Only the Moon and I Will Know

I shouldn’t have put the idea in his head, I shouldn’t have let him go, but I did. Now I’ve got to follow him without the guards seeing me and more importantly from  him seeing me.

            My feet are already bare and my dress is light enough for me to move through the palace undetected. When I was small my father taught me how to use the palace’s rafters as my own golden path. I spent hours of the nightlight learning how to travel through the ceiling. Apparently the assassin from this morning had similar practice.

            I tie my hair behind me so that it doesn’t get in my way. I’m always glad for my auburn hair, thousands of people in the kingdom have it, it’s dark enough to go unnoticed at night, and beautiful in the sunlight.

            I move faster through the rafters and walls then most do over the floor, it’s only a moment before I’ve caught up with Aden. He looks serious and tired. I don’t think he’s mentally ready to see his father, but he’ll have to be. The king is going to die within hours. I watch him until he enters his father’s room. I don’t go in; there are some things that are only for family.

            It’s a long time till Aden comes out, he’s trying to hide it but there are tears in his eyes. All my life it’s been my job to protect him and even I can’t protect him from heartbreak and loss. I can feel my own eyes begin to sting. I have to run back to Aden’s room. I won’t leave him alone like this.

            I’m in the room moments before he is, I grab a book off the table and situate myself on the couch. I sit and pretend to read as if I had no clue what was happening, like I didn’t know his father was dead.

            I look up as he enters the room and without a word I put down the book and go to hug him. He lets loose his feelings; he cries and mumbles incoherently as he falls to his knees. I continue to hug him as he cries on my shoulder. I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to think, I just sit there and let him cry.

            I forget sometimes, but he’s just a boy, just a child like me. He lost his mother and now his father. This world was never meant to be so cruel, there wasn’t supposed to be death, heart break, or loss. The world was made to be perfect, it was us who messed it up, it was us who ruined perfection.

            The moon is full and its light floods into the room, the moon is the only one who can see this scene, see this pain.

            “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

            Aden pushes me pack and looks straight into my eyes, his face is tear stained and red, his blond hair matted to his face. He looks with his blue eyes rimmed in red, “Promise me you’ll never leave me,” he says. His voice is choked, even though he whispers it I hear him like he yelled it. I need to say something, I need to promise him, and I know I’ll never leave him, it’s my job to be near him. So why can’t I say the words? Why is it so hard to say something to him? What can I say that will reassure him? He just watches me as I think. I’ve taken too long, I need to answer him now.

            I look him in the eye and I know what he needs to hear. “Aden,” I take his hand in both of mine, “I will always be here for you,” and I know I mean it. It’s the most truthful I’ve ever been with him. It’s a shame he doesn’t know it. Suddenly I feel remorse for all the lies I’ve told him, I feel sorry he doesn’t know me, it kills me that he tells me everything and all I’ve told him has been make believe. “Always,” I say again but it’s only a whisper and he doesn’t hear.

 

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            I stand on the balcony outside of Aden’s study. It’s cool outside but the stones of the balcony still radiate heat. A breeze pushes my hair behind me. I climb up and stand on the wide guard rail. I feel untouchable here, I feel like the world is only me this balcony and the moon.

            I’ve had a lot of responsibility put on my head since I was adopted only about a week after I was born. So whenever it became too much, whenever I messed up, whenever I lost control, I’d climb to the highest outside spot I could and I’d stand as close to the edge as possible. Sometimes I’d want to back up, sometimes I’d want to jump, but I never moved, I would just stand and stare and breathe.

            Aden fell asleep hours ago but I can’t sleep, and I can’t leave him here alone. If I were trying to kill Aden now would be the time, now when hardly anyone knows that he is the king. I covered him with the blanket that only hours before he had given me to use.

            It’s been a long night and it’s finally ending, the sun is just peaking out changing the star gilded night sky to the brilliant blue it was meant to be. As soon as Aden wakes up he’ll have a swarm of people in and out of this office. I need to help him somehow but I can’t. So I’ll leave him to his diplomacy and go see someone who is about to retire.

 

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            “Father?” I poke my head into his study. His study is smaller then Aden’s but it also has more books then I’ve ever seen in one place.

            “Come in Novra,” my father says from his desk. My father is young, really young. Because of the King’s political marriage at a young age he had a son at a young age, meaning that Isaac, my father, needed to find a protégé quickly. He was going to adopt a boy who had just been born in the village, but it died from an unknown illness only a day before Isaac arrived. It wasn’t until a week later that a solution presented itself for Isaac to correct the situation.

            Isaac was on his way back to the palace with a royal hunting party when he saw a baby by the rode. He adopted that baby as his own. He was seventeen at the time. So now at the age of thirty two he’s going to retire being an assassin, I’m the first female assassin that has ever protected the king.

            “You weren’t in your room when I checked on you last night,” my father says.

            “I was with Aden,” I say.

            “That’s good, no one should be alone through something like that,” my father says.

            “I wasn’t any help though, there was nothing I could do,  noting I could say,” suddenly a wave of emotions hits me. It has been a long time since I’ve let my emotions take over. I never let anyone see me feel anything, and now here I am crying in my father’s study. I really am a child, one second I feel fine, the next I’m like this.

            I don’t think my father has ever seen me like this, I don’t think anyone has. My father watches as I regain myself.

            “I’m sorry,” I say, “It was a long night.”

            “It’s okay,” my father says. He does understand, I know it, after all he’s human too. He had to be there for Aden’s father when his parents died.

            “I just wanted to make sure you were aware of the state of things,” I say.

            “I am,” my father says. Then I think of it, I was being so selfish just now. My father just lost his only friend, the one person he’s known all his life. I promptly I hug my father and ask,

            “How do you do it? How do you cope so easily,” I ask.

            “I don’t,” he says, “Now go get some sleep. Aden will be awake soon, and he shouldn’t feel alone.”

            “Promise that you’ll have dinner with me tonight,” I say.

            “You’ll be watching Aden,” my father says.

            “Well then come eat with us,” I say.

            “Perhaps,” my father says. I can see that I won’t get anything better out of him.

            “Well then, goodnight,” I say.

            “Good night Novra,” the door closes silently behind me as I go to my room to sleep for the two hours before the world awakes fully.