The Willow Tree

Chapter 1

I am unsure of how it exactly started. Maybe there were cries of joy or screams of anguish. Somewhere among the two, it had to be. All I knew was one thing. How I was born. A disappointment. A disgrace to my father, to my bloodline. And oh, how they grieved my birth.

Maybe it was not truly about me at all. Maybe it was just meant to be. The poor woman had to get tired eventually. 12 children was far more than what most husbands expect of their wives. Maybe the 12th child was just where her body put an end to the torture. When her body finally stopped letting these children leave her with no consequences.

Either way, my mother would not have to live with the shame of causing a death. That was what I was for. The youngest, and the only son of my family's long bloodline.

If you asked any of my sisters, they would say Father favored me. Perhaps for how valuable I was, being the only heir to the throne, or how I was one of the last few pieces of his wife he had left. Though if you asked me, I would tell you how he resents me. How many times had the man told me my mother was murdered by me? No, he did not favor me, nor my sisters. He did not care for his children. His wife, maybe, though sometimes I wondered.

And sometimes I would lay atop my bed, in the large, empty room. Separated from my sisters, who spoke and jested along the crowded bedroom where they all lay for rest, listening from across the hallway. And I would ponder why, no matter how large or extravagant my room would ever be, I still did not quite have the love that my sisters had for each other. Maybe I never would.

I was 9 years old when my father brought me for my first training. If I was to become his great king, I would have to learn to fight like one.

We started harshly, unlike how I had expected to. Ibeq seemed to look down on me that day, or maybe it was my father. Harsh winds pulled at my chubby, childlike legs, shoving me to the side with its ferocity. Though, each time I fell, my father would lift me by the armpits and tell me to try again, brushing the dirt off of my shoulders. That small act of kindness was what I clung to. Maybe if I simply kept going, he would continue to care for me enough to brush the mud off of me every time I fell.

He first taught me to hold a knife, not very large, though enough for simple defence.

I remembered what he said."Hold it steady, shaky hands will never do you any good."

We would spend day after day, perfecting my skill on feather stuffed mannequins. And just as always, whenever I failed, he would look at me with no expression, and tell me to go again and again. If I could just try hard enough, maybe one day his cold expression would warm at my sight.