Stormbringer: King

E I G H T E E N

His father had always wished for peace, but what 'peace' was there to experience when the whole world was against them?

Nothing.

His father had told him to 'never forget'. Of course, Slayen would never forget. He would never forget the pain he often saw in his father's eyes. He would never forget the jeers of the people and their spiteful words.

He would never forget the frigid cruelty in gazes of blue and green that, from afar, had used to seem so benign.

Slayen was standing in front of his parents' graves in their old backyard— a rather enclosed space with only one obscure path leading to it— which still remained a secret to everyone but his family. There was his father's old, weathered cross, and next to it was his mother's, which he had put up by himself after she left the world. It had been a few years since he visited the place, imprisoned in the Palace's dungeons as he had been. The red flowers there were still flourishing, surrounding the two wooden crosses embedded in the dirt, rustling in the faint dawn breeze that swept through the area.

He stared at the crosses. Then at the ground in front of them, where he knew lay the little box containing the necklace... among other things that once belonged to his father which he had yet to go through. Safely concealed in the dirt, protected by his parents.

Only when the time was right would he unearth those treasures, he had told himself when he first buried them. Only when the time was right would he look through them, one by one, to uncover their true meanings. Even the necklace, their family's supposed symbol of 'hope'.

He was certain there was something more to it, something more than what his father had told him.

The crunching of footwear on gravel, and Slayen stiffened, whirling around with his hands reaching for the daggers tucked in his belt. "Slayen?" came a soft voice, and he paused. Then he relaxed, dropping his arms and composing himself. "Brother?" the voice came again, and out stepped his dearest little sister from the shadows, ruby eyes wide and worried.

"Minara." He offered her a small smile.

"I knew you would be here," she said, approaching him. Her movements were slow, tinged with unsettled hesitance. "You're always here."

A grimace. "I'm not always here," he murmured, glancing back at his parents' graves. They watched, the shredded pieces of white cloth tied to the wooden bodies swaying in the wind. He kicked a pebble that lay at his feet, eyes following its movements as it skittered across the ground.

Minara came closer still, standing next to him. She stared at the two crosses, clutching the hem of her shirt. "... I never knew Mom and Dad," she began quietly, "and you never tell me anything about them." Lifting her head, his sister gazed at him, expression troubled. "So I don't understand why you visit them everyday."

"We're a family. That's a good enough reason." Slayen gingerly tucked a stray strand of his sister's hair behind her ear. "It's called 'paying respects'."

Minara's face darkened. "If we really are family, you wouldn't have said I wasn't your sister that time."

The accusation stung. Slayen had to control his expression to remain neutral and passive when he really felt like crying out, remembering the detestable words that he had been forced to say to his sister on the day he was supposed to be executed, just a few months ago. "I already told you," he argued instead. "I had to do it." He sagged. "You know I had to."