I ached all over, it felt like there wasn’t a space on my body that wasn’t sore or bruised. Perhaps more damaged than my physical body was my pride, I was, at least in theory, the king, and anyone who had dared lay even the most gentle fingers upon me should have found themselves at the very least in the deepest depths of the dungeon. Yet, here I was laid in bed, too sore to get the sleep I badly needed and I knew my trainer was probably enjoying the riches of the kingdom that were now cruelly withheld from me. It did not escape me that though that I was now subsisting on gruel and tepid baths, my trainer was eating meals with the finest cuts of meat and fruits the kingdom had to offer and an air of rich perfume clouded around her wherever she went. The worst part of me was that I had no idea who she actually was, she would never tell me anything beyond she was a special trainer offered to me so graciously by the Church to mold me into an effective monarch. By the way the servants deferred to her I assumed that she was someone with a decent amount of power in her own right, but there should have been no way she outranked me, especially not by so much that she could command my every waking moment. I knew that no matter how I asked or what I demanded to know there would be no answers beyond what she felt like telling me and she had no qualms with using her terrifying ability to puppet my consciousness if I kicked up too much of a fuss.

Rolling over, I let out a soft groan, my left side was worse and was alternating between feeling better having pressure put on it and it being overwhelming to have even my clothing brush against it. The castle healer had declared that I was not overly injured after wrapping my arm to secure my elbow to my body, which was both relieving and made me wonder if he was telling the whole truth. I sometimes felt these days that the whole castle had turned against me, even my nursemaid had stopped visiting me and I only saw her sometimes in passing between my lunch and religious training. Even so, she barely looked my direction and instead scurried on with her business, her sudden aloofness hurt, in some ways I had felt a closer connection to her than I had my own mother. I knew my mother loved me, I saw it in her eyes when she watched me, but there was also pain and sorrow in her eyes. It has always felt like it pained her to love me, that she wanted to reach out and embrace me, or join me on the floor to play, but that it would only bring her anguish to do. The nursemaid told me that she had never fully recovered from my birth and that it hurt her to move or be touch too much, but I didn’t think that was entirely it, she had the strength to often wander the halls of the castle and on nice days, the hills beyond the castle, so surely she could have found strength to cuddle and play with her child. There had definitely been something more there, but she had kept her reasons for being distant from me to herself and with her gone I had come to terms with the fact that I would likely never know what they were.

Someone, probably a roaming guard, walked past my bedroom door sending a shudder through the very core of my body. Though I absolutely despised the trainer’s methods, I couldn’t help but also marvel at the new perception of reality they had awoken in me. I couldn’t fathom or put into coherent words what had happened to me, but with the barrier broken within me, strange power emanated from me, coalescing around me into what I could best describe as a bubble of sensation in the air around me. The bubble seemed to shrink or expanded based on factors I couldn’t yet name and at that moment it had bubbled up to encompass my room and the space just outside my door. Some people were able to walk right through or brush up against it and I could tell they were there, but it was not unpleasant while others, such as my trainer were almost painful to be too close to. They seemed to have their own bubble around them and when they touched mine it was like fingers crawling up my spine and my legs would feel weak. I couldn’t see their bubble, or mine for that matter, it was like a whole other sense like hearing or touch, I could just sense where it was even when it wasn’t bumping into mine.

While my eyes were heavy and my body screamed for sleep, my mind was too abuzz from the day to let me settle in to rest, especially since it seemed like any time I even got close to drifting off another guard or a servant would scurry past my door and activate my new senses. I slowly sat up, careful with my slung arm and shuffled over to my desk. It had been a while since I had been awake enough after the daily training and study to have time to myself to utilize the ledgers and books in my collection. I frowned to see that the ledgers I had used as a sort of personal journal were out of order and obviously combed through, though at this point I wasn’t particularly surprised. It seemed like my trainer knew everything about me, even my unspoken fears and desires, so this made plain how exactly she had come by the information. In a way it was relieving, I had started to think that perhaps not only could she control my body when she wanted, but perhaps she had also been able to read my mind. I much preferred that she invaded the privacy of my written word instead. However, that did ruin what I had in mind to do, there was no way I was going to record my inner thoughts anymore if I knew she was just going to read them.

Glancing over my book collection, it was apparent it had been gone through as well, several of my favorite titles were shifted positions or were missing entirely and there were a few books I was certain I had never seen before. It was awkward with only one hand, but I pulled out the books I was unfamiliar with and spread them across the desk top. They were all of similar size and weight, though the titles on their covers were all in different fonts with different color bindings. At first glance they looked to be just different stories haphazardly picked to fill out my collection so that perhaps I wouldn’t immediately notice that my books were missing, but after looking them over a moment I noticed that all of them had an embossed sun symbol lurking somewhere on the outer binding. I was still very much learning about the Church and how it worked, but it was plain to see that they were all either written specifically for the Church or approved by it. I didn’t think that really mattered for if I would end up liking them or not, but it did cement exactly who had weeded through my bookshelf. It seemed a bit strange that she would have arranged to even have hid that she had decided to take anything, she wasn’t the type to feel like she needed to explain or justify anything. It crossed my mind that perhaps she hadn’t been the one to do it, though if I knew anything at all about her, I knew she reveled in having complete control over anything and everything. Besides, I couldn’t really think of anyone else that would interest or feel entitled to sort through my personal belongings. While a lot had changed since my father’s death, the only new person I was aware of in the castle was the trainer, even the priest who was now tasked with teaching me for hours a day had always lived in the castle, he had even been the one who anointed me when I was born. I hated the idea that perhaps someone, or maybe even many people, had arrived and were residing in the castle that I didn’t know about, but it was a strong possibility seeing as I barely saw the outside of the training room or study anymore. It was also possible that I had been around new people and was simply too exhausted these days to pay much attention.

I wondered if I even would be still on the throne after all. I wasn’t allowed to live my days like a monarch, I had been usurped before I had even known my father was dead, and now I wasn’t even allowed to have personal belongings without them being vetted and tampered with. I couldn’t imagine anyone, regardless of what standing they thought themselves, ever having the nerve to go through my fathers things, that would have been suicide to even consider. That only lent itself to the festering idea that I could not possibly end up in power the way my father had been, I was being prepared to be a different sort of ruler, if even a ruler at all. Sure, I had thought that perhaps I was too young to be allowed to rule completely on my own and there would be someone to guide me for at least a bit, but this was something else entirely. Surely this wasn’t right, this wasn’t how it would normally go, but where would I go for help? Both parents were dead and my father’s family had long passed or were so estranged that I couldn’t bring to mind a single one of them that might still be out there or what kingdom they would be in. My nursemaid’s confession that I had a sister flared in the back of my mind and I felt like the name of the house my mother hailed from was on the tip of my tongue. It was not something that was spoke of commonly, but I knew that if I could corner the right servant at some point, I could get them to tell me. I didn’t know what I would do with the information or how I would even get word out, but it was a little bit of hope I could hold on to.

I could tell by the distant sound of stirring footsteps that the morning kitchen staff were shuffling to their stations to start cooking, which made it pointless to even try to get any sleep, it would not be long before I would be expected to appear in the dining room dressed and ready for the day. I stood from the desk, not bothering to place the books back on the shelf, it didn’t matter if they knew I had noticed. Giving another glance over what was left on the shelf, it dawned on me that the missing tomes were largely fairy tales of one kind or another, mostly ones that I would have labeled as harmless childhood tales. What remained were mostly history I had been interested in at one time or another, usually something to do with a far away kingdom I had heard about in passing, I had thought it fun to read about the history of places I would one day be doing political dealings with. I hadn’t been inclined to read the books that had been sneaked in, but if they were meant to be replacements for innocent children’s tales, I wanted to see what was being considered even less offensive. It would be an act of will to read through them after I came back to my room at night already exhausted, but now I was very curious.