Prologue
“Promise me you’ll come back alive.” Shiya would wreak havoc if her brother didn’t make this promise. “Please.” What exactly would she do? Well, Shiya didn’t know. Maybe she would try to overpower her brother and throw him in a dungeon cell like a filthy prisoner. It wasn’t preferable, but it’d keep him out of a war, wouldn’t it? She thought this as if she actually could overpower her brother- a soldier who had been training for as long as he could walk, meanwhile Shiya was taught how to lift a teacup properly and not embarrass the men who spoke for the girls and women.
The prince let a sigh out slowly, as if contemplating what to say, or if any of it were even worth saying at all. “Shiya,” He shook his head gently, one thought flowing over another like logs over a waterfall. How could he make such a large promise? “You know what I am doing is necessary and you know the risks of it. How can you ask me to make-”
“I am not asking, Zypherius!” It was seldom the princess ever yelled, but right now she was desperate. She took one great and shaky breath. “Tell me you are going to come home.” The look her brother gave told Shiya he didn’t even believe he would make it out of battle, so why was he throwing himself into it? “Why can our father not go instead? He is the king, Rius. It is his job to command the army- not yours. Stay home with me.”
Another shake of the head. Rius scratched the back of his neck and ran a hand through his dark and somewhat wavy hair. “Do you even know who we are fighting, sister?”
No, she didn’t. But what did it matter who her kingdom was fighting? Why could they not avoid wars altogether, stay unaffiliated with any of the madness involved?
“Do you remember those tales Father would tell us as children?”
We are nearly still children, Shiya thought bitterly. “Which ones?” she asked, for her father used to tell them many stories, all of which nearly caused her to spoil her gown before bed. The sight of the moon still chilled from her time to time, particularly when it was full and bright enough to light her rooms as if it were day. Her fathers spoke often of the Shadows of Night which would ‘…eat little girls if they misbehaved before bed.’ Shiya didn’t used to like bedtime. Now, she lived for the moments her eyes closed when the world became dark.
“About the Billiard King?”
Shiya’s heart dropped at the name. Had her brother never mentioned him, she’d have forgotten the stories, which was impressive considering how horrific they were. Perhaps it was that trait that made them so easily forgettable- they were too traumatic to have in the back of one’s mind.
A thought crossed the princess’ mind. Why were they talking about the Billiard King when Zypherius had first asked if she knew who her own kingdom was- “No. No, he is not real. That is just our father spinning more tales to…to…” Her head rapidly switched sides, left-to-right, left-to-right.
To do what? Their father knew his children were loyal to Stinemarch now. They were older, educated, and proud. Rius was a hard-working soldier who could hardly wait for duelling tournaments, and Shiya was a proper princess who kept her chin high and her back straight. Of course, both children had their rotten days when they’d sneak off to the apple orchard and steal sweet fruit from the trees to eat pleasantly or throw at each other as if they were toddlers all over again. Either way, the king of Stinemarch had no reason to twist what Shiya assumed were lies into a reason for her brother to fight. He would do it without such a horrendous tale. This meant if the tale was still being mentioned, it must not have been a tale at all.
“I must do this, Shiya, and you know that, even if you do not want to know it. Every man needs to be on that battlefield- myself included.”
Especially Zypherius- if the Billiard King was who their kingdom was up against. Or, if the tales their father said were real, and as Shiya already determined through her own conclusions, they had to have been true.
“Rius,” Her sibling’s name came out as a whisper, and a broken one at that. Before she knew what she was doing, her arms were stretched out and upwards, gathering Zypherius as close to her as he could be in a hug. “Please. Please do not leave me.” The horrors which she felt when her father first told her and Rius those stories came back to her in a flash- sweaty palms and hot streaks on her cheeks where terrified tears ran, clenched jaw and eyes squeezed shut as tightly as an archer’s grip on their bow. Shiya felt all these things now, but nothing was as bad as the heavy weight in her stomach as she thought of her one and only brother on a bloody field, surrounded by the staked heads of defeated Stinemarch soldiers. There was a reason the infamous king was called the Billiard King, and it wasn’t because he was great at the game.
