Due to a number of requests ...

[Aki112]

,,, I am going to place a few chapters of my current book here at a time. Be warned, the first chapter I have written a few years ago, and though it has been slightly edited, it is not yet completely. Read if you like, I also would appreciate constructive criticisms as well since I plane on publishing this book very soon.

[Aki112]

Dark past

Long ago there lived a prince. A boy of greed and power said to hate all and love none, one that would someday bring his kingdom to ash. He laughed when looking down from his tower to the people below, as they struggled in every day life. He tormented his servants, accused them of stealing just to show the power over them he held in his grasp. This boy was nothing like his father, a proud noble man that ruled his kingdom of Asmalen with pride and kindness. He was a man to rule the kingdom with a strong guiding hand. One worthy to wear the crown would be one that could match such honorable statures.

Everyone knew the king, a man of love for his family, would never believe that his only son was the cursed child they called him. He wouldn’t believe he was un-fit to rule the kingdom. So they called out to their leader. Challenged more likely, their knowledge, to his own. His loyal guard approached both the prince and the king when they sat and dined in silence on plump stuffed chickens from the farms and warm biscuits, and told them both that the wise lady from the village had come to read his son. She was a trusted reader. Never once had she been wrong on her predictions, and so he bowed his head in agreement to let the old woman in thinking there to be no evil residing in his son.

It was the first time the prince had laid his cold eyes on the woman’s pale face with sagging wrinkles and hunched back. She walked in with a limp, cane tapping on stone floors in the eternal silence of the room. He watched her crawl forward, he himself hesitant to stand when his father came behind and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Only one ice blue eye scanned the room, the other was still, a white marble; it seemed to be, lodged in her socket. Then both rested on him and time seemed to freeze for the prince. He watched her inch closer. The brown rags she wore like many long sheets wrapped around her shrinking frame dragged behind and swept dirt from the stone. “You!” she yelled and the prince jumped, refusing to flee the gaze upon him, for it would make him feel weak and how disappointed his father would be.

She stood before him, not but half his height, and he flinched as that cold clammy hand took hold of his own. “How disgusting,” he blurted out, the only surprise was on his dear father’s face, but he couldn’t stop the words that came like vomit to his mouth.
“One as old and hideous as you cannot touch me!” he shouted, enraged at both himself and the wise woman for making him speak. She laughed then, more of a cackling choke for air and her head tilted back to let her gray scraggly hair fall lose from its bun.

“The evil in your heart is great,” she whispered, voice shaking and meek.
“I have seen all colors in many, but with you, my child, all I see is darkness.”
Her head slowly came back and both eyes were on him again. Even though she had one real eye, the only gaze he could feel was from the white marble in her skull.
“I am but a blind old woman and it has been long since I have seen one who walked a path darker than my own.”

“You spit lies!” the prince yelled and when he tried to pull his hand free, her shaking grip only firmed like stone.
“I do not lie.” The air seemed thick like smoke and her eyes flared with rage.
“And so help me you will lead a cursed, no, sinful life!”
The soothsayer threw down his hand while guards came forth to pry off the crazed old lady who clung to the prince’s arm.
“And you, who lives a life without love will suffer defeat, and your son shall live a fate more cursed than your own!”
Her voice was but an echo, lingering behind her frail body as the sound of rattling chains and creaking wood worked the drawbridge and the beams of light from torches of her escorts gleamed in upon the anxious face of the prince.

His father, a sound and dependable king, dropped his hand from his shoulder as he stumbled back from his son, his face showing dismay while he looked at the dark eyes of the future king.
“She lies!” the prince shouted, spinning around to face his frightened father.
“No.” the king’s ghastly murmur resonated off stonewalls.
“No, she does not lye, my son. I can see your evil now. I can see that evil in your eyes, the one that frightened away my sweet Annabel.”

She was the queen. Vanished, the night he was born, from her bed and found the morning after, hanging from the tower. No one knew why their beloved queen, the one that brought light to a place without hope, would jump from the tower with a rope around her neck. Rumor held that it was the child she gave birth to that drove her insane. When she looked into her infant’s eyes, she saw the evil first hand and they deemed him a curse. O! The stories that spread and the fear they felt as they saw him age, and with new years added to his sinned life they saw the lies of his evil become true.
“No, that’s not true!” he shouted, enraged, frightened to lose his crown.
“I need to go,” the king muttered, growing weary with the shock of his loved son’s evil.

Several servants and guards witnessed the look of hate in the prince’s eyes that night, and all saw the king set safely behind the thick walls and doors of his chamber. By morning he was found dead in his chair, a glass of water spilled at his feet. It was that very day that the prince took the crown, a day everyone grew to fear, and now it came sooner than they imagined.

The prince told his servant, his guards, the people of his kingdom, the depression his father suffered through after such lies were splattered on the walls, spewed from the mouths of supposed loyal servants about the evil that resided in his son. The new king of Asmalen told the people, who feared, and hated him, that it was a suicide, but no one believed. All knew it was the prince that poisoned his father that night. They knew he had done it, afraid to lose his seat as king after his father saw the true hate in his son, and that he had done it with a smile on his face, knowing he could only win the grandest prize of all, the ruling of a small little kingdom, and a thousand new toys to play with.

Time passed and the prince became that of a young ruler. A feared king, and even though their kingdom withered to but a shadow of what it once was no one seemed to step up to face the sinned man and his story was told in secret, on the day the loving king was killed, once a year. Over the many years that passed in this doomed place three laws were established.
1.) One should never steal from another. Punishments: imprisonment and lose of one’s hands.
2.) One shall never kill without permission. Punishment: death in the worst ways.
3.) One shall never wield a weapon without permission. Punishment: a quick death.

The king made these laws for the good of himself, to ensure assassination in his kingdom would be depleted if the people were afraid to break his laws. When these three rules were made, fifty people were killed for holding a weapon. Twenty lost their hands for thieving and one for the death of another. After witnessing the humiliating torture of the one man who dared challenge the law and took a life, all grew frightened of what would happen. After, all listened to the three laws and not a one dared oppose the king until a guild made itself known, a guild of thieves, and so started their plan to take down the sinned king. He, and his cursed son.

[Aki112]

1…The run away

He sat in the darkness of his room with only the stub of a dully-glowing candle melted to his desk and before him lay a blank piece of yellow paper. A low rumble broke the silence of the quiet tower as prickling rain pecked the stone outside and the cold floors by his window while a blue flash of lightning outlined his small frame. In the flickering flame the shadow of the prince’s hand reached across his desk and took hold of his quill pen, dipped already in ink.

To the king of Asmalen, he started in masked handwriting. Elegantly curved lines were made into the chicken scratch of peasants and lower guard men. He paused when the sound of feet, and a shadow cast in the crack of his door, passed by: guards his father had set by his door to keep owl’s eyes on him. How angered the old man was when his son snuck around his own castle in the dead of night.

He continued when the shadows stopped and his flickering candle steadied after another crack of thunder. As punishment for your refusal to resign your position we have taken hold of your son as before threatened. There is no negotiation that will bring him back, for you will find that not even your weight in gold can raise Prince Aaden from the dead. We are greatly sorry for your loss. He paused again, looking to the rain pouring like sheets outside, and as the wind blew out his stub of candle he dotted the last ‘I’ on, your enemy, The Guild of Thieves.

With another roar of thunder the prince stood from his seat in the dark room and placed a solid black paperweight on the corner of his letter that fluttered in the breath of the storm. There were muffled voices outside his door, that of an argument between the maid and the guards about the cold. It was a late summer night, and though the air was most usually warm and dry, the storm put a chill in it. She wanted to get in and light his fire, but it was his father’s instructions to keep all out of the prince’s room. The more time the guards gave him the better.

Their hushed argument rose in volume when the prince’s hands pressed against the slippery cold rock. He looked down at the long drop bellow, seeing only the dark fall ahead should he slip. The rain poured harder, as if, like his guards and his father, it tried to keep him locked away, safe, behind stonewalls.

His feet, wrapped in rugged cloth and tucked away in simple deerskin boots, left the floor to instead perch flat on the slick stone of his window. They slid soundlessly from under him on the rain pelted stone as he began to turn his back to the storm, and to his knees he tripped into the limestone as both hands clung tightly on the edge to keep from falling from his tower room. The slip only made the young prince even less eager for his suicidal climb down the rocky tower.
Sucking in his fear with a deep breath of moist, rain filled air, he leaned forward once more with chocolate hair plastered to his forehead, over grassy eyes and a furrowed brow. A bang on the door drew his attention.
“Prince.” the maid addressed him as. Not Aaden, which was his name, but prince. It was all he ever was in the castle.

He could see the jiggling of the handle, hear the clicking of locks outside his door and, ever so slowly, he lowered his way from the window. There he was on the wet wall, hands shaking from the sharp stone digging into his fingers. Even if he wanted to climb back through his arms had not the strength to do so. The wind pelted his back with needles of rain as it whistled in his ear, reminding him with every painful grasp at sharp stone that his death waited should he slipped.

“Prince!” he heard his title called louder by the desperate maid. The shriek made his foot slip and for a time it was nothing but his fingertips, blistered and bleeding, that clung to the small edge of rugged stone. Don’t see me. He thought, the muscles in his arms shaking as he strained to rise up and get his foot back in place. His fingers slipped on the stone. Don’t fall. He reminded himself and another strong gust of wind pulled at his loose shirt, trying to drag him away from the wall he clung to.

Over the thunder he heard papers in his room flutter. He wondered if the note was safe under the paperweight.
There was a flash of lightning and the prince closed his eyes. He clung to the wall when the rain picked up and ever so slowly his fingers dug into the stone, trying to stop from falling to his death.

“Get the king!” he heard the deep voice boom out, expecting that they found his forged note. It was Grahn’s voice, his mother’s knight and he knew that if anyone thought to look out the window it would be him.
Don’t’ think, he ordered himself, looking down and stifling a groan as he saw the little progress he made. He gasped when pulling his cut hands away from the rock, feeling the strain on his left arm as the right lowered for another stub of stone. He closed his eyes, and slid his foot down the wet wall, trying to find a ledge or lose rock.
“Aaden!” the sudden out burst of his name nearly made the prince fall back when his eyes darted up, a flash of lightning exposing the soft edges of his jaw and proud cheekbones still yet to be grown into. There, looking down upon him with horrified eyes, was Grahn.
It was black again when the blue light faded and with another snap of thunder the prince’s eyes dropped to both shaking feet, and he hurried.
“Prince don’t move!” he heard Grahn yell down, and knew if he didn’t find a way to disappear he would be caught.

The space between them was black. Aaden could no longer see his mother’s head knight and he knew the guard could not see him, but both were aware of each other’s presence.

He was gliding down, ignoring the pain in his shaking hands, somehow managing to kick his foot into the right place where the rock protruded. About half way down the tower he could feel the creeping of lightning as it worked its way through the sky, trying to expose where he clung. His name was called again with far more strain, Grahn, growing worried, frightened that the prince had fallen to his death, and with another tug of the chilled wind it seemed to happen.
Prince Aaden lowered down his foot, only to find a smooth surface for the toes of his boots to slide down. With arms sore, and burning, to tired to hold his dangling body, he gave way to his weight, and slipped. All he could see below him, when he quickly looked back, was the blackness of death, and when the darkness ended, so suddenly, he felt the grass wet with held rain on his back.

Lightning ripped light in the dark clouds again, but, from the ground, the prince could see only that Grahn was gone from his window. That’s when he heard the working trunnion as the chains lowered the drawbridge near by and the pounding of the king’s horses, slapping puddles and rattling ground as if the entire army was out to see his corpse upon the ground. He rolled than. As the first whine of the horses hit his ringing ears, for the hard fall left the prince swimming with dizziness. He crawled through the grass with elbows sinking through mud, and crouched near the walls as he watched, hidden from the dull glow of the torches light, when the bridge was lowered over the mote, for the horses to pass.

It was an odd sight. He could have sworn Grahn ran off to tell his father of his son scaling down the side of the tower, but the horsemen didn’t run to where he might have fallen. They ran to the village. It was only Grahn he saw passing by. The prince held his breath when he heard the thud of the heavily armored knight pass, at a run, to the base of the tower, and with fear creeping up his spine he stood from the wet grass and ran opposite the knight, towards the raising bridge. He hoped for nights cloak to hide him.

His head was screaming. It ordered for him to lay in the mud and his stomach churned when the world spun. The rolling chains echoing out the thunder, his pounding feet and gasping breathe while he ran to the hard wood on the bridge. Don’t see me, don’t hear me. He thought, afraid to look back as he ran onto the raising bridge.

He was sprinting up the wood. His wet feet tried to fall out from under him as the bridge rose ever higher, ever steeper. He fell to his hands and knees and was forced to half crawl as he raced it to the top. It was getting harder. His legs were struck with the burning pains of exhaustion, muscles wanting to relax, and sit still, but he was almost there. Without picking up speed, or looking to see how wide the gap from the nearly raised bridge to the land, he jumped. Forever it seemed he was in flight, his body relaxed, un-working. It felt like, for once, all strain was taken away until he found stone at his feet, landing hard and rolling to the ground at the very edge of the castle mote. It had only brought attention back to his aching body.

His head had the feeling of splitting wood. As he lay on the rocky dirt path to the city he wanted to rest. His hands bled and stung from the rock, knees and elbows cut from the fall and it felt as though his lungs breathed sand. I have to keep going, thought the prince. He rolled to his back to look at the dark sky and passing storm, knowing Grahn would find him if not. His knees were shaking, legs feeling weak as he stood and the Prince of Asmalen started limping his way down the road and through the dark. With each step he wanted to collapse into the soft cool grass at the bottom of his tower again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~u~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Grahn ran quickly into the thrown room after seeing the prince climbing down the side of the tower. In the stormy night only a few torches were lit by the thrown of the large room with its elaborately carved walls and warm colors of browns and deep reds. Both queen and king sat side by side, only the king’s chair well lit, for the queen hide her face in the shadows, though the glistening of tears, reflecting candle light, were seen dripping down her cheeks.

A handful of guards were bowed at the king’s feet, his adviser looking and reading over his shoulder as the yellow parchment was held delicately in his hands. As Grahn walked closer he could hear the rattling of the queens gold earrings and he could see the wrinkles of her silk gown form under her clenched hand.
“This was found in his room?” The booming voice of the king broke the rhythmic pattern of tapping rain and distant thunder.

The one knight keeling closer to the king rose and nodded his head. Not once did the cruel eyes with dark rings on leathery skin, lift from the yellow paper. He seemed to be studying it, seemed to be looking for something. Grahn watched his fingers, decorated with heavy looking gold rings, with seals and stones on the end, smooth over the paper, flip it on its back and than forward again to check the text once more.
“Speak!” the knight jumped as he cleared his throat, “Yes My king! It was found on his desk along with his pen.”
“A pen?” the king put the parchment down in his lap.
“Y-yes my king.” said the knight and bowed his head low once more when the cold eyes of the tyrant looked up to him.

Grahn didn’t look away like the other when the eyes of the king fell on him. He had no reason to fear the man for his only power lay in his guards who were too frightened to stand up and disobey.

“You.” called the king, and jabbed his ringed finger to Grahn who in turn bowed low his head.
“Why are you here?”
Grahn’s eyes lifted again. The information he held was for no other than the queen’s ears, but if he were to tell the king of such special treatment he and his beloved royal highness would be killed for treason. The king would find some such excuse to make it possible. He would spew lies about plotting against his kingdom, allying with the enemies.
“I simply came to check on my queen.”
He answered with ease, with eyes staring down the cold gaze of the king. The man was heartless for sure, but not intimidating in Grahn’s eyes. To the head knight the man was no stronger than a child on the street. He was the kind of man who hid himself away when the battles began; A coward.

The king raised one bushy eyebrow, and Grahn knew he was not believed, however what proof was there to show he was wrong.
“I am not trusted enough?” started the king as his head whipped around the room to his people. “Am I not able to look after my wife?”
He seemed annoyed, no more than usual, with Grahn. The room was silent, for there was no answer one would dare to speak. While the villagers made up their love stories about the meeting of their queen and king, those in the castle knew the truth. There was no such love between them. The selfish king cared nothing for his queen.

“I see.” His mouth pinched tight and beady dark eyes narrowed as a large hand slammed hard into the arm of his finely carved chair. He stood, and the rest of the guards in the room bowed down their heads, as his advisers and personal servants, ran forward, all fully dressed in their purple robes and off white pants. Even though most were neatly dressed some had come barefoot and the women had not even their hair brushed out.

The king waved a hand to his adviser, and the man instantaneously reached forward to take hold of the yellow paper set aside.
“I’m off to bed.” He informed the room and his narrowed eyes slowly scanned the darkness, hiding faces of those far off in the shadows.
“We will worry about this tomorrow.”
As he left to the door, instead of letting his servants and guards follow him to his chamber, he sent them off and reluctantly they left their king be.

Grahn waited for them to depart. He watched in the flickering light as the room emptied of king’s guards, even savants, before turning to his queen. He bowed, lower than he ever had for the king, and slowly approached to kneel at her feet, to kiss her hand.
“Suri,” he whispered. It was considered sin in the castle, to call royalty by their name and yet Grahn, when the king was no longer there to listen, called both the queen and prince by their proper names.

The servants remaining watched as the queen stood, the gold around her neck and hanging from her ears glimmering in the flame light and hand, still holding tightly to Grahn’s. All felt they shouldn’t have been there to see their tight embrace.
The queen’s face came from the shadows when her chin rested on Grahn’s shoulder. The same chocolate hair her child possessed laid in tangled webs on her back. Tears stained her pale, sunken cheeks and her full lips were pulled tight in restraint to sobs of worry. Servants watched when Grahn brought his lips close to her small ear, and they leaned in. His lips moved, slowly, it seemed and the echoing of heavy raindrops blocked out what little there was to hear. Her tears stopped, and few managed to make out a small glint of hope flash in her murky eyes.
“A funeral.” were the first words uttered since the king had left and barely over the patter of rain they were.
“Prepare for his funeral.” the queen pulled free from Grahn, with her eyes cast to the high arched windows near the ceiling, and let him dry her tears away with the rough palm of his hand.

Her servants hesitated after such a display. When the queen walked to the large door, her night robe sweeping behind her on the cold floors, they didn’t follow. Not even Grahn, who stood before the thrown, bowing his head to the ground, made a move.

The thunder rumbled in the distance, and sparks of lightning danced in the sky. Her servants and guards followed when she left the room and the last of them put out the smoldering torches on the wall, leaving Grahn fading away in the dark as he took a seat on the king’s thrown.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~u~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rain was down to a drizzle and the thunder echoed away over the mountains enclosing the kingdom. Only dull flashes of lightning showed the path as the prince limped his way down the dark road, cursing each time he stubbed his toe on torn up rock and twisted his ankle in holes on the dirt path.

A ways ahead he could see the wilting lights of the village and torches of late night pubs and inns sizzling back to life after the heavy rain, trying to burn away the light drizzles as they fell. So close the prince was to his freedom, and yet as he walked he could feel eyes on him. It was like, despite his fool proof plan, someone knew of his escape.

Only once he stopped, not even knowing if it was the path he still walked on. The night air was damp, and chilled with darkness that hid his destination.
He forced his aching body to the dirt to strip off his comfortable deer skin boots, and un-wrapped the cloth from his feet before walking once more on muddy grounds to tell, with bare toes, the road from the fields. Whenever he took a step astray from his destination, the prickling of dying grass tickled his cosseted feet, so used to pampering and deep washes, and set him back on course. Aaden didn’t mind the feel of cold mud squishing between his toes, or the chill of fresh air pounding on his wet back. He found he loved the way rain made his cloths cling to his body, but only because it was so new to him.


Few times, when growing up, he managed an escape into the court yard to play in heavy rains of summer. In those few times Grahn secretly set guards at every exit, every window and door, to have the excuse of the young, valuable prince, being well guarded and able to play like children of the village did every year. On those days Grahn guarded him instead of taking him back to his tutors and forcing the boy to sit through class after class of battle tactics, training and literature, he let him have fun like an ordinary kid. It all ended when he was ten.

During the stormy season a sickness was going around. Most children, and few adults, caught it. Even Grahn was averse in letting the young prince out of the castle, but as always the devious boy escaped his lessons to the court yards to play. When he came back that night all seemed relieved to see he was fine, even Grahn, who was the one to drag him back in from the rain, rather than letting him play, but what must have been days later the young prince Aaden was bedridden with sickness.

Never once before did the king show any worry for his son. When he was a child, and came home with bruises and cuts from sword play with Grahn and the knights, his father brushed him away. He yelled at him for showing his tears when feeling pain. When he was lonely and board, since no other children were allowed in the castle, he would try and follow around his father, and see what he was doing, try to be more king-like, but he got backhanded and told to stop acting like a starving dog.

When the prince became sick that summer, his first time being sick in fact for the king seemed quite terrified of disease and colds; his father was the first to come rushing through his door. Aaden still remembered seeing his face, more ashen than his own. It was the only time his father may have hinted at care towards his son. Only after receiving information that he would recover did the old man leave, and for the five days he was bed ridden the young boy saw nothing of the king, and only Grahn, and his mother kept him company at his bed side.
Only after he was better did Aaden discover the rage his father displayed during those five days. He found Grahn, and the guards, were threatened, and ordered to never let him leave the walls of the castle again. Grahn never listened to the king, even the prince knew that, but this order was abided. It frightened the young prince, and it made him wonder what his father had threatened the knight with.

After that day the only rain he could touch was when he reached his hand far from the windows. Grass and dirt became a forging feeling to his feet, and the only plants his hands could touch were the few in his mother’s room, which he found himself spending more time in during his escaped tutors. The colors were warm in her room. All deep reds and browns, and the rich green plants, with their colorful blooming flowers, brightened the area like a garden, even in the dull glow of the candle light.

The room was indeed very rich. She never cared when he skipped lessons. The queen only laughed when he ran in through her door and scooped him into her arms. He was always considered a small child, small enough that even as he aged his mother was still able to lift him up and hug him in a tight embrace while he struggled to get free. The guards couldn’t enter without knocking. Once he was behind those doors he was free, until she made him leave for lunch or practice with Grahn… She always kept him safe.


As he walked on, remembering all he had forgotten of dirt on his feet and the soft brushing of grass. He found he was closer to the town, but under his feet the ground began to rumble. Grahn told him about vibrations, that when it happened horses or carriages were coming. He looked back in the direction of the castle, in the distance making out the faintly glowing orbs of fire on ether side of the draw bridge, but they were only two small specks in a sheet of black.

The vibrating continued and the prince stood in the road, looking at his feet and ears perked up as he listened, trying to find where they were coming from. Ether way it would be bad for him. It could be the guards sent to the village coming back along the path to report the failure in finding the precious prince, or more of the men departing from the castle to start a new search. There was no way, and the prince knew, that the horses were anything but his father’s men. The night was too dark for merchants to be traveling but even still no matter what he needed to hide.

He closed his eyes, ears straining to hear kicked rocks, tapping hooves, and if the young prince had any form of luck the whining of a horse. The rumbling continued. On his bare feet he could feel the horses drawing near and echoing in his ears he started to pick up on faint sounds in the distance. His brow furrowed the bridge of his small nose wrinkling as he listened harder and than he heard what was needed. To the east, where his castle lay, was where the beating of horse feet came from. They were getting closer. He could hear the splatter of puddles and his grassy eyes opened to peer into the darkness yet again. Adjusted eyes made out the shadowy forms of armored men on horseback and as they drew near he ran to the side. The princes’ feet hardly tapped the ground as he sprinted from the path, desperately seeking a place to hide. He knew that if he didn’t they would see him in the light of dim torches, hidden from his view in the back of the line of men.

His legs carried him quicker, no longer driven by fear, but enthralled by the feel of the night air whipping at his skin, pulling his scraggly mess of rain clumped hair away from his face. He would have been caught, for sure, or at least ran until both the village and castle were out of his line of sight. He would have been forever lost in the vast fields or maybe even the forest at the base of the mountains if his foot didn’t catch on a stone hidden by the grass and he didn’t tumble down to the mud and roll aside to the grass just as the knights on horses passed by where he once stood. The prince lay on his stomach, white shirt and pale skin splattered in cold mud from his fall. His eyes stayed wide, pressing his body into the grass as he watched the horses pass and the glow of the lanterns casting over him. For what the prince could tell it was luck that he fell and had to roll through the grass for if he wasn’t coated in mud and the knights passed him, laying down on the grass, he would have been noticed. He watched from a good distance in the field. Grassy eyes gazing with trembling fear as the horses passed him by. The prince waited for the sounds to fad away, for the ground to stop trembling with heavy feet pounding the dirt before he slowly sat up, and tryed to wipe the mud from his face but his dirty hands that stung from the dirt embedded in his cuts, only smeared more on with a hardly noticeable mixture of blood.

Fatigue washed over his body once more as he climbed to the path, and searched the mud for the warm boots he dropped. He found them both together, and close enough that when his hand landed on one the tips of his lanky fingers brushed along the other. The tired prince found himself thankful that the horses did not trample them. He grumbled as he stood, for the prince saw no need to stay silent when he was sure that the knights were gone, and felt his feet trip and stumble around clumsily as he shuffled away to the village.

[Aki112]

1... The Runaway (part 2)

His feet were growing numb from the cold mud and puddles hidden by night’s cloak as he walked on. If he didn’t know better the prince would think his feet weren’t there. The temptation to sit back down in the mud, for his expensive cloths, a thin off white shirt with tight cuffs and baggy sleeves along with peasant’s pants he had snatched from the servant’s quarters, were already tattered and soaked through with mud from all his rolling around and diving from tower windows. In a way it was all still part of his luck. Before even with his plain cloths the prince looked like a noble because of his clean appearance and fine skin. Now his brown hair was clumped together, falling before his eyes and his young skin, pale from all the years he spent closed up inside stone walls, was covered in the very mud that masked the expensive material of his shirt. He was cut up, holes in the elbows of his shirt where the rims of the jagged cut were died red with his blood along with the cheap material for the cloth on his peasant pants. If anything he looked like a young peasant just out of a fight.

His feet were a bit relieved when they hit the coble stone of the village streets. It was the only stone road in the kingdom. His father said that if they make the path to the castle easy it would only encourage people to storm it, and so that was why despite his father spending all the riches on himself, the road to the castle was so poorly constructed and uneven, sometimes nearly impossible to walk down during the rains.

Despite the late hour of night the village was still full with sounds. The prince stumbled on, with a pain in his head from the fall, drifting to a dull glow. Much to his relief the guards on the street were few, nearly non existent and if he spotted one it was only the patrolmen, the ones that kept an eye out for law breakers and thieves from the guild.


They lived somewhere in the city, as the people said. The prince had heard many rumors about their existence from his days traveling around the castle halls. They are said to be a guild of thieves, enemies to his father. All three laws he had in the tiny kingdom the guild went against. They all carried weapons, hidden of course, from the eyes of the guard. It was said that all had killed before without feeling pain or regret for ending a life, and of course all stole something once a day. His father received letters from them often. Ones that enraged him and usually he would run off into hiding, a place Aaden had almost found once, hidden in the castle walls. They were always asking the same thing, telling him to resign his position as king, threats to the royal family and treasury. They only way the young prince was able to write such a letter to explain his death was because he had snatched up the remains of charred paper in the fire, snuck into his father’s room while he slept to take into his possession the letters crumbled into tiny balls and tossed to the floor for the servants to clean by morning.

Most in the castle feared the guild, but not the prince. Even though as a member of the royal family he should have been most frightened he was not. The prince always thought the reason was despite the rumors he heard from the servants and guards it was his mother’s stories that he listened to at night which made him think differently of the thieves. She put the guild in a different light. She made them heroes and these fantastic people able to overcome impossible odds. Until the night so long ago when the king found out about their bed time ritual tales of thieves sneaking through countries and snatching ancient relics that summoned the gods or opened enchanted doors to temples in the mountains. He stopped her from telling such stories and he did it far from the prince. He never knew how he had done it though his mother was a weak woman, he knew, and he knew she wouldn’t be hard to frighten

However he came to realize, as years went by without her magical stories, that he became even more interested in the guild. He learned about them in the real world and not some made up land filled with gods that came to life and hidden temples. Every letter that was read out loud in the assembly, a place where the king and his mother along with adviser, farmers, and sometimes royalty from another country, would join together to discuss harvest, war, and problems in the kingdom, the prince listened in. Even though they killed and harmed others he was interested with the thought of stealing, of creeping around in the dead of night, testing his balance, his speed and silence. More times than Aaden could remember he wanted to run away and join that guild.


The night was growing darker it seemed as the prince walked further into the village not a hint as to where he was going besides the walls he frequently walked into, changing his direction this way and that. It seemed sometimes as if he was completely turned around.

The late night pubs were even starting to close, tossing out full grown men as they performed their clumsy drunken dance of tripping and stumbling home to wives ready to scowl and complain of the smell of ale or beer on their breath. There was only one other light the prince could see that at least light in a path in the maze, and his fatigued body stumbled its way over. His eye lids were growing heavy with exhaustion. Everything felt like a dream. The young prince could no longer take notice of the ground beneath his feet. All he wanted to do was sleep after such a long night. He was lucky once again for the light came from an inn. From the sounds of things it was noisy downstairs. He walked through the door, glade that no one seemed to notice, but right away he was overwhelmed with sounds, sights and smells. A rattling change from the silence of the night had had just left behind.

The air was heavy with sweat and ale. Tables were tipped over and both men and women sat around, mugs in their hands as they laughed loud as their voice box would let them. The music was a loud cheerful tone played with harmonicas and the prince thought he heard the happy screeching of a violin. He was pushed around while he tried to move forward, being pulled this way and that as people pushed passed. This is an inn? He thought, finally getting to his knees, as much pain as there was with weight put on his bleeding wounds, and inching his way between open legs and standing once more before a drunk tripped over his aching body. Indeed it was an inn only it seemed that the rooms were on the upper level. The prince guessed when he saw a couple supporting each other up the stairs where he could sense the silence, the comfy bed, calling to him.

“Sweetie what are ya doin’ down here?” came a kind voice that made his body turn to a wooden desk with a brass bell and keys on rings. All he could think in a panicked relief was I found it.
“Where’s yer parents honey? Do ya have any, are ya lost?” Such questions were strange to the prince, and is showed in the wrinkle on his nose. He always thought, no matter the child, they had parents and now she was asking him if he had any at all. If he hadn’t remembered that often people in the village would die of starvation or sickness, for it was one of the many things his father discussed in the meetings, he would have said something that made him seem like a fool.

“I have parents.” his words were slurred and tiered as his slumped body was. “But they’re dead.”
Her unkempt, bushy eyebrows drifted down, and her eyes avoiding his. Though there was something else he caught aside from grief, a scene commonality between her and his story.
“Well ain’t that a sham.” Her hands fidgeted with the skirt of her dress.
Aaden only picked up her soft words over the music and laughter by reading lips, for back in the castle, during meetings and dinners, he found it a useful skill to teach himself when eavesdropping. He had to, in order to know rumors and stories in the castle. He watched as she moved around the counter, eying the customers near by as if expecting them to break into a riot she would need to disband while she walked towards him. Her dress was so different from his mother’s, yet it held its own beauty that he couldn’t quite explain.

All his mother’s gowns were long with elaborate embroidery of flowers and vines some of her more expensive dresses had jewels sewn in. The colors in the dresses were many, yet all housed a dark feel to the decorative heavy fabric, however in this dress the colors were bright and had a very flowing, light feel to them. Not even on the servants were the colors so fresh and new looking. All were rich and deep, giving them a thick look. Her dress was a tight fit to her small frame. It was a thin white gown with baggy sleeves and tight cuffs like his own tattered shirt. The collar was low however and bright. It hung on her shoulders and seemed to have spring laced into the white. Many colorful flowers of orange and red, yellow and purple were there, and on the hem as well where the skirt just hardly reached the floor. It was another difference he found to his mother’s gowns. All hers trailed behind and hung over her feet, even when she sat, while this dress was dropped awkwardly somewhere between her ankles and the floor.

He watched her walk over in her bare feet. The princes’ only guess to the lack of shoes was that they were expensive. The prices were only rising now that summer was starting to blow away in the chill of autumn’s breath.
“Well look at you, yer all cut up. Now how did you git like that?” Her large brown eyes became coin sized in worry as the tall women bent down and used the baggy sleeves of her shirt to wash away the dirt from his face. Not even his mother did such a thing. She was too afraid to ruin her dresses, or more frightened of what the king would do if he found out. He would say something about not buying expensive trash so it could be used as rags. Such comments were so often spewed from the king’s mouth, to servants and even ministers if he had a bad day.

He gave her no answer. After all he was unsure of what story to make up for such a state he was in, and his mind was too tiered to think up one of the lies he was so famous for in the castle.

“I bet you were playin’ with them boys weren’t ya?” She scrubbed harder, faster when she glared up to him as though he was being scolded! “My brother used ta… always a bit too rough.” Her eyes fell to the smudge of dirt on his cheek. It felt rude to push away such a kind gesture. Even if he did not want her to ruin such a beautiful, yet plain, dress.
“Well I bet you’d like ta take a bath, maybe git some food in ya.”
The prince nodded his head, and he could feel his knitted brow grow softer at the thought of a hot meal, but before he could sink his cut up hand into his pocket to pull his bag of silver and gold from his soaked pocket, she took hold of his wrist, gasping at the damage to his hands. The prince knew of trouble the villagers had with money. He knew from Grahn that everything was bought and paid for in town down to a crumb of bread so he had come prepared
“You look like you been climin’ walls!” She held his hand outstretched while she looked at the damage. If only she knew, he thought as he watched her worried eyes, and puzzled over why someone, with so many problems of their own in sickness and money, would care for him. There is no way she could know it was the castle walls I climbed.

“Well no matter what you were doin ya gotta get this cleaned up. Come along now git goin.” She gave a light tap to his back. That warm tone seemed replaced by something new. Something the young prince wasn’t used to. Demanding, that’s how she sounded. She was ordering him to follow her, ordering him to bath and he found himself listening eagerly.

She seemed to be leading him somewhere both away from the noise of laughing people and away from the stairs that he only assumed lead to the bedding quarters of the inn. She took him to the back, into the kitchen, filled with busy cooks and bottlers, keeping the drunks happy until all were retired to bed where they will wake in early morning with headaches and heavy bodies.

The smells were different from the kitchen smells of the castle. He had to admit that in the castle the food smelt much more enticing. Fresh chicken almost every night, fruit straight from the farms, and bread was always soft and tasty with the smooth butter on top. He could smell everything in here. It all came together in a clash of food and the strong stench of ale and beer.

There was a door in the back. One with a frame made from old chipping wood with a cloth, not a door, hanging from the top and bellowing out with each gust of wind. It was a good thing, Aaden thought, that there was no door in the shabby dirt colored cloth’s place. The kitchen was hot with its fires and constant activity. He was sure if it was only the window, placed beside the door and open wide into a view of an ally filled with boxes, scraps and an old drunk slumped against one wall, that the people would start fainting from the sticky heat.
“The baths are closed now.” She announced, her tight grip firming around his wrist as they snuck in between a cook and the cutting board where he chopped the heads off of fish and gutted them, making a slimy mess on the table and floor and a grotesque mixture of bone crunching sounds.
“But I can’t be lettin’ ya go off ta bed all muddy like ya are.” She continued, pulling aside the tattered cloth that blocked the kitchen from the ally and walking him quickly through it.

His small wrist finally dropped to his side as she pulled ahead, kicking at the sleeping old man against the wall, “Git up!’ she bent down to help the tired man to his feet.
“Come on now git inside and buy a room. It will do ya good ta get out ‘a this wet air.”
It was true what she said. Sometime between his disappearing from the castle and making it to the safely of the inn, it had stopped raining. Even the drizzle was gone leaving the air around them moist and cold. The old man listened. He stumbled to his feet with a few slurred words and curses before tripping his way from the ally and the prince watched the women, looking stronger than his mother ever had with her hands on her hips, legs spread as she followed him to the mouth of the ally and waited for him to go before walking back.

“Strip.” she ordered him in such a sudden manner it made him stumble back and his mouth drop slightly from its tightly clenched position.
“Come on now we don’t have all night.” she started for him, walking over to pull up his shirt, and threw it to the ground hard enough to make the wet fabric slap the stone and splatter the water it collected in its fibers. He quickly folded his arms over his chest, clutching himself tightly as he shivered in the night air.
“Come on now finish up.” Said the woman as she walked to the window and slammed her fist into the frame. “Hey let me have a few buckets of water!” She leaned into the window and out came the distant response of, “Coming right up!”

It was silent after that, aside from the chatter of cooks, the knocking of knives of the wood cutting boards and the distant laughter of the guest in the lounge of the inn. Both stood there in the ally, the prince shivering in the cold thickness of the night air and the innkeeper leaning against the window as she waited the water she had ordered. He shifted, foot to foot, still having yet to remove the dirty pants, until she spoke up again, walking from her post as an old lady with a tan gown and white apron came from the same door with a large bucket filled with water.
“Come now don’t be shy. You’ll freeze if ya don’t get cleaned and out of them dirty cloths.” She said, but the prince was more convinced he would freeze after removing them.
Her attention turned to the old lady and a smile curved her thin lips up as she took the bucket and placed it at her feet.

“Can I get some of my brother’s cloths as well and some towels?” Her voice was soft again when she spoke to the women. She seemed less demanding when he listened to that voice, saw her standing in the womanly position his mother always was in with her legs together and arms placed carefully at her side, and there was a soft, thankful smile on her lips. That stern face looked almost serene.

Reluctantly he listened, but managed to show his disapproval with a heavy sigh that slouched his mastered straight posture, and showed a quick glare when the women chuckled at him. He felt foolish after that. She must have known by the sudden color under the mud on his cheeks and how quickly his hard gaze had dropped to his bare ankles.

Back in the castle the maids would often titter when he tripped and fell while he played in the halls. They laughed only more when he got up, trying to show he wasn’t hurt by squaring back his shoulders and walking off slowly. Of course the moment he was out of sight beaded tears of pain would fill his eyes and he would cradle his wound. That was back when he was five, before he started avoiding everyone in the castle.

“See now was that hard?” with one had on her hip the other motioned to the soggy pile of wet cloths to his side and he grumbled a response.
“What was that?” her tone was taunting and there was a crooked grin one her long face.
“No.” He mumbled only slightly louder with a concentrated gaze to the wall right of him.
“No ma’am.” She corrected with a few strides towards him, lifting the bucket over his head and dumping it down upon him.

It wasn’t what he was expecting. It made his eyes widen, his mouth drop and he jumped back away from the puddle dripping at his feet with a yelp, shivering more than he was to begin with.
“That was cold!” He watched a smirk that held a certain pride and slyness to it come to her face. “Well of course it is. We got no time to heat water for ya. Now get back over here before someone sees ya.” She laughed, taking his wrist and pulling him forward as she yelled into the kitchen again, “More water!” At least he was more awake now.

“So where are ya from anyways?” She asked, the older woman from before coming out with neatly folded cloths resting on top of a white towel, also folded. “I haven’t seen your face around here at all.” He was stumped to this question. Where am I from?

“My mum’s a castle cook. I was born there and lived there till she died. The king kicked me out after that.” He said, thinking, there that will explain my shirt and that no one had seen me around. He was confident in his answer, even in the way he worded it. Aaden was hopeful that admitting to have lived in the castle, walked the same halls of their king that it would take care of anything suspicious, proper speech, ways of walking and eating and writing, anything he couldn’t hide.

“Well what bout your pa?” asked the women, making the prince pause in thought once more. A father? He was almost tempted to make Grahn that man. After all he cared for him, watched over him. On several occasions the servants would tease him and say he was more of a nanny than a knight.

“My pa was a huntsman for the king. Died on a hunt in the winter.” explained the prince, thinking it the best way to kill off a non existent man. After all their hunter had died in the late summer, not so long ago, when trying to capture a deer. Apparently his apprentice shot an arrow not having seen his teacher crouched by the bushes near by.
“Oh.” Her face seemed softer at her downcast look to his feet as the old women appeared with another bucket of water, and this time a rugged cloth to go with it.
That look was back to her eyes, forlorn and lost. That similarity to his lies was almost painful for the prince to see.

“I am sorry to have asked.” The prince, having not a way to respond, stayed quiet as scented soap, similar even to the ones his mother had always smelt like, was lathered onto the rag, already having been dipped in the chilled water.
“Wash yourself down with this dear, and scrub good, ya here. We don’t want any mud getin’ in our clean beds.” She smiled, handing it out to his naked self and slowly he reached out to take it into his grasp, the soap stung his hands, to where he nearly dropped it to the ground. The rags in the castle were all soft, like sponges or left over velvet from hemmed dresses. This one however, felt rough, almost like it was used for washing dishes, which wouldn’t have surprised him if it was.

He didn’t let her hear his words, not even a nod of his head to let the kind woman know he understood what he was to do. Even if he was raised in the luxury and high class of the palace he was able to wash himself. One of the few things he was relieved of being able to do without an escort.
“Don’t worry.” She said in that same placid voice of hers. “Once yer done those clothes there’ll keep ya warm fer the night.”
Her smile was nice, noticed the prince as he roughly scrubbed his arms till the skin looked pink in the dim glow of the fire and candles coming from inside the inn’s kitchen. He had never seen such a caring look, not even once from his mother whom he knew cared for him greatly. In fact he could hardly remember seeing her smile at all.

“There’re my brother’s clothes.” She continued talking, walking over to scoop his dirty shirt into her hands, her blistered callused fingers seeming to play with the silk on his shirt, brushing away the mud like a merchant checking for a price on the item. However her face remained still, unchanged from that soothing smile.
“Won’t he miss them?” Was the one thing needed to be said, the one question that should have been avoided, that tore the smile from her face.
“He is… no longer among the living.” She murmured and the prince had no words of comfort.
He heard of death in the castle, but never before had he seen it, or it’s after effects. It put stillness in the air just to talk of such things, and the way she had spoken of his death had such a chill, the prince feared if he were to breath he would choke.
“But that was long ago.” She finished, shaking out his shirt that just before rested carefully caressed in her hands, and breaking the chains of silence. He was going to ask what fate had befallen her little brother, if that dark pressure he had put there with his foolish question still didn’t lingered over their heads.

By the time he had finished his fervent scrubbing, making sure to be gentle over his cuts and forming bruises, the prince had almost regretted it. For the innkeeper seemed stunned and amazed that his skin was so white and smooth. While she fussed about it, petting his arms, he struggled to get the new dry pants over his hips, tying them up with a rope, for even though this dead boy was once a peasant the prince had been punished from too many dinners to have gained much more weight than one. “It’s amazing!” she had said several times to him. “Ya never see a homeless with such unsullied skin!” he wanted to push her away when he finally pulled the itchy fabric of the wool shirt over his head. He wanted to tell her, try being locked up in your own room for years and see how pale you become! However saying such things would have given him away. Sure he had admitted to living in the castle but as no more than a cook’s son, though this lie only worked because the villagers did not know of the rule that kept children from its high walls.

He had to shake his arm free from her firm grip, yet another difference between his mother and the girl. Like his own hands, his mother’s were soft and cold. It felt like putting your cheek to a cold rag in the midst of summer. While this woman’s were rough like the ragged cloth he had washed himself with, and captured the heat of hard work. Against the velvet like skin on his arms it felt like a cats tongue, though dry and cracked.

The inn keeper showed no desire to hold onto his arm after he pulled it free. In fact, those thin lips of hers curved in that warming grin again, and those bushy eye brows rose when he lifted the collar up some to cover his small white neck. “Very handsome.” she chuckled, walking forward to swipe a dripping lock of light brown hair from his expressive brow that only further complimented, in their dark color, his grass colored eyes. He glanced up when the rest was swept from his eyes of spring, looking to the kind woman with a gaze far to wide for his sharp, angular face.

“Handsome indeed.” this time she whispered, patting his head gently before stepping behind the young prince and slowly pushing him back to the kitchen doorway with her one free arm, for the other held in it the dirty cloths that would now only amount to rags.

“Come now out from the cold.” Urged the inn keeper, giving the young prince one final shove through the tattered flap on the chipping door frame, and once more they were back in the sticky heat of the kitchen. However since he had left things had calmed. The cook that once cut quickly off the heads of fish was leaned back in a stool by the single window, for fresh air. The ones washing dishes in one of the buckets used for his washing, were finishing up the seemingly endless pile, and putting it aside to the younger maidens running about to put them away in high shelves.

He wasn’t shocked to see one of the rags he had used on his body in the wash lady’s hands, but he tried his best not to think of it.
“We’re gettin' ready ta send our guest ta bed.” answered the woman who had taken care of him thus far as she came up to his left.
“We can give you a free room tonight, but no more than tonight since come tomorrow we will be crowded with the merchants and farmers.” She warned, and the prince nodded his head in a careful manner.

In truth it wasn’t a bad deal. It simply meant one less day he would be spending the gold and silver coins he brought. He did not know how long he would have them until they ran out and he had to live the starving life of a peasant.

Even the dining area, once coated in drunks and bodies, seemingly dead with the all powerful knock out drug of ale and beer, was starting to calm. Grown men were stumbling along in the very same dance, helping each other up the stairs and some even out the door and into the streets where they rid their churning stomachs of everything they had consumed.
Despite the lack of noise, and lessening of people it was still crowded, and as the prince was lead to the stairs, under the arm of the caring women, he noticed a figure in one of the brighter corners of the bar, watching him with eyes concealed under a black cloak, and nothing but thin lips and a broad stubby nose poked out from the graying cloth. It was the only part of their face that could be seen. He was uncertain even, of the gender, for the cloth was so thick and wrapped so loosely.

The prince stared back only once as he was shoved along up the stairs after a laughing man holding a woman tightly in his arms as they howled and whispered dirty secrets in each another’s ears, but it wasn’t long before the beam of wood supporting the roof of the inn cut off their view from the room bellow and the prince disappeared behind the walls of the second floor.

Aaden had almost been displeased when the walls blocked his view from the chilling sight of the person bellow. Out of all the sights he had seen during his short time living in the village, that one person seemed to catch his eyes the most. Perhaps it was memory creeping back, of the night he was locked in his room, ridden with fever. He, or the doctors had said when the prince yelled about it for hours at daybreak, hallucinated of a black robed figure creeping through his room in the shadows. He had thought it to be death coming to claim him.
It was a rough hand tugging at his wrist, and the cool of a brass key his fingers were forced to curl around that tore his eyes from what was left of the top of the stairs.
“Keep this key with you.” Once more that sweet voice of hers had come back as she knelt down before him. For once it made the small prince feel taller since on her knees the woman was the one looking up at him. “You need this to get in and out of the rooms. I want you to keep your door locked at all times even if you’re leaving for just a bathroom break. Inn rules.” she smiled to him and pat the top of his closed hand that held in it the small brass key. She left him in the hall, his silk shirt still tucked under one of her arms, and he wondered if she really would sell it