I feel someone sit down next to me on the bed, lightly sinking the mattress. Thinking it might be Maiara or one of the nuns, I turn away from that expensive perfume wafting from her person. My eyes snap open as I recognize that scent.
It's been months since I last smelled it.
Curious to know if it's really her or if my memory is playing tricks on me, I turn only to meet the warmest black eyes I've ever seen.
"My son."
I sit up in bed, and she throws herself at me, enveloping me in her arms, and that warmth feels so real that I don't doubt for a moment that it's her.
"Mother, how did you get here? How did you find me?"
She cradles my face in her hands and laughs softly.
"Always so impatient, Keith. I thought we were working on you being more patient."
I take her hand when I feel that warmth disappear for a moment and is replaced by a chill that scares me.
"Are you really you, mother?"
"Do you think it's me?"
I hesitate. It can't be her. My mother is kept captive in the south tower of the castle, and I can only see her when there's an important event or when I sneak out through the window. Otherwise, my father said that seeing her would only distract me from my training.
"It doesn't matter if my body is here or not, Keith," she interrupts my train of thought. "Or if we're together or not. I want you to be strong, my little prince."
Something inside me hurts. I thought my heart had stopped beating already, not since I said aloud that I wouldn't regret killing, but now, with her in front of me, I doubt again, I feel like a child again.
"Mother, don't go," I plead, holding her hand tightly as I feel her about to disappear.
She smiles one last time before kissing my forehead.
"Be a good boy, Keith."
Keith... Keith...
"Keith!"
I startle awake at the sound of Maiara shouting my name.
The light streaming through the window blinds me for a moment, not allowing me to see clearly who is in front of me, but I manage to see, I'm surprised to see Mother Clarinette, Sister Holly, Maiara, and Luke along with a couple of other orphanage children looking at me, worried.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
No one seems to want to answer, so I finally end up looking at Maiara, the girl I haven't spoken to since my fight with Benson over a month ago.
"What happened?"
"You were crying in your sleep. Mother Clarinette tried to wake you up, but you didn't respond."
The dream I had with my mother has something to do with it, I'm sure of it, but I'm more sure that she's asking for help, because now that I remember her life in the castle must have been much more miserable than mine.
"I have to go now," I say, getting out of bed and wiping away the tear stains on my cheeks.
"But where will you go, Keith? You're still a child, and from what I've seen, you don't know how to use that mark."
I touch the mark on my neck, remembering the warmth I felt the only time I used it. That must be my clue, the castle of the queen of Devereaux, where for the first and only time I was able to use my mark.
"I have to go to the queen of Devereaux's castle," I say, putting on a jacket that Sister Holly had sewn for me a few weeks earlier over my daily clothes.
Mother Clarinette doesn't seem very convinced, so she looks to the others for support. Maiara is the first to speak up.
"Keith, I know we're not at our best right now, but I don't think it's wise to go there."
I could pretend I don't care at all, but if I'm not mistaken, I was unconscious for two weeks when they first brought me to the orphanage, so something must have happened in that time, as Devereaux's and this kingdom's troops mobilized within a radius of about fifty kilometers, looking for something they didn't find.
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Because someone murdered the queen and burned down her entire castle."
At that moment, when Maiara says that, a flashback comes to my mind where I have the queen at my feet, dead, and the whole castle is engulfed in flames with me inside. A shiver runs down my spine when I unconsciously clench my fist and the memory of choking her until I broke her neck haunts me.
"Is she really dead?" I ask cautiously.
Maiara looks at me, doubtful. "Yes, all that happened the same day I found you."
But I imagine no one thought a moribund child like me would have committed such an atrocious act. Surely that's why Devereaux's or Corralis's troops didn't take me as a hostage. In that case, I should go even more. I killed a queen, and only then did my mark glow, so that must be the key.
"I have to go," I repeat. "I have to do it."
The orphanage is in its last throes. If a child leaves, it's cause for celebration, but neither Mother Clarinette nor Sister Holly seem to agree. Against all odds, Maiara raises her hand and smiles at me.
"Then I'll accompany you."
"No, Maiara. Neither you nor him," Sister Holly speaks for the first time. She's visibly worried about us.
"I'll go too."
We all turn to look at Luke, whom nobody felt when he moved from among us to his bed, two spaces farther from mine. He's putting on his jacket, also a gift from Mother Clarinette.
"Guys..."
"We'll be fine, Mother," Maiara smiles at Mother Clarinette, then hugs her.
The room soon seems to have fallen into a silence so dense that no one wanted to break it. Finally
, I finish tying my shoes and stand up.
"I'll be fine."
"How do you mean 'fine'? You won't go alone."
"Yes, I will. It's something I have to do alone, otherwise, I'll only be delayed."
"If he wants to go alone," Luke interrupts Maiara as she was about to speak, "But he can't stop us if we want to leave the orphanage."
Maiara laughs mischievously. "That's true."
The sun is not yet at its highest point, so I calculate that if I want to reach the border of Corralis with Devereaux, I must leave now. With nothing to carry, as I have no more than what I'm wearing, I head to the entrance of the orphanage, when Maiara and Luke intercept me.
"So, where are you going?" Luke asks, feigning disinterest.
"It's so you don't go where you're going," Maiara explains.
I stop and turn to look at them, surprised to see that they have a backpack with them. I knew they had much more time than me in that orphanage, but I didn't know they had so many belongings.
"It's more comfortable to travel without anything. That way, you won't get tired," I say as I turn to continue my way.
"They're not belongings. It's food and water," Luke explains.
"Or that's what Mother Clarinette said, because I didn't see it," she says. When I turn to see them again, they both burst out laughing.
The joke is obvious, Maiara is blind, but even so, it's not funny to me.
"If you go the same way I do, don't talk to me. You'll slow me down."
"More than you already are?"
I stop again. This time, Maiara collides with me.
"Sorry, I didn't see you."
Luke chuckles softly. Yes, definitely his personality has nothing to do with the first time I saw him.
I continue my way with both of them behind me, thinking that this will be a long journey, and how I'm going to convince them to return to the orphanage, because otherwise, they'll both find out who murdered the queen and burned down her castle.