A HENRY STORY 2: Trials Of The Fallen Prince

XVII. Too Late

Complete darkness encompassed Henry as he shot up on his sheet. He gasped for air, the sound of his own breaths resonating in his ears, casting a tumultuous and discordant array of colors across the walls of Kismet's cave.

Henry struggled to compose himself, wiping the sweat from his forehead and taking deep breaths. In and out. This skill is one of the mind, Kismet said in his head, so it will be affected by your mental state. Your perception may differ based on your emotions and moods. In and out.

With his third inhale, the static in Henry's mind began to retreat. The cave was unchanged, save for the fact that he was not viewing it with his eye. He focused briefly and, as anticipated, found it devoid of any presence.

Fixing his perception on the wall next to him, Henry envisioned the tally marks etched into it. He needn't count them to know exactly how many there were. Without hesitation, his hand sought out his piece of chalk, and he added another mark, making it one hundred and thirty-three.

Minutes went by as Henry sat still in darkness. It did not frighten him, but he still disliked it. The darkness was not limiting anymore, but it was lonely. He pulled his legs to his chest, shoving aside the memory of his nightmare—the first nightmare in . . . longer than he could remember. Why did he have nightmares again? It had not been like before. This time he had been running and flailing in utter darkness—the kind that was not only dark but also silent. Screaming for help but nobody came. Whom had he expected to come?

Henry deliberately turned from the wall with his tally. He did not linger on the spot where he remembered the sixty-fifth mark—the bold one. The one he would have loved to scratch from the wall because its sight was unbearable.

We will fly together.

His body became tense as the words echoed in his mind. Henry attempted to take himself back to it, back to . . . Yet to his horror, the memory was so faint that he could no longer envision it. To fly, he clenched his jaw. The memory of . . . flying.

He is not coming back.

Henry angrily brushed away the tears that formed as he thought about the words. He is not . . .

Sixty-eight days. One more than yesterday's sixty-seven. Yesterday had been a good day; Kismet had chased him through a challenge course three times in a row, then some focus exercises. Aiming with the slingshot and with Mys, a bit of sword handling, and of course the daily control exercises. Despite Kismet's praise for his improvement in controlling this new "sense," Henry continued to grapple with the recurring feeling of no control.

Kismet said he was pushing himself too hard. But to make progress, he had to. It was because neither he nor Kismet shied away from pushing him that he had made considerable progress since he had crossed the threshold. He rarely experienced sensory overload anymore and could now differentiate between background and foreground sounds, turning echolocation into something like an applicable and invaluable new sense, indeed. Kismet assured him that he would soon be able to actively employ it in battle, accurately assessing distance, depth, speed, and attack angles that were no longer perceivable by his vision.

Henry tightened his jaw and stood. If Kismet wasn't ready yet, he would go practice by himself. The more he practiced, the closer he would get to mastery, and it was miles better than sitting here, idle. The creeping thought that he had nowhere to rush himself because he had nowhere to go even if he became a master, even if he became the greatest warrior of all time, Henry shoved aside.

Perhaps his next lesson would have to be to take his time. His head swiveled back toward the tally. Maybe he should discontinue it. He did not want to document the passage of time; he wanted to let it all meld into an unending cycle. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Let it all meld, and let me lose myself in oblivion.