Blood On The Leaves

Love. Fear. Anguish.

Such had been present in the dying eyes of my brother as I drove my blade into his heart.

He was never a brother by blood, no. But he was the embodiment of the word in every other sense. He had held my hand in the face of danger when we were but children, and protected me with a glimmering blade. He was beloved, not just by me, but by the people of Cecia.

It made my task no easier.

Sylvius Rowan Cliffbrooke was a man pure of heart, purer than I. Though it took little to snuff out its flame, it had burned not simply for him but for all of his kingdom, as king.

And a king he was. He'd fought wars, tamed beasts, quelled magical threats from across the continent. Sylvius was nigh unstoppable. His reign was destined to last for all the years a human could live.

As an elf, I'd known it to be a fact that I would lose my brother one day. In our adolescence, he'd reassure me; "you need not be afraid, brother. Though you are elf, and I, human, you are to inherit my throne should something happen to me. You are family. You always have been, as opposed to those cold headstones in the royal cemetery."

Perhaps he didn't grasp the emotional weight it had cast on me, thinking upon his inevitable death. I would be fated to live for centuries more, ruling a kingdom that had done nothing but scrutinize me for my lineage, without my brother by my side.

There was a time, you see, where in the kingdom of Cecia, the elves flourished. We lived under but one name: children of the leaves. Race held no merit to us. We accepted the humans graciously into our midst, treated them as siblings. We drank with them, sang with them, fought with them, even mated with them. But as all good things are fated to end; our alliance with the humans would too. In secret, they had grown envious of our youth, our beauty, our lifespans. They sought it for their own. They enslaved us, experimented on us, killed us. The humans were terror, and they meant for us to know it.

Hundreds of years later, the humans had grown satisfied. Whilst they could not extract the properties that made us unique, they exiled us, and slaughtered whoever refused to leave.

Another hundred years passed, and by then, elves were a rare sight in Cecia. They existed in small numbers, and those who did still dare to reside in the kingdom were scrutinized. I was one of these elves, abandoned by my parents as a child. I was poor, skinny, malnourished, and perhaps the most deadly of these; alone. Until Sylvius found me.

He taught me what happiness meant. What having a brother was like, what family felt like. And then he ripped it away.

He was poisoned by his parents’ rhetoric of the elves overtime. Eventually he felt as though I were a liability to have around the royal family, that I could turn at any moment and take back what was supposed to mine. The throne.

The most fascinating of all was that up until recently, I was not aware of in the slightest that I had come from a long lineage of elven royalty. If the children of the leaves had continued to prosper, I would have been the one to rule the kingdom. I would have never known the pain, the horror, the fear of being a marginalized man.

Sylvius knew.

He knew all this time. As a child, it was innocence; he knew of me, but still dared to make friends. As he grew older, I wondered why he was so protective of me… from the friends I would make never being seen again after I introduced him to them, to the few lovers I had overtime fleeing from Cecia. Though of course, I never knew he was the reason why.

He controlled my life like a puppeteer from the background, obsessing over me, treating me as though I was his blond elven pet.

And when it was time for him to listen to his parents, to listen to what all of Cecia had been telling him over the years, he did not listen to me. He only heard the human voices, and not his closest friend. His brother.

He threw me into the dungeons. History repeated itself in my cell; I was tortured, experimented on, brought to the brink of death. All as he watched.

He did not ever see me as a brother.

Instead, he saw me as his own little project. He would whittle me down until I was at my breaking point, and then seize what was mine, whether it was for himself or for his kingdom.

Until one day he let me go.

I stared at him, my eyes overflowing with salty tears streaming down my pale flushed cheeks. He said but one thing, and one thing only.

“It was not me who wished for this. I beg of you to forgive me one day. Go, run, and be free. I shall explain it all to you one day soon.”

I wasted little time getting out of those dingy dungeons. I was beaten, aching, bleeding, crying. But the pain had been nothing compared to what was in my heart.

Fury.

It was years later when he found me again.

I remember the look on his face, the surprise, the shock, the relief and the guilt. He extended his hand towards me, taking mine into his, and he whispered this to my ear…

“My family is gone. It is all gone. I may rule Cecia, but I have nothing left in my heart, save my love for you, my lost brother. Forgive me, oh, forgive me,” he pleaded to me.

I could have forgiven him. Easily. He offered me everything; to rule alongside him, to do as I pleased, even to help me find my long-lost parents. I almost wanted to do it, to forgive him. I still yearned for the brotherly love I once knew before the terror, the bond we had once shared.

But I knew it was never real.

And it never would be.

My dagger pierced through his chest so easily. It was as though it was destined to be, that his body was formed and developed just for the sake of my blade plunging through his heart. It felt sickeningly good. I savoured his warm blood on the silver of my dagger, of which I still keep safe to this day. A trophy.

It was as shocking to me as ever once I had received guests at my door, informing me that I was to rule as the new king.

My heart had dropped into my stomach, my blood grew cold, and my hands trembled profusely as I took the scroll into my own hands to read.

Sylvius never lied about it.

He was always going to give the throne to me. It was always his plan. He knew I deserved it, that it was rightfully mine.

And I murdered him.

I smiled.

As I sat on his throne, I imagined the image of crimson pooling at my feet. Humans were pathetic.

It was time for history to repeat itself, only this time…

The children of the leaves would reign once more.