Incognito

26

Zac picked up an arrow, hastily set it in his bow, and shot before he aimed. Quickly he drew another arrow and another, not one arrow hitting the target in the winter wind. His frozen fingers stung from the bow string's vibrating song.

He was about to let loose another arrow when a small hand caught his string and brought the arrow's fletching to the corner of his mouth. An arm wrapped around his body and straightened the arm holding the bow. A finger ticked his lip and he inhaled. As he exhaled the arrow released and he found an outer ring. 

Zac turned toward the heat at his back. The mia timidly smiled.

"You should come inside," she called over the howling wind. She pulled on his wrist. "It is so cold."

Zac looked at his brother's unfinished castle, fit for the earl he would never be, and felt an overwhelming trepidation. Fear and anger rose and his bow began to shake not from the cold. He allowed the mia to drag him. His brother was a war hero. He was rewarded with lands and a title. He was an heir to a duke. He was about to marry the perfect girl. Still, he persistently haunted Zac's every day. No matter what he was hit in the face with reminders of the fact that he was the unwanted, unloved spare.

The mia seemed oblivious to Zac's current state as she bustled around like fires and finding more clothes and food. Doing all the things which Zac should be doing. He was yet again a failure.

The castle was halfway built, only a hollowed-out stone building, lacking to beauty and upper levels of most establishments. His father had commissioned it some time ago, always planning on giving Leeland an earl even though the town was directly next to the duke's residence. It was his father's way of mentoring a young and promising leader. The castle had been abandoned during the war and the winter, but it had been previously stocked with clothing and food in case its lower level needed to become a shelter during the then far off war. 

Zac stroked his face, shaven yesterday. After so long it was strange to find soft, smooth skin. The mia had helped him shave in the woods with a knife, but the second Zac had arrived home he cleaned up the scruff. Did the mia notice? Did she like him better with a slight beard? Why did her opinion matter? He was angry at himself for caring quite so much.

She placed a bowl of beans in his hands and he grabbed her arm. "We have to leave for the duke's castle soon." He had to prepare her so she didn't fight him when it was truly time to go. 

With an audible sigh, she nodded. She sat with him against the wall and watched Prosper eat like she had not eaten in weeks.

The mia lazily stirred her own steaming beans. She timidly looked up at him. "It is alright."

Zac leaned his head against the cold wall and looked at her.

"To feel ashamed. To feel like you are never doing enough. It feels like you are a failure, aye?"

A tear that glowed in the fire's light silently streaked down her face. Yet again, Zac felt useless and ignorant of what to do. He stared at the beans cooling in his hands. "I blame my father," he rumbled quietly. He was never there when it mattered. I was never able to watch him or see how men acted. From my training years, I observed knights but they were either stoic or drunken's partying at every occasion. I certainly did not want to become as uptight as a wooden plank. I suppose I longed for attention that I never received as a child. So it became all about me and my ego and suddenly I was the player they all were. I was so vain and never happy or satisfied."

Zac pursed his lips. His mother always found herself too vain, reading and re-reading Ecclesiastes. She had told him that no matter what never to be vain. His mother would hate who he had become over the years if she had cared enough for him to stay.