“Where is the prince?”, the angered voice of the King echoed through the golden walls of the palace.
It brought shivers to the maids and soldiers. The entire castle held its breath as an unexplainable fear engulfed the beings inside those majestic gates.
“Oh! here comes the prince”, as soon as the stout old man with a long beard uttered, the entire congregation shifted their gaze to the right.
Two soldiers marched inside with a young man in tow.
The young man was clothed in a long grey robe, a majestic and yet humble smile adorning his dusky brown face, his blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight, and his brown hair dancing to an unheard rhythm of the universe. The young man was chained yet his smirk said out aloud “don’t fool yourself, I’m just playing along”
“Crown prince Jeuel requesting your audience your majesty”, the two soldiers unchained him and walked away.
“Care to explain young man”, the King said
“Well, dad…
I mean your majesty”, the young prince smiled to himself.
“On the contrary to the palace accusations, I was outside the palace gates delivering my royal duties”, his voice laced with confidence.
“What royal duty involves the crown prince of the great kingdom of Helies to clothe in rags and wander through the streets, using his maji on mere mortal manids, though knowing that the royal laws strictly prohibit it outside the palace gates unless by the royal command”, the Kings words mirrored his built-up frustration.
“Your majesty that’s where you are wrong”
“The manids out there are suffering. They need help. They need maji. We must stop being selfish and share our power with them. It is our royal duty”, the prince pleaded.
“But giving those treacherous manids access to our divine maji will bring chaos young prince”
“Imagine the riots and coups that will follow when they get their hands on the maji. We won’t be able to control them”, the old man with the long beard, war minister Khalid said while stroking his beard.
“Khalid is right. We can’t let them get their hands on maji. They are not ready. Now stop all this nonsense”
The king walked out of the court, glancing at the prince one last time. Soon the court emptied one by one and Jeuel was left all alone.
He plopped on the cedar wood floor, his arms under his head as he glanced at the golden cherry blossom carvings that adorned the ceiling.
“Cherry blossoms”, he smiled.
“I wonder what that snotty girl is doing” Jeuel muttered as his thoughts began to replay the happenings of that day.
“Royal etiquette with professor Perkin at 6:00 in the court, breakfast at 8:00, war strategy classes with war minister Khalid at 9:00 in the clock tower, defense practice with guards head Derin in the courtyard at 11:00, luncheon at 1:00, horse riding sessions with master Bella at 3:00 near the stables, maji classes with chief wizard Marian at 5:00 and dinner at 9:00 your highness”, Garen – Jeuel’s Secretary/bodyguard listed to 12-year-old Jeuel as he twisted and turned, unwilling to give up the soulful embrace of his warm bed and those silk sheets.
“Just 5 minutes, give me 5 more minutes Garen, please”, Jeuel’s pleas were certainly ignored as Garen began to strip off the sheets and exposed him to the sunlight that crept in through the arched windows.
12-year-old Jeuel’s days were packed with royal duties from dawn to dusk.
Still, even the eagle eyes of Garen weren’t enough to prevent him from sneaking out from time to time.
On that spring morning, Jeuel ditched his horse riding classes and escaped to his secret haven.
It was a mesmerizing hideout near the eastern gates of the palace.
“Just what I need,” Jeuel said as he took off his boots and plopped onto the banks of brook Idonis. The pristine waters gently hugged his little feet and the raining cherry blossoms dozed him with their sweet scent. After a few moments of lingering in its embrace, Jeuel stood up and walked up to the bridge across the brook.
A grandeur clock stood in the middle of the bridge. Jeuel’s hands traced through the carved grapevine that swirled the clock like a python, the wood was ready to crumble to ashes, evident of centuries of withering under the sun, rain and storm, yet the rusted hands never stopped ticking.
“Please come out, I’m quite sick of this hide and seek game you know”, Jeuel spouted as always. Whatever spells he tried, potions he used, the door had always been closed and the bird of the clock was never found.
He hid his familiar disappointment. Before he could step away, an unfamiliar glow from the clock arrested his attention and locked him in a trance.
The ticking sounds dragged him closer and closer into its embrace as silent whispers echoed “she is here”.
A loud shudder from the bush broke his trance.
” Who is there?” Jeuel screeched. His limbs involuntarily moved to a defensive stance. With a simple spell, red flames of fire emerged from his palms.
“When the enemy is unknown, the fire should be your first defense young prince”, Khalid’s lessons began to make sense for the little prince.
While his racing heart expected a devilish creature or a ghastly beast to make an appearance, to his disappointment, out from the bush came a little girl.
She patted the dirt from his grey skirt, wiped the dust from her dusky brown cheeks and her honey plaits, sniffed her snotty nose, and turned her gaze towards Jeuel.
“Wow! is that fire”, her pearly eyes grew bigger and bigger as she came running toward Jeuel.
“Stop there! I said stop!”, Jeuel’s threats were left unheard as the little girl grabbed his arms and excitedly analyzed those red flames.
“What are you doing?” Jeuel pulled out his arms and stumbled back.
For a prince who lived all his life within those palace gates, who knew every palace guard and officials by their names, and was accustomed to their humble greetings and familiar smiles – this alien being was blissful chaos he won’t dare to imagine, not even in his wildest dreams.
While he was panicking about whether to fight against this species or summon the palace guards or just run away, the girl shifted her curiosity from his red flames to the clock.
“You look beautiful”, she said as her gentle fingers traced through the rugged edges of the clock. With every touch, her eyes widened and her smile broadened.
“You are a precious little angel”, she said and kissed the clock.
As soon as her lips touched the wood, a magnificent Phoenix emerged from those closed doors.
Jeuel stood in awe at the presence of such a wondrous being. A million different shades were evident in its coats and its feathered tail. Each shade glittered and sparkled under the sunlight like the rarest collection of precious stones. A huge rainbow engulfed the bridge, enough to question the existence of the sun and the chasing clouds. The Phoenix made its way to the top of the clock, seated itself like a majestic queen in her throne, and began its divine lullaby. The song waked a sense of belonging and excitement in the hearer’s hearts. Like finding your long-lost treasure or a blind man seeing light for the first time. The song brought a weird maji to the air, entirely different from what Jeuel had seen or heard in the palace.
Once the song ended, the phoenix went back into its hiding and the miracle was broken as reality came back into existence.
“How did you do that?” Jeuel asked, his minding still processing the miracle he met and the curious questions that were waiting for their turn.
“Did what?” the snotty girl said in a confused tone. She was completely ignorant of the fact that that it was she who conjured up such a divine miracle, which even the crown prince of Helies was incapable of.
“You know….. How did you bring the bird out of the closed doors? What spell did you use?”
Jeuel’s desperate attempts were shutdown abruptly when she said,
“I don’t know, I just did what my mom usually does”.
Jeuel’s fear of this alien being was abundantly outweighed by his curiosity about the secret that unleashed the bird. And for the first time in his life, the crown prince of the great kingdom of Helies gulped down his pride and made a request.
He took her hands, looked her straight in the eyes, and said, “please, take me to your mother”.
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