Burned to Ashes

Chapter Nineteen

My mind is blank.
    Not an uncommon occurrence over the past few months.
Sometimes I will have hundreds of thoughts at once. So many voices speaking to me, all overshadowed by one voice. So loud and earsplitting.
My fathers.
And then sometimes there was nothing. Like my mind was encapsulated in a deep dark void, the silence unbearable. At times like this I feel nothing. No emotion. But when things get loud I get angry, or sad, or ever so rarely, happy. Sometimes all three at once. When I am like this I can be somewhat-- unpredictable, as my father would say. But mostly I am empty. A shell, if you will. Sometimes I do things and I don't know why. I get angry and hurt somebody, like that maid girl, or like my betrothed. And later I begin to wonder why I ever even did those things. Sometimes I don't care. Sometimes I like it. My father has made me this way. But I do not resent him. Because he told me not to. 
I sit in my father's office, the room wrecked into havoc. Books and maps laid on every surface, once pristine swords and daggers littered the floor, I had stepped over them with caution. After the escape of my fiancee and my brother the castle has been thrown into chaos. Riots erupted throughout all of Lexindale, Mayhaven, and even as far as Soverntine. The people are beginning to lose trust in my father after all of his lies were revealed. Everyone now knows what Xavier is. Some believe that my father knew all along, and some think it is as dumbfounding to him as it is to everyone else. But Princess Kalea? They know she was being held here against her will, and that my father's alliance to Kelden was forced. They are beginning to suspect the same for Elkland and even the Eastern Continent. I don't know how my father is going to dig himself out of this. I don't think there is anything I can do. My head began to pound as my father entered the room, his footsteps heavy on the marble.
The kings eyes were sunken, his brown hair stood awry underneath his golden crown. His tan skin was tight, an irritable look on his face. A massive scar gaped on his neck, the healers had tried their best but even magic has its limits. The memory of my brothers teeth was forever printed on my father, and he wore it with disdain; a constant reminder of the true monster his son is. I haven't seen much of my father over the past few days. I can't tell if that is a good thing or not. He made his way over to his oak desk, not bothering to remove the mass of papers that stood atop it. He puts a hand on his chair but doesn't sit. Our identical eyes meet.
"The council refuses to meet." The king says, his grip on the chair tightening, his knuckles turned white.
I don't know what to say.
"My soldiers haven't returned. I've sent more, but who knows how far the princess has gotten." He grits his teeth. "Soverntine has been breathing down my neck and my council refuses to help me."
"Half of them are dead father." The words leave me quietly.
"Yes and why is that?" He narrows his eyes. "Maybe if you hadn't gotten overpowered by your own brother, or should I even call him that?"
A ping of anger rises in me. I waited for it to subside. "He wasn't alone." My father knows this. My brother was a part of something bigger, he has been for a long time.
"Tell me again, who was he with?" The kings voice is low.
"I can't be sure—I was...incapacitated." My mind grew foggy trying to remember the events. I was awake, they had me on the cold stable ground, Xavier and one of the others arrived. He smelled like blood. They were dragging me across the courtyard and then—nothing. I can't remember anything after that. All I know is that I had to spend a day in the infirmary, Madeleine spent every minute with me trying to repair whatever it was Kalea did to me, so I was told. My father slammed a fist onto the desk, shaking the entire room. I was taking too long to respond.
"Speak boy."
"Princess Natura was there, so was Allister Hawkins. There was a tall man with black hair that I have seen around the castle before; a guard perhaps. Another man with black hair, I recognized him. I heard them call him Ansel, if I am correct we have had a warrant out for him for some time now. There was a blond woman who frequented many of the castles events, I might have spoken to her once. I couldn't see anyone else but there might have been more."
"So you think they are part of something bigger?" My father furrowed his brows.
"I—I don't know but it wouldn't be outrageous to assume. If they were smart they'd have people waiting for them in Kelden, it wouldn't matter anyway. Once they cross the border there's nothing we can do; it is not out jurisdiction." I felt the need to present this fact despite knowing my father is very aware.
"I do not need my nineteen year old son to lecture me on the laws. The council does that enough." He releases his grip on the chair, deep fingernail marks were imprinted into the leather.
"I'm sorry." I say, following him with my eyes as he paces around the room. "But father, if they truly are part of something bigger than we cannot be pushing our luck."
"Do you think I am some idiot?!" He spins on me. "We can't let her get away."
I clench my fists, no power resides behind them. "Kalea is falenless. She doesn't have magic. You know as well as I do that Siphons don't exist anymore."
"Shut up!" His voice rings through my veins. "Why must you challenge me?!"
I swallow.
"You are only to speak when I tell you to." His eyes bored into mine, trying to find something in them. Some sliver of emotion, or a glimpse of humanity. He comes away empty handed.
I don't speak.
"I saw her Lyle." He grits his teeth. I could hear it in my skull. "She pulled the power out of you. You turned white. The entire courtyard was on its knees. I thought she had killed you."
If I die before the extraction is complete my father will lose his power, everything he has worked so hard for. Everything I have endured would be for nothing.
He stops pacing, taking time to observe a map strewn across his desk. It was a map of Kelden. "She has single handedly destroyed any trust we had with our people. We must find her and bring her back alive, there is no alternative."
My mind gets quiet and I find the strength to speak against my father's will. "Then what? You take her power too? What about after that? Kill her? Make a show of it?"
As if out of nowhere anger erupts from my father as he slams a fist on his desk with an inhuman strength. Spider webbing cracks spread over the surface with a deafening boom. I don't flinch as I look at my father, my eyes unblinking.
"Why are you talking!" The king seethes. He rounds the table to approach me. I plant my feet sternly on the ground in the event that he throws me across the room. He leans down until we are eye to eye.
"You are nothing." He spits. "There is nothing in that damn head of yours!" He slaps me upside the head with an open palm. My neck stiffens at the impact. I don't react. "So tell me," The whisper left his mouth as a threat. "Why are you talking?"
I look into my father's dark eyes unflinchingly, a stinging pain brewing on the side of my face.
"During the escape, our connection broke didn't it?" The king asks. "I know, I felt it. My control over you has weakened."
I don't want to be maimed by Madeleine anymore. I can never remember anything from when it occurs, but the effects afterwards are torturous.
"You wouldn't have been able to do what you just did if our connection was weakened father." I say calmly, my voice low.
He grimaces, the crease in his forehead standing out. He stands, moving away slowly. "We will have to have another round with Madeleine." He looks down at his hands, curling his tan fingers. "It is getting harder to control."
"How much longer until this will kill me?" I ask the question casually without much feeling behind it.
"I've been told it will happen eventually," my father shrugs not meeting my eye. "But as long as I am king I will not let it. Your life is valuable as is your marriage to Kalea. The alliance is the only thing that can dig Mayah out of this."
I sigh with sheer annoyance. "I thought we were done with this."
The king gives a pondering expression, as if deciding something. "I will not kill her. At least not for a while."
The thought of the Kelden princess out living me is upsetting. But after a moment the feeling leaves, as if it were never there.
"You see son," The king starts. "This is not what I had expected. But the power runs so deep in your veins, removing it has been—challenging. The connection between Falaners and their ability is something they are born with. It is part of who you are. A Siphon can take powers without causing all of these unnecessary side effects." He gestures to me, insinuating that I am a side effect.
My father wants Kalea alive for the same reason he wants me alive. If he wants to do to her what he is doing to me, maybe I will be spared. "So I will be able to live?" The thought isn't bared with any happiness just genuine curiosity.
"For as long as I can help it." My father looks onto his desk, the cracks still ever so prevalent from his outrage. "But you must understand, we have to do what is right for Mayah. If keeping the princess alive proves more useful, then that is what we shall do."
I nod. "Of course."
The king sighs from deep in his chest. "But we must find her first."
"We will." I say. "As long as she walks with Xavier they are bound to get caught."
At the mention of my brother the king rubs his temples as if fighting a painful headache. "That is another thing we must deal with." He says.
"Let the guards deal with him. Bringing him back here would be useless."
The king looks forward, staring into nothing. His lips pull back into a ferocious snarl. "I want his head."
I dip my head, feeling as though I have been dismissed. "And so you shall have it."
I can see rage bubble in my father's chest all over again. My eyes graze over the scar on his neck once more, the intensity of it jarring. It will be with him forever, the jagged lines and marred flesh haunting him till death.
The king reads my thoughts, the feeling of him rummaging through my head familiar. It only makes him angrier. To my surprise, he laughs.
"I knew Kalea was behind the poisoning of Lord Tanovan. I thought I had scared her into giving up her efforts."
"She was behind it all. Lord Tanovan, my poisoning, the assassination attempt. She confessed it to me." I lower my voice in fear that someone may be listening through the walls.
My father's face goes white. He didn't know. "She is smarter than I thought." He scratches his dark stubble. The room goes quiet as the king slowly descends into a deep train of thought. A dangerous thing.
"We are out in the open here." He starts to breath heavily. "She is the second Netlocke to ruin everything for me! How did I not suspect she would be just like her mother?" He turns around, looking out the window. His hands were white knuckled on the sill. "I continue to make the same mistakes. It is the same as me and Amiras. Then Warren arrived. That man ruins everything he touches!"
I watched my fathers back as it heaved with anguish. "Then I finally did it. I killed her. And still they choose to cross me!" He spins on his heel, his eyes flashing a manic blue. "Well not again. Warren will regret that he ever spoke my name." Murder resides in his voice. "Him and his daughter."
His scar seemed to flush red as his blood boiled. With one flick of his wrist the mass of papers and books on his desk flew through the air with unnatural force. They crashed to the ground around us. "I have more power than I know what to do with. He smiles, a look of insanity passes over his face. "I would like to see them try to take me down."
"When has anyone defeated us father?" I could feel the pride radiate between us. A king and his heir.
"No one, and Warren Netlocke has seemed to forget that. I have reminded him once with his wife's blood; this time I will do it with his daughters." My father looked at me. The thought of spilling Kaleas blood excited me as much as it excited my father.
The king lets his words draw out slowly, making sure they have time to sink in.
"This is war."