the moment you diverted to your father's ways that you would someday return to our care, and I prepared accordingly. No lion can pretend to be a gazelle for long."
Some part of him quivered at the notion, and a picture of a scarred, bleeding chest flashed in his mind's eye. This is who you are. This is what you always will be. A murderer.
No. He had to prove them all wrong. Otherwise, the cowl would never fall into his hands.
The halls of Nada Parbat had open sides hidden by blue velvet curtains, allowing the cool mountain air to seep into the palace's bones. Wooden floors with etches made by swords paved their way.
His mother once told him that the sides were built that way in case of an invasion: it was much easier to evacuate the premises when there were many exits. He wondered if they would make adequate escape routes before pushing the thought aside. Every corner of the castle was watched and guarded, and it would be too bold a stroke to hop out a window.
They entered a dorm room. Two guards stood outside the door. A maid with dark hair and grass green eyes--- something about her bugged him, but it was more in a familiar way than an offsetting one, and he wondered if she had some relative that served him when he was a child--- poured tea into china cups.
Damian examined his grandfather's preferred pawn. The ex-queen of Bialya sat in a plush green chair with golden legs that clawed into a Persian carpet. Veins sprung up on the back of frail hands, and regal wrinkles decorated the sides of her eyes and cheeks. Dark eyes stared back at him from under their caramel hoods. Dark lips coated with a shade of red that seemed terribly wrong curled at the sight of him. A golden crown still lounged on her head, straight and strict as the one who wore it.
YOU ARE READING
Gone
Fiksi Penggemar"The people were gone, but their shadows remained" --Ray Bradbury (on his visit to Hiroshima after the bombing) In which children became weapons, adults became monsters, and dreams became nightmares Or, Damian Wayne, now nineteen and desperate to pr...
