Episode 4. THE PRINCE OF ASCENCIA
744 Words
A soft knock sounded on the door.
Prince Eric continued playing his piano, enjoying the privacy of his chamber, praying that whosoever it was will just go away and let him be. But when the knock persisted, he had no choice but to stop with his piano. He stood, muttering swearwords he strode across the tastefully furnished room to answer the door. Yanking it open, he came face-to-face with his mother, Queen Neticia. Leaving the door open, he strode back to the keyboard and sat.
“You didn’t come down for breakfast,” his mother accused, shutting the door after her. She let her gaze travel across his chamber. To a large bed whose sheets were of wine color. The bed itself sat on an elevated surface by a corner, two steps higher than the floor of the rest of the room. The room had two broad windows with drawn up curtains white like the walls of the room. By the window sat a piano. Another door stood towards the end of the room, much smaller than the one she had entered the room. It was a closet stocked with expensive royal clothes, Prince Eric’s clothes. A chandelier hung at the center of the room, directly above three settees and a center-table.
“I wasn’t hungry,” he replied looking at everything around but his mother. He was so mad at her, mad at them he didn’t want to set his eyes on any of them, “-man shall not live by bread alone,” he added defiantly.
“O Eric my dear son! One day you shall become king and then you’d understand that sometimes one is forced to make hard decisions just like your father, just to protect their loved ones.”
He met her gaze head-on. “There’s a big difference between protecting a loved one mother and depriving them of their freedom. You and father have deprived me of my freedom all my life, how am I even supposed to rule a kingdom I barely know?”
Queen Neticia smiled as she crossed over to him, she touched his shoulder. “When the time comes, you shall know your people, and your people shall know you too. And perhaps, you’d understand that every decision your father and I have made from the day you were born was entirely for your own good.”
Prince Eric jerked to his feet and stumped away from his mother to the settees. Her words weren’t bringing any relief nor answers to his frustrations. And he was tired of hearing the same thing every goddamn time! He turned and faced her squarely. “What exactly are you protecting me from, mother?Werewolves? dragons? witches? What, huh, what? I shall be eighteen in seven days and I can fight very well with my sword. I’m also good at archery. And doesn’t father own the strongest knights across the face of the earth? So tell me mother, what- who is that that my father’s army can’t possibly protect me from?”
Instead of replying her son, Queen Neticia walked back to the door, she stopped and faced him. His gaze followed her. “The world is not as you think or wish my dear son. Sometimes I wish I could tell you something to ease your pain,” she shook her head and something bitter crept to her eyes. Eric saw it, it was more like grief, like she was grieving something, no someone and she wouldn't even tell him! “-but I can't son. I can't risk it and I'm sorry.” She sighed. “I’d have the servants bring your breakfast here.”
“Please, don’t mother!” he shut his eyes and gnashed. “ I already made it clear I’m not hungry. I'm all good,” he reopened them.
Neticia saw the tears clouding her son’s eyes and was swept with guilt. She walked back to him, touched his shoulder and this time he didn’t flinch away even though she could feel his anger effervescing through his breath, through his eyes, through his clenched teeth. “I’m so sorry Eric. Really, I am,” she said. But he wouldn’t speak to her; neither would he cast another glance at her direction. Yet out of the corner of his eyes, he watched her turn and strode out of his chamber, shutting the door after her without still explaining to him why he was locked behind the walls of the palace all his life, for eighteen good years!
His eyes fluttered shut. He sucked furiously in a breath.
- Writer
