Chapter 45
Demons [Written by Wolves]
The Curator:
At age ten, Reen Kyong often attended the same academy as his younger brother, Walkyer, while the youngest prince hid in his chambers, crying for a mother he never knew.
Walkyer walked with charm and grace. Reen followed, often hiding in the shadows and concealing himself from the other school students, but it was difficult for him to do so.
He was different. From a city where the culture differed, the tongue he used flowed more quickly than the common English tongue.
Reen didn’t know English well, and his words thickened in his mouth.
It caused elemny from his class to stifle laughter and stir with humour whenever Reen rose to speak an answer that was clear in his head but turned foggy through pinched, embarrassed cheeks.
It frustrated him, and Reen hid from the elemny that looked at him like he was an alien from another planet.
Even then, they would look at an alien with curiosity.
But they punished Reen for differing from the others.
He walked home alone while his younger brother found friends with ease. Respect was automatic for the prince and heir, but Reen had to earn it. To most around him, they looked at him like a bastard—someone who tainted the bloodline by existing.
Many rebelled against the Queen and spoke ill words of killing her firstborn if she ever birthed another fire elemny.
Reen didn’t have the protection like Walkyer and Emmerton had, but he was well known as King Ragan’s pet.
Therefore, the fear of harming him frightened adults…
but children and teenagers did not care.
One day, after the academy ended, he walked the back streets toward the castle. He liked it when no one noticed him. Unfortunately, it was a pattern that didn’t go ignored.
Four boys between twelve and fourteen waited for him to reach the back entrance, where he would slip through the gap near the dead tree.
One kicked their leg out, and Reen fell forward.
The other scooped the satchel he often carried and shook it until his school books splashed across the ashen ground.
Smoke whispered in the air, caressed his ears and told him to fight, but he ignored the taint of crimson that spilled from his mouth when one boy kicked him in the face.
“Immigrant!” they spat.
The eldest kicked Reen in the stomach. “You don’t belong here, freak! Go back to your city!”
Reen didn’t dare to speak, for his weakened words would slur out and cause further ridicule at the lack of English he spoke, but could understand through sharp ears.
He knew the language. Despite the castle tutor’s teachings, he still struggled with speaking gracefully.
It will take him a few more years to speak fluently and precisely.
He sat up, only for the eldest to grab Reen by the hair and pull at it.
The boy raised his fist when Walkyer came out from the side and shoved him.
The boys shuffled away when Walkyer stood over his older brother and raised his arms defensively.
At that moment, Reen’s eyes widened, for this was the first time Walkyer noticed him, and for him to protect his older brother from the bullies was a surprise.
“Don’t touch him!” Walkyer cried. “I will tell my father about you if you do!”
They sneered, and the sneers showed anger. The boys left, and Walkyer turned to his older brother with a worried, furrowed brow expression as he touched his older brother’s cheek. Reen stared, bewildered at the affection, and graciously accepted Walkyer’s help when he aided him to his feet.
“Let’s walk home together from now on,” Walkyer told his older brother.
They walked home in silence, but Reen couldn’t contain the smile and the beating heart. He knew Walkyer was someone he needed to cherish.
After Reen washed away the crimson and hid the bruise that evening, the King summoned him to his Throne Room. He followed a guard down there, and Reen nervously entered. Reen found it hard to look at the king after the torturous swimming lessons that caused him to almost drown.
“Reen,” King Ragan drawled. “What happened to your eye?”
Reen pulled down his hair and murmured, “Nothing, King Ragan.”
Fire blazed in his eyes. “My guard told me Walkyer protected you from four bullies. Is it true? Did my son protect you?”
Reen balled his hands into fists. “Yes.”
King Ragan leaned forward in his seat, and fire licked up his arms. Through frothing lips, he said, “If Walkyer protects you again, I’ll kill him. You are the protector and defender of this family. Weaken your claim again, and I will take all that you cherish. Understand?”
“Yes, my king,” Reen spoke in a toneless voice.
In the following weeks, Reen never left the castle.
He would find himself outside with one of King Ragan’s guards and trained until the bruises swelled and the crimson broke through split skin.
Walkyer often asked Reen to play, but his older brother waved him off and told him to leave him alone while he trained.
Walkyer left in silence, his lip trembling whenever Reen avoided him, to dedicate his time to fighting instead.
After a month of vigorous training, he asked Walkyer to walk him to school.
His younger brother brimmed with excitement and linked arms with his older, distant brother as if nothing had ever happened.
Perhaps Walkyer longed for company, and Reen was someone close to his age whom he often saw.
Either way, it did not matter, for Reen hatched a plan when he noticed the four boys grouped in class.
He heard the whispers and their plot until Reen’s fingers twitched and itched with hunger.
He asked Walkyer to walk home with him, and they went toward the back streets.
When they neared the wall, the four boys emerged, and one of them held a metal baseball bat.
Walkyer moved forward when Reen grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and shoved him until Walkyer fell to the ground behind Reen.
He wanted to speak, but the look in Reen’s eyes caused the air to leave Walkyer’s lungs.
“What’s this? Not getting your baby brother to defend you this time?” The eldest boy laughed darkly.
He knew they wouldn’t back down because King Ragan paid these children handsomely. It was a test, and Reen was ready for it.
The youngest moved first. Reen stepped to the side when he swung, grabbed the boy by the arm, and thrust his palm into the boy’s elbow until he heard the snap of his bone. When the youngest fell to his knees, Reen slammed his shoe into his head until teeth spat out of his mouth.
The eldest moved, and Reen’s eyes rolled in that direction before he danced out of his way. The brush of the metal bat breezed across Reen’s face until he gripped it, yanked it toward him, and elbowed the boy who held it until his grip slackened.
Reen held the bat and slammed it across the boy’s face when the boy tried to launch an attack from behind him. The sickening crunch caused Walkyer to kneel on the charred ground and throw up when the boy collapsed and went limp near Walkyer’s feet.
Reen inflicted trauma on the three boys until their lives faded, leaving the oldest for last. Reen’s shoulders trembled with frustration and anger.
His nose flared, and his eyes bulged when he stood over the eldest boy.
The boy shuffled back when his fingers grazed against something sharp.
As Reen slammed the bat down on his head, the boy fought once more, cutting Reen across the stomach before his untimely doom.
He continuously did it until the boy’s skull cracked and his brain splattered into the ash.
The young half-prince didn’t need to kill them.
Those words didn’t come out of King Ragan’s mouth, but the fear of losing Walkyer caused an intense reaction.
He thought if he did anything less, King Ragan would twist his own words, and Walkyer would be another head on the spike like the others he often stared at when he was lonely at night, and the voices in the halls were too silent to bear.
The bat dripped with crimson as Reen rose. Spit slit through his teeth while he trembled with livid anger.
“Reen, you’re scaring me,” Walkyer breathed.
Reen snapped him a look, and when Walkyer’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, for the trauma was too much to witness, Reen dropped the bat and carried his brother into the castle.
King Ragan waited for him at the stairs to the foyer, and as Reen walked past with Walkyer over his shoulder, King Ragan placed his hand on Reen’s arm and told him he was proud of him.
From that day forward, Reen stood at King Ragan’s side and listened to his every order. Not because he wanted to, but because he needed any advantage to protect Walkyer from the enemy—his father.
Reen Kyong, July 23rd
I wake to a looming storm in my head. Sweat soaks the sheets when I rise, clinging to my back until I stand and peel the uncomfortable layer from me.
Using a scrubber brush in the shower, I remove the layer of muck from my recurring nightmares.
The constant reminder that I need to protect my family, no matter what.
However, someone has come into my life, fogging my mind until I question what I want to do anymore. It’s irritating how she crawled underneath my skin, burrowing into my core like the flat-chested, vulgar woman she is.
Afterwards, I dress, place the chain over my head, and then leave the room with a cigarette between my lips. Alad is outside. A tight smile when he notices me.
I’m not in the mood to talk to him, so I walk away without a clear destination.
There’s nowhere I want to go on this lonely night. The stars hide under the veil of mist, and laughter fills the streets within Tumul Hall Entrance while everything else fades. Usually, when I was in a mood after waking in a cold sweat, I would walk the walls, overlooking the heads on spikes.