by T L Drew
‘What have you done?’ Goran screamed, his voice echoing through the room, haunting and desperate. ‘Release me now, or I’ll...or I’ll...’
‘What will you do, brother?’ Andor asked.
‘I’ll fucking kill you, I swear you will die for this! All of you!’ Goran spat with venom, his eyes leaking water, watching as his beloved father drowned into oblivion, the rise and fall of the king’s chest coming to an agonising end.
‘Quiet now, brother.’ Andor ordered sternly, walking towards Goran with the blooded blade still firmly in his grasp. Andor drove the blade upwards towards his brother as the guards who restrained him grasped hold of Goran’s head.
The knife slipped between Goran’s lips, cutting them. He felt Winterthorn slicing into the skin as it forced its way past brutalised lips. He could taste his own blood on his tongue and the metallic steel of the knife as Andor pried his mouth open with the blade. He could taste his own father’s blood, too. His gut twisted as he tasted Kodran’s crimson blood upon his cut tongue. ‘Open wider,’ Andor uttered with concentration as he reached up on his toes with the knife grasped tightly in his hand and used the other to grip his icy palm around his brother’s chin, prying his mouth open further. ‘Open wider!’ He screamed again.
‘By the heavens, you don’t have to do this.’ Thorbjorn interrupted, his face creasing with disgust. ‘You have just killed his father; is that not enough, cousin?’
‘Let him have his fun.’ Hakon Grey told his son, his face laced with boredom.
Andor ignored Thorbjorn’s protects. He twisted the blade, sticking the pointed end towards the gum around Goran’s wisdom tooth on the roof of his mouth. With a sudden force, the boy pressed the pointed end forward, jamming it excruciatingly into the fleshy gum and along with the agonizing pain, Goran could feel his blood running down his throat and catching in it, swallowing it down as he struggled to breathe. He tried to pull himself away from the frozen steel, but the hold on his head by icy gauntlets held his head firmly in place as his body twisted and pulled in pain. Then the pressure finally lifted, but the unbearable burn remained as the knife cut his tooth from his slashed gum, and then the blade left his mouth with a deep gasp of breath.
‘Was that truly necessary?’ Thorbjorn huffed as he fiddled with the handle on his sword, his ocean gaze avoiding the eldest prince as he coughed thin blood from his cut lips.
Once more, Andor ignored Thorbjorn’s words, staring into Goran’s pain filled eyes. ‘Something for me to remember you by,’ he stated, flashing the prince’s bloody tooth in front of Goran’s eyes. ‘It did not have to be this way – all of this, it’s because you and father made it. I’m sorry it had to come to this. I truly am.’
Goran spat blood from his mouth, running down his chin as the doors of the throne room opened and a young woman with deep red hair walked inside of the vast silent room with a wicked smile. Her eyes landed upon the dead king, slouched in his throne and stained with blood, a gash on his throat from ear to ear and her smile grew wider. The woman’s eyes locked with Goran as he was held and restrained by the firm steel grasp of the soldiers, blood spilling out past his brutalised lips and cascading down his icy chin like a crimson waterfall. Goran’s vision had begun to cloud from the pain, but though the blur, he could recognise his wife well, the woman who had yet to give him a child, despite almost a decade of marriage. Abigail Grey was overcome with joy at the sight of her husband’s pain and the murder of the king, and her dark eyes moved from Goran to Andor Grey, a crown on top of his head. Andor’s mouth opened with his cobalt eyes upon his sister-by-law, Abigail Black. ‘He’s all yours, Abby. Make it quick.’
‘Andor–’ the eldest son of the king tried to speak past his blooded tongue as Goran was ushered out of the vast throne room. Andor, Thorbjorn, Hakon and the spectators disappeared from sight. The guards that held him followed tightly behind Abigail, and the doors were closed behind them. Andor watched as Goran disappeared. He said no goodbyes. He wouldn’t miss his brother, even though he had regrets – unlike taking the life of Kodran.
He quickly moved to his father’s body, sprawled across the blooded throne, his eyes wide open, judging. He adjusted his new crown upon his head as he walked up the stone steps, taking a hold of his father’s hand. It was still warm. Andor spied the ring on his forefinger, grasped it between his fingers, and felt the ring warming him. He could feel it had power inside of it and his heart skipped a beat.
The new king pried it from his dead father’s finger, turning it in his hands. He moved himself down the stone steps with his eyes set upon Hakon. He grasped his uncle’s hand and placed the ring in his palm. ‘I know you stood by and let me kill your brother, for this ring, and this ring alone,’ Andor said, closing Hakon’s fingers over the ebony band. ‘But still I thank you, for being more of a father to me than Kodran ever was.’
Hakon’s lips turned into a hint of a smile. He said no words, and slipped the hot metal band around the base of his long, bony finger. Only then did Andor remember Thorbjorn Grey, and the ring he had meant to gift his beloved cousin with, even though Hakon’s son had not stood by merely for the gift of a ring. Goran still wore it, but Goran Grey was already gone. He promised Thorbjorn he would gift him with the ring when Abigail was finished taking Goran’s life.
And with the death of King Kodran, the long winter came to an abrupt end.
GORAN
The winter softened, only light flakes of snow shrouding his being, landing upon his shining silver armour and melting in his long black curls. He could feel the chill biting at his skin, but the chill was not as it was before Goran had returned to the confines of the Stone Keep after his hunt, a decade of winter subsiding in a manor of hours, but all Goran could think about was his agony, blood slowly freezing upon his skin as it ran down his chin and dripped onto his breastplate, a numbness spreading from his lips.
His pain felt as though it would never end as he stared into his wife’s malevolent black eyes past the light, falling snow. He knew she not as kind as her younger brothers Jorgen and Erik, her mind twisted with hatred for him; the prince knew that she would make him suffer, like no other man had ever suffered, before his death. He felt his body behind dragged deeper into the darkness of the night underneath the moonlight, the snow falling, but lighter than the prince had seen it fall in an entire decade, weightless; his feet were dragged across the light white blanket of snow and into the castle’s courtyard, silence falling over the sleeping city. His wife came to a sudden stand, wrapped in furs as her breath escaped her lips in a smoky cloud from the cold and gazed left and right over her shoulder, and when she saw that the courtyard was desolate and lifeless, she returned her malevolent gaze to her wounded husband.
‘We have been married for almost a decade,’ she said quietly, almost sadness in her voice, speaking to him as though two soldiers were not with them, holding his arms as blood dripped off of Goran’s chin. ‘A decade, and this is how you treat me? By betraying me, with her? Margot of all people…’ her voice quietened further, her eyes glossing away from him, finding her shuffling feet in the snow. ‘I loved you.’
‘You don’t have to do this,’ he almost begged, his eyes watering, barely able to speak past his brutalised lips.
The sadness in her black eyes turned to fury. ‘And you did not have to betray me.’
‘Please, Abby, just do it.’ Goran chocked on the blood as it raged down his battered chin like a waterfall, catching in the dark stubble upon his broad chin. He was gazing into his wife’s dark eyes as she flashed a shining blade from underneath her thick furs, light snow catching in his matting hair.
‘Do what?’ She asked with a smile on her lips that frightened him, although he dared not to show it – her sadness had turned to anger in the sudden blink of an eye.
Goran closed his eyes, and prepared for death. ‘If you’re going to kill me, make it quick. I am suffering enough.’
‘I’m not going to kill you,’ she said with wide e
yes. ‘Death is too good for you, husband.’
His eyes abruptly opened. ‘What are you going to do with me?’
‘You’re going somewhere very far away.’ Abigail insisted, clicking her thin fingers. At Abigail’s sudden command, a strap crafted from thick leather was bolted around Goran’s pale neck. She moved her slender body in front of her bound husband, a smile upon her fair cheeks and her bright red hair blowing in the wind, catching with white drops of fresh snow. ‘You’re going to be escorted to your new home. I am certain you have heard of Solitude Island; the Afterling will be your family now. I hope you have safe travels; Gods forbid you die before you arrive.’
The words sent fear coursing through Goran’s body, fear that he had never felt before – and this time, he was unable to hide it. ‘Solitude? Do you know what they’ll do to me there?’ He stammered, a fate worse than death. The ring on his finger was bizarrely burning upon the base of his finger with his increasing fear.
‘Of course,’ Abigail replied with a chuckle. ‘In truth, I am counting on it. The next time we see each other will be when the Afterling send me your head in a crate, and I cannot express how much I am looking forward to that moment – after months of torture and starvation. I will mount it on a spike, right here, on the walls, for your bastards and your lover to see.’
‘You won’t be going alone,’ Abigail’s guard interjected, his eyes on Goran. ‘Your squire has been granted passage on the ship with you; punishment for his years of added torture to the new king. At least you shall have company on the long voyage.’
‘Please,’ Goran tried to beg, but blood continued to pour from his mouth. He was granted no mercy. ‘What did I do to deserve this?’ The painful words slipped from Goran’s lips, eyes on his wife’s wicked smile.
‘Margot’s children are not of Andor’s seed,’ she said surely, staring into Goran’s eyes with anger and sadness. ‘How many times did you take her behind our backs? There is nothing of Andor in those children. And you thought I never knew of her betrayal? Of yours?’
‘And Andor–’
‘–He knows – he has for a long time. He sentenced you to death. I asked to be the one to take your life from you, and he granted my wish, but death is too good for you. It’s too quick. You will die, but you’ll die on Solitude, with an empty stomach and a body riddled in lashes. I’ll think of you often.’
Abigail watched as Goran’s mind figured it all out; everything fell into place for the older prince in that moment. Goran knew what was happening to him and why. Two children, born from Andor’s wife, Margot Rose, and although they looked as their mother did, with deep black hair and brown eyes, there were more similarities between Goran and the children than Andor. Two bastard children, born from an affair spanning over years behind his brother’s back. ‘Don’t...don’t hurt my children, not Margot, please–’ He tried to speak as the fear coursed through his body, although the agony that spread through his mouth made it almost impossible.
‘If the decision was mine, she would hang,’ Abigail Black spat words of venom. ‘And your bastards would hang by her side. She is lucky her husband is more forgiving than most.’
The last thing Goran saw was the smile on Abigail’s face as a sharp whack to the back of his head rendered his world into complete darkness – he drifted into oblivion, his last thoughts of his children before he slipped into unconsciousness.
Two days passed before he awoke in a painful haze. He had been dreaming of Margot and his children.
‘When your brother and your wife are dead, only then can we be together,’ Margot had said to him, her voice as sweet as sugar on her tongue, even when she spoke of murder. ‘Our time will come and our children will know their true father. I promise you, we will not have to hide for much longer.’ She had kissed him so then, lovingly, like there was no one else in the world that mattered but him and their children that they had created in secret. And now their time had passed, a time for them to take what they wanted, and the distance between them felt crueller than the cut of Winterthorn.
Goran had been planning a similar fate for his brother and his wife, Abigail, when he was to become the King of Askavold, but Andor had beaten him to it. Andor had won the secret war they had always waged between each other and now his only thoughts lingered upon the faces of his children and his lover.
The ring around his finger had begun to burn again. It had never burnt his skin like it was burning, but it was the last thing on his fretted mind.
‘I do not know if you hear me, but please, I beg of you, do not let this be the way that I die,’ Goran prayed for the first time in years, his hands bound and his mouth swollen from the cut of Winterthorn. The sting still plagued him, coursing through his mouth and continued to impair his speech. His tongue was still swollen from the cuts of Winterthorn. He prayed he would not contract an infection. ‘Save my children. Save my soul, I beg of you, I will do anything the Gods wish of me.’
‘Silence you tongue, friend.’ Chauncey – his squire and a dear friend before his capture – spoke to him out of term, his eyes growing darker and hollow and a leather collar tied fiercely around his swollen neck. ‘The Gods have forsaken us; they do not care for you or I. They don’t care for our children. We will die on Solitude Island and there is no changing of our fate. There is no use in praying, not anymore.’
Goran and Chauncey had been on a rocking, dirty ship for twelve days, sailing out of the south and into the small marshy kingdom of Albon on the far east side of Askavold. The Prince had never left the south and a land without snow was foreign to him. Goran and his squire had remained below deck in rusty chains with the other souls who were to be taken to the Afterling men on Solitude Island, where soon the men would be met with a fate worse than death. He listened to the stories of fellow slaves in chains as each day passed them by, each story worse than the one before; tales of unimaginable torture and cannibalism were the most popular of tales.
Tales of Solitude had always been told to scare the children in the night of the southern kingdoms, but even stories could not compare to the harsh reality of the island of horrors and white-eyed men. Survival on Solitude was rare, or so the stories told. And Goran could hear the tears and cries of men and women below the deck around him, the smell biting at his nostrils as their own filth clung to them like a leech on their broken skin. ‘I won’t give up hope, not yet.’ Goran uttered to Chauncey, tears in his eyes as the days grew closer to their arrival on Solitude. ‘I have a family who need me to return home.’
‘And a wife who betrayed you and a brother who cut your father’s throat,’ The bitterness in Chauncey Rose’s voice was palpable – the distant cousin of his lover. The northerner did not speak of blame, but Goran Grey understood that Chauncey Rose censured him for what was to come. The bronze-skinned man had become bitter to his master and his friend as the leather collar bit at his skin and turned the bronze to red. ‘I should not be on this ship. I should be in the north, with my children and my wife, in the Frey–’
‘–Do not blame me, my friend,’ Goran uttered bitterly, his speech barely heard with the pain that coursed through his brutalised mouth. ‘I was not the only man responsible for my brother’s torment. You played your hand, as did I, and now we’re both to suffer for it.’
‘All these years, I did as you asked.’
‘I am still your prince,’ the young man hissed through scarring lips.
Chauncey uttered no words in response. The reminder of the moment Goran had cut Andor had once been a thrilling one, but now it only brought him discomfort and shame, only now that he was being punished for what had happened.
Goran took a deep, angered breath when Chauncey refused to respond. ‘You did as much as I.’
‘And you fucked his wife and fathered his bastards.’
‘We have both done regrettable things. We are both at fault for the mess we are in.’
‘I shouldn’t be here.’ Chauncey said again, staring at the filthy ground beneat
h him. ‘I stood behind you as you tormented him and laughed. I only laughed. The rest of Tronenpoint joined me. I should not be here.’
The Prince spoke no more words, but prayed silently inside of his fretted mind.
The Albonian ship had sailed through the Frozen Sea and into the calm waters of Albon after almost a month at sea, and the men and women below deck were ushered out into the open, chains still locked around their wrists. The rain poured down over Goran’s body; Albon was a country that was not cold, but rain was almost a certainty. The land was riddled with vast mountains, miles of never-ending marshland and tall pine trees, skeletal and dead. The land was bleak and grey. It was the first time Goran had laid eyes upon a land without snow in almost a decade, and all he felt was dread.
The prince gazed around him at the faces of his fellow slaves; he was surrounded by murderers and rapists and thieves. Barely a woman stood upon the deck in chains – they were likely sold into prostitution for their crimes, as Kodran had often enforced. It became clear that Solitude was the fate of any man who had committed a crime in the south; it had been years since there had been an execution in Tronenpoint.
Slowly the ship begun to steer away from the Albonian coastline. Goran’s fear deepened.
He wondered what Andor had told the world, what Andor had told Goran’s bastard children with Margot, whether he told them they were not of Andor’s seed. And then all thoughts of them disappeared again within a second as the ship changed its course and the slaves upon the ship kept still in silence upon the dreaded deck.
Chauncey stood by his side and Goran could feel his companion’s tanned body quaking. ‘This is entirely your fault; you will not tell me otherwise.’ Chauncey spat quietly, trapped together upon the slippery deck, bound by iron as they sailed towards imminent death.
Perhaps I am to blame, Goran thought silently, I promised Margot to take him as my squire.
Goran had a lot of things he was guilty of, and he thought, just for a moment, that this was part of his punishment. Perhaps he was cursed.