Starkeeper of the Fractured Crown

It wasn’t until I was 14, half a year before Ket left, that I decided it was time to fix it up. To get it ready, fill it with knowledge and food.

Why?

Because my mother had become pregnant, and I couldn’t let what happened to me happen to that baby.

This was the year I was going to move him out. He was turning 11 soon, eight weeks. December 13th. That cottage is going to be this year’s birthday present.

I just had a few finishing touches before it was completely ready, but I wanted to be sure. Absolutely sure. The winters here weren’t as terrible as they were in Sanguinary, the continent where the vampires lived, but they were rough. I couldn’t have him freezing to death because I couldn’t handle the situation.

The walk from the streets of Therian to the cottage was about 45 minutes. I stepped around a large tree, through the vines, already losing their leaves, and into a small clearing. It was one of the very few clearings I had discovered in these woods.

The cottage sat against a cliff. It was a comfortable two-bedroom building made of clay, stone, and moss. There was a hot spring behind it, and an oak tree right outside of the front door, garden beds surrounding it. Prepared for when the ground next thawed.

At the moment, the clearing was bathed in red and yellow oak leaves, rows of chopped wood running along one side of the cottage. It had two windows. One above the sink, pointing towards the entrance of the clearing and the hot spring, and one in my bedroom, which was closest to the front door, a perfect view of the oak tree and the woods beyond.

Almost ready. It was almost ready.

I headed for the front door, a well-worn path through the dying grass I had planted five years ago, leading to where the stepping-stones started. The stones led right up to the rusty red painted front door, the only entrance and exit to the building.

Sometimes I dreamt about what might have been hadKet never left. If he had stayed, helped me rebuild, and all three of us had moved in. Our own little family. People would question it. Wondering if Mark was ours, and once I got him out of the grips of my mother, perhaps I would have claimed him as my own, but this was a different life now. A life without Ket. A life I was trying to carve out for my brother and my brother alone.

I pushed through the front door and inhaled deeply, the light scent of Fall and parchment whispering by me.

Every single wall of this place was covered in research. In drawings and snippets of stories that had come to me in dreams. On the floor were stacks and stacks of books, many written by me, others stolen from the Impossible Street. Knowledge that I had collected, truths I had hunted down so that I could help Mark understand a world that only saw evil.

Maybe that’s what everyone would always see. I wasn’t setting out to convince him that the bad didn’t exist. I knew more than anyone that that wasn’t true, I just wanted him to see that it wasn’t all as terrible as the High King portrayed. There was beauty and nightmares. A balance of light and dark. The High Kings and High Queens weren’t always right, but that didn’t mean they were completely wrong either.

We had been bred to fear. Which, in some cases, was smart. The humans didn’t have magic or claws, teeth or venom. We had swords. The Nightwalkers: the Fae, vampires, pixies, werewolves, warlocks, witches, and the Fallen, they were our threat, our predators, and we should hate them all.

I didn’t believe they were all bad, but wewould always be prey. Therefore, living in fear was something we had adapted to do. Even now, when Raphael slaughtered anyone of magic blood that stepped into our territory, when he killed anyone who sympathized with them, we still had to live in fear. Because at any moment, any one of the other species could come to this Court and kill us all without trying.

Sometimes I wondered why they hadn’t just to avenge the deaths of the magic-users Raphael had killed, but I couldn’t even pretend to know the thoughts of the royals. Trying to figure out why they did or did not do certain things would drive anyone insane.

Inside the cottage there was a counter that lined the far end of the living area, a sink, a bathroom, cupboards, a large oak table fit for six, a redone couch in front of a brick fireplace, and a wooden coffee table I had built.

The cottage was perfect for us. Perfect for him.

I had everything I needed except for a handful of items for the winter. Once I collected those, I could show Mark, and we could leave Mom for good.

I set my things down on the table, careful of the papers and journals spread out everywhere. I would never claim to be a professional at organization, but I at the very least knew where everything was. It counted for something, at least in my mind.

I fell into a chair, pulling off my black veil that kept my identity hidden from the world, slid back my hood, and pulled my journal forward.

Hey Ket,

I managed to steal some gold earrings today. I’ll hock them this evening when I go to the ImpossibleStreet. I need more Asilos Root. And a few other things, I guess, but mostly Asilos Root.

I’ll be 25 in nine days, which would make you 27 now. Sometimes I wonder what kind of man you’ve become. What would our lives look like now if your father hadn’t stolen you away.

I wish we could have loved each other a little bit longer.

A weight settled around my shoulders. It was more likely the memory of a weight. I had long since moved on from what could have been with us, but even so, the memory of it still hurt from time to time.

I wish you hadn’t waited until that last day to make love with me. I wish we had more time to not be so new at making love. I wanted to learn more with you, not with strangers.

Maybe I wouldn’t be so fucked up in that area if you had stayed.

Maybe I still would have ended up that fucked up and you would have left anyway, that would have been…I’m getting off track.