At the king’s refusal to respond, Fervan became angry.
There was not one adult in sight other than the bakers and blacksmiths, who weren’t paying any attention to the juvenile horseplay. They had no idea that the king was involved in the commotion. They were cleaning up and closing down for the night.
“I’m talking to you!” Fervan shouted.
Rayne turned and tried to run away. But the rest of the children stopped what they were doing, surrounded them, and watched with fearful excitement.
Fervan kept on, “Don’t you know that everyone thinks you’re a curse? My mother told me all about you. She said that you’re the cancer that grew within the queen. You killed her! Then you stole the sun. It was you who should have died instead!” he said, poking Rayne’s chest. He walked around, proud of what he’d said, then kicked the ball across the street.
Rayne felt a flood of anger. The accusation that he was responsible for his mother’s death infuriated him, but he did not counter the verbal attack.
Obviously agitated that he didn’t get a reaction out of Rayne, Fervan continued with insults. “Where’s your Mernish sister? That slut isn’t around to take you to bed? Maybe she’s sleeping with your, I mean, her stepbrother?”
A few children gasped, shocked at Fervan’s bold, disrespectful comment.
It was then that Rayne, for the first time, felt a fury so powerful it overcame his ability to control his anger, pushing the otherwise calm king into a fit of rage. Rayne grabbed the boy’s fat arm as hard as he could.
The king’s eyes rolled over and turned black. His gray skin lit with a mild, green glow. Rayne’s emotions were burning into Fervan as he held his skin.
Fervan yelped, twisting and turning, trying to break free of Rayne’s firm grip, from the extreme heat burning his skin. Steam evaporated from the top of Rayne’s hand. And before he released the speaker’s son’s arm, a bone cracked.
Pulling away, the boy fell to the ground. He was in tears. His arm looked broken, hanging unnaturally, and now wore a burn mark in the shape of Rayne’s hand.
The wall of children surrounding the king and Fervan parted as adults began to inspect what the ruckus was all about. When Rayne looked through the collage of angry faces for Anna and Indrid, he remembered that they had kept on walking when he ventured down the street. Rayne felt alone, and helpless.
Above him, he noticed birds flying around in circles, as if they were waiting to scavenge his dead body. They were probably vultures, he thought; vultures that already knew he could be sentenced to death for what he’d just done.
Then suddenly there was a sound of hope.
“Rayne!” Anna’s voice sounded heavenly. She was with Indrid who appeared confused and hesitant. But they were blocked by onlookers.
Fervan got up and ran away through the crowd, crying.
When Rayne saw the fear in Anna’s face, it broke his heart to see his stepsister look at him in this way. But no matter what his siblings thought—whether they would defend him or abandon him out of fear—Rayne knew that the event would confirm the witnesses’ tenet that he was a curse; the uncontrollable urge to hurt Fervan after his comment made Rayne question the same. Am I a curse? he wondered.
Surrounded, the king felt like the cats in the arena; everyone stared at him as if he were a beast. They were all terrified of what had just happened. But still no one attempted to take the king into custody.
Rayne just fell to his knees and started to cry, even harder than Fervan.
“Excuse me! Move, please!” Montague shouted, excusing himself through the crowd. Once he got close enough, he kneeled and held out his hand to Rayne, who couldn’t reach fast enough to grab it.
“Come,” Montague said in the gentlest voice.
Just by the way Montague looked at him, Rayne knew that his fate was now out of his caretaker’s hands; it would be determined by the council. Even Montague, the only father-figure he ever had, couldn’t possibly cover up this serious mistake.
Montague La-Rose paced back and forth between the library and the castle halls; he couldn’t sleep. He spent the night pondering what each current member of the council would think and say about the incident with Rayne, being that Montague hadn’t been a part of any diplomatic decisions since the queen had passed. However, before Olivia died, she signed a contract stating that Montague La-Rose would always have a vote on the council whether he was an acting member or retired.
Throughout the night, he pondered the scenarios: what may or may not happen, could or could not, should or should not. But he didn’t have a clue. Under Nekrum influence, there was no expectation that Alexandal would defend his own son. It was obvious that Demitri had a strong hold over him. Montague would be surprised if Alexandal even showed up at the hearing. He’d avoided the boy since his birth. I don’t think he even knows a single thing about Rayne, Montague thought, other than the fact that he’s different. Montague was scared; terrified of what will come of Rayne, the boy he had grown to love like a son. How could he logically explain the burn marks to the council without calling the phenomenon supernatural?
A painful anxiety prevented Montague from sleeping. With a tired mind it was harder to plan his defense strategy. When he closed his already heavy eyes, Montague was suddenly enchanted by a song he heard a bird singing on a branch near the open window. The melody engrossed him and the sound began to translate within his mind as a still small voice. It was Burton Lang’s voice, and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
After all this time, Montague finally
