When God Closed His Eyes

POV: Kaelen ‘Just one more strike and I'll be done.’ This was the only thought spinning around my head as I raised the heavy iron axe overhead. I did not even feel any pity or sympathy for him. Nor did I get angry. The truth is, when you kill for the king, one gets so accustomed to killing that your heart will be turned into stone, otherwise the guilt will eat him alive. The noisy bunch of people in the stone galleries were cheering me and yelling for blood. For them I was not even a man. I was the King's dreadful monster. A silhouette concealed under a black leather hood. One thing they did not understand was that they feared me more than death. And I think they had every reason to. "Who is next?" I said slowly while turning my head in the direction where the party was coming from. The guards dragged a shivering thief forward and when they pushed the man's body down, they turned his head and forced his neck to rest on the wooden block covered with blood and ice. He was so afraid that he cried helplessly pleading for mercy and a second chance to live which is surely not found in my heart. ‘Don't stare into his eyes,’ I thought to myself. ‘First of all, just hit and he is gone in a second.’ Then, without hesitation, I didn't blink as I raised my weapon. I made the answer, I shot the weapon through him and swung the axe. His bone was broken with the first swing of the axe, the spectators screamed and cheered in sick delight, as the body was rolled away. Meanwhile, my heart wasn't racing a bit. To me, this was just another day at work where I killed hundreds of souls just to appease the king. At last they led out the last prisoner. She was not like the others. There was no piercing scream or a desperate fight erupting from her when the guards shoved her onto the block. Her long and beautiful black hair covered most of her face but when she looked up, her gaze met mine. There was no fear in them or even the slightest expression of horror in those eyes. She just looked at me with a strange, deep calmness that made my hands slip a little on the wooden handle. "Get down on your knees!" I ordered, trying so hard to sound fierce and uncompromising. She leaned on her arms and rested her face on the block, still staring up into my masked face. "Are you really aware of what you are doing?" she asked softly, quite inaudibly. "Shut up, " I stepped back to take my stance. ‘Stop looking at her. Just kill her and get out.’ My voice roared inside of me. Instead of begging for her life, she leaned forward just a tiny bit and said to me. "Kaelen is not your real name. Only if you reduce your ego, I will tell you the secret." I froze at her words. For a moment I was totally stunned. As if the axe in my hands became three times heavier. Wh-what did she just say? You're the King's shadow," she murmured, her sharp eyes burning holes into me. "But before the crown broke your mind, you had a life and also a past." "Shut up, " I hissed as I felt like my lungs were being crushed on all sides. Suddenly a violent pain stabbed in my eyes. It was as if a door locked in my mind was trying to break open. "Your name…. " she whispered like a very smooth and scary snake, "Rowan." Suddenly the whole place looked to be moving around me as I was shocked at a mere mortal talking to me with no fear in her eyes. ‘Rowan? How come?’ The word was as if someone physically punched me with their fist as a few images appeared in my mind where I saw a burning village, a child's laughter, with dirty hands covered in garden dirt instead of fresh blood. It made no sense. I didn't have a past. I am Kaelen, the executioner. "Stop talking!" I shouted to my intuition screaming loud at the truth. My knuckles turned white against the handle. Up in the stands, the were getting restless. Their loud happy shouting changed into confused murmur as they wondered why the legendary killer was still there. I couldn't let them see me break because if the King saw this, I will be dead and gone forever. ‘Kill her right now and stop thinking!’ I forced the blinding headache deep down, planted my boots on the bloody floor, and raised the heavy blade high above my shoulder targeting the back of her neck. With one strike on her neck was enough to bury my questions forever. "Goodbye, Rowan, " she said softly as I roared, throwing all my weight into the air as the blade rushed through down on its way to her skin. But unfortunately, it never hit. The chamber was suddenly covered by a freezing dark force. The torches on the walls did not go out but their light faded, choked by the cold one. Above us, everybody was gasping in terror. My hands stopped in the middle of the blow as the axe hung a few inches away from her skin, totally stuck there. I tried to push the invisible ban by using all my forces and tearing my muscles but I could not move even one inch. I looked down, trying to see what kind of magic she was using to stop me. But the girl’s shadow was perfectly normal, stretching out quietly across the stone floor beneath her. Then I glanced at the floorboards right under my boots. Then, behold, to everyone's greatest surprise,every shadow in the room, from the stone pillars and wooden blocks, had somehow separated themselves from the ground. They were as if floating up into the air and turning into thick black smoke, twisting and turning in the dim light. They were not just obeying her magic but the worst of it all was the shadows coming out of my feet, which were being stretched out, tearing away from my body, and answering the name that she had just called me.