The Festival II

"Why did you suddenly have the urge to watch a play?" Xinghua asked the Southern Prince as all four of them took their seats in the outdoor theater.

"Because I have a high appreciation for the arts," Osayi said while snacking on the chocolate strawberries he'd purchased in the way.

"You said that your visit to the opera was so boring that you would rather watch the process of tree growth," Ísar reminded him, glad the Southern Prince had at least been smart enough to sit in-between him and Xinghua.

"Plays and listening to yodeling on stage are not the same thing now hush! It starts," Osayi said with a bounce.

"What is this play even about, Sir Erik?" Ísar quietly asked the knight who sat beside him.

"You not knowing makes you agreeing to come make a lot more sense."

Before Ísar could ask the knight to elaborate, the narrator appeared on stage.

He wore a simple but dooorful outfit, the national colors of blue, green and silver which Ísar thought was a nice homage to the coronation.

"A throne balanced with corpse and a crown stained with blood, has a coronation been anymore ominous?"

Ísar went pale and he could see the slight panic on Osayi's face from the side of his eye.

"Don't tell me," the Southern Prince whispered.

"The ascension of King Ísar Jovevski! A blessing from the gods or the end of our kingdom? A simple tragedy or an omen of things to come?" the narrator yelled, before the spotlight went off.

"Osayi did you not check the play before bringing us here?" Ísar could hear Xinghua admonish the other Prince.

"They told me it was going to be a historical play about coronations! I didn't think they counted a month ago as history!"

"You two, hush," Ísar ordered them as he calmed down. "It is find. Watch the show."

I'm fine, all is fine. It is but a play. I can even learn how the people feel at the moment.

The lights turned back on, the curtains unfurled, and showcased a backdrop resembling the idea of a banquet hall.

Ísar's frown deepened when he saw an actor meant to resemble his father and he knew it was meant to be his father because only him and his sister had taken on the Jovevski trait of silvery-blonde hair.

"My daughter returns and the monsters were put to rest," the fake King says with a wicked grin.

"Same could be said of sister's mind!" another actor said though this one was younger and clearly meant to resemble the boy twin. "She drank the blood of monsters and became one herself! Oh what a sad fate for the hero of wonders!" the girl twin sang, twirling in circles with her twin brother.

So there were rumors even then of my sister's illness? How? It was a royal secret.

"Brother, sister. Our sister returns, safe and merry. It will do us well to be cheery," the actor playing the first prince said, holding a prop glass of wine.

"That was such a shitty rhyme. Ow! But it was," Osayi whispered and got elbowed by Xinghua.

"It would do her good to be in a dress again. Imagine the husband she could finally gain? Almost thirty and unwed? This poor mother's heart, tears will be shed," the Queen actor joker, making the audience laugh and Ísar was beginning to feel physically ill.

He could remember the last few things his mother had said while nursing a glass of white wine.

"Must you be here? Your presence alone would turn this evening into a disaster."

Maybe she was right.

"Oh but a son is missing!" the fake king exclaims.

"But they're all here to be seen!" the fake first princess says, waving her fan. "Even the one in which we are not so keen," she says as she points her fan at the baby playing his little brother.

"Being unseen is his trick," the fake first prince says. "To catch his sight you must be quick! For this young prince, he is quite slick!"

"The ghost prince!" Ísar jumped when the audience called out his grotesque nickname, some laughing as they said it.

"How does one catch a ghost?" the twins ask.

"To do so, one must be ready to host. For the ghost must catch you!" the fake king says and a lights move to the left of the stage where one could see the side of the throne prop and a boy actor sitting behind it, quiet and unmoving.

He was pale, overly pale, with bright white hair. Ísar guessed that they took the ghost moniker a little too literally. The way they did the makeup on the boy made him look lifeless and eerie.

Is this how people view me?

As the light moved to the actor playing Ísar, the sound of a door opening and closing was heard and Ísar could guess what was going to happen next. So he got up and made to leave. "You three enjoy the rest of the play. I would like to see more stalls before we go back."

"I'll come with," Xinghua said and made to get up.

"No it's fine. I—."

Xinghua took hold of his hand and lead him away from the play. "I prefer operas either way."

__________

"Forgive me," Xinghua said after a while of walking in silence.

Ísar nibbled on the crystal candy the prince had gifted him before asking, "Whatever for?"

"My insistence on following you?" It sounded more like a question than a statement. "I just…You didn't look like you should have been left alone. I apologize if I overstepped."

Ísar hummed in response, a small smile playing on his lips. He usually did not like others worrying over his emotions like he was fragile, he'd just needed some air was all, but having Xinghua worry about him was always oddly exhilarating.

He was also glad the prince hadn't noticed they were still holding hands. The action itself had almost made him forget about the tacky play.

"You're fine and…thank you. For your insistence," Ísar joked, hoping to lighten the other's mood.

"Any time," Xinghua said with a smile. "You only need ask."

Having calmed down a little, Ísar was becoming more and more aware that his surroundings was becoming increasingly familiar but in a bad way.

"Xinghua, wait," he said before pulling the other boy to the side of the now bumpy and unkempt street. He hid both of them in a dark and empty alley and looked around the little street outside the capital city.

He noticed the unnaturally big amount of guards on the street as well as their lazy attitudes. There were children sitting the ground with metal bowls with barely any coins and the night workers with their chests on display pulling men and women into dark alleys.

"How did we even get here?" Ísar muttered, trying to think of a way to walk back into the capital's gates.

"I am not sure, I was following your guidance and thought you knew this place," Xinghua whispered back. "Though I should have probably thought that idea through properly."

"We must leave. It doesn't matter how we got here. We're nothing but potential targets in these clothes," Ísar said as he wracked his brain.

The fact that they had not been jumped sooner meant that it wasn't the main area of the slums, just the outskirts closer to the main city. It explained the amount of guards and not as many pirates and drunks on the streets. Even though it was much worse the further they went, the mere fact that Ísar was already smelling the salty waters of the sea meant they were already too close to danger.

"Alright. It would do us good to leave at once an—," Ísar started but was unable to finish his sentence due to Xinghua pushing his head down and punching whoever had tried to grab them from behind.

"Fuck me! I think the kid broke my nose!"

The king turned into the alley he had thought was empty to see three rather large men, one of which was on his knees cradling his gushing nose.

"They dropped from the rooftops," Xinghua explained as he positioned Ísar behind him and drew out the sword Osayi had said he wouldn't need. "Grab the dagger in my left boot."

Ísar didn't need to think it through and did as was told, his racing mind wondering where those useless guards he'd seen were.

Are the noises of the street drowning us out?

"Did the young lords lose their way? And Mother above, Jón. Did you really let this foreign cub do that to ya?" the biggest of the three said, stepping closer to Xinghua.

The man made Ísar think of the snow giants of old myths. Ghostly pale, thick muscles, unnecessarily tall, and not a speck of humanity in his bloodshot blue eyes. Even his smile was unsettling.

"Árni! That kid's fist felt like fucking metal!" the harmed one, Jón, protested as the third more scrawny person helped him up. "Let me hit him back! Just once!"

"Don't be stupid," Árni said with a soft chuckle as he squatted in front of Xinghua and Ísar. "Let you put a mark on my gift to the Skjoldr pirates? Look at this eastern boy."

Ísar felt something in him scream when Xinghua let that disgusting man cup his chin.

"They'd at least want him for work if nothing else. You nearly took flight with that punch, Jón. But the one behind him? Those Castellonian eyes? Oh what a pretty penny he'd make."

The man, Árni, made to push Xinghua out of his way to get to Ísar by putting his hand on the Prince's shoulder. Ísar could imagine, at that time, that such an intimidating man did not expect to lose his left hand that night.

Xinghua had quickly and cleanly severed the man's hand from the wrist. He gave the kidnapper no time to retaliate as he kicked the man in the jaw and watched as he fell backwards.

"Boss!" the other two yelled as their boss screamed on the floor, clutching his new stump.

"Touch him. I fucking dare you," Xinghua seethed before cracking his neck. He looked and sounded more angry than Ísar had ever seen him.

"Fuck the debt, kill that eastern shit!" the boss seethed through gritted teeth after the two men had helped him up.

"Go find Sir Erik, Ísar," that was all Xinghua said before he pushed the young king out of the alley and started fighting both of the grown men by himself.

Ísar was scared. He didn't even think he'd felt that afraid during the massacre. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. He could go get Sir Erik but not knowing where the Knight was at the time meant it could be too late. Then if he stayed, there wasn't much he could've done for the Prince outside some basic magic spells.

He yelled for the guards he'd seen around the streets, only for the two that heard him to tell him to deal with his problems himself.

What do I do? I'm wasting time. Xinghua is strong but taking on three men at once is not going to end well.

Then, as he was practically dragging a guard that had been flirting with a boy of the night, he heard a yell from the alley. It carried immense pain and Ísar's heart dropped.

"Come. Now," Ísar ordered as he stared up at the guard. He didn't know what about his command after all his pleading had made the guard move but he didn't care. The fear in the guard's eyes meant little to him in that moment.

When he made his way back to the alley, he could hear the men's voices before he saw them.

The one with the broken nose was kneeling on Xinghua's back as the more scrawny one used magic—they didn't account for that—to grip Xinghua's throat.

"What the fuck do they feed the children in that bloody empire?" Jón said with new wounds on his body.

"I don't fucking care! Snap his neck now!" Árni yelled from his seat in the corned, his shirt covering his stump.

His head is bleeding, Ísar noticed as he stared at the scene and watched as they all slowly began to notice him and the guard. His foot. It's twisted to the side. Did they do that to him?

The guard began yelling at them, brandishing his sword as the three men began to scramble. They'd left Xinghua choking on the piss-covered floor and were trying to escape over the walls of the alley.

What is this? What am I feeling? I can't speak. My head is burning, my eyes sting and I can't move. My heart is beating oh-so fast. What is this storm in my body?

Is this rage?

Ísar began to hear a ringing in his ear, the muffled voices of his mind growing louder in volume while his vision got blurry.

"Xi…Xinghua?" Ísar heard himself say but it sounded far away, like he was under water.

Then there was a sudden and immense silence, only for a second, as it was soon filled by that voice. He'd been trying so desperately to pretend he didn't know the owner of that one voice.

"Command us, our king."

"Please kill them, sister."

—————

It was almost like an instant because when Ísar finally came to, he was sitting on that same bench in the now empty capital city's square with Osayi kneeling in front of him, worry etched on his face.

"What happened?" Ísar sounded strange even to his own ears. He sounded so small. "Where is he?"

Osayi didn't respond right away, golden eyes darting at every inch on Ísar's face before he finally answered.

"We called in some other knights. Xinghua was taken back to the castle to get treated but he's fine. His ankle was twisted. Sir Erik got a healer in time so he might only be like that for three weeks." Osayi was being strange. There was a hardness in his usually airy tone.

"What happened to those men?"

The Southern Prince pursed his lips, staring even harder at Ísar. He never answered that question.

"Don't worry about those vermin. Let me get you to the carriage. The knights are waiting."

Ísar was lifted into Osayi's arms and the young king was too tired to protest just as he'd been too tired to care about the blood covering his clothes.

"He was bleeding, Sayi," Ísar mumbled as he placed his head on the crook of the Prince's neck. "They hurt him, Sayi."

"I know, Rico," the young Prince mumbled back. "You did good, don't worry. Just rest. This was just a bad dream. The night ended with you and Hua Hua on that bench. Don't think about anything else, just rest. The shadows are gone so just rest."

So Ísar closed his eyes and did as was told, the voices from the shadows lulling him to sleep and instead of filling him with dread like before, they brought him immense comfort.

But like Osayi ordered, he didn't think about it and fell asleep. Not before wondering for a moment what the prince meant by 'the shadows'.