"We stayed in a cabin – not the Layara cabin, that's further east. This cabin is in the very center of the forest where the deadliest creatures hunt. It was late into the night. My sister and I were lying by the fire playing games with marbles. My mother was in the kitchen cleaning up, and our father was outside gathering more wood to burn. Our mother told us to pick up the marbles and then settle onto the couch for a short story she had for us while she went to change out of her dirty clothes. We did as we were told, but before we could sit on the couch there was a scream and a loud crash that came from our parent's room. I didn't think, I just ran down the hall and into the room."
Memories start flashing. The way Fauna's smile dropped when our mother's scream pierced the air like a hawk's cry. The stop of my heart and the instant motion in my feet that happened at the same time as I sprinted through the dark hall. The sudden icy chill in the air that struck like an invisible wall.
"My sister followed, and I wish she hadn't."
I shove all of the memories away before the next one arises.
"I took all of one step into the room before someone grabbed me by the neck and pinned me against the wall. They knocked me out before I could see who it was, and waking up minutes later wasn't much comfort. I found my sister on one side of me, her wrists tied above her head and hung on a hook that looked like someone had just hammered into the wood. It kept her a foot off the ground, and my own wrists hurt from holding my own weight up on another hook. My father was on my other side, though his wrists were weighed down by what could have been cannonballs or heavy rocks. I can't remember.
"They both were conscious, neither of them looking like they were treated the same as me and bleeding from a blow to the head. I was relieved, but mind you I was only ten myself, and relief came more easily to me than it does now. It still was short-lived. When I looked straight ahead I...
"My mother was tied to the four bedposts with a man dangling a curved knife over her heart. It would've been better if he just drove it down and left her to bleed out and die in a few seconds. It would've been a blessing to us if they had. A blessing compared to what they really did."
I drift off, remembering the scene crystal clearly. The room was dark, lit by the moonlight shining through the shattered window, letting in a breeze that smelled like corpses. The sheets were kicked to the edges of the bed. She had tried to fight them. The dressers were pushed onto their sides and their contents emptied and destroyed. I remember the sound of metal scraping as my sister tried kicking her legs to get down and my father tried to bring his arms up to get to my mother's side.
Eight cloaked figures stood along the perimeter of the room, and each of them had weapons of all sorts gleaming in the moonlight much like the ones I now carry. I remember every sound and the silence of the forest that always had a creature's growl or scrape of claws echoing within it. I remember it all, and I wish I didn't.
"What did they do?" Alister's voice yanks me out of my own thoughts, but I don't look up.
"They tortured her. And they made us watch." My voice rings hollow in the stricken silence. Even the wind falls flat. I rush to keep talking if only to get rid of it.
"You guys didn't last long when I took apart the women's crippled knee. Imagine being completely helpless, hanging on a wall with no way of getting down, watching as your mother screamed her voice hoarse while someone peeled off the skin on her limbs and made the white sheets beneath her turn bright red within minutes, to last hours, all while being careful to avoid any areas that could potentially kill her. She didn't bleed out because they kept an iron in the fire and then pressed the glowing red metal against the wounds to make them clot. They healed her, but they made sure she still screamed when they did.
"The worst part wasn't watching it all. It wasn't seeing her body go limp and then cold after they left. It wasn't hearing her scream, nor hearing my sister and father do the same, each begging for them to stop – to spare her life. It wasn't hearing the snap of my father's wrist after our attackers left so he could slip out of the rope that tied him down and then getting us down before cradling our dismembered mother on the soaked bed. It wasn't seeing my six-year-old sister jump in the bed after him, her blue nightdress being ruined by the blood.
"Nothing, nothing, was worse than having heard all of this echoing in my head for years, and yet never once remembering myself screaming or begging for her life. I just watched.
"The memories quickly turned into nightmares that still haunt me and my sister – her more than me. It's why she couldn't play the piano. Our mother used to play, and even the sound of one key being pressed had her throwing up or punching a wall until her knuckles bled and her wrist broke in several places until she fainted from the pain. Despite what you may think, I don't have any doubt in my mind that she got out of bed that night we lost our father to run to the bathroom and throw up. She would've made sure not to make a sound getting out of bed. She would've stuffed towels into the crack below the door to muffle the sound, and then she would've folded them back up and sly footed back into bed when she was sure that it wouldn't happen again.
"Our father burned that cabin down. We didn't leave until it was nothing but ashes, and then we left, but not back home. He took us to Serac to have our cloaks and balaclavas made. I didn't mind them, and neither did my sister. It was easier to hide the red-rimmed eyes and how many times we had to bite our lips to keep us from crying in public. The whole house noticed when we returned without her, and they came up with several rumors that involved the two of us having killed her to earn the new attire. They were lucky that we didn't know how to punch or throw a blade then. Not so lucky after we did learn."
I go on to tell them about Rose, about who she was to me and who she was when she was alive. It takes twice as long as the story of my mother's death, as I keep having to stop to keep control. I've had years to cope and come to terms with my mother's death, but Rose's is still new. It still hurts.
I tell them about how Fauna nearly killed Will and gave him the scar that she and I need to finish. I tell them about him and what he did to both me and Fauna. I relay the details of their last night from when she told them to me after it happened. I explain all the main parts of our training, including us learning to keep our throats from being slit and the memories of her getting drenched in dirty water and her climbing the wall. I tell them all the things that created us into the people we are today, and I tell them about how we had major trust issues with everyone before we met them. All the late-night conversations she and I would have when we first took on the mission of guarding the Queen and Crown Prince of Vandaria and all about how she was warming up to them despite claiming to want to strangle them to death.
I tell them about her love for music and my love for the simple things. I tell them about how she loves the coast and me the town, and then I thank them all for what they've done, what they're currently doing, and what they're willing to do to save her. I don't think I've said the words "thank you" enough, but they seem to be getting annoyed by it.
"There's one last thing you all should know. It's not something that me and my sister often willing to give. Our father sought to it that we would never be found by the same people who tortured my mother, and if they did, they wouldn't find it easy. Not even Will knows this, and you all know how much my sister trusted him."
A few of them shift and scowl at Will's name, but they refrain from saying anything.
"I'm sure you already know that Arthur is not my actual first name. Arthur is my middle name, and Lance is my first." I pull down my hood, and then my balaclava. "The full truth is that I'm Lance Arthur Veyron Rheasydia, blood son of King Kerrigan Veyron and Queen Dawn Fira Clementine Veyron Rheasydia of Thralia, raised the son of Aldred Rheasydia, the Jade King. Half-brother to my only sibling." The technical truth tastes rotten in my mouth, but it's the truth, much as I may hate parts of it.
Gods, and she knew. That brilliant little brain of hers found a puzzle I hadn't even known was on the table and pieced it together without any of us knowing, and she threw it at my head. I've gone back and forth between wishing she hadn't told me and partially thanking her for the truth despite it sucking ass. But knowing is better than not. It's just hard to swallow that my past was a partial lie and that my own parents lied to me and took it to their graves.
They stay quiet, each looking at me with expressions that I can't read for once. I suppose after the rather staggering and jolting rises and declines in their emotions that have passed in the last few hours, it's not really a surprise. They're probably too numb or overwhelmed to hold much of a reaction anymore.
It's not as nerve racking as it was when I let Kat see who I am, but it's still weird. I mean they're just...staring. Blankly. What do you do in awkward silence? I wouldn't know because I've never been in one that I hadn't already planned for. With Kat, I was prepared for it despite the things that rushed in and out of my mind. I sort of prepared for it, but I'm more prepared for the question that Alex has.
"So if you're alias was your middle name, then does that mean Clarice is your sister's middle name?"
Okay, so I was prepared, but I didn't take into account that the inked symbol on the inside of my left arm would dig in like tiny needles. I want to answer, I even go so far as to open my mouth to do so, but I can't. Neither can I stop myself when I clench my fist and rub at the mark.
"Are you alright?" Mal asks, and that's all it takes for the pain to leave and my words become my own.
"A part of my sister's Queenly order was that I couldn't tell you anything about her true name. The act alone is hers, and only hers, to commit should the Gods will it. If they don't-" I unbutton and pull up my sleeve to reveal the intertwined triangles on my arm "-then the mark will fade, and I can do and speak whatever I wish. Until she tells you herself or she...I cannot tell you."
"Can we guess?" Alex asks, a sliver of hope filling his eyes.
"Of course, but I won't be able to tell you in any way, shape, or form if you're wrong or correct. If you have any other questions regarding anything but my sister's name, I'll answer them."
Gabe's hand instantly flies upward. "I have a question. King Arthur?"
I had a feeling that them having heard Svenja call me that back in Fredal was going to bite me in the butt.
"Out of all the things that you could've asked him, one of his undoubtedly many, many nicknames and aliases was the first thing that popped into your head?" Benny questions.
"Well of course not. My head's broken as fuck. I mean do you see who I'm currently involved with."
"A hot ass man who likes to hear you scream," Ethan answers in a tone I'd rather never hear directly after talking about all my trauma.
"Exactly."
They go into another one of their mental humping stares, which makes Darius contort his face and cover his mouth to keep from hurling up his guts. I interrupt before one of them gets thrown into a pond full of freezing water to cool them the fuck off.
"Svenja called me King Arthur during the three months that I spent aboard her father's ship. I don't know why nor what made her come up with the name, only that it seemed to stick, and soon the entire crew was calling me King Arthur. I haven't heard the name since until we saw her in Fredal."
"I have a question," Vlad says, cutting off Al before he can ask his own question. I give Alister a look that tells him he can ask his next. "Is it true that you impaled a man to a wall with his own cane?"
"Oh! Or about that time that you killed an entire town in one night without anyone knowing?"
"What about the rumor that you have a scar that goes from your shoulder to your navel from a fight with a witch in the Western continent?"
They keep piling up the questions, not giving me a chance to really answer any of them. Darius even asks a few, and though he's playing along, I can still see the way his eyes keep drifting to the mark on my wrist.
It's nice to know that they're not entirely surprised about my appearance and name, and the Gods know that they'll be recalling my words of the past later tonight. Víđarr wants us to rest up and try to rid of the sleep deprivation, but I don't think his wishes are going to be granted very much.
"Wait a second. Were you the one who killed the heir in the Western Isles, or was it your sister?"
Oh boy.
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