"I don't know if that is my fate but I can't accept it, not just yet." King Arlen blurted out, worried lines etched on his forehead as he ran his fingers through his sandy hair.
"You can change your fate, you have the authority to, or you will regret it for the rest of your life." Prince Epsor, his junior brother advised.
"Mom is just being so difficult, I wish dad was alive. He understood me better." His tired eyes mirrored the stress the young King was going through.
His eyes spanned the glittering waves far away. A lifetime of freedom awaits him. He won't let his mom's plan ruin his entire life. Marriage was a very serious business, the one he was not ready to enter into, with Princess Irene. But his mother kept insisting, kept subtracting love from the equation.
"Don't worry, you'll grow to love her, your dad and I started that way and look how far we came." She dabbed her wet eyes with an handkerchief.
"I'll need time to think about it." King Arlen replied curtly as he left his mother's presence.
The sea roared on forever, a restless silver plain beneath the rising sun. King Arlen stood at the prow of his ship with his cloak snapping in the wind, eyes fixed on the faint line of green ahead of him. He had been dreaming of this for years; of setting foot on the land he had seen only on old, faded maps brought by sailors. To him, it was land, it was conquest. Yet it also represented the hope of a paradise free of war.
He always wanted to explore, he had been an inquisitive little lad and while schooling in faraway England, he had made plans to sail round the world after his studies. But the sudden death of his father, King Marteau Xeryes, a year ago, had thwarted his plans.
When at last the ship grounded on soft sand, his men leapt ashore with shouts of triumph. They saw forests to fell, huts to burn, riches to seize. But Arlen lingered, struck by the sight before him. Children played in the shallows. Smoke curled gently from hearth fires. The people laughed as though the world had no sorrow.
Among them stood a young girl. Barefoot, beautiful, thin as a reed, yet her gaze was steady as it met his. She neither bowed nor trembled.
“What do you call this place?” Arlen asked, stepping closer.
The young girl tilted her head. Her voice was careful, broken but clear.
“It is home.”
Her name, he later learned, was Laira, the only survivor of a ship mishap that had happened about eighteen years ago. She was rescued by the villagers who had taken her in as their own. She followed him at a distance as his men unloaded supplies, curious yet cautious. At night she came near the fires, speaking in a halting mixture of her tongue and his. He was certain her ancestry could be traced back to the Englishmen.
She told him of the rivers that healed the sick, of spirits carried on the wind, of ancestors who guarded their people.
Arlen listened. And the more he listened, the more he felt the weight of his own crown pressing down upon him. He thought of his kingdom, always hungry, always demanding. He thought of the council that awaited him, eager for tribute, his mother who waited for him to get married to a woman he didn't have any feelings for. And he wondered if what they called greatness was only a slow kind of ruin.
One night he overheard his captains.
“Tomorrow we strike,” they whispered. “We will bind the men, torch the huts, and claim the children for the voyage.”
His blood ran cold.
At dawn, he faced them.
“There will be no raid,” he said.
The men protested, voices sharp with greed. But Arlen’s command was iron. “We came to discover, not destroy. To plunder this place is to lose ourselves.”
Silence followed, heavy and bitter. He had won—but he knew it would cost him dearly when he returned.
As the tide turned, the ship prepared to sail. On the shore, Laira stood apart from the others, watching. Arlen walked to her, each step heavier than the last. A relationship had developed between them. Love? Romantic? He wasn't sure but he knew he would never forget the doleful eyes of this beautiful young woman. He wished they could have spent some more time together.
“Will you come back?” she asked quietly, her eyes sad.
He looked at her—really looked at the woman who had given him more truth than all his advisors combined. He wanted to promise. He wanted to cast aside the crown and remain. But duty was a chain he could not break.
“No,” he said, his voice rough. “But I will remember.”
Laira cut a lock of her hair and pressed it into his palm. “Then carry this, for luck and to guide you wisely as you rule over your kingdom.” Tears welled up in her eyes.
Then it hit him like a thunderbolt....He was in love with Laira. He rushed towards her and took her in his arms.
The kiss was hungry, seeking, demanding.
When the sails filled and the shore began to fade, Arlen stood alone at the stern, laira's lock tight in his fist. The men sang of homecoming, but he did not join them. He was going back to nothing, but a throne he really wasn't ready for, and marriage to one he could never love.
In a distant shore, he had left behind paradise, and with it, a piece of his soul.
All images are AI generated.
🌸My Motto is: Work at making myself proud of myself.🌸
Thank you very much for taking time to read me. Have a wonderful day!
