"Into the woods--it's time, and so I must begin my journey." --Into the Woods
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"We have your brother!"
Four words. Four words was all it took to freeze me, to make me stop everything that I was doing and forget everything that I was going to do.
I felt my face pale, my heart felt like it stopped, then started back up again twenty times the speed it was going. I needed to cry in relief--no, I needed to kill all of the guards after forcing them to tell me where Joshua was, and why the king had him. Numbness spread, my fingertips were tingling as I turned around to face the one who spoke.
"You're lying."
That's all my brain could comprehend to say right then. Joshua was dead. He was killed after being forced to fight for the king. There was no reality where he could be alive. There had been no letters from him; writing was something he promised he would do, and there was no word from him for a year.
But I still hoped.
I wanted them to say that yes, they were lying, everything they had just told me was a lie, and that this was some bad joke Vadik brought his buddies in on; after all, I did tell him my name.
No answer came from the guards. They just sat on their horses and looked at me. My face was wet. I was sobbing, but I refused to show them how much that hurt.
This time I screamed at them. "You're lying!"
If you truly believe that, you would have left by now.
One of the guards steered his horse over to Vadik and whispered something in his ear, pointing up at the brightening sky. Vadik nodded. Gesturing for the others to follow, he rode towards me.
He stopped his horse by my side and bent down. I resisted the urge to pull him off the horse and hit him. Grabbing my shoulder, he mumbled softly, "If you don't come willingly, we will have to force you."
Force me? They'll have to force me? That's laughable.
I looked at the person I thought that I trusted, then up at his horse. Making up my mind wasn't difficult. I already knew my answer.
I already had a fairly good idea as to how everything was going to play out, too.
"Take me to Joshua."
*****
It had been a long time since I was in the Upper Kingdom. It was only a few miles to the north of my village, but I'd never really wanted to come back to my old home. The other reason was that the Upper Kingdom was made up of nobles only, so anyone who had any money to their name.
Since I was born in the High Region, the place where the high ranking nobles live, I was technically allowed to come and go as I pleased, but the part of the kingdom that the guards and I rode through was normally sealed off to commoners. I guess we were believed to be too dirty for the place.
"Why aren't we riding in the street?" I asked for the fifth time as a tree branch caught in my hair. No answer. I sighed. The edge of the forest was about ten feet away to my left. Why we weren't at least riding on the grass away from the trees was beyond me.
I guess some people enjoy being hit in the face by tree branches.
We rode some more, and houses about the size of small mansions appeared where there was nothing. When we reached an opening of emptiness, the guards slowly steered their horses out of the forest and onto the street. The sun, which had been shining brightly while we were behind the trees, was muted by dark clouds that had gathered quickly above us.
I couldn't help but notice the fact that the people who used to bustle around in the street were now looking at us suspiciously from behind their windows. We passed house after house, all with the same response to us.
Lock the windows, closed the doors, and usher the children inside.
What's happened here?
With a lurch, we stopped at the gates which open only for those of higher nobility than a knight. One of the guards dismounted from his horse and spoke to the gatekeeper. They were far enough away that I couldn't catch what they were saying to each other. The guard mounted his horse again and the gates gave a clunk. With a screech of them grinding on the cobblestones, they opened slowly inward.
I felt my heart rate pick up as we passed the gates. The castle was directly in front of me, but I knew what I'd see first. We rode for a minute more and then it was there, my old home.
Except it wasn't my old home.
A glamorous building stood in place of where a pile of burned wood and rubble was ten years before. The house that took over the spot was almost an exact replica of my home; with its glass windows and wooden door, it was easily the prettiest house on the street.
But instead of seeing what was there, I saw what had been. I could see blackened sticks and sharp metal beams sticking up from where the foyer had been. Piles of dust covered stones littered the ground. Vines and weeds were burnt to a crisp from the flames that had refused to go out, even with the rain.
The worst part was where the master bedroom was at the house, I could still see a scorched bit of land that looked like it would never grow back. I could still see the broken and twisted outlines of the dead.
A fleeting image of three masked men standing in the flames, each holding a knife, came to me as I tore my eyes away from the rebuilt destruction. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, calming myself as well as erasing the image from my mind as we crossed the drawbridge to enter the castle.
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