"When was the first time we saw each other Thomas, could you refresh my memory?" I shook the strands of hair away from my face, soaked with dirt and sweat from running through the castle halls as it shook from the stones that struck the castle walls, each strike releasing dirt and debris. I looked back for a brief moment to see him keeping up with me without much trouble. My steps were hurried and clumsy, fitting nicely with the clamour of swords and sorcery outside as well as the stones bombarding the keep. Where my footsteps were loud and aimless, his were silent and sure. Perfecting what he had always been good at when we were children.
Thomas smiled genuinely at first, one that reached his dark eyes. Eyes that seemed to swallow everything it saw, as dark as the shadows cast by a lynx we once saw that dreadful night. "It hasn't been that long Roland," His voice had become deep, yet it still had the same light tone he would use whenever we explored the woods pretending to be adventurers who had become stranded in a dungeon. "I'm sure your memory is still sharp after all these years."
In our childhood days, his voice was full of mirth and he insisted that it was good practice for when we eventually left the village. I told him that it was nonsense the first time we played pretend, thinking that anything we thought up would actually prepare us for any of the dungeons scattered throughout the Empire. I also told him that if anyone would be the leader of the party, it would be me. One morning when we snuck off to the woods again, deciding on who would be the party leader this time, I told him that all he was ever good for was hitting things and being hit. He then of course punched me on the shoulder which caused us to wrestle on the ground and dirtied our 'fine' clothes. When we got back, each of our mother gave us an earful after that, said that now we didn't have any fancy clothes to wear for the procession when the Princess passed by the village later that day.
Blackthorn was one of her many stops to go around the developing towns and villages in the eastern region of the empire. We had been selected to have the honor of giving her majesty a gift from our village. Besides the wheat we grew and the few cows we had, our village also had a natural orchard of blackthorns which my and Thomas's mother would harvest around fall and create some of the best jams in the empire. They also had the bright idea of letting Thomas and I present the crates of blackthorn jams and medicine to her. Choice words poured out of my mother as she did her best to clean me up before the princess arrived but all the villagers either had an exasperated or humorous expression at seeing the two boys with messy hair, barely hidden ripped cotton shirts, and trouser hems caked in dirt.
I smiled wryly at him as my legs screamed at me to stop as I continued to stumble through the hallway, dodging larger and larger debris as more stones shook the foundations. "Please," I coughed, in between steps. "Humour your old friend a bit." I continued to press down on the side of my stomach where a blade had sliced through my robes and wounding me. It was carelessness that caused me to be wounded, letting my guard down and allowing some vagrant child to hurt me. I turned over my hand to look down at it and saw the blood shine as the light came down from the high glass windows. Barely midday when the siege had begun.
I looked back to check and make sure that Thomas was still following me, and his dark eyes gazed back with grim assurance that Thomas will be with me till the end. "It was a hot summer's day," Thomas began, the smile long since departed from his eyes. "My family and I had just arrived in Blackthorn and your family were the ones that welcomed us. I sat in the wagon peeking out of the covers to see what kind of village our mother had decided for us to run away to."
I turned around a corner deeper into the labyrinthine castle. Despite the years I have spent here working my way up through noble courts, I don't quite think I'll ever have a full grasp of this layout. In a way, it was a dungeon of its own with each step you take bringing the possibility of a monster clothed in silk and refinery waiting to bring down their weapon of choice on your head. Some days it was an aristocrat that had the threat of banishment wielded as a hammer, on rarer occasions a seductress with sweet poisoned words leading to blackmail. But my most preferred attempt to dispose of me had always been the true weapons of steel and poison that coated arrows for they were simple enough to get rid of: just kill whoever the wielder was.
My head turned back again just as Thomas came into view, letting the words of my old friend return me to the blissful beginning. I chuckled, the action sending a twinge of pain and annoyance to the cut. "You were quite shy back then weren't you?" I asked Thomas.
"I was," he nodded. "And I seem to remember how quiet you were too." His words were slow and cut differently than the dagger the child had held in his hands. How old could he have been? No older than eight summers surely? It didn't matter now I guess, my magic had taken care of it. Perhaps when all of this is done, the boy will have turned into a beautiful tree, rooting into the blood drenched soil and ripen in season for the next fool with enough ambition.
The long hallway ended at the north-western part of the keep which led to a wooden door made from a willow tree. The smooth and light brown door seemed darker in the shadows today, the early morning sun not quite yet reaching the small alcove. I reached for the handle with my other unstained hand and pulled it open revealing a bright garden tucked away behind the castle. The aroma of assorted flowers that I gathered from my travels enveloped me as I stepped outside. Each flower giving a distinctive scent — long stalks of white snapdragons, light purple lavenders, an array of tulips and roses. All of them vied for a place in my nose and eyes but the throne belonged only to the one flower in the far center in front of a blackthorn tree. A beautiful inflorescence of red and yellow bicoloured chrysanthemum waved as a violent breezed weaved through the garden and rolled over them, as if created by the ongoing siege.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
A whistle could be heard behind me as I turned around just in time to see a large stone crash into one of the inner walls right above the willow door. Thomas and I watched as the falling debris blocked the entrance back into the castle and we both turned our heads out into the city. From my garden we could see the expanse of the capital stretched from the north to the south, smoke from burning buildings billowed into the sky in an attempt to cover the sun. How beautiful, I thought.
“I wanted to show this view to you,” I lamented to Thomas. “You always liked climbing up on the trees like a lynx. Skulking around, away from prying eyes.” My body soon became weary as I finally stopped moving and kneeled down on the grass in front of the chrysanthemum. I watched the unmoving Thomas continue to stare out into the city. “I’ve obtained quite a lot of wealth in just 10 years, more than what our village would have earned in a hundred years maybe.”
Deftly, I placed my bloodied hand into my hidden pockets, felt around slowly, grabbed hold of my wand to make sure it was there before moving on to the pouch of medicine powder I developed, all the while keeping an eye on Thomas who stayed quiet. “The capital also offers many delicacies. You won’t believe how many different ways you can cook a rabbit.” I untied the pouch and applied the powder into my wound, a slight sting assured me that it worked and began to clot to stop the bleeding. The medicine powder was great honestly, it not only stops bleeding but it also rejuvenates some of your lost energy as well as working as a slight antidote to poisonous and paralytic agents. I breathed a sigh of relief as I waited for Thomas to respond but the only thing I heard was his cloak that billowed on the strong wind.
A yellow petal flew into my vision before falling on the ground in front of me, plucked by the wind from a rose that I had trampled on my rush into the center. I grabbed the small petal examining it as my blood stained it as I turned it over before speaking. “I don’t think I ever asked what village you came from, mother insisted that I don’t bother. The one time I brought it up my mother apologized profusely to yours while she slapped me on the head.” Despite the brightness of the sun, a clear light flashed in the distance as thunder boomed in its wake. Must be Cassandra. “In my fifth year in the courts, I earned enough power to ask questions without being questioned myself. So, I began to dig, I asked the scribes if they had records on the eastern frontier, territories of the empire in the south, and any other foreign domains further out.”
More lightning and thunder flashed and boomed in the capital as the fighting raged on. In the same area as Cassandra, I saw large masses of earth move to intercept the coming electricity, one that I didn’t recognize. The technique was sloppy and amateurish, but the sheer amount of mass that moved was enough to prevent anymore casualty on their side and locked the two mages in combat. Whoever it was, they were a promising talent, one that I would have noted to take in if given the chance. It was hard to make due to his dark cloak but I could tell from Thomas’s back that he was rhythmically breathing in a slow almost peaceful fashion.
My eyes narrowed at him before I shouted, “Well? Anything to say? I know about what happened in the Zephyr Plains. Where you and your mother had ran away from.” Ever so slowly, I moved my hand over my hidden wand, trying to catch any opportunity to use it. But none of my words provoked Thomas to turn towards me, he only continued to look into the burning city as the longer the battle went, more fires sparked to form a greater blaze. “What’s wrong Thomas? Have you gone numb? I never blamed you… How could I? They’re natural disasters put upon this world carelessly by nonexistent gods. It’s laughable honestly how no fault can be placed on anyone. Not even you.”
Still, he said nothing, back turned towards me. It angered me, he hasn’t changed at all. It’s been fifteen years but after all this time he continued to be the same child, even as a war raged on, deafening explosions of sorcery, screeching clashes of metal on metal. I realized then that I haven’t changed either.
“AM I INVISIBLE TO YOU?!” I gripped my wand and wielded it at him, shouting in anger and set the roots to shoot above the ground to bind him and then… he finally turned his face to me, his dark eyes that swallowed everything now watery and the light reflected off them as his tears were carried away from the wind. Time slowed down as I hesitated right in the middle of casting my spell. I blinked once and in that split second, Thomas was gone, my roots grasping nothing, and then he reappeared right in front of me, a dagger in his hand with its blade stuck deep in my chest.
“I looked for you,” Thomas said.
“I as well,” I replied. The clamor in the city was starting to fade as Thomas placed his hand on my shoulder and knelt down in front of me, our faces level with each other. Wistfully, I let my wand drop from my hand and instead held onto his hand holding the dagger as I stared into his eyes.
“Did you ever have a voice?” Thomas asked.
I looked back at my life, following the orders of my father, the orders of the magistrate, and eventually the princess herself. I convinced myself that the praises and rewards from them were great, that it would benefit me in the future.
“I was a person of greed,” I told Thomas. “I chose this path…” Didn’t I?
Thomas shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry Roland,” regret came out from his mouth. “You’ve lived without a choice this entire time.”
I slumped backwards while Thomas gently laid me down on the bed of chrysanthemum. I lifted my hand to touch his face, smearing it with my blood. Past him, the sun was high and bright, the smoke from the city not yet reaching the sky above me. It was pristine. The shadows of the blackthorn tree grew and fell on my face. “Hey Thomas,” I looked at my old friend again. “Do you remember how our mothers made the blackthorn jam?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think you could make some for me?”
Thomas smiled. “Sure, I’ll make you some tomorrow.”
I grinned and closed my eyes.