Human Again

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  I yanked my leg away from the servant fixing the gap, further widening the hole in my haste. Exasperated, I stuck my fingers into the enlarged hole and yanked it angrily until it tore all the way down my leg. I stalked out of my rooms, bringing with me the might and fury of a swarm of avenging angels.

  I found my father standing in the darkening light before the recently completed painting of my family. The front parlor was actually on the side of the palace, positioned so the large windows opened onto an adjoining terrace. Father stood with hands clasped behind his back, ruminating and watching the paint dry, staring at the empty space that should have held his lost son. He barely turned as I strode into the room. He wasn’t dressed for hunting.

  “Azahr?” he asked, absolutely unfazed by my intrusion.

  Considering my father’s intensity, I sidetracked to the painting he deemed worthy of so much attention. “Unflattering,” I decided with disdain.

  “The artist worked on this for months,” Father reminded me. “He’s the most celebrated in the kingdom.”

  I shrugged. “A monumental waste of his time. The painting is ugly.”

  Father took a step back to see it from my perspective. “I think it a rather fair likeness of each of us.”

  “You jest,” I sputtered.

  The painter had most decidedly not done a good job and my opinion was not being clouded by the blackness I was trying to push away from the edge of my vision. Father had been rendered fairly well, but the artistic talent seemed to have run out right about there. The king was painted as the good and just ruler he was generally agreed to be, and the artist had included enough hardness to his countenance to hint at the man beneath the public image, the one who had raised me with the unsaid reminder that I would never measure up.

  I had always thought my mother a beautiful woman, but here she looked tired and drawn, as if the burden of always acting the peacemaker extracted a bit from her very self each time. My sisters, who were lucky to look very much like my mother, sat on either side of her: Amellia, headstrong and beginning to come into her own beauty, and Azeria, sparkling with the childish charm everyone loved to indulge. And I, well, I was harsh and brooding, the very man I knew myself to be but didn’t enjoy seeing through another’s eyes. My cool blue eyes glaring straight at the viewer had turned to ice under the painter’s brush, unnervingly revealing what lay beneath. My raven black hair highlighted them even more, the blackness of my features making known the truth of my frozen heart.

  “Why are you here now?” Father interrupted my thoughts before I could dig any deeper in the abyss.

  “The venison, you’ve taken it off the menu,” I accused.

  “You’ve stormed in here to cause a stir over a dish?” Father questioned, belittling the situation so I would feel even more the fool. He was shorter than I, but he eyed me in a way that made him seem so much taller.

  “The prince always hunts the deer served at his party,” I protested. “It’s tradition. Everything is arranged for me to leave tonight.”

  The traditional hunt had begun long ago as a mark of adulthood and strength, but had since become a symbol of the crown prince’s dedication to his people. As it was believed that the bigger the stag, the greater the reign would be, the stag’s head was hung above each portrait in the Hall of Monarchs. Father’s, as fate would have it, was the biggest by far, and I had long looked forward to besting him. I would finally prove myself to him, force him to acknowledge my accomplishments and all that I could still do despite who I wasn’t.

  “It was deliberate,” I accused.

  As if to punctuate my claims, a sudden BOOM of thunder outside heralded a hearty downpour. Father merely raised an eyebrow at me, his comment on the possibility of hunting in such weather. It was infuriatingly condescending.

  “I survived the Dark Forest!” I yelled, “I can certainly survive this!”

  Father merely looked at me, amused.

  “You could have at least consulted me,” I argued, intent on the confrontation and all I felt it represented.

  “A king can change any tradition at will,” Father replied. “If one decides all princes must hunt deer, then so be it. If another decides that princes must not, then so be it as well.”

  “It’s my celebration,” I repeated, already feeling the shame, the degradation that would overwhelm me if I were to be the first prince in centuries barred from this milestone. “The cornerstone of my place in this kingdom.”

  “So it is,” Father replied easily. “I suggest you earn it.”

  “I have earned it!” I thundered defiantly. “And still you refuse to treat me like your heir! You wouldn’t have denied Adlard!”

  It happened so quickly, yet I could see it so clearly, see as Father raised his hand and struck me across the face.

  Father hadn’t laid a hand on me in years, and never with such anger. My cheek burned in embarrassment, my blood boiled in rage. I prayed it would leave a mark. Let him see the imprint of his fingers on my face. Let him feel the shame of losing control.

  Without thinking, yet outwardly cool and unaffected, I unsheathed the silver sword and slashed the portrait, wishing for the blade to strike my father just as sharply as it laid waste to the painting. Father caught my arm, but it was an instant too late. The tattered canvas slumped forward loosely, giving the entire portrait a most morose and barbaric quality. I didn’t stop the smile of malice spreading across my face.

  I had been dismissed and made to feel inadequate eight miserable years and this was the first time I was refusing to be complaisant in front of my father. Whatever rumors he may have heard about my treatment of the servants, whatever reports he may have received from the Academy, both were much easier to ignore than the proof before him of what I was becoming. I won’t deny how good it felt to defy my father, to tear apart something he admired so he could no longer think of it without also thinking of me, his second son and replacement heir.

  The beast let out a satisfied growl that rumbled throughout my body, echoing in the empty caverns of my heart, mind, and soul. The feeling was menacing and powerful, and I luxuriated in it.

  “You don’t deserve any of this!” Father roared. He ripped the sword from my hand easily enough because I chose not to fight him. I didn’t feel the need. The point was made. “You’re so much less than he was, and you always will be!”

  “You made sure of it,” I threw back, riding high on the courage of so brazenly standing my ground for the first time in my life. Then a new thought struck me. “You don’t trust me,” I said, my voice partially tainted by wonder. “You don’t trust me to care for the kingdom. You don’t want me to have it.”

  I should have been hurt by the realization, but that would come later. Looking back now, I can actually admit to understanding my father’s fear. Still, that did not excuse him from trying to take away what I saw as the one chance to prove myself, not just to him, but to the entire kingdom.

  “I did what was best for you,” Father replied.

  “You’ve never acted for me,” I rejoined. “It’s time I make my own decisions, without your interference.”

  “Insolent boy!” Father sputtered in return, at a loss in the face of my defiantly disrespectful behavior.

  “I am nothing more than the man you’ve raised me to be,” I spat back.

  That insult was enough to ignite a formidable amount of rage within my father, and only a fierce banging on the terrace doors prevented the destruction that could have, would have, happened next. The surprise intrusion stilled us both, and we momentarily suspended our long overdue confrontation.

  “Find out what that’s about,” Father ordered a guard.

  The guard returned quickly. “An old woman, Your Majesty.”

  “What does she want?” he pressed.

  “She seeks shelter, Sire,” the guard replied.

  Father gave him a disbelieving look, amused and annoyed at the woman’s forwardness. “But who is she?”

  “This is r
idiculous,” I interjected.

  I stalked to the door and shoved the guard out of the way too quickly—too violently—he didn’t have time to catch himself. He stumbled back and hit his head with a sickening thud. I spared him a cursory glance, the argument with my father having once more turned my heart cold.

  “He’ll live.”

  I directed my attention to the open door and the bent and cloaked woman dripping and trembling from the onslaught of rain outside it. There was no way to know how long she’d been standing there, how many times she’d knocked before we finally heard her. There was also no way to know how much she had seen or heard, which did not endear her toward me then, not in the least.

  “What do you want?” I demanded harshly.

  “Please, Your Highness,” she beseeched, “allow an old woman to find shelter within your walls.”

  “Entrance to the servants’ quarters is around back,” I told her tersely, “beg for your shelter there.”

  “It is cold and I am tired,” she said.

  “Tell them,” I replied indifferently.

  “Have mercy, Your Highness,” she pleaded. “Let me out of the rain, and I will walk to the proper quarters.”

  “No,” I said coldly, and slammed the door in her face.

  I turned away from the door only to find the old woman standing in the room. My heart caught in my throat; she was completely dry.

  “What are you doing here?” I questioned angrily, certain I was being played for a fool.

  The woman threw back her hood to reveal a face that wasn’t as old as I had supposed it to be. Her sharp features were startling enough, but even more captivating were her deep violet eyes, eyes that spoke of magic, eyes that now blazed with a fury strong enough to match the worst of my tempers. She definitely didn’t seem so helpless anymore. Her entire being glowed purple as she turned upon me.

  Surely, she took in the entirety of all that had occurred, and it could be that what struck her most was that no surprise warred with the anger, frustration, and resignation on my father’s face. As if this type of behavior was to be expected of me. Closing the door on her had not been a very wise decision either.

  The faery kept her gaze fixed upon me as she sang an indecipherable tune. Purple mist rose around her and stretched out toward me, engulfing me in its tingling magic. When she was done, I waited for something to change, to see the world from the eyes of a frog perhaps, as I had heard had happened to our neighbor in Vidallia a few years before. I looked but found no boils, no scorpions or snakes crowding my skin. The beast stirred once within me, and that was it.

  The faery laughed at my puzzlement.

  “Foolish boy,” she said, in a voice that haunts me even now, “I traverse the realms to celebrate your passage into adulthood and this is the welcome I receive? If you think I would allow a cold, ungrateful brat like you to rule over anyone, you are gravely mistaken.” Her laugh prickled my skin like sharp icicles. “You think yourself the first spoiled prince who didn’t know his place?”

  “So you’ll turn me into a frog?” I jeered. “Constrain me until I learn humility? I already know the cure for that!”

  “No,” her voice was flat, ominous. “I’ve glimpsed the blackness of your heart, and it’s more than three bands can cure. A frog? I am not so merciful.”

  “You deride me for my heart even as you close your own against me?” I challenged.

  “You drink deep from the poison of anger and expect someone else to writhe!” she hissed. “You blame others for your trials, but you were given a mind and soul to pit against your darkness had you not crushed them beneath your physical strength. Such a king only brings pain and suffering to his people. Rather, let the fury that keeps you so cold to others rage within you without rest! Let your anger wrap like a black snake around your heart, squeezing out love and happiness until its darkness is all you know. I release the beast to run free inside you, I give to it the control you so desperately crave!”

  I shuddered despite myself, but I refused to be cowed by the woman who had so unforgivably intruded upon my life.

  “Vile woman!” I thundered back. “You dare cast such a terrible curse upon your future king?”

  The faery replied with a smile malicious enough to match the worst of my own. “You will not be a king until you prove yourself capable of treating others with humanity and compassion befitting a true monarch. If you can find someone to truly accept your blackened heart and frozen soul, believing they can be redeemed, the curse will break, enabling you to take control once more. But it won’t undo the ruin willfully wrought through your anger. It’s time to take responsibility for the man you’ve become.”

  I was set on attacking the woman, but she raised a hand and froze me in place. Ever so calmly, she turned to my father and suggested in a way that was more a command, “Your Majesty, do not hesitate to send the boy far from here. He will be a danger to you and your family if he remains. Give him a few trusted servants, but get him out, and soon. You’ll know all is well with him if he ever returns to you.

  “This curse will run its own course, Your Highness,” she added, turning back to me, “as the rate of your destruction is up to you alone. Your father replaced his heir once; he can do so again.”

  She looked over the room once more and, catching sight of the damage she knew I’d caused, turned back to me in disgust. “Take the portrait with you,” she instructed. “Feel the slash of the blade every time you look upon it.”

  Her eyes found the unconscious guard I’d shoved out of the way. A few motions with her fingers and some hummed words and he was standing again, rubbing his head and quite unsure of what he was doing in the room.

  “You’re fortunate he doesn’t know what happened here,” she told me.

  Then with a flick of her magical hand, she produced a small handheld mirror, which she tossed at my feet. “Take this, too,” she commanded. “It shows only what is most beloved to the gazer. For you,” she jeered, “your throne, and the power that comes with it. Though when the beast has won, it will only ever show you the pain and darkness you’ve lost to.”

  I lunged forward as I felt her magic release me, but she disappeared suddenly, so I fell instead to my knees, grasping at empty air. I glanced up at my father who returned my confusion with a pointed look, an emphasis that he always knew I’d never succeed. My own father would not even extend a hand to help me stand. Rather, he studied me under a weighty silence before he finally spoke.

  “I had thought to leave this until after the celebration, but it seems the only recourse,” he told me simply. “The Queen of Laurendale is ailing. The mountain ogres and gargoyles know of the uncertainty in the realm and are causing some trouble at our shared border. Go to the castle at Monsephe, it’s off the road to Panthrea, though close enough to the border should your services ever be needed.” He looked me over once, his lips curling back in distaste. “At the very least, you may yet merit your name.”

  He turned his back on me and left the room, leaving me there to ponder my fate and untangle the meaning of the faery’s curse. That night, I carefully packed my small collection of sheet music and gathered my things, numb and hardly caring for what else I brought along.

  Early the next morning, when dawn was hardly breaking on the day that should have heralded my victorious return from the hunt, I slipped away from the palace before I’d have to see anyone, leaving but a brief note for my family about the sudden need for my service and nothing else. Let Father explain my absence, let him face his wife and children, the royal guests and noblemen, and tell them why I wouldn’t attend my celebration that week. Let him explain what he’d done to his son.

  I set out for one of the more remote areas of our kingdom, heading north to the forgotten castle of Monsephe in the shadows of the northwest mountains near Calladium. It was uncomfortably close to Laurendale’s border, but most travelers eschewed the region for flatter, easier trade routes. A few days later, a group of servants came to supplem
ent the small and elderly staff that usually tended the estate. The castle itself was an austere and overrun place, an old stone edifice sitting sedately beside a wide river that winked wickedly in the moonlight. I thought being so near to water would be calming, but the curse made sure that the rushing current only made me more restless, especially as the manner of my departure from the palace guaranteed my anger would keep boiling for a long while after.

  As such, it didn’t take long for me to understand the extent of the faery’s curse and how near impossible it would be to break. Until then, I may have occasionally lost myself to the darkness, but it was always at my discretion. Her spell gave it a power so much stronger than whatever amount of good I still had left and ripped the reigns of the beast out of my hands. It was no longer a form given my inner darkness, but a creature unto itself. A lithe jaguar, sleek and agile, coat black as pitch, eyes two cold circles of ice, claws deadly icicle points, elongated fangs dripping blood, as it stalked the lifeless landscape of my heart and mind.

  Once she’d uttered those fateful words, what little joy and pleasure I’d managed to hold onto in my life dissipated, so I was denied anything that could have offered any bit of respite in my darkness. Food tasted of ash, books bored me, even music tried my patience. What little passion I’d maintained in the years following Adlard’s death was lost to me; I now understood what it meant to live without truly being alive. I spent long hours roaming the halls of the castle, running in the surrounding woods, staring at the ruined painting and feeling the silver blade slash across my chest again and again. I never once looked into the mirror the faery had gifted me, never once allowed her the satisfaction of goading me with a once more stolen future.

  In truth, the first few months of my exile weren’t as terrible as I anticipated. Skirmishes at the border gave me the excuse I needed to leave the castle in the spring and summer months, outings in which the beast reveled. I convinced myself then that any violence it displayed was at my command, the necessity to gore an ogre or ground a gargoyle part of my role as heir and bearer of the great General Azahr’s name. Never mind that rumors began to spread about a vicious creature haunting the border forest. Never mind that I often took on two or three or even four opponents alone. Never mind that sometimes the beast so thirsted for blood between kills that it hunted down wolves to savagely gut and tear apart.