It was supposed to be a relieving effect. That as he could climb up those stairs, his heart would get lighter and lighter as he headed up back into the castle. It wasn't light, in fact, it was the opposite effect. There was nothing calm about this, it was quite the opposite. And Dominic was feeling triple of that opposite.
"What does it look like up there?" He asked.
His question went unanswered for a moment. After the 2nd second, the silence had said more than a paragraph of words. It was hell.
"I see..." Dominic muttered, to which the soldier's shoulders quivered. "Death count?"
There was no answer.
Dominic's eyes were locked straight on the soldier's back. The gaze was strong, so strong that the soldier could see them, he could feel them boring a hole into his back and sending shivers down his spine.
"Death count?" Dominic asked again.
"Of soldiers my lord?" The soldier replied with a shaky voice, "or total loss."
"Soldiers," Dominic replied, "total loss can never be counted completely as there will be ore deaths outside of the palace too."
The soldier shuddered from Dominic's words. "The death count would be about a platoon's worth, my prince. As of recently counted."
Dominic's steps wavered and he stumbled backward, slipping on the steps behind him.
"Your highness!" Kalmin yelped as Dominic's body fell backward.
He fell. For only about two seconds. His body hit Boris, who was standing behind him. They collided with a thud, Boris' position and stability barely wavering when Dominic's body hit it. Dominic turned his head, locking eyes with Boris who was looking down at him. Before he could get out a word, a hand pushed into his back and shoved him upwards into the soldier's arms.
Boris continued to walk up the stairs while the soldier badgered the prince with questions about his well being. His steps were quiet and steady, like they were marching to some internal beat, always stable, never faltering until interrupted.
He didn't even bother to look back at Dominic. He knew he would be seeing more of his face very soon, he was trying to get more time away from him now so he wouldn't be as pissed off in the future.
'The future..' Boris thought to himself as he reached the last step of that floor. He was met with jails. A long line of jails, each made of the same black iron bars, each cell pressed against the other, all jammed with each other down the length of the hall. On the other side of the hall was another long line of jails, leading down the length of the floor just like the other parallel to its wall.
Boris walked closer to the jail, standing in front of one and peering at its long black rods and the empty space inside. 'The future...' he muttered to himself as his hands raised to the jail cell.
It was inevitable. He was going to be stuck here for as long as that prince decided to keep him. From the moment he saw them lying on the floor with a sword high above their head, from the moment he ran towards them and the moment he raised the sword given to him by the enemies to fight off someone who he could have taken the side of, he was sworn to stay in the castle.
It became even clearer when he said what he said to the prince earlier in the tunnel and when he hadn't turned around and tried to run down the other way of the underground passage. His stay in the palace was permanent at that moment. It was the moment in which he had stayed himself in a place he hated, the moment he decided that he was going to wait.
But... that didn't mean he would have to stay at the prince's side. 'The jails,' he thought to himself, 'is it possible to pick the one you want to be in?' He was going to end up in one of these, he was going to make sure of that. And when he did...
Boris tapped the bars of one of the jail cells. And when he did, he was going to be in this cell. The closest to the cold drafts of the underground passage and far from all heat. He would die there.
The prince, soldier, and Kalmin walked past Boris without a word and he turned to them, his eyes meeting Dominic's. there was a hint of curiosity in his eyes. Like he was asking why he was looking at the jail cells, but there was also something there. A sense of emptiness when he looked at the cells.
They continued up the stairs, the air growing warmer and warmer the higher they got and soon the cold draft became a simple wind against their hands, beconing them to return to the darkness below.
When Dominic stepped out into the castle floors, he wished he had listened to their frosty whispers.
The cold silence of the darkness below the castle walls and the frigid air that filled it, soon felt like a luxury when a wave of heat pushed into Dominic's face. it was hot, stifling, and worst of all, carried a scent.
There was a sickening scent of blood in the air that mixed with the thick and heavy smell of smoke and ashes lingered in the air with fine particles that clouded the room. As nauseating as the smell was, the heat tripled it, making it almost impossible to stand the smell without feeling the urge to throw up.
The worst part of it, was the sight. The innocent white of the marbled floors was stained with pools of blood here and there and on the ground, tucked away in corners were bodies, familiar faces stacked upon each other, stared back at him with their crooked faces. Some were stuck in moments of horror and others simply had a blank face in their final moments, they all stared at him with empty dark eyes, all life that was once in them had seeped away from their bodies, as their blood dripped onto each other, flowing to the ground.
Dominic looked away, his eyes dimming as he soaked in the catastrophe. There was only one time that he had felt this helpless in his life but that was years ago and despite the gravity those moments held over him, this moment, this event, those empty eyes, shook him to the core.
His eyes, wet and filled with water that was ready to fall at any moment, descended to the ground where lines of soldiers knelt on the ground. Not one of them were in clean clothing, not one of them held their shoulders up and not one of them had their helmets on.
"What... What is this?" Dominic muttered as he walked forward to the front of the line where he looked down at the row upon rows of soldiers that were all bowed before him. It wasn't the entire army, but it felt like it, it felt they were all in one room, head bowed and all with a solemn air.
"Commander Litian?" Dominic asked, looking down at the soldier he had stopped in front of. "Litian... what is this?"
Slow to rise to their feet, the soldier stood up, eyes facing her feet. "Your highness..." she muttered, tears forming in her eyes. "Your h-highness.." she stammered, falling straight to her knees and pushing her head into the ground.
"YOUR HIGHNESS! WE HAVE FAILED YOU!" She screamed, her voice cracking as she yelled out, tears falling down her face.
Behind her, the rows of officers pressed their heads into the ground, tears falling down their faces as if the dam in their eyes had been released in unison. "YOUR HIGHNESS! WE HAVE FAILED YOU!" They echoed, each of their voices echoing off the walls of the castle and slamming into Dominic's chest.
"What?" Dominic muttered. His voice was chocked up, the smoke seeping into his lungs and stifling his words. He took a step back. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Please... please," Litian stuttered, unsheathing her sword before Dominic. "We do not deserve the honor of being in your presence anymore, please end us, our lives can amount to something in that way."
The soldier beside her unsheathed his sword and moments later, clinks and shrills of metal being pulled out could be heard and the tink and clangs of metal hitting the ground followed.
"PLEASE END US, YOUR HIGHNESS!" They all called out to Dominic, their voices broken and weak as they yell out words to put an end to each of their lives. There was a strange sense of confidence in those words, like a duty being passed in their words.
A tear rolled down Dominic's cheek as his eyes bounced off the stained silver of each soldier's swords. Something was dawning on him, an emotion, a feeling that squeezed his heart and made his legs weak.
A soldier to the right of Litian pulled out a box and handed it to her and another behind her handed her a long thin case.
It was then that his heart started to pound, it was then that it started to slam against its cages and it was then that the tears in his eyes started to be released.
He knew those items. He knew that design, he knew their glow, he knew their shapes, their measurements and every single event that they had been used in. Worst of all, he knew the owner of the items.
"Your Highness..." Litian muttered, her voice close to a whisper as she lifted the objects up to Dominic. "Your highness..."
Dominic wanted to run away, to turn around and bolt out of the room, to pick up his stuff, and never return to the castle. Anything but grab the item from her hand.
Yet, his hand moved automatically as tears fell from his face. Yet, he held the box in his hand and caressed the velvet covering with his cold fingers, and yet he pulled it close to his chest and hugged it.
Slowly his fingers run over the intricate designs sewn into the velvet covering of the box and round the rounds of gold around the sides of the box. Slowly his fingers land on top of the link that closed the box, and slowly, he twisted the link and watched the box open.
He didn't know what he was expecting. No. He knew exactly what he was going to see, he knew exactly how brightly the jewels used to shine and how pretty the curves and groves looked. He had spent hours a day admiring this same thing before, but yet when his eyes fell on the item, he had wished for it not to be there. He had wished for the jewels to not stare back at him, for the curves and groves to have melted away, for the item to not be there at all.
But yet, it still sat in the box, laid on top of soft royal purple cushions. This time, the jewels encrusted in its sides didn't shine, and neither did its curves look pretty. The once glimmering crown looked dull, like a shell of what it was, like a reminder its owner would never hold it again.
The tears continued to flow, raining down on the crown and they continued to rain as Dominic fell to the floor, his knees banging against the hard, cold ground. His eyes moved to the long case on the ground, and like a starved wolf, he leaped for it, holding the hope in his mind, holding the idea that the item would not be in there, praying that what was going to be there wouldn't.
He set down the crown and with shaky hands, opened the case. He stared at the contents in there, his heart dropping to the ground as his body sank unto his legs.
"No... nono," he muttered as his quivering hands wrapped around the hilt of the heavy object. "Nononono..." he prayed as he pulled out the object.
He peered down at the sword in his hand, a slender, simple sword that shone when the light hit it, illuminating its beautiful silver and the blood of its owner that ran down its side. Gold curves for a hilt and emerald jewels that lined its guard, the sword still shone with as much beauty as it did before spewing blood. Its weight, however, was different. It was heavier, pulling down Dominic's hand.
"No... nonoNONONO!" Dominic yelled as he tightly gripped the sword's sides, its blades cutting into his hand and his crimson red blood mixed into that of the owner's.
"I am sorry, your highness, we have failed you," Litian cried, her words echoed by the soldiers behind her as they all bowed their heads, pools of tears forming under each one.
"No... NO! THIS ISN'T POSSIBLE!! HE- HE'S NOT GONE! HE WAS HERE! HE WAS HERE JUST TODAY!" Dominic screamed, his voice erupting like a dormant volcano, once trembling chambers spilling forth tears and screams of agony. "HE- HE SENT ME OUT THERE TODAY! I SPOKE TO HIM TODAY! HE DIDN'T LEAVE ME! HE DIDN'T LEAVE ME!"
The sword tumbled out of Dominic's hands as Dominic wept. "FATHER! FATHERRRRRRR!" He wept, his hands balling into a fist and banging into the ground.
THUD
His fists slammed into the ground. "FATHER! FATHER!" He cried out. There was no reply. There was never going to be one.
His heart twisted into threads of emotions and squeezed again and again as he wept, each hit he gave to the ground further longing his pain. Each pang of pain a reminder of the disaster that had happened, the lives that were lost, and a king that had left behind his crown and sword.
That night, that day, was the day the kingdom faced its greatest loss. It was the day it lost its people and lost those who protected them. It was the day they lost their most prized jewel, their most useful soldier, and their most loving father. It was the day the kingdom lost its king, and the day Dominic lost his father.
With one more yelp of pain, Dominic cried out into the dull halls of the castle, his cries being heard by his kingdom right outside the castle doors.