Here is the story its about 1.6k words
The clock strikes eight. The chime of the old grandfather clock in our dinning room is the last thing I hear before everything goes black.
I feel myself slumping forward towards the table in our grand dining room. I get a glimpse of my brother before my eyes close and I feel nothing anymore.
I can think. That's really weird.This isn't the first time I passed out for one reason or another and I have never been able to think once I'm out. This fact alone makes me suspicious. What kind of substance could knock you out, yet not really knock you out. It's like something pushed me out of my own body and trapped me in my mind.
This day was going too well for it not to be ruined by something, wasn't it? I can't have one good day in this house without some shit going down. It makes me want to scream. Oh, wait. I can't even do that because of whatever stupid thing someone put in my food. That makes me want to scream even more.
Clearly this isn't going to kill me or I would have been at least in pain, numbed or feeling some kind of euphoria like from a drug. So this is some kind of weird sedative by my guess. But of what use would it be to sedate me in my own house surrounded by my family and a bunch of trusted staff and guards? Why can't anything make sense for once in my life?
There is also the question of how whatever got in my food got in my food and if it was in everyone else's food. About two years ago there was a poisoning incident in which Kaelen and my mother almost died and since then my mother and father made sure the cooks are trusted and that the incident doesn't repeat.
The cooks are both trusted and like me so they wouldn't do it. Father also makes sure they're very well paid so they don't take bribes to poison us. The only other people with access to our kitchens are my mother, my father and my brother Kaelen. I know Kaelen wouldn't do it that's for sure. That only leaves mother and father.
Mother never cared much for me. She was always distant and still is. Even to Kaelen who she likes more than me. I do not believe she would have any kind of motivation to do this. And father... Well, he is... Complicated. I suppose to be one of the current leaders of the only republic in a world of kingdoms you have to be at least a little complicated.
He is the one who trains me. He wants me to be the general for my brother if he gets elected after my father steps down. Some people would have thought that was ambitious and maybe even arrogant to be so sure my brother is going to get chosen, but it happens more often than not that children of good leaders get elected to take their places after they step down. That's how my father got into his position and since he is a good leader that will probably be Kaelen's fate too.
The training is extensive. I need to know all possible strategies for everything so it isn't only physical. I need to know field medicine if something goes wrong, poisons and antidotes if he gets poisoned, history to know and recognize tensions between the kingdoms and the Republic, know the way other kingdoms attack and so on. Only then comes the physical part. And it is even more extensive. Father made sure I was at least decent with any weapon he could get his hands on for me to train and that I am a master in hand-to-hand, swords, bow and trowing knives. He always said I need to be able to carry out a mission if whoever I send fails.
My whole life was making sure I could serve Kaelen well when the time comes. And with all that I went through it isn't to say Kaelen had it much easier. Father made sure he knew how to fight enough not to be defenseless and all his other time goes into his studies. Even his Ability manifested around it. It amplifes his memory a lot. He can hear anything once and repeat it flawlessly years later. He has photographic memory so good you can show him a document with not enough time to read it and if he focuses he can read what it said from memory later. He is basically a walking encyclopedia. No, not an encyclopedia, a library full of them.
My father did poison me a few times with small doses of the most common poisons so I know how to deal with them. This doesn't seem like one of our lessons for a multitude of reasons. First, whatever this is isn't a poison but some weird kind of sedative. Second, he only did this with very commonly used poisons, which this clearly isn't or I would know of it. Third, he promised we were done with surprise poison lessons and if there is one thing Kyros always does is keep his word.
But, now I am thinking along the line of the fact that only I got sedated and not my whole family. If it was the whole family it would make more sense. It still makes very little sense how anyone would get to our food but it isn't impossible.
I wake up and rub my eyes to clear them. I'm laying now which means I was moved. The air smells faintly of leather oil and metal polish. This is my room and a look around once my eyes adjust to the brightness of sunlight streaming through the window confirms this. The space is neat as always, everything is in its place. My desk is tidy, my knives, swords and staff sitting on the rack, my knife sheaths, belts and so on hanging on hooks, my closet doors are not even visible beneath all the drawings from Alex that I put on them. I'm still in my clothes from yesterday, but someone took my boots off. They're sitting by the bed and my desk chair is for some reason by the bed and not in its place.
The answer to that walks through the door a minute later. Kaelen. I eye him up and down, noting that he is too in his clothes from yesterday, his hair is messy and his undereyes are dark.
"If you tell me you spent the whole night here and didn't sleep, Kaelen, I swear..." I trail off and sigh already knowing the answer.
"It is so like you to start worrying about me despite the fact that you are the one who got knocked out by some mysterious substance." He answers, crossing his arms and tilting his head to look down at me sitting in my bed.
I pull myself to the side and start putting my boots and lacing them up. "So you and everyone else was fine? And you don't know what the substance was?"
"Yes to both.Father wouldn't say. All I managed to pry out of him after an hour of arguing is that you will be fine later and that I should just give it some time." He sounds irritated by the fact he couldn't get the information. He usually is told everything, though, so it is not like I would react differently in his place.
"Not like him to be so cryptic. Especially not with you. If he tells anyone anything it's you."
"That is exactly what worries me." He sits down in the chair that's still by the bed and runs a hand through his tawny hair. A nervous tell he has from since I can remember his training starting.
I finish lacing up both my boots and stand up. "What do you say we pay him a little visit, brother?"
Kaelen looks at me and by the look on his face I can already tell he already knows I mean to do more than just visit. "Maybe just don't throw knives at father like the last time something like this happened."
As he is speaking im fastening my knife belt and putting my knives into it. "No promises."
He sighs knowing I am too stubborn to give him any more than that and stands up from the chair.
I exit my room still adjusting my belt and start down the hallway towards my fathers office where I am guessing he is right now. There is just a slight unnoticeable spring to my step. Hmm, that is weird. Could it be an after effect of whatever I was given last night? To be honest now that I am noticing that I have to say I feel a little better than I have in ages. No minor aches from training, fatigue or anything. Even weirder is that I am not dizzy, having headaches or tired at all like I usually would be after passing out.
"You have no idea what I have been given? Like at all?" I ask Kaelen suspicious of all that I am noticing right now.
"I would have told you Neera if I did. I have no idea, not even a guess. You didn't have any symptoms of anything while you were asleep and you don't seem to have any now. It isn't like anything I have seen in books and that says a lot." He frowns as if disappointed at his lack of knowledge. He always does know everything and the fact that he has no idea is concerning to say the least.
"We are finding out now then, I guess." I push open the heavy hardwood doors to my fathers office.
