The Wanderling

Samuel Thoren

Cold sweat trickles down my brow as I sit quietly on a wooden chair that has lost much of its comfortable seat padding. The wooden slats that make up the backrest press against me until I am sure bruises will surface on the skin of my back. My bloody hands shiver uncontrollably, my ears are flattened against my head in an apprehensive manner. No, more than apprehensive. I am almost hysterical with worry and confusion. My beloved lies in the spare bedroom a few steps across from me while a doctor probes her, hoping to get some ounce of color back to her pale, unmoving body.

            Who, or what could have done such an atrocity to her? Why? What did she ever do to deserve such pain? Who is responsible? A sweltering rage threatens to spill from within me. I have to hold on to the armrests to keep myself from tossing every table, every antique vase, every chair that lines the corridor on which I stay. Someone has to come forward. Someone has to suffer as she suffers. Surely it could not have been done by someone from the Kingdom. No one from the Kingdom would dare to leave the safety of the wall. Did someone from the Outskirts see her in the forest? Did they fear her, a Wolf like me?

            Though… thinking back, the grisly wound on her stomach… I do not even know what caused it. I have seen many kinds of wounds in my lifetime, for if one spends as much time as I do in the Outskirts, one is sure to see all sorts of things. But a wound of that kind… no. Nothing and no one from the town could have been responsible for it. I did not even see what caused it. It almost seemed like her stomach just ruptured itself on its own will. And what was that loud, horrifying explosion that almost made me go deaf?

            Belatedly, I realize I am now on the veranda, staring into the darkness of the night. The large lawn that stretches out in front of me is not unlike the Backyerds which I see so clearly from my bedroom window. Except, perhaps, for the magnificently sculpted marble statue of a beautiful winged woman at the center of the courtyard. The statue itself is the centerpiece that stands on a massive pool the shape of a fleur-de-lis. A dull, white glow further ahead marks the end of the castle boundaries and the start of the extravagant part of Kingdom Baltheros.

            Seff has been under the care of the doctor for almost nine hours now, and the sun had long since set across the horizon. Not once did the doctor come out of the room to report any changes. Worry rankles my insides until I feel like I might go mad. To keep my hands from trembling even more, I curl them into fists on my disheveled hair and try to keep a whimper from escaping my lips. Please, I beseech whomever god that cares to listen. Please let her be alright.

            “So much for a happy birthday,” says a rarely-heard, but nonetheless familiar voice behind me. It is Samuel Thoren, eldest son of King Henry Harrison Thoren and Queen Cassendra, the crown prince of Kingdom Baltheros, the commander-in-chief of Baltherian Keykeepers, and my older half-brother.

            “I suppose… one’s birthday is not a guarantee for a happy day,” I reply, trying to keep my voice from hitching. In the silence and privacy of the night, I was a hairsbreadth away from letting a few tears of worry for my beloved slip from my tired eyes.

            “Hardship has a way of tailor-fitting itself to our capacity to handle it,” he continues.

            Really, I would prefer to have some time for myself, but who am I to send the crowned prince back to whatever it was that he had been doing? Out of respect, I answer his questions and reply to his statements. Maybe he is just trying to keep me from succumbing to worry-induced madness. Though I still prefer to be alone, I am grateful for his company. And, truth be told, this is the first real conversation we have had in years, so hastily ending it seems rather cold and rude.