The Runaway Fighting Teen

A bit of the Boy's History

Jacob helped the boy onto the bed. The teenager hissed in pain as he fell onto the mattress. 
"Healer Hank!" a nice older healer came running at the Prince's call. 
"Are you alright? I told you not to fight so hard during your sword lessons! What..."
"No, you have it wrong. This boy is injured. Badly. I believe he may have been injured while desperately trying to fight off four of the castle border guards. He was found in the nearby woods." Prince Jacob explained.
"Alright, I will looked at him. You need to back up though. When did this occur."
"Around thirty minutes ago."
"Ah, okay, okay..." The healer lifted the boy's shirt, and the boy's breath made another hissing sound when he inhaled, as the shirt was lifted from his skin.
The boy was covered in semi-fresh bruises, cuts, and burns. There were no scars present, unless you looked very closely. Then you could see several. The healer shook his head in surprise and utter horror. 
"Well, My Prince, he has many injuries, ranging from bruises to cuts, to burns from extremely hot surfaces. None of them are, however, as fresh as thirty minutes ago. The newest one is, I would say, about two days old." 
"Oh, wait, so the guards did not fight as well as they normally would, because they obviously must have seen him in pain and did not want to risk severely harming him until they knew what they were working with."
"So it would seem." The boy was laying on the bed, breathing fast-paced and somewhat ragged. He was very still. "Who could do this to a teenage boy?" The boy opened his eyes, and stared at the healer. The healer was taken aback by his shade of blue eye color. Quickly getting over that, he looked at the boy with sadness. 
"Are you in pain right now?" The boy leaned his head back against the pillow and stared at him. Slowly he nodded. "On a scale of one to ten, one being almost nothing, ten being extreme, about how much pain are you in?"
"Hank, what are you..."
"Just be quiet, my Prince, for a few moments." The boy seemed thoughtful for a few minutes, before holding up four fingers. "That is all?" The boy nodded shortly, and then remained still once more.
"What did that prove?" The Prince asked. Hank pulled the Prince to the side of the room, where the boy could not overhear them.
"It proves that the boy has been regularly beaten to a bloody pulp, and/or severely punished on a daily basis. The fact that he has so many scars prove that it has been going on for at least a few years. However, given his pain tolerance being as high as it is, I would assume it has been going on at least six or seven years of continuous infliction of pain. Or, he has a very high view of what the scale factor of pain is, which is not normal. A regular person with that many cuts, bruises, and burns would say at least a eight or nine. It is a lot to take. For anyone. No wonder he ran away, which is what I am assuming." Jacob looked at the boy in pity. 
"But who could do that to him?"
"I don't know. To understand that, we would have to know more about him. He does not seem to keen to talk either."
"I shall speak to him, just get him some water, and do what you can for his wounds."
"Yes, my prince."

Jacob pulled up a chair besides the boy's bed. The boy looked at him curiously. 
"Hi, uh, I thought, since you are probably going to be here for a while, I would introduce myself. I am Jacob, son of the King, which you just saw-I am eighteen. What about you?" The boy did not answer, but did sit up remarkably fast when he was that Hank had water. He grabbed the large cup and drank it all greedily. Then he lied back down, and took a somewhat deep breath.
"I am almost sixteen." The boy said. His voice was extremely hoarse, as if he had not used it very often for a while. 
"Okay, uh, what is your name?"
"Ethan,"
"When is your birthday? I just had mine about a month ago." Ethan paused before continuing. 
"My birthday is tomorrow. Why?"
"Well, since you are probably going to be here for a while, I thought it would be prudent to know when your birthday is just in case you're still here when it happens. And it looks like you will be. What do you normally do for your birthday?"
"Normally I stay in my room to avoid my father, and do everything to keep him from getting angry."
"Wait, you don't celebrate with cake or a feast, or family, or friends?" Jacob asked totally shocked.
"Well, I do not have friends, I have no idea what a 'cake' is, I have never been to a feast, and the only family I have is my father, and he was never one for family anything. Usually when it came close to any sort of family event, he would work especially hard on maintaining the villages around the castle, or scare all the servants to death in his severe anger, or force the guard to go on a country ride with him. I generally try to avoid him at all costs, no matter what the risk." Ethan said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, who is your father?"
"Allen, King of Torel. Not that he is a particularly good king, to anyone's standards, nor is he the best family person."
"Ethan, who gave you all of these wounds?" Jacob gestured towards his chest. Ethan laughed bitterly. It was humorless, and carried much pain and anguish. 
"When I said I try to avoid my father at all costs, I thought you would connect the dots! Why do you think I try to avoid my father?" Jacob's eyes got as wide as golf balls.
"Why would he do such a thing to you?"
"My father always said that if I disobeyed, it was the most effective way to teach me." Ethan's breath hitched as he tried to take a deep breath, and he clenched his teeth, to keep from crying out. "As was proven when he called them 'lessons'. Believe me, you do not want to disobey my father, and you most definitely do not want to be around him when he is in a foul mood. He once got angry at me because I was not standing straight enough in his eyes."