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I laughed, taking it on the chin. Vincent and I strolled down the front walkway to the parking lot. He pushed his sunglasses on and clicked the remote for his car twice. It beeped several yards away.
“You know, I have a niece who would love to meet you,” he said.
I shook my head. “You have a niece who wants a normal man. Not the Welsh Brenin. Be honest.”
He shrugged. “Well, If you change your mind, I’m sure she’d at least like to have a nice evening with you. That’s all anyone wants anymore…just casual dating. Everyone’s too scared to just commit.”
“Your age is showing, Vince.”
I opened my car and settled in the front seat. “I’m sure she’s lovely, but I’m not looking to be in a relationship with anyone right now. And I wouldn’t dream of pumping and dumping your niece.”
“You’re a man of integrity, if nothing else,” he said.
I stopped on my way back into town at my aunt, Ophelia’s house. She’d retired from active participation in the organization a long time ago and lived in a huge farmhouse outside Providence. Her wife, Daphne, was the person I owed everything to, the first person to look at me and tell me I was destined for greatness.
Sometimes that made me grateful.
Sometimes it fostered a deep resentment.
I’d never met two more different people than my aunts. Daphne was bold, adventurous, and maybe a little reckless. Ophelia was kind, dreamy, and preferred a quiet life.
She’d only been eighteen when my parents died and I fell into her care. I’d watched her grow up alongside me. My earliest memory was being in her lap, her lips pressing to my forehead and her protective arms around me.
Keeping me safe, letting me be gentle before I was forced to be cruel.
Daphne had stepped in at that point.
It was a pity that organization rules forbade her from becoming a soldier. Her progressive father had trained her anyway, but the former Brenin vetoed her request for a special exception to join our soldiers. So, instead, she walked away from the organization and assumed her training days were over.
And then I came along.
Daphne saw my talent early. I was a scrappy, lean boy who caused a lot of trouble. My aunts saved up to send me to a fancy private grade school. Two days in, I had militarized the six-year-olds and led a revolution in the school yard for extra recess time.
Ophelia picked me up, wringing her hands. “Honey, you can’t do this. You’ll get expelled.”
Daphne smirked from the back seat where we sat together, her arm around my shoulders.
“I think it showed remarkable talent,” she said.
“Don’t encourage him,” Ophelia said, sending her a glare in the rearview mirror.
But Daphne did encourage me. She took my side when I fought in school, she argued Ophelia out of punishing me for my constant distraction, and she advocated for after school activities that would help run all my incessant energy out. She could see I was different and she never once made me feel like that was a bad thing.
It was Daphne who made me who I was, who honed my skills and put me on the path to becoming Brenin. When Ophelia said she wanted me to leave the organization behind, it was Daphne who stood in her way.
“The boy needs to be trained,” she insisted. “You can’t just leave the organization. It’s been a part of us for hundreds of years, it’s in our blood.”
“I don’t want him like that,” Ophelia sniffed. “Cruel and cold like the rest of the men.”
“We can only do our best. But that boy’s blood will tell him who he is whether you do or not.”
They both turned and looked at me, eight-years-old. Eating a sandwich at the kitchen table. Sometimes I thought back to that moment and wondered what the fuck Daphne had been thinking when she looked at a little boy and decided to put him on the path of greatness.
A path that, sometimes, could be so painful.
“He’s strong, smart. He could be Brenin someday.”
Ophelia gasped, going pale. “Daphne, you know what he’d have to do to become the Welsh King. I never, ever want my son to set foot in that arena. Ever.”
