There was a sound that few had ever heard before, and its nature supposedly varied from person to person. For some, it was a rousing battle hymn. For others, it was a strong, furtive rhythm that pulsed from the silent depths of the earth. Sometimes, it could even sound like the roar of a raging sea.
How would it sound to me? I’d love to hear it one day.
When I said as much to the old sailor who had told me the story, he smiled back at me with a face full of wrinkles. He said that if I was lucky, maybe someday I would. Those were the sorts of chats we’d have each time he brought food and water to where I’d been chained to the bow of the ship.
I was the ship’s resident slave. I’d been with the crew for as long as I could remember, and I had no memory of who my parents were or where I’d been born. All I’d ever done was survive from day to day, doing odd jobs to keep myself fed. That is, until one day I heard the wind whisper that a storm was brewing.
No one had heeded my warning, not even the ship’s expert navigator. Yet I was right: a tempest did strike. It was a violent storm that came out of the blue. The ship took quite a beating, and many of the crew were swept away by the waves.
On the deck of the battered ship, someone pointed out that I had foretold the storm. From that moment onward, I became the crew’s slave. It was my job to inform them of any changes in the weather—not that I knew the first thing about how to predict that. All I could do was pick up on the sounds of the sea, wind, sky, and the birds near the ports. The same went for the noises my fellow seafarers made; if someone sounded grumpy or irritated, I always made sure to give them a wide berth. Everyone did that sort of thing, though. It wasn’t just me.
Yet I was the only one held captive at the bow, and if I ever failed to predict a storm, I was beaten. Will I spend my whole life trapped here? I often wondered. Am I going to end up as a pile of bones on the deck of this ship? Soon, I found myself wishing that the whole ship would sink to the bottom of the ocean.
And so, one day during our voyage, I decided to keep quiet. The weather was gorgeous; the sky was an endless expanse of clear blue, and the winds were steady. It was smooth sailing. Everyone was bright-eyed and jolly for the first time in ages.
Then, all of a sudden, thunderclouds came rolling in at a frightening pace. It truly came out of nowhere.
I’d simply chosen not to say anything about it—about the faint stirring I’d heard in the distant sky.
~.~.~.~
“Whaaat?!” a voice rang out from the crown prince’s office in the royal palace of Sauslind, which was still gripped by a harsh winter. An awfully loud voice, at that. The indignant cries that followed were almost indistinguishable from a spoiled toddler’s tantrum.
There was an unusual face in the room—Sieg Eisenach, captain of the imperial guard’s first division, who had put in a personal appearance to get approval for his security arrangements. He was the eldest son of our family and a married man with a kid, but he was nonetheless inexplicably popular with the ladies. Once he was done going over the details with Chris, my brother had gone off to make small talk in a corner of the room, and that was when the shouting had started. A certain someone had taken great exception to the latest order he’d been given.
“You’re a regular despot, Prince Chris! I’m a poor victim who had a brush with death only a few days ago—and who just so happened to be instrumental in preventing a major scandal that could have brought the kingdom to its knees! Not to mention that I’m injured! I’m on sick leave! It would take a monarch tyrannical enough to put a certain donkey-eared king to shame to put an invalid to work so soon!”
He said that he’d suspected Chris might be capable of such cruelty, but even he had hoped the demon lord could squeeze out as much compassion as a lizard could sweat under the blazing sun.
As he carried on with his theatrical wailing, I, Glen Eisenach, felt the corner of my mouth twitch ever so slightly. The one skirting dangerously close to stomping on Chris’s hot button was his direct subordinate, a man with honey-colored hair and emerald green eyes—Alan Ferrera, the court musician.
Chris being a tyrant was nothing new. My main concern was that I didn’t want to get caught in the cross fire, but it wasn’t like I didn’t understand where Alan was coming from. He’d only just returned to the royal palace a few days ago, and already he was getting shipped off to another town. Of course he’d have a couple grievances. Hell, more than a couple.
Predictably, Chris looked up from his documents with a bloodshot glare the likes of which he’d never show to Lady Elianna. For his part, he’d been so busy working his way through mountains of paperwork and back-to-back meetings that he’d had no time to flirt with his sweetheart since her long-awaited return to the palace. Just when he’d finally found a spare moment to adjourn to his office, Lady Elianna had left to check on how Queen Henrietta was doing.
The two lovers were no longer separated by distance, yet still they kept missing each other and couldn’t seem to find the time to be together. The demon lord was clearly reaching his limit. I could almost hear the unspoken wish of everyone in the room: Please don’t antagonize him any further.
The demon lord—ahem, Chris—slowly opened his mouth to speak. “For an ‘invalid,’ you’ve been spending an awful lot of time gallivanting about the palace. And what’s this I hear about you collecting gossip while I’m away? It seems you’re particularly keen to find out if I’ve been up to anything scandalous.”
A smile etched its way onto the prince’s face, but it was entirely superficial. He asked Alan if he’d found any good blackmail material, a question that only the bravest of souls would dare to answer. It was clear that even if his subordinate had found something, he planned to silence him before he had a chance to share.
Unfortunately for Chris, he was up against one formidable foe. Alan hummed in thought, undaunted by the silent pressure. With the utmost nonchalance and in all seriousness, he replied, “About that... For some reason, it was always Glen’s scandals that came up instead. His usual dalliances aside, some rather dubious gossip was making the rounds... From what I hear, he has a thing for whips and candles. Is that true, Glen? Did you pick up a new fetish while I was gone?”
He put me on the spot, grinning and telling me that if only I’d told him sooner, he could have shown me a good time.
I was taken aback. “Excuse me?!” I shouted, pitching forward in surprise and yelling at him to cut the crap. The only bell this rang was a single offhand joke Chris had made at my expense. How had that ended up spreading like wildfire?! Just as I started clamoring that this was vicious slander, Chris and my brother Sieg sighed in unison.
My brother spoke as if he’d seen this coming—by which I mean these orders that no doubt differed from those given to the imperial guard. “I heard talk of sending Wolfe into action down south. Then again, he’s got his eyes on the sea, so I doubt he’s going anywhere. Maybe it’ll be Randy... In fact, I’m sure he’s taking over for Prince Theodore as we speak.”
Hearing that gave me a start. I belonged to a family of military men commonly known as the Four Eisenach Brothers. My oldest brother, Sieg, belonged to the first division of the imperial guard. He was one of the royal family’s personal escorts and the top candidate to eventually succeed my father, the general of the guard. My second oldest brother, Wolfe, had been assigned to a naval division in the south since he was a teenager, and he rarely came home to the capital. The same went for the youngest of us, Randolph. As for me, the third son, I belonged to the imperial guard just like Sieg.
Once, long ago, I’d wrestled with that choice. I’d considered a path that could take me far from the trickery, power struggles, mind games, and obligations of the royal palace and high society. Chris had never tried to stop me either—not even when I left to gain experience in a countryside unit. He’d just sent me on my way with a simple “Off you go, then.”