I ached all over.

  It felt like there wasn’t a

  space on my body that wasn’t sore or bruised. Perhaps more damaged

  than my physical body was my pride. I was, at least in theory, the

  king, and anyone who had dared lay even the most gentle fingers upon

  me should have found themselves at the very least in the deepest

  depths of the dungeon. Yet, here I was laid in bed, too sore to get

  the sleep I badly needed and I knew my trainer was probably enjoying

  the riches of the kingdom that were now cruelly withheld from me.

  It did not escape me that

  though I was now subsisting on gruel and tepid baths, my trainer was

  eating meals with the finest cuts of meat and fruits the kingdom had

  to offer and an air of rich perfume clouded around her wherever she

  went.

  The worst part was that I had

  no idea who she actually was. She would never tell me anything beyond

  she was a special trainer offered to me so graciously by the Church

  to mold me into an effective monarch. By the way the servants

  deferred to her I assumed that she was someone with a decent amount

  of power in her own right, but there should have been no way she

  outranked me, especially not by so much that she could command my

  every waking moment. I knew that no matter how I asked or what I

  demanded to know there would be no answers beyond what she felt like

  telling me and she had no qualms with using her terrifying ability to

  puppet my consciousness if I kicked up too much of a fuss.

  Rolling over I let out a soft

  groan, my left side was worse and was alternating between feeling

  better having pressure put on it and it being overwhelming to have

  even my clothing brush against it. The castle healer had declared

  that I was not overly injured after wrapping my arm to secure my

  elbow to my body, which was both relieving and made me wonder if he

  was telling the whole truth.

  I sometimes felt these days

  that the whole castle had turned against me, even my nursemaid had

  stopped visiting me and I only saw her sometimes in passing between

  my lunch and religious training. Even so, she barely looked my

  direction and instead scurried on with her business. Her sudden

  aloofness hurt, in some ways I had felt a closer connection to her

  than I had my own mother. I knew my mother loved me, I saw it in her

  eyes when she watched me, but there was also pain and sorrow in her

  eyes.

  It has always felt like it

  pained her to love me, that she wanted to reach out and embrace me,

  or join me on the floor to play, but that it would only bring her

  anguish to do. The nursemaid told me that she had never fully

  recovered from my birth and that it hurt her to move or be touch too

  much, but I didn’t think that was entirely it, she had the strength

  to often wander the halls of the castle and on nice days, the hills

  beyond the castle, so surely she could have found strength to cuddle

  and play with her child. There had definitely been something more

  there, but she had kept her reasons for being distant from me to

  herself and with her gone I had come to terms with the fact that I

  would likely never know what they were.

  Someone, probably a roaming

  guard, walked past my bedroom door sending a shudder through the very

  core of my body. Though I absolutely despised the trainer’s

  methods, I couldn’t help but also marvel at the new perception of

  reality they had awoken in me. I couldn’t fathom or put into

  coherent words what had happened, but with the barrier broken within

  me, strange power emanated from me, coalescing into what I could best

  describe as a bubble of sensation in the air around me.

  The bubble seemed to shrink or

  expanded based on factors I couldn’t yet name and at that moment it

  had bubbled up to encompass my room and the space just outside my

  door. Some people were able to walk right through or brush up against

  it and I could tell they were there, but it was not unpleasant while

  others, such as my trainer were almost painful to be too close to.

  They seemed to have their own bubble around them and when they

  touched mine it was like fingers crawling up my spine and my legs

  would feel weak. I couldn’t see their bubble, or mine for that

  matter, it was like a whole other sense like hearing or touch, I

  could just sense where it was even when it wasn’t bumping into

  mine.

  While my eyes were heavy and

  my body screamed for sleep, my mind was too abuzz from the day to let

  me settle in to rest, especially since it seemed like any time I even

  got close to drifting off another guard or a servant would scurry

  past my door and activate my new senses. I slowly sat up, careful

  with my slung arm and shuffled over to my desk. It had been a while

  since I had been awake enough after the daily training and study to

  have time to myself to utilize the ledgers and books in my

  collection.

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  I frowned to see that the

  ledgers I had used as a sort of personal journal were out of order

  and obviously combed through, though at this point I wasn’t

  particularly surprised. It seemed like my trainer knew everything

  about me, even my unspoken fears and desires, so this made plain how

  exactly she had come by the information. In a way it was relieving, I

  had started to think that perhaps not only could she control my body

  when she wanted, but perhaps she had also been able to read my mind.

  I much preferred that she invaded the privacy of my written word

  instead. However, that did ruin what I had in mind to do, there was

  no way I was going to record my inner thoughts anymore if I knew she

  was just going to read them.

  Glancing over my book

  collection, it was apparent it had been gone through as well, several

  of my favorite titles were shifted positions or were missing entirely

  and there were a few books I was certain I had never seen before. It

  was awkward with only one hand, but I pulled out the books I was

  unfamiliar with and spread them across the desk top. They were all of

  similar size and weight, though the titles on their covers were all

  in different fonts with different color bindings.

  At first glance they looked to

  be just different stories haphazardly picked to fill out my

  collection so that perhaps I wouldn’t immediately notice that my

  books were missing, but after looking them over a moment I noticed

  that all of them had an embossed sun symbol lurking somewhere on the

  outer binding. I was still very much learning about the Church and

  how it worked, but it was plain to see that they were all either

  written specifically for the Church or approved by it. I didn’t

  think that really mattered for if I would end up liking them or not,

  but it did cement exactly who had weeded through my bookshelf. It

  seemed a bit strange that she would have arranged to even have hid

  that she had decided to take anything, she wasn’t the type to feel

  like she needed to explain or justify anything.

  It crossed my mind that

  perhaps she hadn’t been the one to do it, though if I knew anything

  at all about her, I knew she reveled in having complete control over

  anything and everything. Besides, I couldn’t really think of anyone

  else that would interest or feel entitled to sort through my personal

  belongings. While a lot had changed since my father’s death, the

  only new person I was aware of in the castle was the trainer, even

  the priest who was now tasked with teaching me for hours a day had

  always lived in the castle, he had even been the one who anointed me

  when I was born. I hated the idea that perhaps someone, or maybe even

  many people, had arrived and were residing in the castle that I

  didn’t know about, but it was a strong possibility seeing as I

  barely saw the outside of the training room or study anymore. It was

  also possible that I had been around new people and was simply too

  exhausted these days to pay much attention.

  I wondered if I even would be

  still on the throne after all. I wasn’t allowed to live my days

  like a monarch, I had been usurped before I had even known my father

  was dead, and now I wasn’t even allowed to have personal belongings

  without them being vetted and tampered with. I couldn’t imagine

  anyone, regardless of what standing they thought themselves, ever

  having the nerve to go through my fathers things, that would have

  been suicide to even consider. That only lent itself to the festering

  idea that I could not possibly end up in power the way my father had

  been, I was being prepared to be a different sort of ruler, if even a

  ruler at all. Sure, I had thought that perhaps I was too young to be

  allowed to rule completely on my own and there would be someone to

  guide me for at least a bit, but this was something else entirely.

  Surely this wasn’t right, this wasn’t how it would normally go,

  but where would I go for help?

  Both parents were dead and my

  father’s family had long passed or were so estranged that I

  couldn’t bring to mind a single one of them that might still be out

  there or what kingdom they would be in. My nursemaid’s confession

  that I had a sister flared in the back of my mind and I felt like the

  name of the house my mother hailed from was on the tip of my tongue.

  It was not something that was spoke of commonly, but I knew that if I

  could corner the right servant at some point, I could get them to

  tell me. I didn’t know what I would do with the information or how

  I would even get word out, but it was a little bit of hope I could

  hold on to.

  I could tell by the distant

  sound of stirring footsteps that the morning kitchen staff were

  shuffling to their stations to start cooking, which made it pointless

  to even try to get any sleep, it would not be long before I would be

  expected to appear in the dining room dressed and ready for the day.

  I stood from the desk, not bothering to place the books back on the

  shelf, it didn’t matter if they knew I had noticed.

  Giving another glance over

  what was left on the shelf, it dawned on me that the missing tomes

  were largely fairy tales of one kind or another, mostly ones that I

  would have labeled as harmless childhood tales. What remained were

  mostly history I had been interested in at one time or another,

  usually something to do with a far away kingdom I had heard about in

  passing, I had thought it fun to read about the history of places I

  would one day be doing political dealings with. I hadn’t been

  inclined to read the books that had been sneaked in, but if they were

  meant to be replacements for innocent children’s tales, I wanted to

  see what was being considered even less offensive. It would be an act

  of will to read through them after I came back to my room at night

  already exhausted, but now I was very curious.