The Kingship

Chapter 10

He's thoroughly evil, but he's still my younger brother. The thought of me killing my younger brother almost made me throw up. I couldn't do that. But he was still so evil. I tossed the sword aside and turned my back to him. No matter how badly the conflict raged within me, I would not be that man.

"Take him and the dark warriors who are left to the island Inimicus and watch them closely. They are never to leave that island. But they will die out one day."

"Oh praise Lieydan! Praise Lieydan!" Said the scratchiest voice I have ever heard. I grabbed my sword again and was shocked at the person I saw to whom the voice belong. She was a female snow person with saggy, wrinkly, scaley skin. Her dull eyes were excited but the effect was ruined with her bird's nest of hair and the yellow, rotting teeth in her otherwise-joyous smile.

"And you are..."

"I am the prophetess who spoke over you when you were a baby. Oh praise Lieydan! That the greatest of my prophesies is starting to come true! The first good thing has come to this winter light: mercy! Who better to usher in an age of goodness than the first of five who shows something so beautiful to us. The second will know how to deal justly as you have learned to deal mercifully."

She stopped talking, looked beyond me, and bowed deeply. I looked behind me too, glad to have an excuse to avert my eyes, and saw the reason why. There was a winged guardian clad in white. His wings had the most intricate design etched into them. His hair and beard were blacker than the blackest night. I knew who he was. He was Lieydan. There was a sort of greatness that hung about him. The guardians of the Snow Islands bowed to him as his shadow passed over them. I don't blame him. He was healing those he touched and didn't give a glance my way. For all my so-called mercy, I didn't deserve to meet the great one. But eventually he did look my way. And when he did, I dropped to my knees and bowed my head so that I wouldn't be looking at him. Who am I that I should?

But Lieydan flew to me and lifted my face so I could look into his eyes. "Son," he said in a voice that could shake the foundations of the earth but calm the most dangerous of blizzards. "I am proud of you."

"Sire," I half-whispered with a tremble in my voice. "I don't deserve your praise. I am nothing but a mere mortal whose days are few in your sight. I have done nothing compared to you, who gave me this life to use as wisely as I should."

"Son," the glorious one said again. "Don't you realize that that is the reason I am proud of you? You are the first in a long time to realize that your life is nothing compared to all time of this world or any other. You have taken a hard journey and you have indeed learned that there is more to being a king than the power it brings him. You know that what makes or breaks a king is his moral compass. And you are the first in nine thousand years that the Snow Islands has seen to arise and bless this land with your mercy. You and your descendants will bless many lands in the years to come."

"My lord," I said again still trembling even though I knew I had no reason to be. "I know now that it is futile to wish to not have something I know I will not have even if the prophesy says otherwise. But how shall these words come to pass if there is no one born of my blood? And especially now after what has been done to me, I know that I will never have any children of my own even though I now know what a joy it would have been."

"Llama, look and see what I have in store for you." As he said this he made a gesture as if he was showing me the landscape. Where his hand went, a white sparkle followed. Suddenly, three women who all looked to be in their mid-twenties appeared before me. The first was a woman whose hair was as dark as night and her skin as brown as chocolate. I wasn't overly surprised. I mean, I have subjects with purple skin but I had never seen skin that dark before. She wore a crimson dress and the crown of the Snow Islands rested on her head. She smiled and walked off into the distant future.