Kingdom of Smoke and Ivory

Part Three- The Humans

Speak not of weapons or of war,

Give not reason to question,

Say no thoughts, lest asked for.

Always know they are unforgiving.

Speak not of friends, lest they go looking.

Summon not the humans.

It had taken Chace and his father's army a mere half day to track down the witches and wipe them all off the face of the Parallel. They'd left Faded Ash in ruins and with not even a single casualty amongst their own ranks.

They had been right outside the town limits when the strange, pale girl approached him. Or rather, she looked sheepishly at him, the hint of a question on her lips.

"Can I help you, miss?" Chace had asked her tentatively. She was lovely, certainly. Her pale skin and the blond hair that she was always pushing from her eyes, created quite a beautiful picture.

"Well, I..." She seemed to take a deep internal breath and then...

"Your brother... Clay was your brother?" Chace blinked at the girl. Did she just ask the prince about his newly dead sibling? Did she know not know who she spoke to?

"Of course," he decided to say. She exhaled in relief and then straightened up.

"I um, kno- knew Clay, and I just... Who killed him?" she asked in a way that had Chace's eyebrows scrunching together.

"I'm sorry, you knew my brother? How?" For certainly this girl was much closer to his own age than his younger brother's. "Aren't you a little too old to be making friends with the children?"

"Please. Age is but a number for good company." Chace looked at this girl. She didn't know who he was. She was open minded enough to be friends with children. And, of course, she was beautiful. Chace thought he could like this girl. But a question nagged at him.

"Wait. You knew my brother, but don't know of me?"

"I'm sorry, he didn't much talk about his family." Chace deflated a little at that. Had his little brother been ashamed of him? Or had he just wanted to make a friend who wouldn't look at him different for being a royal? Actually, the sound of that was like a merry tune to Chace's ears.

"But surely you'd have recognized us before. You know who we are? Your family does?" he suggested before introducing himself, lest he have gotten the wrong idea.

"Actually... I don't have a family. They're all dead. It's just me. And I don't usually stay anywhere too long." She looked away from him as she said the words. She looked towards to the forest. He saw no tears, but perhaps she had recovered from the fact that she was alone and was moving on from it.

Finally, he extended a hand.

"Well, then. I'm... Michael." He gave her the name his grandmother used to call him when he was still young and she was still alive. Half of his last name and very different from his first. He'd loved it. The girl was slow to accept his hand, but finally grabbed it and shook firmly.

"I'm E- er- Nora. My name is Nora." As his chocolate colored fingers wrapped around her porcelain ones, they smiled at each other. For the first time, he noticed the almost violet color of her eyes. They were enchanting. He'd always wished for a different color than the brown eyes he'd been given. Even Clay had been granted blue eyes.

Clay.

He'd realized for the first time in days that he thought about his brother without crying or yelling. He smiled ever the more widely at Nora.