I Am Part Ice And Light

6. The Castle

3rd person's POV:

Seena, Keona, Erick, Taiana, Nasila and Kato all start to head from their cottage. It was barely sunrise so they had almost 2 hours to get to the castle since their cottage was on the other side of the kingdom altogether. It's going to be a long walk for 6 exhausted young people. Fuck this is going to be a long day. As they're all passing the Bourgohs they see everyone who was at the riot last night looking exhausted and defeated as ever before. They all join together in a group march as if they're walking to a funeral. They're walking and thinking about how long it took for them to get to where they were. To heal the kingdom after the war and how so many people inexplicably disappeared into dust as if nothing happened. All the chaos, disaster and utter shit left for their abandoned children to put back together again. They think about their very old times at the orphanage and how happy they were to finally move out of it and live on their own by working past midnight and until their fingers bled and tears came out. But that felt like another lifetime ago. They look at the pink and orange sky with the white fluffy clouds lifting into the sky as it reveals the castle, their permanent home from now on, not their real one though. But maybe for Seena. He glances at Keona and sees her in soft, very quiet tears to her feet and he gently wraps his arm around her shoulder and she grabs onto his jacket and wraps her arms around his waist. Senna looks to see if Erick notices but he's too in his own thoughts staring at the floor to notice or even care. As all the people stood in front of the castle gates. A guard blew a whistle on their horse in their metal uniforms as they passed across the gate on the inside. The metal gates slowly and eerily open as if there's curse to come along in this castle. Most of their workers have never seen the royal family because of their 'special powers' and only close members could only get close to them, which included Keona and Taiana and occasionally Nasila. The former mob slowly walked in through the gates and they all looked at the castle in awe. This is their first time walking through the front gates they all had to come through the back door and such. The castle was tall and wide. There stood ten towers all connecting together into the solid grey stone bottom of the castle. All the towers had glass covers there were almost ice like that or lit wrapped around the towers that had their cone tops that were painted a deep red. The entrance to the front door had a thick iron gate that had to be pulled up to show the castle's front door entrance. The whole group slowly walked forward taking everything in. The front door was an upside down 'U' shape that was pointed at the top with a dark wooden frame connecting it to the walls. The door had a glass that had an ice color to it. It consisted of ice inside the glass that formed almost like an outline drawing of the royal family on the top with them in a circle around a fire with their hands cupped together as if they're praying. It had the king, queen, the oldest daughter, Taylor, the youngest daughter, Anna, and their middle child, the missing prince. Along the door it had all smaller drawings of the royal family's bloodline in their own little bone fires but at the bottom had a small outline of a woman with her hands out and her elbows bent but besides her was an outline of a tall slim man with a little girl holding his hand was they stood together as a little family. It's said that in their way of ruling the kingdom, the king chooses who the next ruler will be out of his children, it's not the first born who had the right to rule. They did this because most of the time things did not turn out well with the first child because power got to their head too fast, a child with certainty of power and not really earning it or seeing its God given value. The king has three children, his oldest wants the throne too much, she thrives on the strength of others she has no sense of independence for her thinking and when he does it's sometimes for her self interest. His youngest wants nothing to do with the throne, all she wants is to solve the sufferings of her people to finally have peace in their kingdom. So the king has chosen his only son, someone he doesn't even truly know. He feels him though, in his heart he knows he's good. He knows he can hold his own, lead the unleadable and fight for the good. He knew the forest had been a good home for him for the longest time and the animals had protected and served him well as he grew up. The only thing is, did the prince know that himself?