The Will [on hold]

4000s - Episode 1

4972

The world’s throne was empty.

The boy was its heir. But he was young yet, far too young to wear a crown upon his brow, let alone to lead an empire. Its throne vacant, Zoll Zora now called for a trusted and capable leader.

The funeral rites completed and the days of mourning past, the palace lords now gathered in the throne room. The king had had no brothers, but the room teemed with cousins of his, some close, some far-removed.

Olbe Morowyn was not one of these cousins. He was a lowly palace lord, just recently come into his lordship, and he bore no blood relation to the royal line. He was young, with fledgling bristles on his chin in the place of a full stately beard. Standing at a mere seven years older than the child prince, and only several inches taller, his very presence in the throne room at this hour seemed a joke.

But Olbe took himself quite seriously. Those seven years were enough to render him a man.

The steward at the center of the great hall cleared his throat, and the gathered lords promptly fell into a deep, anxious silence.

Even the windows held their breath, and the high marble vault overhead caught and echoed the ambient hush. The rustle of the slowly unfurled parchment in the steward’s shaking hands seemed somehow to intensify that silence instead of breaking it.

“In the hour of his death, King Zyrus ordained that, during the period of six years before the high prince is to assume his own kingship,” the steward stated in a flat but trepid tone, “the office of High Regent would be entrusted to…”

Above a fledgling beard, there surfaced a prescient smile.

“…Lord Morowyn.”

In the days and moons following, Olbe paid no heed at all to the glowers and glares of spurned cousins. He devoted his every attention to Xor, the bright-eyed young prince with his impressionable mind and his heart that beat mayhap a little too fast. To the chagrin of every other palace lord, Olbe had been King Zyrus’s closest and most trusted friend, and he was determined to become the same to Xor: to be the little prince’s dearest friend, his humblest servant—but all the while his maker and his master.

Having only just reached his twelfth year, Xor yet lacked the faculty to critically consider or to question anything that was ingrained in him. The seeds of unripe questions might occasionally spring up in his mind, but that fallow mind could not yet cultivate them, really.

Olbe made sure to take advantage of that. Zyrus had had visions of a darker and more powerful Zoll Zora than the world had ever seen, and Olbe had every intention to bring that vision to life. He saw in Xor the potential for softness and sympathy; and he resolved to smother it.

“Your father was the greatest king the empire ever knew,” he told the little prince one day, upon a balcony overlooking the palace gardens. “You want to be just like him, don’t you?”

“I suppose so.”

“Soon, you will wield an imperial scepter in the place of this stumpy wood sword, and wear a crown upon your brow instead of this ridiculous little thing,” he foretold, tapping the wreath of leaves settled atop the prince’s rippled raven mane.

“This crown was a prize!” Xor announced. “I had a swordfight with Borghos, and I won.”

“With these silly wooden swords?”

The young prince laughed, dimples appearing in his ruddy cheeks. “I would’ve liked to use real swords, but you know that we’re not old enough for that. In any event, though, I won.”

“Of course you won! Your little brother is not a future king like you.”

“He was good, though. Nearly beat me.”

“But he did not, and that’s the point. So you’ve the crown.”

Xor grinned, but the smile was empty. Olbe noticed that, despite the prize he may have won in his mock swordfight with his brother, there was another prize at stake for Xor, which was not his.

The Regent followed the prince’s gaze into the gardens. Borghos was there, picking bunches of pale blossoms from a silvery-barked tree. These he brought to a young girl seated on a low stone bench, and he wove flowers through her locks of silken sable, as she littered some throughout his hazel curls. The peals of their shared laughter lifted from the courtyard to the balcony, and Olbe saw Xor’s eyes darken somewhat with each mirthful trill.

“Who is that girl my brother frolics with?” the jealous prince inquired.

“Vana Belham. A commoner,” Olbe apprised him. “But she’s very pretty, isn’t she? More so than any of the daughters of the palace lords.”

The young boy’s head bobbed in a soft, distrait nod. “Most of those girls are my cousins anyhow. I like that she’s a commoner. And yes,” he agreed, “she is the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

Lord Morowyn bent his head a bit, such that his lips were nearer to the prince’s young and all too open ears. “Then she shall be yours,” he promised him. “A king must learn to take and conquer that which he desires, no matter the cost.”

Xor paused, his dark eyes flashing with absorption and a spark of liquid doubt. “Would that not make him sad? It seems he claimed her first.”

“No matter the cost,” Olbe unwaveringly repeated. “Your brother is no king; he has no claim to her. You have claim to her. You have claim to everything.”

The spark of doubt guttered. With one final tremulous flicker, it quickly went out.