"He shouldn't recognize you, I mean. You weren't there when he killed your parents." Zayden's uncle, King Gabriel, said as they sat on the two single-seater couches in the balcony's shadows. The moonlight cast a faint glow over them, highlighting the tension etched on Zayden's face.
Zayden nodded, his gaze distant. Time had dulled the rawness of the pain, but the wound was far from healed. Memories he wished he could bury forever resurfaced. Zayden knelt down before his parents' graves in the mind-numbing rain, his cries drowned by the storm. His fingers tightened around the armrest of the couch as he shook off the memory. "He's living his life as though he did nothing wrong," Zayden said, his voice low but simmering with hatred. "It may have been nine years ago, but he should never forget. I haven't." He turned his eyes to the vast, dark emptiness beyond the balcony, the king's castle looming like a specter in the night.
