13. Mind Games
13
MIND GAMES
*Kieran*
The blood splattered all across the stone wall and floor is fresh. The birds continue to caw at me, and it feels as if they are scratching the inside of my brain. I want to yell at them to get the fuck out of here, but I also don’t want to anger them.
Besides, I need to know what the hell happened to Blake.
I storm off toward the guards’ station where the same fat fucker is sitting picking at his teeth that I passed when I came down. “Where the hell is Blake?” I demand. “Did you assholes kill him?”
He looks up at me, his face completely blank as if he doesn’t speak the same language as me. “Wh-who?”
“Who– Your Highness !” I correct him. “Blake, you imbecile. The old guy with the dark hair. The one with the fucking birds!”
“Oh, him. Crowman. That’s what we call him down here. Crowman. Because of all the birds.”
I reach down and grab him by the neck, my hand wrapping all the way around the circumference so that my fingers nearly meet my thumb. “Where the fuck is he?”
“He’s… in the… infirmary,” he croaks out. I release him, my scowl telling him to keep talking. Not that he seems the type to need a nudge. He grabs at his neck. “After the incident last night with Albatross and the boys, some of the other fellas got a little rambunctious and beat the living shit out of him. The king wasn’t too happy about that. For some reason, he wants the bastard alive. So he’s in the prison infirmary… Your Highness.”
“The prison has an infirmary?” Despite my status as Crown Prince there seems to be something new I’m learning about my own kingdom every single day.
He points a chubby finger to his right. “Over there. By the supply closet.”
“Of course.” I pivot and head in that direction, absently rubbing at my own neck. I’d like to think I’m having sympathy pains, but that’s not the case. This fucking mark will not leave me alone.
I throw open the door to find a room smaller than my bathtub. There’s one cot there with an older looking woman with frizzy, dirty hair pulled up in a messy bun on the top of her head sitting next to it. She’s wearing a dark brown gown and looks nothing like the pristinely clean healers I’m used to seeing above ground. My best guess is she’s either another prisoner or a whore who happens to know a thing or two about salves, and whoever is in charge of this miserable place now thought that was good enough.
Blake lies on the cot on his stomach. His exposed back is covered with strips of white fabric. His skull is wrapped in it, as are his limbs. He has a thin blanket tossed over his middle. Even that is dotted in crimson.
I gesture with my head toward the door, and the woman bows her head and gets out of the only chair in the room, careful not to touch me as she brushes past and closes the door behind her.
I take her place on the chair, leaning forward to look into Blake’s swollen face. One eye is puffed up so much it likely won’t open for several days. His lips are cut, and bruises and dried blood covers the rest of his skin. He looks like hell, and I am beginning to wonder how someone who is allegedly a wizard could let anyone turn his face into a pile of raw hamburger.
He says nothing when he opens the one eye that will budge and looks at me. I wonder if he can even speak. I’m probably wasting my time, but I need to ask him. Without spending any time on the obvious, like telling him he looks like hell, I ask, “You’re from Escuro?”
His head moves slightly. I take that as a yes.
“Is it true your kind have magical powers?” I think of all the stories I heard as a child. While they were mostly about my father’s triumphant conquest of our enemy’s lands, no good story would be complete without a boast or two about the obstacles the hero had to overcome. My father and those who praised him shared accolades of how the people of Escuro were able to command animals and send them to attack our wolf-warriors. Bears and other large mammals tore them limb from limb while smaller animals served as constant pests to drive them mad.
Kind of like those fucking birds.
Blake’s mouth twists slightly into a crooked grin. “Some.”
“The royals?” That’s how the stories always go. All of my father’s enemies had such great magical powers. Yet, he was able to defeat them through his wit, power, and strength.
“Mostly.” Blake’s voice cracks such that it’s difficult for me to understand. “Nobles.”
I nod. “So which are you?”
A gruff chuckle escapes his throat. “I am no one now,” he manages to say. It’s as if speaking of his past is giving him strength. “What difference does it make, Your Highness?”
“I need to know something.” My voice is demanding, despite the fact that I haven’t even asked my most relevant question yet.
“You want to know about the Haze.” It’s not a question. When he says it, leaning up a bit so that half his face isn’t plastered against the cot, I feel him regaining his strength–which begs another question. Why the fuck wasn’t he chained up anyway if he’s capable of something like this? I always thought my father had all of his worst enemies chained up with silver so that they couldn’t hurt anyone. I guess I was wrong.
“I do want to know about the Haze,” I tell him. My hand automatically goes to my neck. Fucking painful, itchy mark. I wish I could cut it out of my flesh. “How did you know that?”
He attempts to shrug but winces against the pain. “It’s a popular question.”
Confusion washes over me. What the fuck is he talking about now? Who else would’ve–
“Blanca,” I mutter.
Everything falls into place. She was down here the night before. When all hell broke loose, the mice and rats going crazy, the owl attacking the guards.
It probably wasn’t even Blake who did it.
“How the fuck does she have powers?” Again, I’m not talking to him. I’m speaking to myself aloud.
He doesn’t answer, but he does chuckle, and it’s a low, creepy rumble.
I lift my eyes to meet the slits that are his.
“You think that’s fucking funny?” I glare at him, and for a moment, I don’t care that he’s essentially an invalid. I want to break his bones.
“I think it’s sad,” he replies, making me even more angry. “You’d rather believe something that makes no sense than accept the fact that you’re on the wrong side of this.”
“What the fu–?” I don’t even finish the word because all I want to do is punch him in his raw-meat face. “Why does my father allow you to use your powers? Shouldn’t he have silver chains on you so you can’t hurt anyone?” Even though I’m almost positive he didn’t do this, my mind can’t wrap around the fact that he’s taught my sister how to control animals and use them to do his bidding.
I knew she was a witch.
“I used to be chained to the wall with silver chains, but over the years, the guards got lazy. It’s no matter. I’ve never tried to leave. For twenty-one years, not a single animal attacked a guard or anyone else down here, Prince.”
I nod. “So it wasn’t you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you didn’t not say that,” I remind him. I lean forward, and his swollen eye cracks open just enough for me to get a good look at both of them. They dance with flickers of silver and blue, and I lean back in my chair.
“I will tell you the same thing that I told her. No one is powerful enough to manipulate the Haze. What you think is true is a lie, and what you believe could never be is the truth is reality. Until you wrap your mind around that, nothing else in this life is going to matter.”
With that comment, I am done. This man is my father’s archnemesis. He’s done something to manipulate my sister into not only fucking with the Haze to mess with my position in this kingdom, but he taught her how to turn common animals into weapons.
“Fuck you, Blake,” I spit at him. “I hope you bleed to death, you asshole.”
I get up and storm out of the room, but the sound of his cackle fills my ears, mingling with the call of the crows, and as I storm up the stairs I have to wonder if that bastard is starting to get to me, too.
My father should’ve killed him a long time ago.