I promised you, I'm Sorry

I remember one time you asked me if I wanted to kill you.

It was stupid, dramatic. We were running in the forest like we used to, looking over the rocky cliff that receded every few years.

“I swear you’re trying to kill me.” You’d say with a laugh, your blonde hair always sucked the light away from the sun and your skin soaked it up. To say you were beautiful would be an understatement, to say you were modest, a lie.

“Only to stop you from boasting in front of the teachers.” I’d rebut. “You’re the only reason they’re harder on me. Look at how well Anaius is doing. How can two boys who spar so often have such difference in skill.” I mocked and you laughed. Your laugh was a birds sweet song before it deepened to a hum, before it felt like coarse parchment on my brain every time I remembered it.

“What’s the point of natural talent if you don’t show it off?” You said.

I rolled my eyes, casting a stone into the rocky waves below. It bounced a few times on the rocks before landing in the black water. It made me sick, how something could look so shallow yet so deep at the same time.

“Do you think we’ll ever need to actually fight? Like an actual war?” Anaius said, walking towards me until we both stood over the ledge, staring into the black sea.

“I hope we do.” I said before I could even really think about it. I looked over to him and he tensed a bit, making me feel guilty. But I couldn’t help it. The people near the crown lived in palaces full of food, with walls and floors of gold. They lived lavishly through their conquests. And every month or so they would get hungry again, rounding up the poverty-stricken civilians and forcing them to war. Promises of a chance to join them. Be one of the elite. Empty promises of course.

Warriors would come back broken both in mind and body, the only reward they received was debt and imprisonment, the lucky ones got death.

“Your parents wouldn’t want that.” Anaius said as he stepped back from the rocks.

“My parents are dead.” I spoke harsher than I’d meant to. I sighed and turned to him. He was looking at me but his eyes were lost in thought, they were green and reflected the forest. The trees danced with the light around his iris, leading to the void that was his pupil. It imprisoned me mind and soul.

“Promise me you’ll never act on this anger.” His eyes now looking at me with so much intent I remembered them for years to come. “Promise me, if you can help it, that you won’t needlessly put your life on the line.”

With that look I submitted to the void.

“I… I won’t.”

“I told you to promise!” He said angrily. I’d ever seen him this angry before.

“I promise.” I said as he turned away, walking towards the forest. He didn’t wait for me to follow like he usually did and as I caught up I found out why. His sniffles were soft but heard. I saw his wet cheek before he hid them.

The fool. I thought. Then I vowed to never let him cry in silence again. To never have his tears unattended, and like most things in my pathetic life I failed at that too.

Three years passed before it happened. Our voices grew deeper by the first summer, I matched Anaius’ height by the second. By the third I was staring over that cliff again as Anaius stood somewhere in the school yard with the other eligible boys getting fitted with armour. I didn’t make the cut. The kingdom to the east got wind of our tyrannical king and decided to attack where our kingdom’s defense was weakest. That happened to be the place I reluctantly called home.

Of course I didn’t want to go to war, I didn’t want to die on the front lines of protecting something that would only breed more violence and death. I was happy not to go. Anaius wasn’t as lucky as I was however. Or maybe it was because he was so gifted that that all luck seemed to forsaken him. We were both roughly fifteen, I say roughly because Anaius turned sixteen in a few days while I’d recently celebrated my fifteenth birthday. But even for a sixteen year old, Anaius showed promise as a soldier. He’d always been a chubby child, it was one of his more desirable features to the teachers.

A body of a warrior. They’d say. Double hit training and increase meal quality.

They’d always be surprised by how fast he could eat and curse when nothing changed. They called him the sea boy, little glutton, Anaius the voracious. But didn’t notice that the once thin and bony Cona had started to gain weight. Now muscle exposed itself under his soft fat, shaping his broadening shoulders and powerful legs. He was built like an ox but still managed to stay quick and precise with his training. The teachers boasted about him to the elders who would occasionally come to watch, who would then take word to the king. It was how they monitored the capabilities of the front line, measured how long it would take for their line of human shields to break before real soldiers joined the fight. They all took such interest in Anaius, he’d always call me jealous but in truth it sickened me, it was obvious why, now more than ever.

I was so lost in thought I didn’t hear the footsteps approach from behind me.

“I thought I’d find you here.” Anaius said from the bushes and I whipped my head around to face him. He was dressed in bronze and leather armour, better than some of the armour I’d seen but still much worse than the soldiers he would be protecting.

My jaw clenched as I turned my back to him. I half hoped that he’d just go, so I didn’t have to wonder if whatever he’d say now would be the last words I’d hear from him. That this hand me down armour and rusted sword would be how I’d remember him. The boy who gave me food from his plate when I was hungry, who offered his lap when I was tired, who whimpered at the mention of war.

“Where you not going to wish me luck?” He said in his usual cheerful voice as he approached my side. His shoes where different too, leather with a hard copper tip. They were big on his feet and one shoe looked far worse than the other. It made me wonder if that attributed to it’s previous owners demise, and I felt nauseous. When I didn’t say anything he spoke again, but this time he was different.

“Looks like you weren’t coming to say goodbye at all.” His sounded dejected, I knew he would be, regardless of if I went to see him or not. I hated it, I didn’t want to see him like that, he didn’t deserve this.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and turned away from him. I felt my eyes sting with every audible breath he took, the only thought in my mind being when it would stop. Would he be scared? Of course he’d be. Would he be alone when it all happened? Could it be painless? Please let it be painless.

I felt him crouch down beside me and I rubbed my eyes on my sleeve, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“Cona… Cona… Cona…” He whispered beside me. Cona. The name my parents gave me before they passed. I grew to hate it. My name was odd compared to the names of the other boys, far too feminine. The only time I loved my name was when it fell from his lips, like a song only he could sing and only I could hear.

“Remember the promise you made Cona.”

I rolled my eyes as he shuffled closer. I hated him for always bringing up that childhood promise. For holding me to it, I hated him even more. Why would he not want vengeance acted on the very people sending him to his death? Why does he protect them when he isn’t even as much as a thought to them?

I bit my tongue, fighting back an argument that would force me to look at him in that stupid armour again.

“If you keep you promise, maybe we can leave this place when I get back.”

My head turned to face him. His hair was shorter too, I didn’t notice it from afar. It was cut to his ears and shaved at the back where it used to flow down to his back. It felt wrong, seeing his usual wild hair cut and contained. It brought attention to his eyes, once green and bright were now red and puffy. He’d been crying and I couldn’t blame him. When I looked at him he smiled a bit, I guess trying to play the cheerful one in spite of the situation. His lip was quivering. I wanted to cup his cheek with my hand, stroke his hair until it was an unruly mess again. I wanted to be there when he was crying, to kiss his crown and be the one to make the bold suggestion that could make him feel better.

We could run right now. There’s a chance they never find us, small but still present. Run for the nearest mountain and never look back.

But I was a coward, and I knew that well.

“They’ll kill us.” I said looking back at the ocean. “Besides, you love this place too much, despite it’s flaws.”

He laughed at my response.

“Yeah. This place is my home, but I can make a home anywhere.”

We. I thought but couldn’t say. It was all too much for just me, I wouldn’t put my burden onto him too. I imagined us together in the mountains, living off the land. Nothing permanent, until we’d reach the other side. We’d find a village, buy animals, chickens, maybe even a cow. We’d wait for the tyranny to be over, we’d run if it got close. We’d complain how it was hard but not too much, because we’d be together and wouldn’t be able to imagine a world without one another. I wished I could say that too, but instead I smiled and nodded. I was pathetic.

“Well I guess that means you’re surviving this war. I imagine you have a plan.” I pulled myself from the clouds to ask. I saw something in him break a little bit when I asked and the stinging returned to my eyes.

“Well… that remains to be seen.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, taking in the ocean breeze. It gave me a moment to rid my eyes of tears once more before he continued. “Have faith in me Cona. I can’t get through this without it.”

A loud bell tolled in the distance and Anaius slowly got to his feet. He started walking but I heard him stop as he noticed I wasn’t beside him.

“You were never good with goodbyes. But just please… have faith that I can get through this.”

“I have faith.” I said into my sleeve, my voice broke as I said it and my arms tightened around my knees. I hoped that was enough, that he’d leave. Because if he didn’t I wouldn’t be able to control my sobs and hide everything I really felt. He left.

And now I stand here, looking back on the makings of the man I am today.

Two years. Two years was how long the war to the east lasted. Your parents received your letters for one and a half. You left some for me too, I couldn’t bring myself to read them. I couldn’t bring myself to know how you felt on the battlefield, if you’d changed and were scared, if you’d changed and enjoyed your spoils of war. No matter what you’d changed, no one comes back the same after war.

And I tried to keep my promise. I tried so hard.

But a year after the war to the east ended the soldiers came back to our town. They spoke of a rebellion, said the source was here.

They killed everyone, lined them up and took them out one by one. Your parents protected me when the soldiers asked my whereabouts, they didn’t bother searching.

I hid. I watched. I swore never again.

There was a rebellion, and as I traveled to the next town I learned how far it had really spread. The soldier’s first victim was the leader of the rebellion. No one knew what he looked like outside of the village, so I took his place.

For ten years I held off, I thought of our promise, of your letters I never got the chance to read. For ten years I held onto the possibility that you were still out there somewhere. That you would make your way back to me and we would run like we spoke of all those years ago. It took ten years for me to accept that you weren’t coming back. For me to finally enact my carefully crafted plan. The rebellion network spread farther in the last ten years than it had since it’s creation forty years ago. Our roots were deep in the castle now.

The king had no queen and no known successor. He only had many slaves from the wars he’d won. None of them were loyal to him and very few were loyal to us. They all heard of my town’s massacre and no one wanted that to happen to them. But that was alright. Only one was needed to hide the vial of poison. The king also had four loyal generals who governed the armies of the north, south, east, and west. They would be difficult to get to, but it would happen. It had to happen. This tyranny has to end.

The armies afterwards were mostly civilians, without the power of desire to keep this empire standing. They would follow those with the power and the money, and if everything goes according to plan, that would be us. This kingdom of cards would fall at my command, and I couldn’t help but have it fall on that fateful day in mid summer. My twenty ninth birthday had just passed which meant you would’ve been thirty in a few days. The big three zero, neither of my parents lived that long, but I guess neither did you.

The plan was in motion now, the poison had been served and the elite would fall, the king the first to go. Not the birthday present you would’ve wanted but I felt it was the one you deserved. May the bastard rot in hell for what they did to you.

I went back to the cliff while everything took place. I sat there all day, drinking wine and eating soft bread, comparable to the loafs you used to give me. Though not the same, of course. I knew you weren’t there but as I looked into the rocky abyss of the ocean, I couldn’t help but feel closer to you. And I didn’t want ruin your day dissecting what that really meant so I had more wine to forget.

The next day the messenger came and found me asleep near the edge of the cliff. The joy in her eyes told me that I should be happy but I couldn’t bring myself to.

In truth I felt nothing. I avenged you but at what cost. I now realize I’ve been angry longer than I loved you. It’s what you didn’t want, what you begged me to avoid. In all my silent rage, my planning. I now realize I’ve forgotten what you smell like, the sound of your laugh is replaced by the birds I once compared it to, you hair replaced with the sun. But the feeling of missing you never faded, the safety you gave me that I can never return, that I have never felt again. And when I look down the cliff I’m reminded of your eyes, the void in them that took my soul when I gazed too deeply. The beckoning, the call to submit. And it was winning even now.

“I swear you’re trying to kill me.” I whispered to the water. In the crashing waves I heard you laugh, and in the breeze a familiar smell I thought I’d lost forever.

Tears ran down my face as I spoke my last words. Void of anger, full of despair.

“I promised you. I’m sorry.”