Chapter 39 - Sebastian

                                    

                                          
Your Majesty, After long consideration, I have decided to grab my feather and write you this letter. Healer Mark insisted to seek an audience with you, but I fear for my life if the halls of Sunstone Castle were to recognise my face.
                          


                          
With the power of ten Gods of Wrath, Sebastian forcefully shoved his toy army off the desk, the tin soldiers clattering to the floor. One knight bounced against the chair and got catapulted off his horse and into the air.
                          
Sebastian had already moved on to his sill when the figure crashed down. He threw off all the blankets and all the pillows, then reached for his dagger. A marriage to Princess Panthera—how dare Uncle Tom? No Greenlander would have ever approved such a wedding, not even if she were the most beautiful woman this side of the Jade Sea.
                          
He grabbed his dagger and stabbed the wall. All Uncle Tom had done for the past moons was fuss over him. No fair. No tournament. For Temperance's sake, he hadn't set a foot outside the castle since the Feast of the Dead. And now his uncle had considered handing him over to the daughter of that brute. The man who had killed Father. Uncle Tom's very own brother!
                          
Sebastian tugged at the dagger with both hands, but the blade remained stuck in the mortar. It budged a little, but not enough to tear it back out and attack the rest of his room. Fuelled by a fresh wave of Wrath's power, he slammed his fists against the stones.

                          
Deep red blood dripped down his knuckles as he punched the wall over and over again. He didn't care. Had he married Panthera, there would have been a lot more blood. One night, maybe two—it wouldn't have taken much longer for her to kill him and secure the crown her father thought he deserved.
                          
Sebastian jumped off his sill and picked up one of the pillows. He was so done with all of Uncle Tom's silly measures. He was the only son of Lord Brandon of Laneby. Not some frail flower that would wilt if he came too close to anything out of the ordinary.

                          
It was time to leave and take action.
                          
His blood smeared the light green satin as he snatched the pillow out of the case and stuffed a blanket in it. All his life, he had looked forward to being a warrior, to roam the wide open forest and hunt down his own food while keeping the other villagers safe from harm.
                          
What kind of warrior was he if he left Fox to rot in Silvermark? The others may never speak of him, but he hadn't forgotten him. There wasn't a day that had passed that he hadn't thought of his best friend.
                          
If he stayed here and did nothing, then one day a report from Whitepeak would come with the statement that a boy with fiery red hair had been butchered because he was too stubborn for his own good. That could never happen.
                          
But that wasn't his only goal. He stood on his bed—boots and all—and grabbed a dagger and one of the broadswords. The dagger he attached to his belt, the broadsword went into his makeshift bag. The quarrel with Silvermark would go on forever if Ariel and Uncle Tom kept on moving spies and armies until all streams were tainted with the vile taste of innocent lives taken to soon. Not in his war. Not in his time.
                          
If Ariel wanted the throne, he could fight for it himself.
                          
He slung the pillowcase over his shoulder and stuck his head through the door. No guards. No Lady Viviane. Nobody. Apart from some heavy footsteps in the distance, the coast was clear.

                          
Now was the opportune moment. Uncle Tom was either still in the dining hall or in his parlour, which meant that the guards didn't patrol this floor so often. He slipped out of his room and prowled through the castle, ducking behind statues and diving into hallways whenever he heard anything.