The King with Six Friends

Erik

"It's not useless." Erik regretted the words as soon as they fell out of his mouth. His father's cold glare shot daggers through him.

"Kerlen, he's a child," Mother quickly covered, "He didn't mean that." Erik was sixteen, but he knew she was trying to protect him.

"Of course he meant it." Kerlen advanced on Erik from across the sitting room. "If he wants to say something he should say it. Why am I wrong, Erik?" He stopped an inch away from his face. Erik looked down and tried not to breathe.

"Kerlen, please," Mother begged.

"Why am I wrong, boy?" Kerlen's voice was dangerously calm.

Erik could smell the rotten-sweet scent of alchohol on his breath. He balled his hands to keep from shaking. He knew he was going to get hit no matter what he said.

"I like mythology and I don't think it's useless." He set his jaw defiantly. "And I want to go back home so we can-"

Kerlen struck Erik across the face so hard he almost fell to the ground. He felt himself being hauled by the back of his coat into the freezing corridor. Erik stumbled and tripped over his feet under his father's forceful control.

"Ungrateful, disrespectful. . ." Kerlen growled.

"Kerlen! Stop!" Erik heard Mother pleading as she followed them.

Kerlen shoved Erik into the drafty bedchambers. Erik stumbled to the stone floor in his father's dark silhouette. He scrambled to his feet and stood tall. Erik wasn't about to give him a chance to find weakness.

"You're going to stay here until you learn some respect," Kerlen snarled from the doorway, "Without any fire."

"I'm not scared of you!" Erik spat in his face, "Fight me!" He set his feet apart and brought his trembling fists up to his eyes.

Kerlen opened his mouth to retaliate, but hesitated. A slow, vicious smirk crossed his face. "No." He slammed the door shut. Erik ran to the door and yanked against the handle. Kerlen had locked it from the outside.

Erik tried breaking down the door, kicking at it, and throwing furniture at it, but the heavy wood held strong. He screamed and howled against it.

It was so frustrating that he couldn't get out and take on his father- his cowardly, selfish father. Kerlen had denied Erik the chance to fight and instead confined him to his room like a child.

Eventually, after an hour of no progress, Erik rested and bundled himself in his quilts. As he sat at the foot of his bed, watching his breath puff out in the progressively chilling room, he thought about what he could have done differently. He contemplated why he had acted the way he did.

He decided he had just snapped and had enough. He had had enough and he wanted out. He hated this place, he hated his father, and he hated his mother for doing nothing. He was tired of waiting. He wanted to go back to the South Kingdom- back to his real home- and see Kiera again.

Erik gazed out the narrow window overlooking the blizzard and the castle's ice-slicked courtyard. An idea crept into his head like poison.

Without hesitating, he grabbed a fire poker from the hearth and knocked it against the glass panes. The arctic storm blasted into the room as he climbed into the frigid night. It was freezing- more than freezing- but Erik pressed on against the wind. Hanging from the eave, he dropped down over the stables and startled a passing soldier.

"My Lord, forgive me, I-" the soldier stammered.

"Can I have that?" Erik pointed to the soldier's sword with a shivering finger. The man obliged, but the weapon was too large and awkward for his undergrown height.

Erik had no idea what he was going to do. He thought he might be able to intimidate Kerlen, somehow, and show that he wasn't going to be treated like a child anymore. Erik shuffled numbly to the tall doors, dragging the sword behind him. He lumbered through the corridors until he came to the warm sitting room where his parents were. He put an ear to the small crack between the doors.

"He needs to be disciplined, that's all," Erik heard Kerlen say. "If a child's not disciplined they grow up wild and unruly."

"Like you? Spending away all of our fortunes until we're forced to dig it out of the ground?" Mother was saying in a trembling voice. "You know no limits, Kerlen, and I wish I'd realized that long ago."

"You watch your tongue, Idonea," Kerlen hissed, "Or you might lose it." He was using the voice he used when he was about to become violent. He saw the silhouette of his father standing with an arm raised to strike.

Erik burst into the room with the sword raised above his head. Any small fragment of a plan was gone from his mind.

"Don't you touch her!" Erik screamed. He was covered in frost and wielding a broadsword like a maniac. He must have looked terrifying. Being partially frozen, and the sword too heavy, Erik's grip slipped and the blade fell-

Right into his father. The blade plunged through his collarbone and impaled his ribcage. Kerlen stood stunned for a moment. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth and chest before he collapsed to the ground into a heavy heap. He muttered nonsensical words until he fell still.

Erik only released the hilt of the sword when he realized Kerlen was dead. Erik never intended for this to happen.

"Erik-" His mother was pale-faced and mortified. "What have you done?"

Erik swallowed the bile in his throat and exhaled shakily. "I- I didn't mean-" Kerlen was dead and blood was seeping into the rug. The stench of death was strong in the room.

Erik was a murderer. He would be outcast, his mother too, disgraced and degraded to less than dirt. No life could be scavenged from something like this. There would be no hope at all once others found out.

But what if he could get away with it without anyone knowing?

There's a thought.

He knew a suit of armor down the corridor that carried a sword nearly identical to the soldier's sword. If he could somehow keep the soldier from talking, perhaps what had transpired could be marked down as a freak accident. Erik looked at his mother, who trembled fearfully. She wouldn't say anything about it, he knew that much. Another plan formulated and fit together in his head.

He would have to prove to others that he was sad about the death of his father. He would work to pay off the rest of his father's debt to show his devotion to him. Why would anyone question the word of a good-to-honest son who 'loved' his father enough to pay the massive debt?

Erik meticulously straightened his coat and hair. "Mother, we're free," he breathed, borderlining a laugh. "I know what to do. Don't worry."

At the same time, Erik promised himself he would not be underhanded nor downgraded by anyone else ever again. He just had to make it through the night without anyone finding out the truth.