Scales and Swords ✓

11: The First Test

"What the." My jaw dropped. "It's already over?"

"Mo Dalk!" Lance's voice reached me from across the courtyard.

Philip and I locked eyes for a moment. He nodded. I was dumfounded. I turned away and made my way to the castle door.

The closer I got the more nervous I became, if whatever behind that door could rock the troll/fairy to his core, who knew what it could do to me. When I stepped through the doors, I followed the knights down a shadowy hall till we reached a set of two large doors. They stepped to either sides simultaneously and pushed the doors open. I stepped through and the doors slammed closed behind me. What I first laid my eyes upon knocked the winds out of me.

There were my parents and siblings and before them was the king. Two distinct emotions stunned me in that moment, overflowing joy and utter confusion. My parents were standing right there in front of me, quite clearly in a state of distress and behind them was the King of Kreatier in the flesh.

"Mom, Dad," I said, stepping forward. "When did you guys get back?"

They suddenly turned and all four of them dropped to their knees. I picked up my pace, almost running. But before I could reach them, the king rose his hand and said, "fire."

I don't know where the arrows came from but they flew towards my family and didn't stop until their job was done. For a second I thought I had been shot as well. I couldn't move a muscle or think for that matter. I had just watched my family be murdered before my own eyes, by the king.

This was a test of course, my family wasn't actually dead, right?

"What is it knight?" The king said, his gaze menacing.

I raised my heavy hand only to realize I had been holding a sword. I pointed it at the king and stepped forward, though that wasn't by my will. It felt too dream-like to be true. I was now climbing the steps and advancing towards the king, the sword weighing me down in more ways than one. The question then was, what do I do next? I wasn't sure if that was up to me.

You forget sometimes that the king is just human, an ordinary man with no special abilities, it was not very difficult to drive a sword through his chest and leave him for dead. I immediately froze at that thought. Why was I thinking these things, they weren't my thoughts, but they were in my head, right?

I turned to the sight of my family lying in a pool of their own blood. My chest constricted with a burning sensation; flames didn't come close to this pain. Accompanied by that blaze was the cool, yet stinging tears that slid down my face. I was crying. My body trembled; a sob left my lips; I was angry and sad. Revenge was so tempting and within my grasps. The king was mere inches away, my sword filled that distance in a matter of seconds. All I had to do was thrust and the man who killed my family would be dead. Easy.

Or so it seemed.

In that moment nothing else matters because everything that did matter is now gone. The compass of right and wrong is cloudy. Forgiveness is a forgotten memory. I was starving and vengeance, though so filthy and revolting looked dreadfully irresistible.

The king or my family. No that wasn't the case, it was me against me. I was fighting myself, my conscience against my broken heart. The actions were simple but the consequences were far more complex.

For a moment, a long lost memory resurfaced. I was ten, around that age, and I had a sweet friend named Mary. Mary and I enjoyed each other's company very much.

But one day Mary stopped playing with me. The friend whom I had cherished so dearly left and even worse; Mary had told the other kids about my scales, something I'd told her in a moment of vulnerability. The other kids weren't very kind, they made fun of me and at one point they hurt me, but Mary had done nothing to stop them. I remember being so upset that I had come to wish them gone; I wanted to burn them.

Thinking back, hurting them was easy. Now it's a stain on my conscience, I'm not as good as I try to fool myself into believing. I never hurt them though. Dad had told me this when he found out I had been bullied, "the strongest people walk through fire and come out the victor in the end." I didn't quite understand till that very moment when I was holding a sword to the king's throat; there's no point in fighting fire, you'll only get burnt. It takes strength and bravery to let be, but it takes so much more to forgive. The sword slipped out of my hand and clattered to the floor. The doors screeched open and I felt hands lift me. I was delivered to Philip, bawling like a royal mess.

~~~

"You alright now?" came Philip's voice.

I looked to the door to find him watching me, the worry evident on his face.

"I'm not crying," I muttered.

"I know but, are you alright-alright?" his expression only deepened. I detested that look, which usually meant that they had seen my wounds, they knew where it hurt the most, where they could inflict the most pain. I sighed and stood to meet him at the door.

"Can we go for a walk?"

Soon we were walking through town aimlessly, sitting silently at a bench or wandering through markets. We eventually stopped at a pub. I ordered water as usual, Philip got a beer.

"You wanna talk about it?" He asked.

I hesitated but went on anyways. "I should've known it was all a lie when I walked in there. I had never seen the king before and yet when I walked into that room I immediately knew who he was. The gem was still hanging from my necklace, nothing about the whole scene seemed natural and yet I fell for it. I can't keep up this lie, I'm not a knight, and I can't be a king's guard."

Philip shook his head. "It isn't as hard as it looks, all you have to do is protect the king."

"Well what if he took someone you love away from you. What if he killed them?"

He stiffened and stared at his empty beer glass. "Is that what happened in there?"

"What was the right answer? Was I supposed to ignore the fact that my family was murdered by him and go on living or was I supposed to take justice into my own hands and bring my wrath upon him?"

He let a few seconds pass before he spoke. "You did the right thing."

"How would you know?"

"Because, you know how strong you are."

I said nothing and allowed him to continue; I was too confounded to speak.

"That's exactly what makes vuruks a threat to the kingdom, their dangerous beings, power-hungry, they let their pride get to their heads which most often leads to their own demise. Now pair that with wrath and greed, there's no saying what extent of harm they could cause."

"Anyone could choose revenge, vuruk or not, what's the difference?"

"Not everyone is a knight." His eyes never left mine as he spoke. They were dark, distant sometimes, but right now, I felt so welcomed by them. "The king is the most important person in the kingdom, to his people and most especially to a knight. But let's strip that away for a moment, kingdom and all, is he the most important person to you?"

"Not in that sense, no." I sighed, dejectedly. "I could never go on serving such a man if everything that happened in that room was real."

"But would you still choose revenge if it were real?"

"I wouldn't."

"Then you passed. Loyalty is a quality that glues together the essence of a knight."

A/n: I thought this chapter would be harder to write with the emotional turmoil and stuff. But I think it came out well. What do you think?