“I think I want to go to Daff Hill today,” murmured the young prince. The king lost his smile.
“I do not believe that is the most *ahem* appropriate way to spend your eleventh birthday, Elijah. Are you sure?”
“Yeah, but idonwanya to come. You get too emotional, it’s embarrassing!” replied Elijah. Alden Hould looked past his son and bit his lip for a moment. He looked back up with a smile and patted his heir on the head.
“Alright, but Vadir comes with you instead. It is too close to the Rosarin territory.” He turned to the man standing to hid right, leaning against the wall, eyes darting to different locations in the full room.
“Vadir-“ the man stood up straight and faced the king. “Would you mind escorting young Elijah to Daff Hill? I believe he wishes to see his brother.” The king smirked at the motion, but the silent man stayed sound and nodded.
“Come along.”
Vadir stepped out of the carriage into the muck with his cuffed officer’s boot and held the door open for the prince. He peered out into the plains of Daff Hill; a few slinking, dead trees still gripped their roots into the endless mud surrounded by surprising patches of green grass. The sky was a pale yellow, not encouraging for mid-afternoon. They had pulled up in front of the long ironwork fence and the ornate gate at the middle. Statues of roaring gargoyles stood on the sides of the gate. Trying to keep the souls in their graves still, Vadir thought, slightly grinning. Unfortunately, not a person of his company would appreciate this detail, despite the pitiful laughs they would of course give. Sometimes it was not as amusing being treated as royalty.
Elijah jumped from his seat, landing with a roll in the mud and his brand new mock military uniform. “C’mon!”
Sinking in the back of his mind about how the laundry maid will hassle him for not keeping his ward clean for one day, Vadir closed the door. He arched his shoulders with his hands in his pockets, trying to shield himself from the burning icy gusts. Each pebble rustled even with his light steps as they always did here. Whistling would have been impolite to the rest of the souls buried here, but not to the grave of the man they were visiting. The captain started whistling the tune of Elijah’s old favorite lullaby. It was a little jaunty, with a few falling slurs.
The young prince stopped running in front of a griffin-topped effigy. Years of environmental stress had chipped away the creature’s facial expression, but it was supposed to be one of protection. Too many legends have risen from this little statue, thought Vadir.
He remembered a few years prior where the greatest storm in half a century was coming, and the local villages left their homes to stay at the cemetery. It was not as though the landscape of Daff Hill (which was not a hill at all) would be beneficial to the people, but they believed praying to statue with the dead prince’s face engraved would protect them. A royal announcement had been sent out to offer underground shelter to keep from the elements, but every resident rebuffed. They staked out in the graveyard for three days, sat through the storm, had no real shelter or necessities, and after the storm every inhabitant of the village walked home perfectly healthy.
The years after the storm are marked by the grave by presents and offerings left for the dead prince. Some were basic incense; leaving grace and hoping the peace would pass unto them. A couple who miscarried brought children’s toys, believing a passage between the two worlds existed at this site. A child who left hand-crocheted sweaters for her parents, killed by the war, did the same for his grave.
Vadir disliked Elijah having to see all this attention given to his brother’s grave by people neither he nor his brother knew. Growing up in the shadow of a dead man, especially the shadow of tall tales, could not build strong character. He always managed to steer the prince’s attention so that it appeared as if many people merely liked, not worshipped, the deceased royal son.
The captain still had a while to catch up, whistling the comforting, uplifting melody in a field of dead men, mostly lost from a vicious war that most headline-ingly took the favorite son’s life.
“Here it is,” Elijah breathed. He gaped at the headstone like one would a hero. Eyes wide, arms and shoulders drooped, he appeared as though a short wind would knock him down. With Vadir now behind him, he leaned back into his stomach. Vadir laid a comforting hand on the child’s right shoulder while they stood staring at the engraving:
“Our Prince,
Issaiah Vadir Hould
Taken from us.
May the Afterlife Be
The Paradise He Deserves”
Below was an etching of a stern-looking young man, no older than twenty-five.
“He always hated that picture. Miss Livian told me,” Elijah pouted. “Me too; it’s just not him.” The two stood in the shrieking wind in silence for a moment or so.
“I miss him a lot,” started Elijah. “I know I was really little when it happened, but I remember him.” “He loved you,” Vadir said, squeezing the sprouting boy’s shoulder, and ignoring the troubled timeline he believed in. “You know that, right?” He felt very fortunate to have his face hidden when tears started traveling across his cheekbones and down to his jaw.
“Yeah… Do you think he knew I would miss him?” the birthday boy inquired his traveling companion.
“He knows,” the ageless man murmured.
The wind shrieked again. But wind does not shriek, creatures shriek into it. A chill that by definition was not cold hit the captain, and as much as he would like to let the prince take in as much as he could, Daff Hill was no longer safe at the moment for a member of the Hould family.
“We need to get going, now,” Vadir told Elijah.
“But I–“
“This isn’t the time, we must leave.” Too close to Rosaria, thought Vadir. But there was no need to worry a child this young about the war aftermath.
Elijah continued to stare at his brother’s grave, oblivious to the fact that it was empty. He doesn’t need to know yet, Vadir thought. There’s years for the truth to be told.
The captain tugged on the shoulder of the prince’s uniform.
“Come along.”
