Ahe'ey

Royal Orphans

ROYAL ORPHANSTwo Months Later - Ahe’ey

Gabriel watched Sky as the young girl climbed the highest tree in the forest.

“You can do it, Sky,” cheered Gabriel.

She planted her feet on the tree and leaned back as her hands pulled a rope that wrapped around the branchless trunk.

“It’s too high. I’m going to fall,” she screeched, as one of her feet slipped, and her knee scraped the bark. “Ouch!”

“Keep going. If you fall, I’ll catch you,” the twelve-year-old boy said with confidence.

Sky secured both feet in the bark of the tree and yanked her body upwards.

She loosed the rope just enough to move it up the tree trunk. Burned by the friction of the movement, her right hand let go of the rope and she fell backwards. Six-year-old Bastian screamed in panic.

Gabriel reached his arms to catch Sky as she fell. They both hit the ground with the impact of her body.

“I didn’t know you could fly,” he laughed.

“I told you it was too high,” she said punching his chest. “My hand! It hurts.” She opened the palm of her hand, red and blue from the rope. He blew on it and kissed it.

“It’s just a scratch. It’ll heal in a minute. In a few days, you’ll reach the top of the tree, and we’ll rappel down together,” he said reassuringly as he got up and reached under her arms to pull her to a standing position.

“Will you see my mum from the top of the tree? When can we go home?” Bastian whined.

“Luna is within you, Bas. Can’t you feel her?” Gabriel placed his hand on the shoulder of his young cousin. A tiny veil of mournful water covered the blue eyes of the younger boy.

Sky lowered her head and bit her lip. Her eyebrows became heavy as Gabriel saw a cocktail of grief and rage emerge in her expression. “We are your family now, Bas,” she said. “We won’t let you down. They’ll pay for what they did. All of them. We’ll kill them all.”

The young boy took a few steps back, away from the angry girl. Gabriel knew that Bastian was too sensitive and unprepared to deal with Sky’s mighty storm.

“The forest is our home. Where else could we go skinny-dipping in the middle of the day?” Gabriel smiled, touching Bastian’s cheek. The older boy undressed and ran towards the lake, followed by his two cousins.

“Why do we need to hide away from everyone else?” Bastian asked as he pulled up his tunic over his blonde hair.

“Our blood is special; we need to keep it safe,” Gabriel explained.

“But I wanna go hooome!”

The Hu’urei are looking for us; they seek to destroy the royal bloodline. We must stay here, under the protection of the Ange’el.”

“Is that why they killed my mum and dad and took Sky’s mum and sister?”

Gabriel nodded. “We’ll stick together and train a lot. One day we’ll join the Yi’ingo army and fight against the Hu’urei. Come, Bas. Join me.” Gabriel jumped into the water, attempting to wash away the worries of his young cousins. He showered Sky with cold water as she ran into the lake, chasing him.

Gabriel’s light-hearted exterior hid the worries that festered his mind. The two children were now his responsibility. He’d promised his parents that he would do anything and everything to keep them safe and happy. Away from the Sacred House, from his family, and from the comforts and privileges of the royal apparatus, the boy relied only on himself and on the few Ange’el that watched over them. The densest and most remote valley of the Ahe’ey forest was now their home—a haven from the devastating war that ravaged the land.

Sky grabbed his neck and pushed him under water. Bastian jumped on top of his cousins, joining the fun. Gabriel was just a boy—a boy raised to be a king. From him, everyone expected perfection and demanded greatness. He had learned to ignore his needs and to conceal his emotions; he considered his every action and word carefully. Deep inside, he felt flawed and unprepared—he felt human, yet, human was the very thing he wasn’t allowed to be. “Gods are perfect, humans are not,” they’d told him often at the Sacred House. “Your blood was designed by Gods and a God you shall be.”