Chapter 24 — The Child Who Should Have Been Hidden
1657 Words
POV: Damieon
They keep pretending I don’t hear things.
They lower their voices in hallways. They step into corners to whisper. They stop talking the moment I walk into a room, then smile like they weren’t just deciding how to keep me alive another day.
I’m ten, not stupid.
A kingdom doesn’t change how it breathes for you unless you’re a problem.
Or a weapon.
Or both.
After the envoy died, the palace didn’t rest. It tightened. Walls learned how to listen. Guards started walking like shadows had teeth. My aunt Riley didn’t sleep at all. I know because I checked. Twice.
Alex stopped looking like a queen and started looking like a storm that was trying very hard not to break the world.
Mason didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
He switched to carrying two blades.
That told me enough.
And me?
I tried to pretend things were normal.
I trained.
I studied.
I smiled when Riley forced me to eat.
I laughed when Alex needed to believe I could still be a child.
But every time I closed my eyes…
I heard the envoy’s words.
Children cannot outrun gods forever.
Some nights I agreed with him.
Some nights I wanted to prove the universe wrong just to spite it.
Tonight?
Tonight I was tired.
Which was why I snuck out.
Not stupid sneaking.
Careful sneaking.
The palace knows how to lock down a kingdom.
But it still forgets that children know all the paths adults never see.
The corridor outside my room was quiet. The moonlight spilled faint silver across polished floors. My bare feet made no sound. My breath hardly dared to exist.
The guards stationed near the eastern wing didn’t even look this direction.
Good.
I slipped through a narrow archway, then past another hall, then down the old servants’ passage behind the tapestry of the first Moon Queen. It smelled faintly like dust and lavender.
Then I stepped into the cold air outside.
The palace gardens were different at night.
They didn’t feel like decorations.
They felt alive.
Watchful.
Safe.
The wind tugged softly at my clothes as I crossed the stones, barefoot in the grass, walking where I always ended up when my thoughts grew too loud.
The willow tree.
The one the healers said had grown thicker since the war.
The one Riley never asked me about, though she always looked relieved when she saw me sitting here.
I lowered myself beneath the branches and leaned back against the bark. The leaves whispered overhead. The stars watched without blinking.
And for the first time all day…
I breathed.
“They’re scared of you, you know.”
I didn’t jump.
Not because I wasn’t surprised.
But because her voice never felt like danger.
It felt like gravity.
I turned my head.
She was sitting cross-legged beside me like she’d always been there and I’d just finally noticed.
Hair loose.
Eyes ancient and soft.
Not a child.
Not grown.
Something else.
Something star-touched.
The girl from the forest.
The girl no one else ever remembers being with me.
The girl my world sometimes insists doesn’t exist at all.
Liora.
I frowned faintly.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
She smiled like I’d told a joke.
“No one ever thinks I should be anywhere,” she said, plucking a leaf, spinning it between her fingers. “That’s the point of being hidden. You disappear until the world forgets how to count you.”
I dragged my knees up and wrapped my arms around them. “They think hiding me will work.”
Her head tilted.
“Do you think it will?”
I looked at my hands.
“I don’t know.”
Silence stretched.
Comfortable.
Dangerous.
True.
The garden wind brushed my skin, carrying the faint hum of palace wards. Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled softly, not in warning.
In watching.
“They don’t just want you gone,” Liora said gently after a moment. “They want what makes you… you. The star-thread. The bloodline the gods failed to erase. You’re not a name to them. You’re a key. A risk. A promise.”
I swallowed.
“That envoy today…” I whispered. “He talked like losing would be inevitable. Like I was born already losing.”
“That’s because he doesn’t know something important.”
“What?”
She looked at me with eyes that didn’t belong inside a child’s face.
“You’re not playing the gods’ game,” she said softly. “You’re rewriting it.”
A chill rolled down my spine.
“I don’t feel like I am.”
“No,” she agreed. “Right now you feel like a child who should have been hidden better.”
Something in my chest cracked silently.
The truth hurts more when someone says it kindly.
I pressed my forehead to my knees, voice quiet. “If I didn’t exist… this would be easier for everyone.”
The air went still.
Even the wind stopped.
Liora moved closer without a sound. Her shoulder brushed mine. Warm. Steady.
“Maybe,” she said softly. “But easier doesn’t mean better. And safety does not equal living. The kingdoms rebuilt their walls after the war. The queens rebuilt their strength. But hope…?”
Her fingers brushed lightly against the ground.
“You’re the part they couldn’t rebuild without being given.”
My throat tightened.
Silence again.
But a different kind.
Not heavy.
Important.
She tilted her face toward the sky. “There’s something else you should know.”
My heart jumped.
“Bad thing or worse thing?”
She laughed, quiet and bright. “Alive thing.”
Then her voice changed.
Not older.
Not louder.
Deeper.
“Something came through today,” she whispered. “Not the envoy. Not the lie he carried. Something layered under him, watching through his eyes.”
I looked up sharply. “Nytherion?”
“No.” She shook her head slowly. “Older. Hungrier. Not just wanting to end you. Wanting to… own you.”
My stomach tightened.
“How close did it get?”
She sighed.
“Close enough that the music box almost did what it was meant to.”
“But I broke it,” I said quickly. “I felt it. I stopped it.”
Her gaze softened.
“Yes,” she said. “But not because you’re strong.”
I blinked.
“Then why?”
Her lips curved faintly.
“Because something older than gods said no.”
A shiver slid through me.
“The forest,” I whispered.
She nodded.
“The same reason the first spell couldn’t map you. The same reason the beast in the field bowed. The same reason every hunter keeps missing. Something is claiming you back every time fate tries to name you.”
“That sounds good,” I said carefully.
“It is,” she said. “But it also makes them angrier.”
Of course it did.
Power hates losing.
Especially to something it doesn’t understand.
I leaned my head back again, staring up through willow leaves and starlight.
“I’m going to lose people,” I said quietly, surprising myself.
Her eyes flickered.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because protection always costs something,” I whispered. “The last time the world tried to break, my grandfather died buying time. My mother nearly did. My aunts bleed every time I breathe wrong. And gods don’t bargain with mercy. They bargain with grief.”
She didn’t deny it.
She just took my hand.
Her fingers were cool.
Firm.
Real.
And yet…
Not entirely here.
“You will lose,” she said honestly. “You will break. You will learn what it means when destiny stops being a story and becomes a scar. But…”
She turned my hand palm-up.
A faint glow shimmered under my skin.
Starlight veins.
Quiet and constant.
“You will also be loved in ways the gods will never understand. Protected by forces that don’t bow to heaven. And one day…”
Her voice softened.
“You won’t just survive what hunts you. You’ll make it kneel.”
The wind finally moved again.
The garden breathed.
Somewhere inside the palace, a bell chimed softly for the hour.
I exhaled slowly.
“Riley’s going to be angry I came out here alone,” I muttered.
Liora grinned.
“She already knows.”
I groaned.
“Of course she does.”
Footsteps approached faintly.
Not rushing.
Not panicked.
Just… relieved.
“I’ll stay unseen,” Liora said, pushing herself up lightly. “But I won’t be gone.”
“Will you ever be seen?” I asked.
She paused.
Then smiled sadly.
“When the world breaks enough times that it finally needs me to count again.”
Then she was gone.
Not vanished.
Just…
Not noticeable.
Riley stepped into the clearing a moment later.
She didn’t scold.
She didn’t question.
She just sat beside me against the tree and wrapped her arm around me, pulling me into her side.
For a second…
I closed my eyes.
Let myself not be a problem.
Not be a weapon.
Just be a boy.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For a world that keeps forcing you to grow up faster than you should.”
I swallowed hard.
“I’m not scared,” I said softly.
“I know,” she murmured. “That’s what terrifies me.”
We stayed like that awhile.
Stars above.
Willow guarding.
The kingdom breathing.
When she finally stood and took my hand to lead me back inside…
For the first time since the envoy smiled,
I didn’t feel erased.
I didn’t feel doomed.
I didn’t feel like a child who should have been hidden.
I felt like a storm quietly choosing where to fall.
And somewhere very, very far away…
A god felt it too.
- Writer
