Page 66 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

Ji-Sun placed her hand on his shoulder and said, “You are different, Reen.”

“I don’t want to be different.”

She didn’t respond. Instead, she suggested making their way to the market, hoping it would cheer him up. It did, for a time. Reen watched the colourful fish swim in their tanks while Ji-Sun picked vegetables for dinner that night. It wasn’t until five minutes had passed that wailing screams and cheers stirred through the markets.

The King and Queen made their way through the crowd. They were magnetic, and the crowd gravitated towards them with awe and adoration. They had crowned King Ragan only five years earlier and had already had three children together. Many at the castle praised the Queen for her fertile lifestyle.

Ji-Sun touched Reen’s shoulder. They were leaving, breaking away from the crowd, when an excited elemny shoved Reen. The bag of fruit he held dropped, and rosy apples rolled across the path, weaving through eager feet scrambling for a better look.

“Don’t worry,” Ji-Sun spoke with a quivering voice, “let’s leave.”

She took hold of Reen’s arm when it tightened to where tears sprang to Reen’s eyes. Ji-Sun fell to her knees, bit her lower lip until crimson spilled out, and her hand trembled with undeniable pain before a blissful relief shuddered through her veins as the mark of tethering to another filled her lungs and tingled between her legs.

The crowd broke away, forming a line until the other elemny in pain came into focus. King Ragan rose with flames licking his shoulders and bright red eyes alight. The Queen ran away from King Ragan with tears, and the elemny who guarded her hastened their pace to protect the Queen.

“Mumma,” Reen spoke, his voice breaking when he noticed King Ragan strolling toward them.

Then, the thought of protecting his family came to mind, and he stood before his mother with his arms defensively around her, all because Reen understood what it meant to be different. It meant protecting those you love most. So, he stood before her and glared at King Ragan.

King Ragan stopped in his tracks and eyed the boy with curiosity. But it wasn’t the way he held himself that caught King Ragan’s interest. He felt the heat rippling from Reen and the hint of flames licking across his fingertips. The boy was two—a toddler whose elemental powers shouldn’t have touched. A child shouldn’t understand the concept until he begins school.

“What is your name?” King Ragan declared in a deep, low voice.

Reen tilted his head to the side and furrowed his brows at the language he couldn’t understand. Knowing the issue, King Ragan nodded. An air elemny with silver eyes and shiny grey hair stepped forward, smiling at Reen as she translated what the king had said.

“Reen,” he answered without hesitation. “Reen Kyong.”

“Do you want to see the Kingdom of Flesh?”

The air elemny translated again, using more persuasion and a hint of excitement by mentioning the castle.

Aware of the hint of persuasion, Ji-Sun gripped Reen’s arm, dragged her youngest child behind her back, and spat insults Reen had rarely heard her speak…if at all. Unsure of what to do, he kept his mouth shut and balled his hands into fists while his mother and King Ragan sized each other up.

“Where do you live? Escort us there?” King Ragan demanded, but the translation emerged cautiously and more calmly.

“No,” Ji-Sun said in English.

“No?” King Ragan said with an arch of his brow.

“No,” Ji-Sun said firmly.

Without another word, King Ragan left with a crowd of elemny and guards following his every move. Ji-Sun relaxed her shoulders before quickening her pace down the streets and away from King Ragan. Breaking through the door of her home, she called the school to pick up her children and fled their city. But while her family ran around the house, packing their belongings, a shadow formed behind Reen, and with it came flames thirsting for flesh.

His mother left willingly in Reen’s eyes. It was a sense of compliance with others, hoping they would spare her children’s lives. Unfortunately, King Ragan didn’t like how she spoke and used it as punishment.

Reen watched his father’s flesh peel from his skin when he tried to attack the King after breaking through their home. Then, he witnessed his sister being pulled by her hair before the King glided his blade across her shoulders. Crimson drenched the walls and floors as his older brothers came out of their rooms…headless.

Reen stood near the doors when King Ragan came forth with his hand outstretched toward the toddler. His hand neared the child as flames and wind coiled around Reen’s hands, licking up his arms. With one piercing, agonised cry, his home erupted into a hurricane of fire.

Such intense power would frighten anyone, but King Ragan looked at Reen as if he were a shooting star. He saw Reen and knew he held the blood of his mother—the power of royalty. Nothing mattered after that, and his wife’s love for his children had no ground for the child, with flames coiling around his fingertips.

He took Ji-Sun and Reen back to the Kingdom of Flesh, forced his first wife into captivity, and slaughtered their children so the children Ji-Sun would carry for him wouldn’t be contested for the crown. However, he did not care for any children with her, for the child who lacked emotions after witnessing the slaughter of his family was what he desired most.

Reen Kyong, July 14th

I wake to the first signs of rain drizzling across the ship’s deck—a constant hollow noise.

When I rise in a pool of sweat, the haze of a nightmare clings to my sheets. Red hair falls forward, and when I stand, I push the layers back and settle my focus on the door and the shadow wavering beneath the gap.