Prologue
I proved to be consistent in visiting my brother no matter how much the distance of his place was from the Tanzhin Palace.
I would usually let my escorts stay on the knoll, insisting that no one should be with me whenever I enter the tower.
“The king has forbidden the prince to have a visitor,” the clergyman, an annoying snitch, said as he dismounted his horse. He was always like that when it came to my bond with my brother. No. Everyone had always been like him. “The same goes with you, your grace. It seems to me that you are growing fond of the boy—”
“What is it to you?” I gave him a glare. I was still an adolescent but I, as many claimed, was already showing my fierceness with the title nailed beside my name. Prince Louckt of Tanzhin. Because what use would it be if I am not to show what it does?
I fixed my cap tighter before getting my hand on my pommel. The clergyman saw what was about to come and relented. I was then free to move on to the tower.
I knocked on the door and entered with a smile planted upon my face. “Brother?” The boy would usually be seen running around the room or playing with his sticks. This time was different. I found him at his table, quiet.
“What are you writing?” Receiving no reply, I neared him and read. I couldn’t make out the words from Mond’s juvenile writing.
Mond closed the book before I could even finish a sentence. “A story,” he said with a lisp. “About the images I saw.”
I was silent. They said that the child’s mind was deteriorating; his delusions, his enigmatic behavior. I didn’t want to believe them. Mond was just like any other child. He wasn’t different. He would never be like what they were suspecting of him.
“A dream, perhaps?” I kneeled beside him. “Tell me more.” But Mond didn’t speak of the subject anymore. He shook his head and frowned as he stared out the window. That was when I knew something was bothering the boy. I waited for him to talk.
“The news that I heard, is it true?” Mond fiddled with his quill and lined ink on his hands. “Ferlor was executed? He is dead?”
I didn’t know how he found out.
“He was a criminal, and we can’t do anything about that.”
“But I have met him once. He was kind to me.”
“He would have killed you if he knew that you are a prince.”
“If he knew that I am demented, he would think twice before doing it.”
I held him by his shoulder firmly. “You? Demented? Who told you that?”
“Everyone.”
I was heartbroken for him. But I didn’t want to show the boy that I was pitying him. He would hate me for it. I just asked him to play a game with me to cheer him up.
Mond flailed his arms as he ran across the carpet. That was the boy that I came for. His warm smile.
“Let’s play pretend!” It was his favorite game, and he was good at it, to tell you. He had once portrayed the characters from the old tales, heroes and villains. Each one he played, I found it impressive. If he weren’t a prince he could become an actor, a talented one, and travel across the cities and towns.
If he weren’t locked up in this tower.
“I will be Ferlor, and you can be a king this time.”
I laughed it off as I agreed to it. I was interested in knowing how Mond was going to play it. I was interested in how he would portray that infamous blond-haired celebrity.
Mond ran into his closet and wore his bright green coat. He went in front of the mirror and gradually fixed his face into an expression that Ferlor was known of. He furrowed his eyebrows, and then he smoldered. He drew lines that were supposed to be Ferlor’s old scars.
He faced me while I was still busy arranging my mock crown. “You can start if you want,” I told him. “I need to get this thing together…”
I didn’t know, but I was caught off guard. The way that the boy was staring at me. There was a malicious intent behind that expression. I admit, I thought for a short while that I was in the same room as that criminal.
The uneasiness I’d have whenever I walk alone in the dark was kicking in. I felt vulnerable on each of every side, anticipating anxiously for something to attack me behind the black void.
My breathing grew rapid. Slowly, I shuffled my feet backwards as I became defensive for my safety.
“If there is one thing that I would hope for,” Mond stepped forward little by little, his voice was as deep as it could get, “it is to feel terrified even for once. I first had that desire when I was playing with a friend, my first and maybe my last companion. He didn’t like it when I didn’t give him the reaction that he wanted after an attempt to surprise me with his freakish appearance from the dark. You know what I did, Your Majesty?”
“W-what?”
“There were many wars at that time. I would usually see women and children crying when armies plundered our homes. The people’s skins were all white, their eyes were all wide, their mouths were all yelling, except for mine. They were all scared at the sight of blood, the scattered corpses, and pieces of flesh, while I remained unmoved by everything. I thought blood was one thing that would get people weak. That was what I did for him. He wanted me to get scared, he said.” He felt the need to chuckle at his story. “So I forced him to provide me his blood. I wanted to show him my cowardly face. I wanted to satisfy him because that is what a good friend must do… Again, I felt nothing. He wasn’t breathing when it was all done. It’s not like it mattered. I still didn’t have the sensation that most would have when they see a freshly popped head of a boy in front of them, with his insides dangling off his stomach.”
It was vivid to me. I could picture everything that he told me. I could smell the corpse that he left to stink. I did not know where he got that story. I did not know when he had come to have that wild imagination. I couldn’t tell if it was all real or was just a part of the damn play.
Nonetheless, I never thought a child would make me cower in a corner like an enslaved animal.
“What about you, Your Majesty? My king? People think highly of you. People respect you. They fear you. Maybe you are the one to make me feel what my friend wanted me to feel.” He pulled a sharp dagger under his sleeves. “I want to know.”
I couldn’t move. It was going too fast for me. The second I blinked, I was already down on the floor with Mond standing on top of me. I pinched my eyes hard as I prepared for the blow that would surely kill me.
There was nothing. I wasn’t hurt.
There was only a loud thud beside me. Mond was passed out.
Without thinking much, I tended to him. “What did you do?” I asked when I saw Kholski’s half-opened eye. But he fell asleep in my arms. He wasn’t active to talk for the remaining hours I was allowed in there. And then it was time for me to go.
He was never the same after that incident. No matter what I did, I couldn’t bring back the old Mond. We never got back into being the lively duo that we used to be. I miss it.
It didn’t stop me from visiting him. I would only observe him as he paced around his room. If he was not pacing, he would sit on his desk, writing. He did not want to show me what was in his journal, so I used my sharp hearing because he would mumble the words that he’d write.
I could only understand chunks of them, but I got the whole picture. He was writing about his silly visions again.
The time that I feared the most came, he was gone. Not dead. He just escaped and vanished.
I’ve got nothing left of him except this journal he had been hiding away from me. The chronicles of his visions. It’s odd though. The names of the people we knew, each of them, he had written here. I didn’t see my name on it. It must be hard to mention me in his story, in his own version of the world…
Would you like to read it yourself?
