Chapter Thirteen
Theo
My mother used to always tell me that every man has his fate written in the stars. A long time before I was born, every little moment I would go through was paved. Many paths are set for every man’s fate, but eventually which path I took would be my choice.
I don’t know if I ever believed in the sort of predestination that Matilda believed in. However, her words were carved in the core of my heart and mind. She told me that throughout this fate and destiny that I would live, many people would come and go and each would serve a specific purpose.
She made sure to tell me that I wasn’t the center of the world, that people weren’t made just to serve their purposes in my life, but that their help to me was an accident of their own lives.
As I lay underneath the mountains, crawling back to consciousness, I thought of all of those things that she used to say. I was feeling the effect of Bernard’s words in every bone. I heard echoes of his voice.
“Weakness isn’t falling down. It’s failing to get back up.” I heard his voice through the mountains.
There was no change in his voice. It was as if it came from the very depths of my mind and resurfaced in the mountains. At the first moments of the haze, I looked for his dark figure around me, but nothing was there.
Was it too selfish of me to ask for help? Maybe, because I had Bernard, Matilda, and Elise, all contribute to the making of this soul that I bore within me. All of them, too, weren’t around me, but their voices and faces lingered on in my weary mind.
I had to find my way back home, and to the castle to save Elise. As reckless and stubborn as I was, I was thinking that all I needed to pursue my destiny was already within me, but I was wrong. And I had to be defeated by the king to understand that my power wasn’t as infinite as I thought it to be.
When I started making my way outside of the mountains, I was in agony. Physical pain was breaking me into pieces, but the anger that was raging within me was like a storm that I could never weather on my own.
I needed something to guide me, but I surely wasn’t looking for a guide. All I wanted was to go back, and that was where my body was leading me.
However, when I reached the village that was destroyed by my brawl with the king, nobody was there. It was as much a graveyard as every other place we had annihilated on our way there.
I walked around with a shoulder that was broken and immovable.
“Theo.” A man’s voice came from somewhere in the village.
It was too dark for me to see anyone or anything. There was one torch flame that was lit at a corner by the hills. I made my way there, knowing that the voice had come from over there.
There was a man sitting there, with legs folded and eyes closed. He was smiling, and once I arrived before him he opened up his eyes. I saw that he recognized me, and he even knew my name, but I didn’t know how that was even possible. At that point of my journey, with all the coincidences that had been falling on me, however, I knew that anything was possible.
“How do you know me?” I asked him, impatiently.
“Patience, son,” the man said and rose to his feet.
I began observing his face and felt as if I knew this man very well. I tried to recollect from my memory the place or time that I had met him before.
He had light skin. His eyes were a shade of hazel and his hair was blond and long, falling a little under his elbows. His beard was thick and his looks sharp. Everything about him reminded me of Seth for some reason, and a little of his character reminded me of Bernard. He had the same wit as Bernard and perhaps some of his humor.
Still, at that moment, I didn’t feel like I wanted to talk to anyone. All I wanted was to find my way back.
“How far are we from the king’s castle?” I asked him.
“As far as you are from sanity, son,” he replied, putting his hands on my shoulders.
I shook away his hands immediately and gave him a look of disgust. For all I knew, everyone was a danger that I needed to eradicate. I didn’t want to be stalled or to be distracted in any way from my purpose.
“If you aren’t going to help me, I’m off,” I said and began walking away from him.
“Theo, wait,” he shouted. “Don’t you want to know how I knew your name?”
I paused and thought of his offer, but it was the last thing that I cared about.
“Perhaps you guessed it. I don’t really care,” came my cold response.
“Son, you need all the patience that you can give yourself,” he said as he came behind me and again put his hands on my shoulders.
I turned around and pushed him as hard as I could until he fell on the ground. That was the moment that made me realize that he wasn’t a threat. The man laughed instead of taking my violence for danger.
I squinted my eyes, again feeling that I recognized his face from somewhere, but the blood was boiling in my veins. I clasped my hands once, and he jumped back on his feet.
“That’s what I was talking about, son. You need a little patience,” he told me, still as calm as he had been, unaffected by my wrathful attitude.
I knew that ironies followed me anywhere I went. I also know that there were times in my life where nothing made sense at all, but there was something about that night that made it unforgettable. But the irony flattened everything that passed in my life once I realized who that man was.
“I don’t need your words,” I replied. “Just tell me which direction to go and I’ll be gone.”
“Or else?” he provoked me.
“Or else you’d wish—” I said and hesitated, remembering Bernard’s words about when and where to put my anger.
“I was dead?” he added to my words. “Is that what you wanted to say, son?”
“I don’t kill people,” I replied, knowing that I had already been on a streak of killing.
“Is that right, Theo? You’ve been one of the king’s slaves, and you never killed a man?”
He angered me, and, suddenly I turned all my self-loathing toward him and attacked. I pushed him to the ground, and I laid several punches on his shoulders and chest, avoiding his face.
The man laughed as I let my anger seep out of me, and he finally held my hands so tightly that I couldn’t move them.
“Keep the anger for yourself,” he said. “Don’t waste it on me. You’ll need it for the king.”
He pushed me from above him, and that was when I realized that he had a strong body, yet he didn’t fight or seem to be proud of his strength.
“Tell me where to go,” I shouted, demanding an answer with every drop of anger that flowed in my blood.
“Ask politely, son,” he said, with a smile stretching his cheeks.
“Don’t call me son,” I screamed louder than any shout I had let out before in my life.
The man swung his hair until it rested behind his back. He walked forward and approached me until our faces were very close.
He punched my shoulder softly and looked me deep in my eyes and said, “Why shouldn’t I? it’s the truth.”