by Nyssa Renay
“Vigil, I need you to help me heal my hand,” he said, reluctantly pulling his charred hand out of a bucket of water.
“What the hell happened?” I gasped, rushing to his side. “How long as has it been like this?” I examined his hand, which barely had any unburned flesh left on it.
“A few hours. I woke up early for some strange reason and couldn’t get back to sleep. I was practicing the Wraith spells for my Kindell final in a few weeks.”
“In here?” I roared. “You could have burned the whole tower down…with us in it!”
“Well, I didn’t!” the prince snapped, yanking his hand away. “If you don’t want to help me, then you can just leave.”
“Why are you getting angry with me?”
“Because you sound like everyone else. I’m getting enough shit from Talmari and my father. I don’t need it from you, too.”
He had a point. I’d watched Raxis do everything in his power to show his father he was capable of being a king, but it was never enough. The prince’s self-confidence was starting to suffer.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” I offered. “Learning Wraith has never been easy for anyone, even Shepherd Talmari, so don’t feel like you have to master it so quickly. Kindell isn’t your gifted sect anyway. You’re in Palpit…just concentrate on that first. All the others will come in time.”
“Yeah, I know,” he forced a smile, “but what about my hand? Can you fix it?”
“A good friend showed me this trick a long time ago,” I said promisingly, carefully holding up his arm up to focus on his injuries. “Diesanti Corisas…Diesaris Carinallo,” I muttered, casting a dull green glow over his hand. Small flakes of charred flesh fell to the ground as his hand slowly regenerated, but didn’t fully heal. “I’ve numbed the pain and did what I could to avoid any permanent damage, but you really need to go to the medical ward and get it fixed.”
“I can’t!” A look of panic washed across his face. “People will know I failed and that I’m weak.”
“That’s your father talking, Your Highness. He has absolutely no idea what it means to be a shepherd in training. This stuff happens all the time.”
“But not to me!” he growled. “My father might not know anything about being a potential, but he knows what it takes to be a king. As the prince, I can never look weak in the eyes of his subjects.”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness. I hadn’t thought about that,” I lied, trying to regain any ground I’d lost to the king’s incessant brainwashing. “How about this? I know someone at the medical ward who I can guarantee will keep this completely confidential. We worked together when the skyforks were attacked a few years ago. She’s always kept those events a secret. I know she’ll do the same for you.”
“If you trust her, then it’s okay with me.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” I smiled. “Your hand should be numb enough for you to be able to get dressed. Wear some gloves to hide the burns. We’ll just tell everyone I’m sick and you’re gracious enough to take me to the medical ward for help.”
A smile spread across his face. “Thank you, Vigil. That’ll work perfectly.”
“Of course, Sire.” I gave him a frivolous bow. “I’ll go get dressed. Come get me when you’re ready.”
As we made our way into the medical ward, I was startled to hear a familiar voice.
“Vigil!” Abellie shouted, rushing over to say hello. She quickly stopped and curtsied the moment she noticed the prince walk in behind me. “Greetings, Your Highness.”
“Hey, Abellie.” I flashed a warm smile. “The prince was kind enough to bring me here this morning.”
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“No, just a little under the weather,” I lied, acting somewhat sheepish.
“You big baby,” she mocked.
“Well, what are you doing here?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“One of the newbies got hurt in the Trial this morning. As Laureate, I volunteered to drop her off before heading back to harass the girls some more.” A playful sadistic grin spread across her face.
“You’re enjoying that position a little too much. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, but in a few weeks, I’ll finally be able to get out there and really see some action, you know?”
“A commendable attitude.” The prince offered his hand, and she graciously accepted it. “We need more potentials like you.”
“Wow! Thank you, Your Highness!” she beamed.
I felt my blood run cold upon hearing their interaction. My mind quickly filled with flashbacks of Ownie’s overconfidence in the dorms the night he left to graduate and the king’s overzealous attitude toward the war. I couldn’t help but fear Ownie’s nightmarish scenario would eventually bring Abellie’s dead body back across my path in the near future as well.
“Hey, do you know if Eeliyah is here today?” I whispered to Abellie.
“Probably.” Her chirpy expression quickly turned somber. “But your guess is as good as mine. I’m worried about her, Vigil. She hasn’t wanted to see me in months. I don’t know why.”
“She’s probably just preparing for this noble cause, as you are,” the prince added, creating an awkward silence.
Abellie forced a smile. “Yes…well…feel better, Vigil…Your Highness,” she said and curtsied again, excusing herself from our presence.
As we made our way through the medical ward, I asked the other aides if they knew where Eeliyah was, but no one knew seemed to know. It seemed strange.
“Excuse me,” I asked a nearby Brio aide. I was fed up with the search. “Is Shepherd Levengio in his office by any chance?”
“Yes, he should be,” she replied happily. “Would you like me to fetch him for you?”
“No. It’s okay. I know the way.” I gave her a thankful nod and we made our way to Levengio’s office.
When we arrived, Levengio put on the usual pomp and circumstance of being overly eager to assist a member of the royal family, making sure to emphasize ad nauseam about how discrete he would be regarding the matter. Thankfully, it only took a few minutes for the prince’s hand to be fully healed, and then I was able to rush him out of the medical ward and begin the trek back toward the shepherds’ tower.
“Vigil?” Raxis asked as we walked along. “What do you want to do for breakfast?”
“I-I’m not sure…” I trailed off. I kept seeing someone darting in and out in my peripheral vision, and it was making me terribly uneasy. “I think we should hurry back to the tower. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“What do you—” the prince began but was cut off by a shrill whistle that concluded with a fleshy thud as I saw a small metal dart stab Raxis in the neck. A little trickle of blood oozed from the stab wound, and the prince’s eyes rolled back into his head as he fell to the ground.
“Who’s there?” I roared, whipping around toward where the dart had come from. I readied my hands to begin casting in Wraith as I scanned the immediate area for a target. But then, I heard the whistling noise again for split-second before I felt a stinging sensation in the back my neck. I quickly yanked the dart out, but it was too late. My vision blurred, my body went numb, and I fell to the ground beside the prince.
-77-
I awoke to the sound of Raxis shouting. It took a couple minutes for my senses to return to me well enough to realize what he was saying, but then the gravity of the situation descended upon me. We were in near darkness, and the smell of dirt hung heavily in the musty damp air. I was lying on the ground, and I felt the thick rings of the blackbrass chains that had my hands and feet bound up behind me. Judging by the dirt and the heavy air, I thought we might be underground, but I had no idea where.
“You’ll pay for this! All of you!” the prince shouted, but his threats had no impact on our captors.
I tilted my head up enough to see there were five people holding us hostage. One of them held a candle that dimly
lit the stale little room. All of them were dressed in jet-black hooded robes that concealed their faces, but then I realized the robes were the same ones that potentials wore during orientation each year. Apparently, the rumors of the defiants’ underground movement were true after all.
“Release me, right now!” the prince shouted. “Or my father will kill all of you!”
“Your Highness, stop yelling at them. It’s not going to get us anywhere,” I grumbled, fighting off a headache. The prince’s shouting wasn’t helping.
“They assaulted us, Vigil!”
“Yeah, they did. And they could’ve killed us, too, but we’re still alive, right?”
“But why? What do they want?” Raxis turned toward our captors. “What do you want? I demand you tell me who you are!”
“Stop, Your Highness!” I snapped impatiently. “They’re just defiants. I’m sure they’ll tell us what this is all about when they’re ready.”
“Well…you’re partially right, Vigil,” one of the defiants commented, turning toward me.
My heart nearly stopped as she spoke. I knew that voice in an instant, and though I was relieved to know she was okay, I was heartsick to see Eeliyah’s face as she shifted the candle into her other hand and peeled back her hood.
“Are you shitting me?” I shouted. “What the hell has gotten into you? Are you so mad at me that you had to go and do something stupid like this?”
“Wow. You really think this is all about you, don’t you? You’re more clueless then he is,” she scoffed, pointing at the prince.
“Then, tell me!” I snapped. “How did they convince you to take part in all this?”
“They didn’t convince me do anything, Vigil. I wanted to be here! I’m second in command of the defiant movement, and this abduction was entirely my idea. It’s taken us months to get organized, and when I saw you two in the medical ward today, I knew it was our best opportunity to act.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Unlike you, Vigil, the rest of us are going to be shipped off to die in a few weeks whether we like it or not. At least this way, if I die, it’ll be on my terms.”
“But I thought you wanted to fight,” the prince chimed in. “You just told me you couldn’t wait to get out there.”
A perplexed look washed across Eeliyah’s face as she looked to me for clarification.
I let out a small laugh. “We bumped into Abellie at the medical ward. He thinks you’re her. Sorry, Your Highness,” I said turning toward him, “but this is her twin sister, Eeliyah…the one I told you we were going to see.”
“You said we could trust her, too, Vigil,” he sneered. “Now look at us!”
“I know, Sire. I thought we could,” I replied, defeated.
“Well, I still don’t understand what this has to do with me!” Raxis shouted at the group.
“You’re here because your father doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself,” Eeliyah snapped. “He won’t listen to reason, so now he’s forced us to take drastic action before it’s too late.”
“But he needs you to help us win the war…I need you,” he pleaded. “Without more shepherds to help us hold back the enemy, we’re going to lose. Why don’t you understand that?”
“I do understand, but we’re not all fighters! What does the king expect me to do? Go off and die in that war when I have no way of truly defending myself?” she yelled.
“No! You’re there to heal those who are fighting!” Raxis argued. “You’re in Brio sect. That’s what you’re supposed to do!”
“What about the other sects that don’t have anything to rely on in combat? Idol? Settle? What about your own sect? Not everyone from Palpit can be in charge. What do you expect them to do, fight alongside the rest of the sapps? Sure, they’ll slow the enemy down for five or ten minutes, but then what? Fourteen years of classes and training, gone in an instant! If we can’t find a way to change your father’s mind, then we’ll all be sent to die for no reason other than just because he says so,” she snapped. “You have no idea what this fear is like!”
“I’ll show you what fear is like!” Prince Raxis screamed. “Let us go, now!”
“Did you bring us here just to yell at us, or is there a point?” I interjected.
“There’s a bigger picture here,” Eeliyah snapped. “We need to use Raxis when we go through the archway to Telshakra.”
“What the hell for?” I asked, but Eeliyah ignored my question and began ushering her associates out of the room.
“We won’t be leaving until tonight,” she said, pulling out a small syringe and jabbing it in the prince’s neck.
“Heelllpppp!” Raxis called out in a panic. “Somebody…help…” The prince’s eyes rolled back in his head as Eeliyah slowly guided his drugged body to the ground.
“I’m really sorry it had to turn out this way, Vigil,” she said somberly, pulling out another syringe from her robes.
“Are you?” I asked, heartbroken.
“Of course, I am,” she replied, tears welling in her eyes.
“Then let us go and we’ll find another way. I promise,” I urged.
A lone tear trickled down her cheek. “I can’t. It’s too late to turn back now,” she whimpered, pushing the needle into my neck. “I’m sorry, Vigil.”
“Eeliyah…” I moaned as a numbing wave flooded throughout my body. She leaned down and kissed me, holding me tight as everything went black.
-78-
When I woke, I noticed the prince was still out cold. It gave me some time to think about what Eeliyah had said. She was right; it was too late. We’d waited too long to talk about how we felt about each other, and in a few weeks’ time, we would’ve gone our separate ways anyway, even if I hadn’t have become a guardian. The war was vast. It spread across the entire realm of Ein, yet it loomed closer and closer with each passing day.
In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter whether the defiants went off to war, but it mattered to her, so it mattered to me.
“Vigil,” the prince groaned as he began to wake up. “Where are we?”
“We’re still in the same place, Your Highness.”
“Why hasn’t anyone found us yet?”
“If they were smart enough to take us without anybody noticing, then I’m assuming they’re smart enough to take us someplace where nobody would find us. Hell, probably no one knows we’re even missing yet,” I explained, and watched the prince’s expression turn somber. “Don’t worry, they will. I’m sure they’re just using us as a bargaining chip, so they’ll have to let someone know you’ve been taken; probably when we’re in a more secure location.”
“How can you act so calm about this?”
“Because the defiants aren’t violent people; they’re just scared. They’re afraid of the war, and they’ve got every right to be. I don’t blame them.”
“Don’t tell me you’re sympathizing with them, now?”
“Well, they’ve got a point!” I argued, frustrated by how sheltered the prince was. “If I didn’t save you from those things that day and then been given the job as your guardian, I’d be in the exact same predicament as the defiants.”
“Yeah, but you’ll never have to fight in that war. My father will see to that.”
“That’s just it! It doesn’t matter what I think. Even if I wanted to go, I can’t, because your father has me stuck here wiping your ass all the time.”
“Then, go!” Raxis barked. “See if I care! I don’t need you, Vigil. I can get by just as well without you. I thought you were like a brother to me, but—”
“Stop being so damn melodramatic!” I interrupted. “That’s why your father doesn’t take you seriously. I thought you would’ve figured that out by now.”
Raxis just bowed his head in shame.
“Do you honestly think I don’t appreciate you or your family? You have been like a brother to me this whole time, but I’ve l
ost everyone else in the process. They’ve all turned their backs on me because of you. And lately, the one person who supposed to be like a brother to me has been treating me like shit!” I let out a heavy sigh. “Look, I’m not royalty, Raxis, and I’ll never be, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you succeed. I’m just worried that if I do end up fighting in the war, I won’t be able to survive because I’ve spent too much time taking care of you. But like everything else at this academy that I’ve been forced into since day one, I take it in stride and deal with it!”
Raxis became so quiet that for a second, I wondered if he was still there in the room with me.
“I’m sorry, Vigil,” he said in a small, shaky voice. “I had no idea you felt this way.”
“It’s fine.” I was still frustrated.
“If you truly want to leave and go fight in the war, I won’t stop you. I promise.”
“Thank you, Your Highness, but you’ve got to start thinking about all the other potentials and shepherds whose lives will be wasted if things don’t change. That’s why we’re in this mess. Your father doesn’t care what happens to them, but you can make a difference! You’re fourteen and have a say now. Use this opportunity to be your own king.”
“You know my father will never listen to me.”
“Then make him!” I urged. “I’m sorry, Raxis, but you’re never going to get your father’s approval. It’s just the way he is. Nothing is ever good enough, and it never will be. The sooner you realize that, the better. He’s been purposefully keeping you from having confidence your whole life so you won’t interfere with the way things are when you come of age. It’s time to stand up and make a change. Your father has never been open to change, but I know you are. Have faith in yourself!”
“Okay, Vigil.” He forced a smile. “I’ll try.”
Suddenly, the cell door opened, and in walked Eeliyah, four associates, and a tall, lanky boy who had his hood pushed back, showing us his face.