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A bright, red snake curled around his fist.
He met the King’s eyes, and they sparkled back at him, gentle and playful andknowing. Knowing their vision for the future was shared.
Healing would come. Some parts of the past he would forget. Others he would not. Learning was for the future. But for now…
“Your Grace,” Salas said with a smile. “If you could have one wish…”
The End
Lio and Tarick
The birds hung in their cages from the dungeon rafters like pretty ornaments, flung up like tinsel. Lio’s lip trembled, though he tried his hardest not to cry. He had learned at an early age that crying amounted to nothing, and only served to annoy others.
“Crying is never good. If you cry,” his trainer had once said, the one who taught him how to touch and be touched, “then either the man you are with will feel sorrow, and complain to the Emperor on your behalf. You do not want to embarrass the Emperor like that. He will punish you. But other times, when you cry, the man you are with will enjoy your cries.” He paused, leveling Lio with a somber look. “You do not want that, either. Do not cry.”
Lio didn’t cry. Hedidn’t. The wetness around his eyes couldn't be helped, but hewasn’t crying.
Salas had been taken away from the dungeon a while ago, and the rest of the birds sat in darkness. Waiting. Dreading.
The scene of gore played in Lio’s head. The way the Diagorian beasts had stormed the castle. The ways in which limbs had torn from bodies, teeth sinking into flesh andtearing. Ravaging everyone save for palace staff, for some reason.
And the birds.
He couldn’t bear his own, bloody thoughts. The comfort from the other birds slowly died, softening to nothing the longer they sat. The murmurs eventually dulled down when the cramps set in. It didn’t take long for discomfort to rear its ugly head and for the positions they were twisted in to become unbearable.
Lio was in one of the hanging cages, as opposed to the cells at ground-level. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore.
He couldn’t stand another moment of it.
He tried to slide his legs through the iron bars, to straighten them. Trying to find the smallest bit of relief. But the moment he moved, the cage swung awkwardly, hinges creaking in protest, shifting. Dangerously.
He only had time to gasp before the rusty chain that kept him suspended gave out. His cage fell and the world spun.
The tumble was short, but it rattled his head the moment impact was made. His cage rolled awfully, dizzyingly.
The other birds asked if he was all right.
And he couldn’thelpit.
He cried.
The world went dark.
He only came back to it because of the noise. The great, thunderous hinges worked themselves as they were pushed open and someone must have entered. Lio could not see from his position on the ground. He had been curled, cold, in the fetal position for endless hours.
Frightened protests erupted from the birds as the cell doors began to open and the pulley system that lifted the cages brought the hanging birds down. Lio heard it all, trembling from where he’d dropped.
Diagorian guards gave choppy, stern orders to the Susconians in their rolling tongue, though there were thankfully no raised voices. Following the orders, Lio listened as they all began to shuffle towards the dungeon exit. Why they were being moved, Lio could not begin to guess at.
“Don’t forget Lio!” he heard one of his friends, Mildro, bravely demand.
Lio didn’t know if the guard understood what Mildro meant. Perhaps not.
Lio tried to speak up, to tell them,“Wait, please, don’t forget me!”But his voice seemed to be everywhere inside of him but his mouth. Everything was screaming, but his throat failed to make a single noise.
The voices died down as the guards and the Susconians made their way out of the dungeon. All seemed to have left, save for one pair of heavy footsteps that perhaps were doing a final sweep of the cells. A Diagorian, obviously, by the gravelly crunch of the boots they wore.
Lio was discovered by accident. The guard must have been checking all the cages, looking up, and therefore miscalculated a step in the dim light when he tripped over Lio’s cage.
