One: The Assassin 

The prince’s room was not so bad.  

In fact, it was entirely personalized to him, for him. The prince loved greenery and plants. He had dozens of hanging plants in intricate pots he painted himself when he grew bored scattered about the place. Out from their sides, green leaves hung long and low, blooming various kinds of flowers. Some were blue, some yellow, and some pink.  

He also liked to paint up the walls events from his life or stories he had heard as a child. On the wall behind his feathery canopy bed, a beautiful woman of long, wispy blonde hair prayed to the Gods above. Everett was not a religious person, but he heard of how his mother found comfort in the Gods and Goddesses she thought ruled above them. He wished to paint her, and he thought if she was right, and if she was looking down on him and watching, she would be proud of his memorial.  

At least, he thinks she would be.  

The air was warm tonight, so Everett slung his legs over the side of the windowsill, right through the oval. He leaned his head on the hard stone frame, letting out a deep sigh. The Elfwood Forest looked magical tonight, with colorful fireflies floating around dreamily, drearily, and taunting. Everett wished he could leap from where he sat and take one firm in his hand.  

To see the nature he so longed for up close, to feel it. It is all he dreamed.  

The castle did not entirely lack nature, but it was not the Elfwood Forest. The castle garden had been constructed before Everett’s parents lived there, long before his mother tended to it. His father used to speak to him of memories in the garden. It is where he courted her, where he proposed, and where she said yes. 

Now, the garden was dead and barren. The memories no longer lived there, and Adelaide did not prefer to care for plants much. She had let everything die, everything his mother cared for. Every influence she may have left, Adelaide made sure to wipe clean.  

So, when someone knocked on his door, Everett hurriedly got up from the windowsill and swung the deep blue curtains over his mother’s memorial. It was a secret for just him, and if anyone saw it, it may be taken from him. He could not let it happen, as it was the last thing he had of his mother, even if it was not touched or seen by her.  

It was his last valued possession.  

“Yes?” He calls to the knocking. “Who is it?”  

“It’s Eda. I have brought your dinner.” She calls back, and the heavy wooden door swings open with a hideous creak.  

“Thank you.” Eda bows and sets down the tray on the prince’s nightstand. It was a skinny piece of bread and a steaming bowl of brown soup. Eda excused herself, and Everett took the tray to the windowsill, where he perched up and sipped at his soup. If there was one thing good about this kingdom, it was the chefs in the castle. 

The bowl is empty, and the bread is reduced to crumbs in fifteen minutes. The combination of feeling full and the low cricket’s chirp far in the Forest sends Everett straight to his bed for the night, where he lies hopeful for the next day even when he had no reason to be. 

⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆☁︎⋆₊ ⊹ 

The next morning, the King grants the prince his freedom, and Everett immediately ventures down to the gardens, two tall guards in silver armor stalk a few feet behind him. He was to go nowhere alone; it was a strict rule in the castle. For the unfavorable heir was not to be trusted. 

Everett minded it not and decided to stroll slowly down to the giant marble fountain in the middle of the garden. This place was not as lovely as it used to be, but it was still visited occasionally by songbirds and butterflies. It was enough for Everett to feel like he was in real nature. 

But the truth was, he had not left the castle in over a decade. When he was younger, Eda was allowed to take him into the noble towns. He would spend a lot of time in their expansive gardens, running along the pebble paths and curling his fingers over the ornate, iron fences to feel their coldness.  

How he missed the wonder of it all.  

Everett took a firm seat on the edge of the fountain. The marble was cool to the touch beneath him, through his royal attire. It was quiet then, and the two guards had stayed a fair distance away from him so that he could have his own thoughts. Sometimes Everett worried that others could see into his head, read him during his most vulnerable moments.  

A yellow butterfly visits him soon, and Everett’s heart swells with delight. He held it up to his face as it perched gently on his finger, giving its frail wings a much-needed rest. They would fall open and contract closed very slowly, achingly slow, in fact. Everett squinted his eyes of hazel, pupils growing smaller from the natural light speckled on both him and the butterfly.  

Butterflies were fuzzy things with expressive little faces, and Everett liked to inspect them closely so he could draw upon a proper name for them. And then when he thought he saw them again, he would remember the name and greet them like a dear friend.  

“I think you are little Lily, aren’t you?” Everett coos. “And it seems you are having a delightful day. You look just so happy and free.”  

Everett could not be more wrong about little Lily. In one sudden, swooping gust of wind, Lily is thrown off Everett’s fingers by the sharp tip of an arrow. Lily flies away in fear, clearly injured but well enough to survive the blow and make her dashing escape.  

Everett dives for the fountain and throws his hands over his head, and the arrow smacks against the side of the castle wall. The guards are alerted by this, drawing their own arrows and hurrying to protect the prince at all costs. Everett pokes his head up gently above the water, gasping for impossible breaths.  

The guards fire into one of the towers where the arrow was suspected to come from. Everett is scared to raise his head any higher for the chance that another deadly arrow may fly his way, but his curiosity overweighed his fear. Just who had attempted to take his life? He needed to see their face.  

But all he managed to see was a blur of a dark, hooded figure escaping over the castle wall. Everett could see that the guards had managed to strike him in his arm, just above his elbow. The arrow was broken and dangling out of his flesh. Everett assumed that it must have been painful, but that was what he got for trying to kill him! 

“You may stand now, Prince. The assassin is gone.” One of the guard’s deep voices informs him, and Everett stands out of the fountain, a dripping, horrid mess. He takes the end of his robes and squeezes it within his palm, grimacing at all the water it had soaked in.  

He takes the hand of the guard and allows himself to be led back up to his room, and before he closes and locks his door, he hears his father yelling down the hall. The news must have spread fast.  

Someone had wanted him dead, but who?