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Something snapped. Something pierced through his mind. Something wrapped its way around his recollections like a wraith, like a phantom, collecting fragments of thoughts and memories, and scattering them around his skull. He was riveted, engrossed, shackled and tethered to the line (and maybe he was being trapped too – he’d set his foot in a different snare), ignoring the happy hunting quip and being completely, utterly absorbed in Volterra’s final words.
He knew his father’s history. The Reaper had told him tales. His mother had regarded them as particles of myths and stories. He’d attended herd meetings, he’d listened to the chimes, to the echoes, to the reflections of actions and transgressions – and the prince had an inkling of which mare had a history with the Lord Deimos.
Confutatis.
He’d never met her, but her name had been strung between the caves and the icicles, the grottos and the prison, when he was small and tiny, dreaming of the future and not becoming paralyzed with notions of fear or grandeur. Her title had always rung with sinister connotations, savage inflections, like a hiss, like a dagger, like a sibilance slithering through the grass. It’d had made him think of asps and cobras, slinking and biding, unwinding and unfurling. She’d been a predator, unwavering and undaunted, yearning to press her fangs into the necks of the Basin inhabitants. The mare had snagged and irked and irritated, before finally getting what she wanted.
Asch, Arwen, and Arah had been among the taken. They’d been tortured under her regime. They’d been molded and melded and scalded – and eventually, they had all disappeared – some by murder, some by no explanation.
It hadn’t stopped there, because she’d tried to snatch the gilded Thief, that strange, savage creature with his pelts and his hides and his jewels, and his father had followed her down into the Rotunda and returned with her armor. Even then, after defeat, Confutatis had tricked to pick him, the little blue boy, the Lilliputian, infantile prince.
They’d said she’d had children.
His gaze reflected none of these inner dwellings, none of the mysteries and unraveling mementos, key, deliberate incantations. Instead, it was a mark of spellbound wares and entrenched curiosity, as if he didn’t have a clue, as if he was thriving on the potential enigmas, on the series of circumstances leading him down these vast plains and columns. An act, a pretense, a shaping of masks and roles remained perfectly in tact along his face, ears pricked, stare engaged, stolen by the hanging reverie. His voice reflected endless inquisition and interest, shaped by the thousand possibilities, the weaving of myths, the stories, the slabs, the tomes, of legends. How would the black beast carve his mother’s accomplishments? How would he see the feast of fools? How would he cast and roll the die? “Really? Do tell!” The ebullience echoed, the excitement brewed, and all the while Orsino hid his grin, and the youth concealed his secrets. He was treading within treacherous lairs, and it curled through his heart like a mischievous coil, like a furtive, deceptive, specious scheme.
Perhaps Volterra was not meant to be a friend. Perhaps he was another destined enemy or opponent, concocted from birth, misshapen and misaligned. Or, perhaps, others were meant to see the world differently, and he would just have to remember to watch for dragons on the horizon.
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[P] Blaze rage red is the color of youth
