Royal Rebellion {on hold}

Chapter 8.2

The moment the seer saw us, she froze and her face turned deathly white. She hastily bowed and sputtered out.

"Your majesty, it is not good news. Do not fear, it is not bad news either." She fidgeted nervously under the impatient glare of the tyrant king. Before he could speak, mother intervened, holding my eight year old self in her arms.

"It is quite alright. Now what do you speak of my sons?"

I buried myself in her silk bodice, the ruffles tickling my nose. I wouldn't be able to be in her arms like this for much longer. I was already too old. Father seemed to ignore that fact and leave me be only because my older brother Darrel was crown prince.  Father was too busy focusing on him (that would change when I came of age) and besides, mother was delighted. She wished that I would never grow up and would stay in her arms forever.

The seer bowed again. "Your majesty. Your sons will suffer from a prophecy." At those words, her body seemed to stiffen and she closed her eyes, beginning to recite in a low, raspy voice.

I realized I was watching a memory through the eyes of my younger self. I could do nothing but watch. A sudden cacophony of static obscured the seer's words. I strained to hear but only heard a few stuttering words in the beginning like 'tower' and 'the dark sun' and 'darkness like coal'.

Father's face contorted into a murderous expression of anger.

"Lies!!" He bellowed. "All lies!!"

"Your majesty, please," The seer pleaded, cowering under father's anger. I could tell by experience that she feared for her life. I too, shrank back from the waves of fury and disbelieve rolling off my father. "

"Take her away!" He shouted. "This will never be heard of!" The seer screamed as guards burst into the private chambers and grasped her arms, dragging her away.

"Please, your majesty! I won't tell! Spare me please!" she wailed. Father ignored her. Mother hugged me closer to her and Darrel stared coolly on, though a little fear and nausea edged his expression.

I placed my hands over my ears. I couldn't stand this. The woman's shrieks and pleads for mercy resonated in my ears. Father always said that I was too soft and was a disappointment. Darrel was the ideal crown prince. But I had to do something.

Tugging out of mother's arms, I lept to my feet.

"Stop!" I shouted. The woman's screams stopped and every eye was on me. "Stop, father! She did nothing wrong!" My voice and confidence wavered as father's deadly glare turned on me. In a deathly calm voice he asked.

"Are you implying mercy?!?"

"Y-yes father. She did n-nothing wrong." I repeated, nearly whispering that last part, the confidence and nerve quickly vaporizing. Father's face twisted in a way I thought was not possible and in less than a second, his large, strong hand had wrapped around my wrist in a bruising grip. All my daring vanished as I was jerked forward.

"Henry, stop!" mother screamed leaping to her feet. Her silk skirts rustled loudly. Father turned on her.

"I will not! This BRAT is no son of mine!!!" he roared and shook my arm, rattling the tears out of me.

"Let go! Ouch, you're hurting me father!" His eyes narrowed and he deliberately tightened his grip. The snap of bone was audible, even in the noisy room and I screamed at the rush of burning pain. Everything was blurry and the room spun.

Father dragged me down to the dungeon after that. He even made me watch the old woman die. The blood of hers that had splattered on me was like poison but I could do nothing. In the memory, I was only eight. I couldn't resist father. And in my mind, the current me could only watch. He punished me after. He broke the skin on my back. It was the worst pain I had ever felt. 

I struggled to separate the pain and fear from reality and memory. I wanted this dream to end. I knew what would happen next. Mother would fall ill. She would die. I really didn't want to experience that again. 

The dream seemed to fragment and separate into other memories. A girl I'd never seen before and a family. Darrel's face. Father's. Mother's. Sunlight, then darkness. Birthdays and blood. Whips and scars. It all flew past me in a haze . A single fragment slammed home, echoing with a sudden, final boom.

◆◇◆◇◆

I woke up with a gasp, jolting up in my bed. For a a second, I didn't know where I was. I was drenched in sweat and my heart was pounding. My injured hand ached at the wrist like a echo of the pain I'd felt in the dream.

"Julian are you alright?" Earl entered my room rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The strong summer dawn light spilled through the doorway behind him,illuminating his silhouette.

"Yeah," I mumbled, swinging my feet onto the floor and resting my head in my hands. My brain still spun with the intensity of the dream. "Just a dream, just a dream."

Earl felt my forehead and frowned. "You're feeling a bit warm."

"I'm fine Earl. Just go back to...whatever you were doing. I'm going to stay here for a bit." I needed peace and quiet to sort the jumbled mess of my thoughts.

"Oh. Alright then. Call me if you need anything." Earl backed out of my room and gently closed the door behind him.

What was that? What did my dream mean? I felt like I was missing something important. I let out a frustrated growl and rubbed my head. Something wasn't clicking.

The dream was fading, getting fainter and fainter. Blurrier as I tried to remember. Details faded as I ran through the dream again, desperately trying to remember as much as I could.

Mother's face was so alive and well. But I tried to ignore that and focus on finding the answers to all the questions in my head.

Who was the girl and that family? Why couldn't I hear the seer's words in my dream? What did she say? If it was a prophecy, what about it made father so mad? Prophecies were often in riddles. Had father already figured it out or did he just not like it? Why was the seer there in the first place? Did I have more memories missing?

And then there was the matter of the rebellion. I'm sure they want to overthrow father and the monarchy (duh.) but how did I fit into this besides being royal?

All these questions made my head ache  and throb with an incoming headache.

Like words washed away by the ebbing tide, the dream faded from my mind until it was so faint all I could make out was a blur of colours. That was another question. Why hadn't I remembered this? It was my memory but I don't even remember it happening. Did someone do something to me?

Just as I was about to give up, my vision swam and i was looking at a dark plain. Two gleaming obsidian towers stood on it. They were both black. They looked a lot like chess pieces. As I watched, the one on the left slowly began to crumble and collapse. My ears seemed to ring with the resounding boom.  

I blinked and I was looking at my room again. What was that? My fingers reached for the paper on the desk so I could record what I saw. But when I finished writing what I saw wasn't a description. It was almost like a short, incomplete poem. One line only.

The two towers will fall by the hand of one,

I had written a comma on the end. I was certain there was more but my mind was blank. As I puzzled over all this strange information, one new question rose in my mind. I realized, I never knew why Skye was there, in town. I was certain I saw her go into her room. Perhaps she was more than who she said she was.