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The sun set as he walked. The area was empty and barren, and he wasn’t sure if the river had forced him a little further east and into Wockston’s borders, but if he found someone, they’d help him. Even though he hadn’t spoken a word in ages, he'd force out his name. Even if Father had done nothing to rescue him, he’d pay off someone who returned his heir.
He found himself on his back in the dirt, although he didn't remember falling. Above, the stars threatened to fade out, and he was tempted to let his eyes slam shut. If the Zorians sent men across the river…
Somehow, he got up. He just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It was a simple action, and he only had to repeat it until he found help. The emptiness couldn’t go on forever. The sun rose again while his feet ached from pricks. When he stumbled through a bushy area, thorny vines snagged at him. His ribs stuck out from the scanty meals he’d been given, and bruises had colored a good deal of his body.
The higher the sun went, the more he weakened. His mouth was dry, and his head pounded so fiercely, he surely didn’t have much longer.
When he told himself to put a foot forward and repeat the process, his legs refused. His knees hit the dirt, and hanks ofhis hair, matted and filthy, hung down while the sun beat on his bowed head.
Maybe he’d see Mother and feel her lips on his forehead again. She’d understand that it had grown too hard to go on and wouldn’t be mad at him. She’d hug him again and make everything go away.
Cool water tickled his throat and brought him back from wherever he’d gone. A nasty grin formed on the face above him as he lay in the dirt.
“See? He’s not dead.”
Behind the man stood a teenage boy with slumped shoulders and green eyes. He quickly cast them down at the dirt as if the sight of Aurelius terrified him.
***
The men had no intent of helping him, didn’t know who he was, and didn’t care. The older man was so nasty, Aurelius was sure that if he said his name, they’d take him right back across the river and sell him to the Zorians.
The adults spoke of selling him like a slave and manhandled him while the teenager hung back and kept quiet. It seemed Aurelius had jumped from the fry pan and straight into the fire. He thought he’d have a chance with the teenage boy, and he finally forced himself to utter two words after a year of silence.
He was ignored. He struggled to go elsewhere in his head while the whip opened his back. Unsatisfied, the older man ordered it again, and another ten lashes finally ripped away his consciousness.
***
The next group of men said they’d find a healer to take care of him, and he just had to hang on a bit longer. Time grew blurry asheat raged in his head and tried to swallow him whole even once the agony in his back was gone.
He survived the fever and found himself at home with a scarred back. Deeper ones ran through his mind. His brothers pretended to be happy to see him awake, and they asked how he’d survived and gotten away from the Zorians. Father said no one had sent a ransom, and with no body, they hadn't known if he was alive or dead. Men had gone to look at the house and around the area.
The soldiers had only found him because they'd been searching for a deserter who had robbed several others before hauling ass. The deserter had gone over the border and into Wockston. By chance, the Novans had found a boxcart and some men camping in the wilderness. Thinking that those men may have agreed to hide the deserter for a night, they’d searched the cart. One of the soldiers had worked at the Palace before and recognized the Crown Prince’s face despite his filth.
The adults in the slaver group were dead. The teenage boy who had ignored his plea and whipped him had fled into the woods and escaped.
It took three months before Aurelius spoke a word or left his rooms. Father could have sent the army into Zora and tried to find him. He could have done something and saved his son from two years of torture.
He hadn’t. Mother had died not long after Aurelius’s disappearance, and she hadn’t known where her oldest son was. He hadn’t been able to return her necklace, and he didn’t even have it to keep for himself.
Out of desperation to unload the things threatening to further crack the tattered seams of his mind, he tried to tell Father the truth of what happened. He was dismissed. Eurig believed him about the slavers and the one who’d whipped him. Those scarscouldn’t be denied, but he refused to hear or accept how Aurelius had been treated after his capture.
“I won’t hear such lies again,” Eurig declared.
“They wanted me to gild things. I couldn’t before-”
“Yes, because you weren’t old enough.”
“Did you think they simply asked and accepted a no? King David allowed me to be raped, beaten, and starved. But I guess that’s too much to believe about your past lover.” Aurelius gripped the arms of the chair as he sat in the office. “Youleft me. You did noth-”
Father’s eyes, mottled with gold, took on a dangerous glint. “King David isn’t such a monster, and I know damn well nobody did anything like that to you. I know him better than you even if we broke up years ago. With a valuable prisoner, he wouldn’t have kept you in such conditions.”
“What do you think he was waiting for?”
“If he invaded again, he would have ransomed you.”
“That makes no sense. They had me for two years-”
Eurig slammed his fist on the desk, and Aurelius flinched. “Enough! They’ve lost you, so I don’t know what they’ll do now, and we’ll have to see. Try to enjoy being home. Everyone thinks you’ve been so ill, that you were kept in isolation, and that’s the story you’ll keep up. I couldn’t let it get out that you were missing. You’re free now, so stop hiding in your room and making up ridiculous tales.”
