by Scott Beith
I checked to feel him underneath me, his dangling arm confirming my dread. I put my hand underneath his half plate armour, holding it over his heart, unable to feel any beat different to my own. I was almost in shock until I looked back up and was relieved to see his eyes were opening as his breathing began to increase. He was delirious, like a man waking up from a seven-year coma, but miraculously he was ok. Laid out uncomfortably squashed between me and an enormous misty black bean bag cloud.
My own shadow was inflated like a netted balloon, spread out with limbs like cords of a hammock that managed to string up against the roofline and catch Arlo and me in the nick of time. Something I must have subconsciously done in order to break our fall.
I checked Arlo for injuries and found a tiny feathered blue dart lodged in his arm as well as mine. There was no telling how long we’d been unconscious for, spread across a gigantic blanket that was stretched out to a size I didn’t even know I was capable of forming. The sun slowly eating away at it while Arlo and I lay there amidst the growing morning light.
Arlo’s dark hazel eyes were finally opened. “Arlo, Hey Arlo? Are you alright?”
“You could have created two nets, you know,” he sarcastically muttered. “Quick thinking though,” he surprisingly complemented, perhaps thinking it was best to be nice to me since we were squashed together in the giant pillow.
“Well, thank you. And what was your plan going to be, if you hadn’t passed out?” I enquired, the two of us awkwardly shuffling to try and get some space between us.
“Ummm… for you to break my fall,” he quipped.
We both laughed about it before I eventually got up, my shadow disintegrating upon my slow rolling dismount, and accidentally dropped my prince onto the warped wooden floor. “Oops. Sorry, my lord,” I said, taking an apologetic innocent tone whilst he crawled back to his feet and frowned at me as he questioned my genuine sincerity.
I was vaguely aware of him snapping back a smug insult, but my attention was completely focused on our surroundings. We were in a stable filled with gold objects. I gazed at priceless trophies balanced on gold threads that dangled and decorated every wall of this rundown farmhouse.
“Kya, you there?” I heard Arlo say.
I looked back at him; he was oblivious to all the gold. “Arlo... just look around,”
His eyes widened as he gazed around. There was gold everywhere: the frames of portraits, the fireplace mantle, nails, toys and furniture. It was even on the walls and along the roof’s support beams, having been used as a means to mend leaky copper plumbing.
Arlo impulsively reached for his sword, which usually sat on his back, but had been left, forgotten, in the mud during the second wave of the gnoll skirmish.
I tried to calm my nerves, saying to myself, ‘Just relax. This place looks long abandoned.’ Picking up one of the old heavy portraits and examining it. A family picture of four farmer’s children. The oldest and tallest child having two gold encrusted hands. “This must have been the farm Midas grew up on,” I openly announced, realising the boy could be none other than him.
“Over here,” Arlo then called to me from the other stable room around the corner.
I walked over to find him looking at a giant wooden chest with heavy gold pins and locks. “Can you pick it?” I asked Arlo, only to have him look back at me dumbly before punching through the chest’s thin wooden slats.
Eagerly waiting to see what kind of treasure ‘boy Midas’ would have considered worthy of locking away. Arlo and I peered through the punched hole he’d made, staring inside at all the sun-reflecting contents that gave off a glare so bright we both had to lean back. Arlo begun unlocking the chest from the inside in order to start pulling each thing out individually.
From gold rings to silver pens, inside the chest was a lot of rather boring pebbles and household tools. Other than being a former farmhand and king, Midas seemed to have been a keen admirer of geology, finding pleasure in an array of dull rocks and other natural minerals that, as a kid, he must have once considered valuable.
But then Arlo pulled out something that really took us by surprise. A long heavy diamond that had been sharpened and socketed into the frame of a thin but narrow sword hilt. The word ‘Destiny’ was inscribed across that gold locking hilt. It was love at first sight for my prince. He sat there in a quiet admiration of such an elegant yet durable crystal weapon. It was only slightly smaller than the sword he’d left in the mud. But from the way he was looking at it, I could tell he would be taking it home with him.
Without a word spoken about it, Arlo then proceeded to place the blade by his side and continued to pull out more and more little trinkets. Next, he yanked out what appeared to be an old torn treasure map. He dropped it, unimpressed, and reached back into the chest to find nothing more inside, while I peered down at the map, flattening it out in order to observe this strand of bark paper scripted in golden ink.
“Hmmm, it looks like a gold mine,” Arlo said, taking it from me to flip it over and check to see if it was double sided.
“But what interest would Midas have in a gold mine?” I asked.
“Who cares,” Arlo stated, dropping the map for a second time in order to admire his new shiny translucent sword.
“I guess nothing,” I responded, secretly pocketing the pen and map, knowing the true value of each of them.
“Maybe this is destiny,” Arlo joked, astounded to find the sword squeezed into his old sword’s straps without too much interference.
“Come on, we should get moving soon. The city is probably worried sick about you,” I said as I pulled myself back up from the floor and began walking to the front door of this two-room dilapidated farming shack.
“I’m sure they’re worried about you too,” he replied, still sitting by the chest.
“If you say so, your majesty,” I said, giving him a mocking curtsy.
“My life isn’t more valuable than yours… I thought you would have worked that out when I risked it to save yours,” he then stated back to me, perhaps even slightly offended by the sentiment of it.
“With all due respect, your highness. You’re lying to yourself if you think that could ever be the case,” I answered back, unsure of why I needed to tell him that, but I found his naivety almost just as insulting to me than if he truly did think it the other way around.
“Well, it is the case, and that will be how I run my kingdom,” he disinterestedly retaliated, his back still turned from me as he trialled his new crystal sword, spinning it about a short but safe distance away from me.
“You’re a fool then... Someone too childish to understand the ramifications of your own actions,” I cruelly announced to him, trying to force him to turn back and face me.
“What are we even talking about?” he questioned, quite dismissively, no doubt sensing I had a point to make that he wasn’t going to bother wanting to hear.
A prince or not, I couldn’t help but take this chance to give him a quick reality check about the world that had been sugar-coated for him his entire life. “Preach whatever you like when you are king, but I’m telling you now, it won’t change anything about how others treat you,” I stipulated, continuing to instruct him on the many great injustices of nobility and its existence in our society.
He gave me a bewildered look, as if this was the first time anyone had ever dared speak to him this way. Which, upon reflection, was probably the case.
“You know what, just forget about it,” I then passively diverted
“No!” he rebuked. “Don’t stop now. Please tell me why I shouldn’t lead my crown from the front lines and spare one extra soldier from picking up a sword... Share with me your wise war council about that.”
“Because you are royalty! Regardless of whether you choose to believe it or not, your life is more valuable than a hundred of mine, which means a hundred others like me will be sacrificed to save your life, should the need arise,” I loudly and openly bickered.
�
�You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he quickly rebutted.
“Look, you can play soldier boy as much you like, because no one can actually stop you from doing whatever you want to do. But right now, whether you condone it or not, your mother is going to send more and more expendable soldiers into the dark unknown to search for you, so can we please just start moving,” I snapped angrily at him, my initial intentions being merely to coach him to hurry up but somehow I had found myself releasing repressed rage I’d bottled up towards him for heaven knows how long.
His eyes lowered to the floor in a bow of uncontested shame.
“I mean that’s probably the real reason Camilla didn’t want your mother knowing about this mission – to spare junior soldiers from being drafted into combat because of one overly privileged child’s reckless mistake!” I shouted, now speaking cruelly about the princess, my own best friend, unable to stop myself from speaking badly about anyone.
“I would never ask for any of that,” Arlo softly said to me, shame evidently clear in his voice.
“But your mother will do it anyway!” I barked back, silencing him for good this time. I wished I could have stopped arguing, but something inside me had derailed, making it impossible for me to let the conversation go. “Radament knew it... It’s why he did what he did for us,” I blurted out, horrified at my own words, but I still couldn’t restrain myself and proceeded to keep talking. “Ariss did too, and that’s why he told you to leave me,” I stated, finally pushing him enough to spark up.
“Don’t put any of that on me!” he angrily protested, stepping forward to leer down at me. “I’m not a prophet who can see the future, Kya! Bad things just happen in war. It was the gnolls fault, and nobody else’s!” he shouted, forcefully locking his sword back into its hilt. “And if you want to survive out here, you better get used to telling yourself that too.”
“DO YOU THINK I WANT TO BE OUT HERE WITH YOU?!” I shrieked hysterically. “Unlike you, I didn’t volunteer for this. It was face the gnolls’ wrath or my queen’s,” I argued, venting my own tired frustrations on him.
We both surrendered to the discord of an uncomfortable silence.
I was instantly remorseful of my words, knowing full well what I had said was out of line, but even though I knew I was wrong, I was simply too proud to apologise. After everything that had transpired out here, I really did want Arlo here with me. And I knew if it hadn’t been for him, I would have been dead.
“Kya, his death was not your fault,” Arlo said softly to me. “There’s nothing you could have done,” he added, his words coming completely out of the blue to me. “Are you listening?” he asked, sternly placing a hand upon my chin cheek as he tilted my face to look at him, attempting to measure the guilt in my eyes in order to confirm whether he’d found the secret source of my sudden rage.
I found it too hard to even think of saying Radament’s name without my throat clogging up. “Yeah, because this is all on you!” I then vented instead, still wishing to argue, pushing him back and defiantly choosing anger over sadness, and retribution over solace. I wanted nothing more than to force him to admit he was wrong and be sorry for it. “You treated this like a game,” I sobbed. “WE NEVER SHOULD HAVE ENTERED THAT ECLIPSE!” I cried out.
“That was Ariss’s decision, not mine.” He announced as he angrily defended himself, trying not to aggravate me anymore then I had become but also acting just as stubborn and reluctant to admit any fault in his own actions.
“But you could’ve backed me up when I said we shouldn’t go in there!” I argued, unable to stop my vindictive rant. “We promised Camilla we’d run at the first sign of danger, but you and Ebony wanted to prove yourselves.”
“How was I supposed to know what would happen?” he said, his words both remorseful and defensive.
“Because it’s what a good king would have known,” I replied.
Arlo bowed his head in regret. I felt a similar epiphany of guilt and shame for wanting nothing more than to bring him down to my level. I had become the very person I hated the most: his overbearing and judgmental mother. In my own blind rage, I hadn’t seen that I was displacing my anger on him, just as his mother always did to me.
I could tell the prince wasn’t going to forget my words anytime soon from the way he stood there, in the farmhouse’s doorway, defeated and stewing in his own personal blame. It was exactly how I looked when his mother would yell at me. Even so, survivor’s guilt or not, I couldn’t exactly explain why I was saying such horrible things. They were a double-edged sword, hurting me just as much as they hurt him. And I did this despite knowing Arlo had issues when it came to proving his self-worth before his subjects – I’d sadistically exploited that weak spot for my own amusement.
All his life, he’d never felt worthy of the crown; it’s why I believed he always acted so reckless – to prove himself. Always leaping into unfavourable odds, trying to be the selfless hero his followers wanted a king to be.
As a person, he had little materialistic possessions. He was actually someone who was so afraid of being selfish or seen as entitled that he was willing to sacrifice every level of comfort and joy offered to him, just so he could appear like any other citizen. He refused every offer of assistance that was extended to him when he signed up for the base level infantry, and took the long slow climb to squad leader, which was his current and rather modest personal rank.
Truth be told, I had no idea why I had such strong feelings against a man who’d respectfully paved his own way through life, wishing to earn the titles he was destined to be privileged with nevertheless.
To me, those features were his most admirable traits. For, in many ways, that made him an incorruptible kind of person. How could one bribe somebody who had no care for riches? The more I thought about it, the more I realised how much everything I had just said to him was a vicious lie. But I would never admit such things out loud. Instead, I remorselessly chose to stick with silence.
“For what little it’s worth now... I truly am grateful that you came back for me,” I eventually said; although with his guard up now, I could tell he didn’t want a bar of it. “Also, I believe you will be a good king one day,” I confessed right after. Even if he was just going to assume I was saying this simply to save my own skin.
Interpreting my words as a plea of pity he eventually replied, “But you think my sister should rule, don’t you? I hear the whispers too, you know… and... I…” he started to say, but lost his words as he gazed at me, both of us battling to look brave and hide the wounds this one-sided conversation had inflicted. And so he stood there, waiting for me to send a final cutthroat response in disagreement to his question. My silence and surrender having done more harm than any real words ever could.
I wasn’t going to lie to him, but nor could I afford to offend the prince any further. My biggest wish was that I could retract everything I had said to him, to simply start fresh and begin anew. “I’m so sorry, my lord,” I whispered.
He shook his head and took the lead out the door, seeming to be even angrier at my apology than if I had continued blurting out more bitter insults. He suddenly turned back to me from the golden sunshine outside. “Quit calling me that… Just come already – we’re waiting on you now. Best we go find my sister before this kingdom is stuck with only me.”
I walked behind the prince in awkward silence, his natural stride always one step ahead of mine as we followed the sun towards the ocean passing through the long peaceful sandy plains and then along the calm beach waves of a long scenic coastline towards Ambervale. I distracted myself from the silence by roughly sketching our bearings on the back of the treasure map I had pocketed, trying to guide our way and measure the distances as we moved.
I had known the prince his whole life. And because of this, I already knew I wasn’t going to be getting into any trouble over what I’d said to him earlier. He wouldn’t report me to anyone, nor have me disciplined in any kind of official manner. That jus
t wasn’t his style. He would brood about it until it consumed him in other self-absorbed and self-destructive ways. I was free of all repercussions, yet still felt dreadful about what I’d said and the way I’d acted.
How I was feeling reminded me of a memory from when we were little kids: the first time I had ever needed to start treating him differently. Anara and I had been playing with dolls in one of the water gardens’ glass greenhouses during its construction. Arlo had hidden behind a pot plant and started throwing clumps of dirt at us.
He was only slightly younger than me, and I was simply too young at the time to comprehend the meaning of royalty and saw him as nothing more than a mischievous boy. I’d picked up my own mud rocks and had started hurling them back at him. It had been fun at first, with us running around, dodging and ducking dirt as it whizzed past our heads. But then I got too competitive and threw one a little too hard. Striking my young prince square across the face.
Of cause he’d cried, as any young child would. Tamara, the residing maid, had quickly run over to check on him just as Milena had marched upon us, having heard him crying from the distance. She’d hugged him and wiped away his tears as she’d looked at the maid. “What happened?” she’d asked Tamara.
The maid had hesitated, looking at me briefly before timidly responding, “An… Anara threw a rock at him, your majesty. It was just an accident,” she had stated, taking my hand to shake me from blurting out the real truth, while she’d waited in an inconspicuous terror to see if Milena could be foolishly convinced.
“Is this true?” she’d asked Arlo, who’d tearfully looked at me before nodding, agreeing to the lie in order to spare me from getting into trouble. And although that day Anara took all the punishment for it; it was me who could never knowingly sleep the same again. Constantly reliving that moment every time I had to stare back into Arlo’s deep rainforest green eyes.