Young Writers Society

(2019 words; third entry for The Last Man Standing contest)

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Devin’s body tensed as the light was blown out, but he made no move to let go of the candle. Instead, he seemed to be gripping its holder tighter - as if he wanted to anchor himself to something - apparently not with a plan to use it as a weapon, standing completely still and glaring at a spot on the window.

Like a prey frozen before a predator. The visitor suppressed a chuckle. This kid will never learn…

“Really, my prince,” he muttered softly, his lips almost touching Devin’s ear. “One would think, after gaining your knighthood…” He could feel the younger man’s muscles relaxing at the sound of his voice, his eyes closing for a moment, but he didn’t let go of him - not even taking his hand away to let Devin answer.

He’ll find excuses later.

“You hold a fairly heavy, brass candleholder,” he continued in low voice instead, his lips curling in a wry smile at the prince’s attempts of freeing his hand. “Even after its flame went of, your candle also still had enough burning wax to force me to remove my hand.” Devin’s fingers touched his visitor’s wrist, trying to pull his hand from his mouth, still not letting go of the candle, and the taller man chuckled again. “Not to mention the knife strapped to your leg, which I taught you to keep there. If you got me distracted enough, you could’ve been free by now.”

Not dropping the smile, he slowly removed his hand from Devin’s face, sliding it down to his hand and around the candleholder instead, meeting Devin’s eyes as he turned his head.

“Hedril…” he muttered, his voice telling of how much he was trying to keep a straight face. “Let me go.”

“Mm…” Hedril’s fingers tangled with Devin’s, making him drop the candle on the floor. “…no. If I was a real intruder, I wouldn’t let you go.” His lips brushed against Devin’s ear, and the younger man closed his eyes again, a small smirk now playing on his face as well. “If I was an assassin, you would be dead, my prince.”

“Well then, luckily for me, you’re not a real intruder.” Devin’s smile dropped. “But don’t call me a prince… I took the oath. I’m not a prince, not by title, and I don’t want to be. Being a prince is no fun,” he muttered.

“You’re a son of a king and queen, you’re a brother of a princess…” Hedril’s hand let go of his wrist, letting Devin turn around to face him. “You freeze like a statue when someone attacks you instead of using any knightly accessories - brain being very high on list of those.” Hedril grinned, tugging at Devin’s shirt to pull him closer. “You are a prince.”

“And you’re an ass,” Devin smirked. “And a foul player… And a terrible subject, to treat your superior this way.”

“Perhaps, alright…” Hedril’s grin grew wider. He observed the younger man for a long moment, before stepping closer and pressing his lips against his, gripping the shirt on Devin’s back as he pulled away enough to talk again. “I missed you… Sir. My knight. My…” He took a breath and shook his head slightly. “…My prince. That’s the only title that gives that phrase any justice.” He let his smile fade slowly, a concerned look replacing it as he stroke Devin’s cheek. “I’m sorry about your father.”

“Mm… Who’d say. If it wasn’t for that happening, you wouldn’t be here… One would expect you to be happy.” His smile seemed weaker, and Hedril stayed serious.

“No… That is true, but I mean it.” He sighed. “He was my king, and you are one of his sons. I know Lenore was hit by it rather hard - for her standards, that is… Are you alright?”

Devin nodded, his eyes locked on some spot on Hedril’s chest. He didn’t look as fine as he was trying to present himself as - he was tired, Hedril could tell. Lacking sleep and thinner than a couple of months ago, his skin seeming paler and the shadows around his eyes deeper.

Hedril opened his mouth to comment on it, but had no time to do anything more, as Devin reached up and kissed him again, this time pulling him forward until his own back hit the wall. Hedril turned quickly as they separated again, glancing at the door across the room, and then closed his eyes to the familiar touch of his prince’s lips on his neck. Devin was clearly trying to distract him, probably knowing very well what he was about to say - but Hedril couldn’t exactly find strength to mind it.

“Did you sleep with my sister?”

Hedril’s eyes snapped open. “…what?”

“My sister,” Devin repeated, leaning his head on Hedril’s shoulder. “Lenore… did you sleep with her?”

“She’s your sister, my prince,” Hedril said carefully.

“Mm…” Devin ran his finger down his shirt, tracing the strands it was tied with on Hedril’s chest. “She’s my twin sister.”

Hedril sighed.

Why am I not surprised? He’s still such a child when given the opportunity.

He slid his hand up, gripping Devin’s hair a bit less than gently.

“She’s your sister, and my princess,” he said. “And even more, she’s my charge. I’m the man who kills anyone who tries to harm her virtue or any other part of her; not the one who does such a thing himself.”

Devin stayed silent for a while, his head tipped back a bit but his eyes not meeting Hedril’s, and eventually closed his eyes. “Alright… Good.” He smiled, looking up at him, all of a sudden again looking like the same young prince Hedril met all those years ago. He poked his chest. “Because if you were, I’d not be happy.” His smile grew wider. “I’d have to think of a punishment… And I think I’d leave you tied up in the Woods, where the Forest Children would find you and take you to the Dollmaker.”

His voice fought with the expression on his face, staying only half teasing - and yet Hedril felt himself grinning again, trying to ignore the threatening note. His prince has changed in the months they haven’t seen each other, but Hedril couldn’t quite put his finger on what exactly was different - so instead he did the only thing he could; focused on what was the same.

“Really,” he said, stepping closer again until Devin could barely move between him and the wall. “Does my prince want to talk about fairytales now?”

“It’s not a fairyt-- ”

“Once upon a time, back before the kings and queens,” Hedril started, his smile growing and his hands slowly travelling up Devin’s sides. “Before Naavia and Larinthion, even before the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Empire, the Woods covered miles and miles on the East, reaching into the Labyrinth and disappearing in its dark passages.” He brushed his lips against Devin’s.

“Some say it’s even older than the Labyrinth, that it saw the birth of the Dollmaker - others claim it was the Dollmaker who created it, and that tearing it down was what made its creator start taking his share of human lives. Some say that was why he started cursing them with magic and stopped responding to their prayers; that they’d brought it upon themselves, by cutting down the Woods, by using its trees and burning their roots to ashes to make room for their houses and castles.”

Devin was listening to him now, his eyes half closed and a small smile lingering on his lips. His hands rested on Hedril’s chest, a familiar presence which Hedril had missed more than he knew.

Come with us to Goldencourt, he wanted to say, but he knew it would be a bad idea. Mereth was safer, far enough from anyone who’d want to hurt the king’s children and away from every border. Except that of the Labyrinth. But no matter how much you cared, you couldn’t protect him from that.

He sighed.

“Will you tell me the rest of it?” Devin’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t even get to the Forest Children…”

As he stopped imagining the Labyrinth’s mists surrounding the home of his prince, Hedril found himself nodding, his mouth already opening to keep telling the story. Many times had he told it already - most of those times, it was to Devin - but every time, it felt equally fresh on his tongue.

As if it changes and grows while not being spoken of.

“Magic roamed and devoured,” he said, “passing from one person to another, burning uncontrollably bright as it appeared without a warning, in households all across the land, and then - sometimes - disappearing without a trace. People feared for their families, for their children and their friends, for themselves - so they prayed and they apologised, they begged and offered sacrifices, but the god they believed in stayed silent. And then one day…” His fingers traced the curve of Devin’s chest, stopping for a moment as they touched the thin scar on his stomach.

“One day, a little child appeared in the Woods. He was hurt and he was dying, but he was hunted by mages he stole a valuable flower from. The story then says, that they caught him just as he planted the flower, deep in the Woods where no child should be wandering alone. By the time they got there, the flower’s roots already ran so deep that no man could take it away.”

“Do you think that’s possible?” Devin asked as Hedril stopped to take a breath. “What kind of flower could it be?”

“No one can tell what kind of flower it was,” Hedril said thoughtfully, “not anymore. Many books try to explain why it mattered so much or how it did what it did, but none succeeded.”

“And the boy?”

“The boy died, the story says.” Hedril’s hands stopped on their way south as his fingertips brushed against the hem of Devin’s pants, and he smirked slightly at the change in his prince’s breathing.

“The boy died,” he repeated. “But he didn’t stay dead - he was awoken again, by the forest itself or by the Dollmaker’s intervention, and from that day gifted or cursed to breathe with the Woods till the end of its days. As a messenger of the Dollmaker and protector of the forest, he would gather souls for his god’s collection, and the ones who’d get lost and find their way into the Woods would never neither live nor die, becoming a part of it just as he had himself.” Hedril smiled a small dark smile. His fingers traced Devin’s jaw, before gently gripping his chin, holding his face slightly tipped up. “They are the Forest Children. All those unwanted runaways; men, women and children no one knows and everyone had forgotten, loyal to their Prince and never bowing to any monarch.”

Devin’s eyes found his, something mischievous playing in them. “I heard they were fond of the old Altarian family, though.”

Hedril just shook his head slightly. “The reign of the Altarians of the Northern Kingdom, until they lost their minds to magic and their god abandoned them as well, meant change for the world, but not for the Forest Children. They and their leader were believed in and respected by the king and queen, and no harm was done to the Woods during their reign… But they were no allies, and the Forest Prince and his army of lost souls did not weep for the Altarians once their kingdom was ripped in two and the last of their heirs died - by hand of the first rulers of the today’s Naavia.”

He leaned closer, tracing Devin’s neck with his lips, and gently bit the nape of it as his prince spoke again.

“The way you tell it,” Devin muttered, “my ancestors sound like the villains.”

Pulling slightly away, Hedril observed him with his brows furrowed. “They weren’t villains, my prince. But if you will…” Planting another swift kiss on Devin’s lips, he slowly sunk to his knees. “...that’s a story that can wait for another time.”

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