They're Watching You

Chapter 1

Seven years later...

King Brice stood on the balcony overlooking his people, ready to make a speech.

Princess Adelaide was now seven years old , to the King's surprise, and frighteningly pale, but that was probably due to nerves. She was currently standing at his side, as tradition requested, but was further back than would be usual so that the mass of people down below would hardly be able to glimpse her.

The King had kept his distance from his daughter as much as possible since she was born. All she was to him was a symbol of hypocrisy that lingered around him constantly and gave his subjects ammunition to doubt his views.

When she had been born he had made sure to fully explain publicly that she would grow up just as those with grey eyes did. Her powers would lay dormant, suppressed, and she would be treated no more special than anyone else and that the only reason she was to remain with them is to ensure their bloodline ran on. It would be as if she was not even endowed.

He also made sure to emphasise the point that her eyes were purple, granted with the gift of being a seer, no more dangerous that a woman sat at a table with a crystal ball in her hands.

Grey eyes were a blank slate: a tabula rasa. They were blank canvases waiting to be drawn on, to be painted on, to be marred and coloured and distorted to the will of the wielder of the art supplies.

In this analogy, the King himself was the wielder and the supplies are the army at the King's disposal. King Brice liked to imagine that they were red paint to remind him how easily he could unleash them upon anyone at any given time, leaving a splatter of blood in their wake.

The unendowed would bend and shape to the mould that the King created. He was now the most powerful person in Dakondra, the country of which he ruled. Him, and him alone, would rule these subjects through fear.

There would be no more meaningful threats against the monarchy; there was no one powerful enough to carry them out. Peace was what he had created.

Of course, there was still resistance against the monarchy; it was inevitable, a natural part of society. Some people claimed that his rule was more of a dictatorship than anything. There were also those who fought for the rights of the endowed, claiming that everything was harmonious before the then new king upset the apple cart. This was only partially true however, no matter the circumstances, someone will always find the need to revolt but it just increased significantly when he took the throne. Then, naturally, the endowed themselves attempted to cause a riot but they were disposed of quickly enough in the same way that they all are. Every rebellion fell victim to the same end, though. These flames in the midst of bleakness were snuffed out before they could really burn, before they caught fire.

"We have been living in fear for too long. We are finally completely free from their hold on us," the King bellows the beginning of his speech into the eagerly awaiting crowd below him.

As expected, excited cheers rose up to greet him and the sound filled him with pride that was evident by the glow in his face. It had taken seven years to weed out the endowed who were hiding among his people, sheltered by their grey-eyed families. It had taken too long but the time was also spent extracting sympathisers and criminals breaking the law to help them.

In the early years that this process began, a law was created to ban the production and distribution of tinted contact lenses but companies had overproduced the product in anticipation of the passing of this law and to meet the demand. The possession of coloured contact lenses is now also illegal.

"We may have grey eyes but we will lead colourful lives. Our vision will not be tainted and distorted by those who seek to control us and scaremonger us into submission. There is now one side and we are all on it together." King Brice continued his speech.