The WindFlyer

Chapter 34

I jump off the last rung and dust my hands off. My heart is galloping in my chest as I unlace my boots and toss my shirt off. Groaning, I flop on the bed. How I'm ever going to fall asleep with all the thoughts running through my head is beyond me.

<•> <•> <•>

I wake up in my bed alone and confused. Sitting up, I rub my face and look around. The sun streams into the room from a large window that leads out to a balcony. I've overslept, a lot. I throw the covers back and grab a shirt that was left over a lounge chair. I button it up and run a hand through my hair. I look... presentable enough. I kneel down and tie the laces of my dress shoes. They're stiff, probably because I've been wearing boots for so long. With one last check of the room, I quickly walk out.

No one stops me on my trek through the halls. A few people notice me but quickly put their heads down and scurry out of sight. I frown a little at that, not wanting to be ignored again. Not wanting to go back to the silence and the stares and the isolation. I want to be treated like a normal person for just one more day. But I can't. I left. I left so they could live, I did it to save them.

The great doors of the throne room swing open on silent hinges when I approach. I walk in to see my fathers banners hanging from the rafters of the marble room. I walk down the red runner in the center and bow before my king father.

"My boy," he chuckles with open arms. "Rise. Rise my son! Rise. I have a surprise for you." His smile is wide and his eyes alight with joy. I stand and move to stand behind his right shoulder, as should any prince to show proper respect for his king, but my father will have none of that. He grabs me and pulls my right up next to him. "Bring my son the surprise!" he shouts to no one in general. The doors open again and a person is dragged in between two guards. The person wears a burlap sack over their head, stained red with blood. Their hands are chained behind their back and their ankles are bound in the same iron shackles. My brow creases, why does the king bring a prisoner before me?

The person is shoved to their knees before me and my father, head bowed by force of a guards hand. My father claps me on the back and gestures to the severely beat prisoner. "It has taken me many months to get you back, son, and it has taken many more months and many funds to acquire this prisoner," he says and the guard tightens his grip on the sack. "Finally, finally, justice can be done." The guards rip the sack off the prisoners head. The blond hair of the prisoner is matted with blood. The teeth are coated with blood as the prisoner snarls at the guards. The prisoner has one black eye but I know that other eye. The eye of a girl that... had taken me prisoner. The eye of a dead princess. The sea blue hurricane of Astoria Roltem.

Astoria tears her eyes away from the guards and they latch onto me. Her one good eye widens when she takes me in. In my court finery, dressed like a prince. I kept the hair long, though. Because it meant keeping a small part of that ship and because maybe, just maybe, a part of me kept it because she said she liked it that way. But really, it pissed off my father and that's a large reason to do anything. Astoria's lips press into a firm line as she looks from me to my father and back again. She nods solemnly, as if the captain is accepting her fate. So resigned to die after she fought for so long, it doesn't make sense.

"And her ship?" I ask to my father in a bored tone. He looks pleased at the distain I bear for the pirate. The captain doesn't react, it's like seeing her in that meeting again. She doesn't move, doesn't blink, doesn't even seem to breath. It's like I am a speck of dirt beneath her even though she's the one bloodied and kneeling. Impressive.

My father clenches his jaw. "We couldn't manage to take it," he bites out, glaring at the pirate who, despite her best efforts, has the smallest hint of a smirk playing on her lips. I wonder just how many of my father's ships fell in order to take her. So that's why she is resigned to death. She knows her crew is still out there, maybe they're planning to rescue her as we speak. Maybe, if I can just buy her enough time, they can save her.

Suddenly, I am looking through a different set of eyes. I can't tell if I am in my body or my father's body. A weight thumps in my hand, it's as if it was drawn out of thin air. I hold the sword up and walk forward, trying to stop my feet as I go. I try to put the blade down or throw it away from me, but I cannot. It's like I'm simply a puppet being forced to watch. Astoria stares into my eyes like she can see my soul. Stall just a little longer. I have to get her more time. She looks sadly up at me when I am before her. It's like she can see the inner fight going on.

No. No! I don't want to. I won't do it! But even as the thoughts pound in my skull, the sword raises higher. My arm shakes as I try and pull it down or just halt it where it is. The captain takes notice of this and finally decides to speak. "Do not try to save anyone. We aren't heroes, we're pirates." She says them for me, barely above a whisper. As if she's telling me to stop fighting. Because her crew won't come for her. Somehow, deep down, I knew they wouldn't. Astoria is resigned to die because her crew will live on. She is resigned to die because she knows no one is coming to save her, because she was right. They aren't heroes, they're pirates.

"Do it," my father's voice, my voice, says. I hear it echoing in the room and in my skull. The sword rises higher in the air. No. I don't want this. I don't want to do it.

"Draen," the captain says, her eyes never leaving mine as the blade begins to swing down. No! Someone, anyone! Please! What I would give to stop myself, to trade places with her now. She doesn't deserve this. But I keep going, forced to watch.

"Draen," she says as the sword start whistling with speed. Her voice and the high pitched noise the only sounds in the room, like everyone is holding their breath to see her die. There has to be some way to stop this. My father has to know that this isn't what I want. Try as I might to stop it, the sword still continues its downward journey.

"Draen!" Astoria says as the blade makes first impact with her neck, her eyes still glued to mine, engraining in my memory that it would be me who killed her. That I was the one who took the only light and good this world has ever seen. Reminding me forever that even though I fought it and tried to stop it, I still wasn't enough in the end. I thought I saved her by leaving, but I'm not hero either.

But what does that make me?