It was like he was age ten again,

Tired from an outdoor adventure, having fallen asleep,

And, after a brief jostle in which Father

Picked him up to put to bed,

He was drowning

In warmth and happiness.

He felt that sensation now, yet he knew

It was something even bigger

Beyond his knowledge

Under the glass ceilings

Of his glass castle.

She didn’t kill during her waltz.

Only maimed.

Quickly speeding towards where he stood

Atop the three massive one-hundred feet stone steps.

Oh.

Killing was

Unnecessary.

Her contenders were already

Crushed, never to use some essential

Part of their body ever again.

Agony. Blood.

Terror. Death.

A familiar scenery, his birthright,

The Contending of Kings, his first,

Real memory of them

Solidifying at the age of three.

Slipping out of Mother’s

Cold hands and running to where Father

Stood at the very edge,

He was not certain

What he looked at first, Father’s face or the ballroom below.

Red rain glimmering like diamonds on the glass field was what forged

The strongest part of this memory.

A sharp scrape of metal upon metal

Reminded him

Of where he was standing.

He concentrated

On what was happening

At the front of the bottom step.

She was the closest anyone had ever gotten,

But there was a reason why his family

Never lost the throne

To the yearly contestants.

The two sections of the Glass Guards,

The Glass,

Soldiers made of

Steel and stone that had survived and fought through generations of contenders,

And the Light,

Six warriors

Of the finest flesh and bone borne to defend the castle’s three steps.

Glass soldiers

Stood at the front of the line,

Killed whoever came close,

While the Light

Watched at the rear.

The Glass converged on the girl.

He turned away

Before he could witness her death.

But—“To attention!”

His foot froze.

Icy dread and anticipation

Flooded his veins.

The deafening shrieks of raptors

Shook him

Out of his stupor.

He whirled around,

Eyes wide and mouth slack at the sight of

Twin eagles

Diving towards the Glass, plucking soldiers

One by one

To die a death

In the air.

A mass of brown rose from the shadows

And crashed

In waves

Against the remaining Glass.

He trusted

His eyes and ears,

And they shrieked

At the millions of mice and rats that washed over his soldiers.

The girl shouted at the ceilings.

A dark shape

From among the brown sea

Leaped upon the back of an eagle.

With two, piercing, mocking cries,

The eagles suddenly twisted

Up,

Two oblique forms

Shooting through air,

Climbing higher

And higher,

Until he no longer had to peer down to see them.

At his eye level, both unfurled their wings,

Stopping their ascent towards the sapphire sky

With its many midnight moons

Seen clearly through the castle’s ceilings’ glass.

Wind missiles swept every object

Except him

Off the top step

As both eagles flapped to stay in air.

What were they waiting for?

Oh…

He followed the beasts’ gazes

To

Down

Below.

The last of mice and rat were receding back, and now,

The girl was fighting to kill.

She gutted through the Light.

She danced among them,

Slicing the back of their knees,

Beheading them while they fell.

“Stand down,” she commanded the remaining Light, the captain.

“You will curse

Staying past midnight,

Little girl,” he responded.

And then he laughed, for he wondered

How they must look like from above,

Her,

A little girl pointing a pin of a sword

At him,

A warrior bigger than most men.

Alas, he was slain,

But not before he drove a dagger

Into her chest,

Twisting deep and hard.

Angry raptor screams rebounded from above.

“Got…

Your heart,” the captain gurgled.

He locked gazes with her,

And died looking at

The smile on her lips.

“I don’t have a heart,” she whispered,

As she clutched his bloody hand with both of hers.

She laid him back

Among his dead companions,

Gently.

From above,

He watched stoically.

One of the eagles swooped down

In an

Elegant

Spiral.

It glided parallel to the floor,

And the girl leaped onto its back.

They landed near enough for him to feel the heat of its slick body.

It was bigger than he had expected.

Its height was that of a fine stallion’s.

The other eagle pulled in from behind,

And the dark shape looming from its back jumped to the floor,

A human-like rat.

The girl slid to her feet a moment after,

Her chest sloppily wrapped,

A bloody mess.

She locked eyes with him.

He looked back,

His black eyes dull as the death

Lingering on the glass floor below.

She raised her sword.

“Prince Alarming,” she spoke in a voice oddly deep,

“I’ve come to take your throne.”

He smiled.

“If that is what you believe,

I shall demand the name of my killer.”

She grinned.

“Your killer will meet none of your demands

Until after you have reached

Your last of breaths.”

Staring thoughtfully for a moment,

He shrugged out of his suffocating robes

And drew his own sword.

“I show no mercy for women and children,” he warned,

The last of mercy

He would ever give her.

The beasts chortled,

And she flushed.

She growled and stood straight and tall,

Levelling him with a cold look.

“I have changed my mind,

I will tell you my name.”

To have such a fickle mind, she must be younger than he had thought!

“Never forget my name,

Even after death. My name is Cin,

Son of Luci,

Companion of Fal and Draco—the Twin Eagles—

And Wedon Kno Shi, the King of Rats.

Know this,

Prince Alarming of the Glass—”

Ice shot a straight line across his spine

As Cin stared at him.

“—Know I show no mercy

For any of humankind.”