Page 32 of Burdened Bonds

I kick at the earth, dirt hitting the flames with a hiss. I’m so fed up with everyone knowing more than I do.

“No, I don’t. Who the hell was the black prince?”

Renzo picks up my knife from the ground, brushing dirt from the blade.

“Do you see pictures in your head, little rabbit?”

I sigh. I want answers but straight answers from a man like Renzo Barone are impossible. I’ve seen how his mind wanders, flicking from one thing to another like an erratic fly. If I want my answers, I’ll have to be patient.

“Like dreams you mean?” I ask him.

“Yeah.” He digs the point of the knife into the ground and spins it on its point, the crimson from the fire flashing over us as it does. “I was never any good at reading or writing. But pictures, they’ve always been so clear to me. There are the pictures I can see with my eyes – the ones that are really there – and then there are the other pictures. When I was a kid, I used to try and capture them.” He snatches the knife, halting its spin, and scratches a line into the earth. Then another and another. “But it made my mom mad. She didn’t like paint on her walls and all that shit. But I still see the pictures – like when you’re away from me, I can see your face – clear as day in my mind.”

“I used to have these dreams,” I tell him, “when I was young – they were so real, so vivid.”

He nods like he understands, continuing to scratch at the ground.

“Look,” he tells me and I gaze down at the marks he’s made on the ground. Only they aren’t marks. It’s a picture. Of a man’s face. My dad’s face.

Renzo waves his hand above the picture and it lifts intothe air, filling with color and depth and movement, like a cartoon.

“How are you doing that?” I say in awe.

“Magic,” he answers like I’m dumb. “Like I said, I’m no reader. But the old man who lived next door to me when I was a kid used to tell me stories and they painted pictures in my head. Ones I’ve never forgotten.” The man in his picture wears armor black as night, his hair is dark too like mine and he’s striding towards an army of men. “So, little rabbit, do you want me to tell you the story of the black prince?”

I drag my eyes from the moving picture and back to Renzo’s face. His miscolored eyes sparkle in the firelight.

“Yes,” I tell him, “I want to know.”

The picture hovering in front of our eyes dissolves and a new one forms.

“Then let’s start from the beginning,” Renzo says.

The picture moves and it’s like watching a movie, an animated one, one come to life in front of me, and the voice narrating the story isn’t the assassin’s, it’s an old man’s, the old man that told him the story, and now tells me the story too.

The story of the Black Prince.

14

The story of the Black Prince

In the beginningthere was darkness. A bottomless, impenetrable darkness that hung over the lands and took the shape of monsters. Great beasts that terrorized and plagued the people.

Magicals were fewer then – and because the darkness was magical and uncontainable – feared.

The monsters hunted the people. The people hunted the magicals.

And so it continued. On and On.

Until Fate intervened, bonding a young woman with five mates. Powerful and brave. Together, they drove the darkness away and were rewarded with the rule of the land. Magicals were no longer feared. They were saviors.

But though the monsters were gone, newmonsters had taken their place. The darkness now lay in the hearts of men and a new terror reigned.

The old magical kings ruled as tyrants. Taking what they pleased, doing as they wanted. The great magical families fought to possess the throne. The country was always at war, the people always hungry. They longed for peace. They longed for something better.

In the end, they rose up.

The dark magicals who had used their magic to enslave and abuse were pushed back, further and further and the western border was formed. The magicals that remained pledged to establish a better land, a better world: the republic. The council was formed to rule in peace and harmony, the powerful magical families working together under the leadership of an elected chancellor.