Element Restraint

Chapter 38: Erik

Every morning before I start my day, I go to the training room. It is the quietest before the sun comes up. What I need is quiet.

I used to go at night to escape Raleigh's snores, but after Acantha left he stopped. He does not sleep at all now. Or maybe he sleeps in a different place. I never see him in our room anymore.

I feel as if a gloom has fallen over all of us. Gale is sad and worried that Amora has left now. It has made him quieter, which is very worrisome.

Even Pax is different. I never see him with Raleigh anymore. He just sits and stares into space with his book untouched.

Aella has taken it differently. She will not stop talking about what Levushkra said. She begged me to confess my feelings to Acantha so she would have stayed. I kept telling her there were no feelings to confess, but she refuses to listen.

~~~

I make my way to the training room in the chill of the morning. When I walk in, Gale stands in the middle of the room, hands in his pocket, and a frown on his face.

"We need to talk." He says firmly. I roll my eyes and turn around to leave. Gale books it across the room and dives on top of me. Despite his size, he gains enough momentum to knock me down.

"Whether you want to or not, we are going to talk!" Gale shouts as he puts me in a headlock. I slip out quickly and scramble to pin him to the ground. He slips through my grip like an eel.

"Maybe I do not want to talk." I groan trying to grab him again.

"Well, you need to!" Gale scrambles away from me.

We crawl around on the ground like animals, trying to strike each other and run. I grab his ankle and drag him across the floor and slide him into the wall.

He slams into it with a thud. He looks at me with anger. That is when I notice the bags under his tired eyes.

"You can not beat me, Gale," I tell him. He pulls out a knife and jumps to his feet.

"I care bout you man." His words are gentle but his demeanor as we circle each other is aggressive.

"If you care, then you will leave it alone!" I shout as I run towards him. He slides under me, just as I expected. I grab one of the dull swords off the wall and gesture for him to come forward.

When I go to strike him, he deflects with his small knife. I keep pushing harder and harder on the sword. Gale spins out of the way and grabs a sword as well.

We both dive again, trying to strike one another, but both too quick.

"I know you, Erik." Gale breathes, lowering his sword. "I know you are torn up."

"No, I am not!" I swing at him. I do not want him to pity me. That is what this is. Pity. But kings do not need pity. They need nothing!

Gale deflects without taking his eyes off me. He looks past our blades into my soul.

"Your father is dead, Erik." He says quietly. "And you feel guilty."

"Why would I feel guilty?"

"Because you never stood up to him."

I drop my sword and fall to my knees in pain. I feel a stabbing in my chest as I press my palms on the mat.

I begin to breathe heavily as my thoughts begin to race. I stare at the ground through my strands of dark hair. Breath Erik. Breath.

"You," I find my words. I rise to my feet and look Gale in the eyes, and say: "You have no idea."  then leave without another word.

I walk through Lazuli like a ghost. Numb and distant. People jump out of the way as I walk through the road. My breath begins to grow shallow.

A lump rises in my throat and my struts turn to a jog until I am sprinting away from the training room. Where do I go?

I go to the one place I once found a little comfort.

I slam the doors to the small library and slide down the wall. I sit in the darknesses pressing my palms hard on my eyelids.

I replay my life in the darkness. From the moment I was born, there was hate. Nothing but hate!

I punch the wall next to me as tears run down my cheeks. Hitting my head on the door, I let out a little whimper as I look up at the darkness.

I take a shallow breath. Once. Twice. Thrice.

I swallow my tears down till they are gone.

I need to think about the matter at hand. Imir comes to my mind. Right now my brother is building his empire so he can destroy mine. He took everything I ever worked for. 

"Maybe I never noticed he was the better son?" My father says. I look into the darkness and there he stands where I imagine he would.

"He knows how to be a real king, '' he continues. "How to rule with an iron fist."

I clench my fists and force myself to keep my eyes on him. I look at his cruel smile and his dark eyes. How did I come from him?

"I was a good king and a good father." He grins. "I gave you the best training."

"No!" I shout rising to my feet. "You were never a good king and that's why you are dead."

"But you still think I was a good father." He says.

I gnash my teeth at that belief.

"There are no words to describe how horrible you were!" I shout to him, taking a step closer. "You used to beat me every night. Till I was bruised and bleeding. Making me swear to never tell a soul. Saying that was what real kings did. They hide their pain."

I think of the night Gale found me hiding under the staircase. I crawled there because I could not make my way back to my room on my own. He helped me get to my room and I told him everything. The only person I have ever cried in front of. I was thirteen.

The one thing that will always keep Gale and me close is that he knows about the scars on my back from being whipped. And the long, gruesome, unbearable, events leading to the long gash against my chest.

The nightmares I carry with me today from fear. The fear of him chasing me.

"Every night I would hide in my room, wiping my wounds, ashamed that I would cry. Because you told me that kings do not cry."

I lost my relationship with Casimir because of him. I never told him, and Imir swore I was hiding something. He thought something far different was going on and grew extremely jealous.

A tear runs down my cheek.

"And now you cry!" He hisses.

"Because you are wrong!" I shout back. I feel a weight lift off my shoulders as soon as the words escape me. Words I have been dying to declare for years.

"I do not want to be a king," I say firmer to him. "I never had the choice to make about it until now. I choose to not take the crown."

"I am not surprised."

"I do not care. I do not care if you are proud. You cannot hurt me anymore."

My father raises a fist and goes to punch me. I do not flinch as his fist goes through me.

"You did so much damage to me father. But you failed to break me down. And now you are dead." Tears run down my cheeks as I watch him fade.

I drop to my knees when he is gone. I feel so lost right now, kneeling here crying. I have nothing. No crown, no parents, no home, no power. I do not know who I am. But I am free from him. I am free from my father.