Run Ina, Run!

For the first time, the palace looked at me differently. When my parents couldn’t oversee my lessons, lecturers were sent in their place and, for once, I was allowed to choose what I studied. The meals grew heavier, richer, as if meat alone could turn me into someone worth noticing.

Even my half-siblings, who had spent their lives pretending I didn’t exist, began to greet me. Not with warmth, but acknowledgment was enough. I was still the crown prince. Untouchable, no matter how odd I seemed.

My mother spoiled her other children, but I was the king’s child. That set me apart. That made me “more”.

I thought Ina was small. The truth is, I was smaller, thinner, easy to forget. Now, though, I am growing. Not strong enough yet. Not like I wanted to be, but enough to believe I would reach it. Enough to believe I could make her forget the lion boy.

I studied my reflection. The change wasn’t just in my body. Something else was different. Maybe it began when I saw her in her own kingdom, smiling, loved, complete without me. Maybe that was what struck me, that I wasn’t enough… Not then.

Who knew my journey to Ina’s kingdom, seeing her happy and surrounded by others who already love her, would spur me into a quiet obsession to catch up?

When I felt that I wasn’t learning vastly and quickly enough, I asked for more. In the weeks that followed, I became obsessed with learning.

I began to shape myself into something more. My bond with my father grew. My mother started training me. The walls I used to live behind loosened their hold.

I straightened my posture. Copied Riye’s stance. I practiced nods that acknowledged and dismissed servants, smirks that made me look older. I failed at gentility. It scratched at me. So I turned to what was real, knowledge.

Father didn’t know what to do with me at first. He was silent for days, and I thought he hadn’t heard me. But then he changed his schedule, making time for me.

Sparring. Politics. Reading weakness in a man’s shoulders. Speaking with command even when my voice cracked. At first it was an obligation, then slowly, into something warmer. My father taught some of the kingship lessons personally.

Surprisingly, it brought us closer. Often sitting with me in the early evenings, correcting my stances, explaining when to strike and when to yield.

‘Never lower your eyes first,’ he said during a fencing match. ‘Unless you’re planning to strike.’

And I was planning to strike. I just didn’t know when.

‘You’ve got fire,’ he muttered. ‘You just don’t know what to do with it.’

‘I want to be ready for the future.’

‘All right. You want to be a man? Let’s make you one.’

And I was grateful. I was finally noticed and respected. All because I wanted to be good enough for someone.

My mother’s tutors arrived in shifts. One taught the art of social seduction. How to catch attention without begging for it. Another taught voice control. How to make every word sound like silk. A third was a former diplomat who coached him in storytelling, mirroring, feigned sincerity.

Mother kept pushing me on why I had a sudden change of heart. She knew me for being a bookworm and an awkward stubborn child who didn’t follow after her steps, nor my father’s.

‘I will teach you anything you want my love. You already even have access to my forbidden book collection. Only you. Not your father nor your siblings are allowed. That is how much I love you. Everything that is mine is yours. But at least let me know who is your motivation?’ She negotiated.

‘Who is the special girl?’ My mother asked.

She knew it right away but didn’t know how to ask about it. Her awkward little boy suddenly showing interest in someone else.

That is one thing I will never tell.

I did not agree to any arrangements with her. I heard she started sorting time with my father for lesson times on her own accord. This too, was another change that was brought about by my sudden change in activities.

*****

One afternoon, after a lesson I realized later had been of her making, I heard screaming. I shouldn’t have cared, but I went.

In a gallery of marbled light and cracked crystal, I found her standing tall, hand raised against Maya, my half-sister who resembled her most. Maya’s face was red, her voice cracked with rage. She was wild-eyed, red-cheeked, yelling something about her romantic conquests.

‘You think I’m like you! I’m not. I’ll never be like you!’

Mother’s voice didn’t rise. ‘Oh, child,’ she said gently, ‘you already are.’

Maya stormed off, rage clattering in her footsteps. Tears biting down her cheeks.

Here I was, preparing myself to be a man capable of giving the whole world to somebody. Then there are women like these who aren’t deserving.

I turned to leave but mother saw me.

‘My son,’ she cooed.

I froze. She stepped into the hall, trailing lace and shadow. Her veiled crown tilted forward. Linen soaked from holy oils or something stranger. With one graceful motion, she lifted the veil. Her face is of timeless beauty. Lips like dried roses.

“Very stunning. Innocent beauty. Like an actress. Very familiar. Another voice whispered inside my head.

Innocent? Actress? I have never used these words to describe my mother before…

Eyes like black glass reflecting starlight. She looked not at me but through me. She tilted her head, as if seeing another person entirely. Her smile was knowing. Her gaze pierced straight through me.

Marik’s mother. The woman from my nightmares.

‘So,’ she whispered. ‘You’re the one he loves.’