Inheritance

Chapter 3: Ugly Words

Kori left after she finished spinning her tale. Once she had gone, Eory stared up at the ceiling while lying on the sofa. He had nothing better to do, after all. Words entered his mind about Kori that he had never dared to think about her before.

He rolled onto his stomach and drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of the couch. He chewed on his arm again. What a bitch... Twelve years with me and she doesn't even care about me enough to consider releasing me.

He winced at this thought and wondered where he had even heard such an unkind word. He realized it must have been from the two guards outside his room who referred to their wives as such many times in one night. Eory would often find himself listening in on their conversations to entertain himself.

No matter how much Eory tried not to think ugly thoughts about his caretaker, they kept popping into his mind about her because of the cruel words he had heard her say.

He loved her even though it was difficult to love her at times. She was like his mother and his only friend, but she was also his warden.

As he got older, however, he realized her goal was never to be his mother, however. Her goal was to make him an asset to society and not a danger. Only then, she would sometimes say, would she feel as though the king would be willing to set Eory free.

Eory had no memories of Kori teaching him how to read or write or other things mothers were supposed to do. His memories of her were always to do with proper social norms.

Every time she entered the room, she would expect him to bow. She would expect him to ask her if she was in good health and if she was having a good day, and he was to do it in the most polite and proper way he could manage.

Sometimes, she would bring gifts. Not because she necessarily loved him, but because she wanted to instruct him on how to say thank you. If she saw he was being rude in any way, she would punish him by cutting her already short visits all the shorter.

She had made him into an overly polite and spineless dog while she dangled the possibility of freedom in front of his nose and made him fight for every scrap of attention she was willing to give him.

Eory stood up, and, with nothing better to do, he opened the top drawer of his mahogany dresser that lay in the corner of the room and took out a piece of parchment.

When he turned around and looked at his room, he was reminded just how small and claustrophobic it had gotten.

There was the uncomfortable sofa centered in the middle of the room, the dresser in the corner which allowed only just enough space for Eory to pass between it and the bed comfortably, a bookshelf pushed up against the left side of the wall, and a little desk situated in the lower-right corner of the room.

He rubbed the back of his neck with a heavy sigh and sat at his desk which had a pen and ink on it at the ready.

The rain ever pattered above his head.

Everything felt like it was suspended in time.

He was supposed to be doing the reading, writing, and mathematical homework Kori had assigned to him, but once again, his wrist refused to let him do such dull and unimaginative work.Before she left, Kori had scolded him and threatened him greatly for not the work assigned to him.

Pollyanna was always his muse, and so he drew her instead of doing his homework.

You're kind of like me in many ways... Eory thought to himself as he stared lovingly at his flattering depiction of the maiden who was hundreds of years old but who physically looked like she was fifty. You've always been stuck as my family's protector, and I guess I'll be stuck with this heritage that will most likely end with me. Still, I wish you'd come to get me.