Chapter 3: Breakfast.

Rays of sunlight fell down from the tiny cracks in the ceiling of their wooden cabin and painted daylight upon Kalon's face. He opened his eyes to see the same old familiar sight of his bedroom.

Kalon kept his room simple since he didn't have enough money to decorate anything. In one corner of the room was an old wooden wardrobe with rusted hinges that creaked every time he opened the doors. That was where he kept both his clothes and most valuable possessions.

In the other corner was a damaged wooden bed with a mattress made up of stacking sheets up on top of each other. Occasionally the chipped wood from the bed frame would give him splinters in his sleep, so he made sure to wrap the sheets around the wood to reduce the number of wood chips trying to impale him.

Lastly, in the centre of the room, a white-painted dressing table with a cracked mirror standing on two supports up facing his bed. It used to be his mothers when she lived in the palace with his father. It was one of the only things that had lasted so long since they had been kicked out.

Michaela made an effort to destroy everything that Dorian had given to her after banishing them to spite him, but for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to destroy it, so she gave it to her son that she detested instead.

Kalon didn't mind. Every time he woke up to see the dressing table, he would long to see the day where she smiled once again. He set his mind to make her proud of him, which he planned on doing. But there was no way she could ever be proud of him if he skipped out on making breakfast, right?

He got out of bed and felt a cool breeze engulf his legs as the wind blew up through the holes in the structure and then felt his hair drop down from the top of his head before resting on the back of his neck and obstructing his vision. He brushed it out of his eyes with one hand and then walked over to his mothers dressing table before picking up a small silk ribbon and using it to tie his hair into a loose ponytail.

He looked at himself in the mirror for a few moments and flinched upon sight of his body with hundreds of scars coating his skin and then picked up his tattered white shirt from the chair in front of the dressing table.

After putting on his shirt, he put on what would have been black slim-fitting pants if not for his tiny body. He used a piece of rope as a belt to hold them in place and stop them from falling down, and then put on his brown leather boots.

After getting ready for the day, he quietly opened the bedroom door to avoid waking his mother. Yet, to his surprise, she was already sitting at the dining table, looking out of the window like she usually did. She didn't even glance behind her to wish him a good morning. Instead, she sat still and silent.

"Good morning, mom," Kalon said quietly with a smile. His smile was one of pure innocence and was sure to melt the heart of anyone who saw it if not for the fact he lived in an empire full of monsters, where the only hearts that melted were during a brutal fight or inside a torture chamber.

It wasn't a place for a child to grow up, but Kalon didn't know any better. It was the only life he had ever known, and it became normal to him. After greeting his mother and gaining no response in return, he left the house briefly and walked out to the chicken coupe.

"Have you laid any eggs this morning Rosaline?" Kalon asked the small white chicken that sat upon a perch within the wire cage.

He opened the door to the coupe and then stuck his hand inside the wooden hut that the rest of the chickens were in and then moved his hand back and forth, blindly searching for eggs with his hands.

"There we go. One, two and three." Kalon smiled as he pulled out three eggs and then closed the gate behind him.

"Keep up the good work!" He shouted back to the chickens with a smile on his face. It was going to be a good day for sure. Compared to their usual breakfast, they considered three eggs to be a feast.

Sometimes they would have to eat spoiled vegetables to get by for the day. But now, he would have an excellent start to his morning, thanks to the number of eggs he collected.

Kalon marched happily back to the wooden cabin and lit flame with a match and tossed it into the pile of wood that sat in the fireplace.

"Look, mom, we're eating well this morning. Breakfast won't belong." He assured her and then took a metal plate and a wooden stick he used as a handle for the plate to form a makeshift frying pan. He broke the eggs onto the plate and removed the shells before stirring them around the plate and putting it directly over the flames to make an omelette.

The results were just as good as if he used an actual frying pan. As the eggs finished cooking, he portioned the omelette the way that he always would. His mother would get three-quarters of it, and he would get a single quarter for himself. He wanted to make sure that she didn't starve to death despite her lack of care that she showed to him.

He ate his portion of breakfast with his hands before putting the rest on a plate and leaving it on the table before going back outside. Michaela never once ate Kalon's cooking in front of him, but if he left it for her and then went outside, the plate would always be empty by the time he got back.

As he had finished with everything he had to do for the morning, he took a few minutes to walk around the perimeter of the clearing in the trees by his house to make sure that no wild animals had come into the area looking for food. He barely had enough to feed himself. The last thing that he and his mother needed were foxes breaking in and killing their chickens again.

He walked the whole perimeter, and the only sign of wild animals he came across was the birds chirping up in the trees. He could rest easy and head to the barracks to retrieve his daily swordsmanship training.

Although he was just a human and also kicked out of the palace. Dorian refused to have a weak son and insisted on Kalon learning how to fight to join the army when he came of age to go to war. It didn't matter if he became strong. It would also work in his favour if his son died in battle and became a martyr to everyone who lived within the Sylton Empire.

It would be a great way of inspiring people to fight in this pointless chaos. If a prince could go to battle and lay down his life to protect the commoners back at home, then people were bound to stand up and join the fight and not let his sacrifice go to waste.

But Kalon didn't question his father's intentions even once. He knew that he didn't want to be part of his life, but he assumed the reason for the swordsmanship lessons were so he didn't have to be embarrassed by having a weak son. But that was to be expected by forcing him to grow up surrounded by monsters.

Kalon accepted that this was his fate and went about his way of losing himself in thought before ending up outside the barracks' main gate.

A large stone wall stood at over six meters tall, and the gate was a single sheet of iron that would drop down from above to keep intruders out. As he approached the gate, he looked up at the guard that stood upon the wall before seeing a large muscular man with gnashing teeth and fur sticking out from underneath his clothes.

"Mr Bearman! Good morning." He shouted up to the guard that was in charge of opening and closing the gates.

Despite the man's monstrous appearance, he looked down with a gentle expression as a smile formed out of the pointed teeth that stuck out from under his lips.

"Ah, Little Kal. Good morning to you too. Are you here for training again?" Mr Bearman asked Kalon, who waved back as a reply to his smile.

"Yeah, Master Ranwald told me to come a little later today. He said he had some things to do." Kalon smiled as Mr Bearman began to pull on a rope that lifted the large sheet of iron they used as a gate—again showing the strength difference between humans and a member of a monster race.

"Then head on inside. I wouldn't want to be late for a lesson with Master Ranwald." Mr Bearman shouted down as he lifted the gate all the way to the top to let Kalon through.

"Thank you, Mr Bearman; I will go and see him right away," Kalon shouted before walking through the now open gate. As soon as he stepped past the wall, a gust of wind brushed slammed his back with enough force to knock him off his feet.

"Scary, That would have killed me if I was standing under it," Kalon said to himself before getting back onto his feet and turning to look at the damage the gate had caused as it slammed against the floor.