The Prince of Kyria (sample)

Tragedy can allow a boy to be crowned king...of a desert kingdom from his mother's fairytale stories.

Liquid ridges swept through the stone block floor and caused them to ripple like the surface of a wind-tossed lake. Ade sharply whipped his body to half-curl around Jased and the chair, releasing an angry protective hiss. Tabir rose in the air as if standing on non-existent feet. Raveen had the most minimal reaction, and barely turned his head. Jased numbly looked around, his eyes flicking back to a girl's head poking out from behind a sharp corner.

 

 

A girl? A normal-looking girl with big brown eyes? “ Whoa!” The shock of it sprang Jased out of the chair and to his feet. His knees buckled from the unexpected action, but he fell against Ade's scaled body and rebounded.

 

“ What--who--how!” Jased sputtered. “ Are you a god too?”

 

The brown eyes widened in surprise, then shrank down slowly into a look of genuine happiness. Her joy was so clear, Jased wondered if anyone had paid this girl a compliment before. Shyly she nudged herself out from behind the corner. Jased's dumbfounded shock turned his stomach into a narrow chute of dread. The rest of his insides felt as though they had shriveled away.

 

 

The girl had masses of dry-looking, curly brown hair to match her brown eyes. Likely she wasn't that much older than Jased, unless she appeared older or younger than she really was. Brown freckles that stood out strongly on otherwise pale skin, and though her looks were set in the average range, a happy smile like that made her beautiful. She beamed to be called a goddess and looked like she wasn't as ordinary as she dressed, wearing a red and periwinkle blue sweater with sleek jeans and sneakers. The red part of her sweater made up an erratic pattern of dark spots and tiny smears. Jased caught the coppery scent of blood.

 

 

“ What are you doing?” he heard himself say. “ Are you okay? So much blood!”

 

The last word switched off the light in the girl's face and eyes. One corner of her smile dropped half an inch, hanging limp while the other remained fixed like a nail in her cheek. Very slightly, her arms and shoulders became stiff.

 

“ What's wrong? Are you sick?” said Jased. “ What happened to you!”

 

Something he didn't know slid through the girl's face from left to right. She blinked once slowly, then rapidly a few more times, and though her smile shrank she still tried to look happy. Her shoulders sank down in relief.

 

 

“ Jased.” Tabir's waters rustled as she drew up beside him, visible from the knees up beside Ade's feathered tail. “ That blood isn't hers.”

 

“ So someone else is--”

 

“ You have the gall to present yourself!” Ade snapped out. A fierce tremble in the air shook Jased's bones from the inside out. The girl gasped and jumped on her feet, skittering backwards in her fright. “ Wearing the late queen's blood before her child. Shame!”

 

The late queen's blood? Jased may not believe it but these gods certainly thought he was some prince, and they knew Heather was his mother which would make her the queen, the 'late' queen because she had died....

 

Slowly Jased moved his eyes to stare at the girl in the face. She gave a soft whimper and drew back a quick step.

 

“ Where did that blood come from?” Jased asked her. The girl tightened her jaw and didn't answer. A defiant gleam almost came to her eyes, but she didn't have the will to bring up her head and show it. The defiance died away as soon as it appeared.

 

“ Are you okay? Or is someone...”

 

“ I did it for you,” the girl mumbled. Her voice had the weight of a feather.

 

“ What?”

 

“ I did it for you!” Brown curls bounced as the girl finally threw up her head and stuck it there. Her eyes gleamed like diamonds on display. “ I did it for you! So you could be free and come back here. Everyone knows you're supposed to be in this world, not that one.”

 

“ What are you talking about?” Jased exclaimed. Raveen, king of the gods, moved a veiled hand to prevent Ade from lunging at the girl.

 

“ You're the Prince of Kyria, aren't you? Everyone said so.” The girl spoke with a rush of energy that, if it got any more intense, her body would begin to vibrate in her shoes.

“ Like who!” Kyria was a story his mother had invented when he was little. As far as Jased knew, she hadn't spread it around to anyone else and neither had he.

 

“ Everyone!” The girl let out a breath of exasperation. “ But you were trapped there, weren't you? Your mom wouldn't let you go.”

 

“ My mom?”

 

“ You have to return to your rightful place by your sixteenth birthday, right?”

 

“ Huh/Huh?” The gods didn't understand this girl anymore than Jased did.

 

“ Sixteen is the legal adult age around here!” The girl stomped her foot in a fit of impatience. “ You have to be king by then!”

 

Leaning sideways towards Raveen, Ade whispered out the corner of his scaled mouth.

 

“ This mortal girl has lost her mind,” he said. “ Why is she here?”

 

Only the hem of Raveen's white draperies shifted.

 

“ It differs by country and by law,” Tabir said gently. “ It is true, the age of manhood in Kyria is sixteen, but he cannot take the throne until he is two summers older.”

 

“ What?” The girl blinked in surprise. “ Why?”

 

“ To be safe,” Jased told her, and that was even more confusing. “ Right?” He looked to the gods for help. Jased could only recite what his mother had told him at bedtime, but they knew things as fact.

 

“ Being an adult in the flesh isn't the same as being an adult in the mind,” said Tabir. “ He is to be king, so he is like a blade that must be honed properly, no matter how long it takes.”

 

“ Now that isn't completely true,” Ade interrupted. “ He doesn't have all the time in the world. Mortals have such short life spans.”

 

“ I'm not going to die tomorrow!” Jased cried out, because that's what Ade made it sound like. “ And this isn't the question! Where did you get that blood from?” he asked the girl. He grit his teeth to hold back his impatience. The girl widened her eyes and her skin seemed to draw back across her bones, turning them pale.

 

“ What's your name?”

“ Uh...”

“ Are you hurt or not?”

 

The muscles in her face relaxed and almost rippled with relief. “ No,” she sighed.

 

“ Then where did the blood come from?” Jased forced himself to try that casual tone again. “ Is someone else hurt? If there is we have to help them.”

 

“ I did!” the girl cried out. “ I set you free so you could come back.”

 

“ And then what?” For god's sake, say something else so we can get to the blood! But he must follow her lead or the girl would panic and bolt. That much was so obvious.

 

“ You'd be king!” The girl radiated happiness. “ And I'd be free.”

 

“ From what?”

“ Everything!”

 

Jased was fifteen years old. He was neither the patient type nor the opposite, his mother's murder was still unsolved, and it was being implied that this girl knew something about it. He stared at the front of her clothes, studying the spatter of dark red as he tried to rein in his temper and sort himself out.

“ Did you kill my mom?” he asked softly.

 

“ Ye--” The girl stopped herself. She shrank into her own body like a drying sponge.

 

This couldn't be real. The cops had spent a month looking for his mother's killer, and suddenly, that person was right here? Jased was slow to believe it. For the important things he had to be sure he had proof. Even if the girl was covered in blood, in his mother's blood, she could be an innocent bystander for all he knew. But how was he supposed to find out for sure? He needed physical proof, things he couldn't deny even if he wanted to. Jased's hands twitched as he tried not to clench them into fists.

 

He didn't know anything! And he couldn't possibly know for sure. He didn't know, he didn't know, he didn't know! What was he supposed to ask? What was he supposed to do? What was he even trying to figure out? Jased didn't know anymore! It felt like he was being taken back to the moment a doctor came up to him to say that his mother was dead of her injuries. The same maddening confusion was trying to snap his sense of reality.

 

“ What now?” he said through clenched teeth.

 

“ I become a princess,” the girl said shyly. She looked down at her feet where both toes are vying to lay on top of the other, hands loosely clasped behind her back. “ Like in the movies.”

 

...Was she serious? Jased wanted to look at someone for confirmation, but it was as if his head was stuck on a post. He really didn't want to ask the next question that came to his lips, but he didn't want to spend the rest of his life dreading it and imagining a thousand horrible answers.

 

“ Whose...princess?” he said.

 

“ Well, yours by default,” the girl said simply. Her eyes became distant as she began to think it through. “ But not necessarily yours. When I said you're a little young for me, they said there's more than one prince in this world.”

 

“ They who!”

 

“ Huh?” The girl blinked and stared at them stupidly.

 

“ His princess?” said Ade. The winged snake scoffed at the idea. “ Impudent fool! Where are your brains? We wouldn't mind your lack of royal blood and beauty so much--”

 

“ Oh, whoa, hey.” Jased drew the line at calling girls ugly to their face.

 

“ Even if you had all the beauty in the world, you are a murderer!” Ade cried out. His rage drew his serpentine body higher into the air. “ What's more, the Prince may rely on earthly proof and not be sure, but we are sure. You took his mother's life! And for what? Your own selfishness? Unfeeling wretch! Repent!”

 

It took a moment for Jased to navigate his lower jaw to the upper one. He swallowed and blinked to make sure that his vision was clear when he looked at the girl.

 

“ Just tell me,” he said to her. “ Did you kill my mom?”

 

The girl's mouth worked but no words came out. Finally she pressed her lips together and held them that way. She started looking around the empty houses and archways as if for an escape route.

 

Jased's patience snapped. His mother was dead! Murdered! Did she or did she not know anything? By God, if those clothes were soaked with Heather's blood...!

 

He moved his mouth into a smile. This is going to kill me. “ Thank you,” he nearly croaked. But Jased must sound natural! The girl jerked her wide-eyed stare to him.

 

“ You're the one that set me free, aren't you? You set me free of that world.” What the hell am I saying? Damn it, just hold it in for now! “ I have to thank you for that.”

 

How hard he had to force himself to wait, be patient, as the girl gaped at him in surprise. Then her eyelids began to flutter and she looked down with a shy smile. “ You're welcome,” she said softly, happily.

 

Say it, say it, say it! “ I didn't know that it was my mom holding me back,” said Jased. Later he'd break his own jaw for what he said next. “ If I'd known, I would've killed her myself. But, you know, I didn't know, and murder isn't exactly easy.”

 

“ Really?” the girl said. She raised her head and stared at him in wonder.

 

“ Thank you. And I'm sorry,” Jased sighed. “ You had to do something so bad.”

 

“ But I did it for you,” the girl gasped in bliss. “ I killed your mom for you. It wasn't anything big,” she said modestly. “ I just had to stab her a few times and I aimed for the heart so it'd be quick--”

 

“ I don't want to know!” The abrupt change in volume and tone of voice made the girl jump. Jased's eyes were normally a beautiful violet, resembling amethyst jewels when he was happy and his entire face showed it. Now it was different; his eyes were pitch black. Muscles in his face worked back and forth as the sensible part of him tried to keep things under control, only the emotional part was winning.

 

“ You...!” Jased couldn't so easily overcome what his late mother had taught him. Good manners. Be nice to girls. But now he thought that rule of etiquette was a bunch of trash. Be nice to girls? All girls? Without exception? He thought he could with cold-blooded, selfish murderers. “ Please tell me that you're retarded or something!” 'Retarded' was also on his mother's list of never-use words, but again, Jased thought this was an exception. “ You killed my mom so you could be princess and live a fantasy fairytale? What alien planet do you come from! What hell makes you think that I'd be glad you killed my mom! To be free? To be here? I didn't know Kyria was anything but a bedtime story until a minute ago, and I still don't know if I believe it!”

 

“ Wh...” The girl stumbled a step back. “ Why...”

 

“ Why am I being so mean?” Jased asked. Sarcasm dripped from his words like venom. “ Do NOT play the victim here! I don't care what your reason was, whatever it was that made you kill someone, nothing justifies murder, does your stupid little mind understand!”

The girl burst into tears.

 

“ Like hell you're going to cry!” Jased shouted. He shocked the tears into coming to a stop. “ Do you deserve to cry like you're the victim here? You killed my mom! And...all for me? I was the reason she died? Like that? YOU! My mom was all the family I had! Now I'm in foster care where I'll be kicked out when I'm eighteen!”

 

“ Y-you're a prince!” the girl stammered.

 

“ She was all the family I had!” Jased shouted. “ I didn't have anyone else, not since Grandpa Phil died. You know he died just a couple of months ago? Now Mom too? You have no idea what I want to call you now! But Mom...she...” She'd hate it if he started cursing. Whenever Jased had come close, even in the days he was a kid and used to say 'h-e-double hockey sticks', Heather would take on a frightening expression in disapproval. Now that she was gone, Jased suddenly felt that he didn't want to do anything she wouldn't approve of.

 

“ You killed my mother!” He couldn't think of anything else. “ How could you? My mom! My only mom. No dad, no grandma, no grandpa anymore, but I still had her! And I hear all the time about kids that go bad 'cause they've got a parent missing in their lives, but I never felt that way with her! You killed my mom!”

 

“ Jased,” Tabir started to say.

 

“ No!” Jased whirled on the goddess. “ Do you have the right to stop me? My mom is dead, and now you guys wanna push me into becoming king or whatever? I don't care if you're a goddess or not, I'm not gonna kill her, I don't even want to look at her, so the least you can do is let me yell at her until my voice completely cracks or until I black out! Whichever comes first!”

Reviews

[Castonovia]

Intrigue and suspense... loving it already, well penned indeed ;)

[Zeph]

o I like this, it is very well written :D