Veils of Storm

1. The Uselessness of Palace Guards

Palace guards had always seemed like the lowest of the low to Cage.

Even when he was a toddler, he could outsmart them without issues, slip away right under their noses for a quick trip to the kitchens. Oh, how the cooks liked to pass him extra cookies or warm bread...

The memories felt bitter on his tongue now, a testament of the intruder he'd always been in his family. The staff pitied him, of course they gave him extra sweets. Someone should pamper him if his own mother could not.

Not that it mattered now. He'd long gone past the age where sweets could make him happy. And as the irony of fate would have it, he was now probably the happiest he'd ever been while inside the Grand Palace.

Well, not that he was inside. Even he wasn't that reckless. The world thought him dead or cursed or both, and he wasn't about to prove them wrong. Truthfully, he was cursed, though compared to how it had started, the new magic placed upon him was a walk in the park.

Less than a week ago, his bones would break, his fingers would become talons and fangs would fill his mouth every time he was near anyone he cared about. Turned into a beast poised to kill the object of his affection.

He'd lived with the affliction for seven years until he finally had the courage to do what had to be done and end himself and the beast. It had hurt like a bitch, but for some reason, the fairy who'd cursed him in the first place decided to take it back.

He would no longer become the beast, but kept the perks of his curse. The strength, the faster healing and the superior speed were all welcomed. The hole he felt in his chest while being away from Kat was not.

As he crouched on one of the lower branches of a Ginkus tree in the garden of the Grand Palace, he rubbed his chest, as if the physical motion would ail his inner suffering.

Yes, he missed Kat. Crimson hells, he loved her more than he ever thought was humanly possible. But this pain felt like something else.

It was true that, when lifting his initial curse, Cecile had bound him and Kat by magic. They were to live and die together, tied by intricate tendrils of life and magic. He hadn't given it one thought, because he had already decided that his life was hers even before that. And yet...

He pressed his chest harder. Did it translate into the literal inability to be apart from her?  Did this mean that he would no longer be able to go anywhere alone, be without her for long periods of time? How long and how far? Valona was not too far from his own place, merely three days of riding away.

His inner musings were fortunately interrupted by the appearance of more palace guards. Four of them preceded Prince Edmund, while another two brought up the rear.

Cage crouched lower on his branch, and narrowed his eyes, observing the trajectory of his youngest brother. Well, half-brother he guessed, since they only shared the same mother and his father was Cage's uncle. Family was so complicated. But with Prince Ferdinand still missing, Cage had to do something.

And that something had to be reckless, dangerous and outright insane.

Edmund stopped in the middle of the path, bringing the sleeve of his royal blue tunic to his mouth. Even if he was fairly tall, his shoulders were narrow and he looked reedy. His hair, even if dark, wasn't black like Cage's, but rather a murky brown, as if it was discolored. Even his gait was hesitant, like he didn't know what to do with himself.

It brought a hollow pain to Cage's chest. He didn't look eighteen. He maybe looked fifteen on a good day. It was criminal that he was expected to be king if something happened to Ferdinand.