Chapter 10: Adrin
The room went silent. The only sound I could hear was the chirping of the crickets.
I waited.
I braced for the shouts of protest. For the door to open, then slam. For Reah to crumble like weakened concrete.
The tension in the room was so thick you could slice through it with my katana.
I looked over at Reah. Her reaction was different than I imagined it wasn't anger, it was just shock. She didn't say a thing as she relaxed. Maybe evaluating the pros and cons of becoming famous overnight.
This moment reminded me of when Kinara first showed up to the castle. I could vaguely remember it but I was siting on the floor of this very room, playing.
My sister escorted her into the office. Yuno (who was nineteen then) looked so big compared to tiny Kinara (who was six years old).
At three years old I wanted to be like my father so I put down my toys and listened attentively to the exchange not wanting to miss a single thing.
Young Kinara had told my father about the orphanage she started to live in, in the northern mountains when here parents disappeared.
"Mr. King," she had said with indifference. "I was going to have a younger sibling but they disappeared before it was born."
My father was move by her story and saw potential in her agility. He asked the general (Yuno's soon to be husband) to mentor her and he agreed.
We became fast friends each of us doing our duties under our teachers. Sometimes for combat training, we would work together under General Durage.
Over the next eight years we did everything we could together. It was nice to have another kid in the palace. Whenever our combat training with General Durage would overlap, we would spend it together.
Then tragedy struck us all. The general lost his life trying to stop an attempted assassination.
We were together when it started. Kinara, the general, and I. He told us to run, to notify the guards, then to go to the secret passage with the res of the family and that he'd come get us when it was safe.
Durage didn't come get us, instead it was the prime minister. Holding the Eastern Sword that has been passed down between the general of the Eastern Army ever since the start of the Aurorean monarchy.
Yuno was the first to realize he was gone. She turned sheet white and clung to her two sleeping children unable to speak or move.
Kinara sat beside Yuno. Tears welling up in her eyes. The general was like a father to her ever since she'd arrived.
I blamed myself. If only I'd and helped him maybe. Maybe.
I decided that I would be the father Andere and Shyra were robbed of.
At Durage's memorial, father surprised everyone by announcing that Yuno no longer wanted the crown and making Kinara general at the tender age of fourteen. Later he told me, "I felt like she was ready to lead the Eastern Army."
The rest of the compass generals had agreed, and the Eastern Sword was given to her.
And the crown, falling onto my head.
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