1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Dominick

T he streets of Thorn smelled different.

Could it be the golden sand?

It was my first time visiting the Kingdom of Thorn, and I believed that the abundance of that unique, golden sand did have a dusty, yet almost floral-like, scent to it. It wasn't unpleasant, only drastically different from the salty sea and seaweed smells I was used to. I always missed the sound of the sea’s lapping waves, beating on the hull of the ship whenever I was on land.

The sand beetles’ clicking in the evening was a comforting percussion of background noise, a sound I needed, because silence was painful.

I watched Sands’ back as he guided me down the sandy streets, weaving in and out like the currents of the sea. His black hair was just long enough to pull back and tie up with some twine, although it wasn’t noticeable from the front, for his hair still fell over his face. His small ponytail was incredibly useless. I wondered if he only kept it because he knew how much I hated it. Whatever his reason, it made my lips twitch upward, and I shook my head as I followed him.

Before Sands entered my life, I was not sure what would become of me. With him around, my life finally became bearable. Not only did I trust Sands with my life, we agreed on most things. Even though we remained pirates aboard the dreadful Captain Veeto’s ship, we both hated it because being on board the Crimson Blade was like being a slave to it. We both wanted to escape, but we understood that we could only escape with a well thought out plan.

We were working on that.

We wove through the streets of Thorn within the shadows of buildings, under the moonlight. Thorn was a true desert kingdom with no trees swaying in the wind and very little vegetation. I’d heard that Reoll and Sorra, two blessed kingdoms near Thorn, were very similar in their climates and landscapes. Although the Crimson Blade had traveled to both of those kingdoms a few times, I’d never been permitted to go ashore.

Sands kicked up dust as I inhaled, and it caused my throat to burn.

“It’s so sandy and dusty here,” I coughed.

“Isn’t it grand?” Sands asked, looking over his shoulder at me.

“It’s dry,” I grunted, my throat in desperate need of moisture.

“Yes, so?” Sands asked, still leading us on. Our voices were low, and we tried to stay out of sight as much as possible.

“I don’t like it.”

“Well, I don’t remember asking you,” he grunted.

“What? You like this?”

“It reminds me of home,” Sands said, stopping so abruptly that I almost ran into his back.

“What are you stopping for?” I asked in irritation.

“I thought I heard someone,” he said, then began walking again. I kept up with his pace, and we were silently moving about the streets once more.

I was only allowed to step foot on land when ordered to. For years, I told myself I did not mind because I was comfortable aboard the ship. That was true, somewhat. I did love so many things about sailing, but I hated being part of Veeto’s crew.

I frowned. I hated being controlled. It gave me no real hope for a will of my own, but when Sands became a crew member, he showed me a way to defy Veeto even more than I already had.

Sands finally stopped in front of a small, dusty, golden sand-ridden, stone home. Most of the buildings and the homes in Thorn were made from the same stone.

“Don’t frown yet,” Sands said with a laugh. I snapped my eyes toward him with a side smirk.

“I was thinking of our beloved captain,” I said with a grunt.

“Ah, why did you have to go and do that? Ruins the entire night of rebelry,” he said.

“It’s revelry; ‘rebelry’ is not a word.”

“I’m making it a word. It’s what we do, after all, and it deserves to be a word.”

Sands knocked, and I waited behind him, preparing myself. It wasn’t that I was not ready, as I’d done what I was about to do that night several hundred times before, and doing it was the only way I could survive waking up each morning. But still, it was painful. In my head, I believed that if I could just help as many people as I tortured, the good would cancel out the bad.

An older man opened the door with a look of pure happiness upon his tanned face, his eyes crinkling at the sides.

“The Hand! You really came! Welcome, welcome, please come in!” the man nearly shouted.

“Do you want all of Thorn coming?” Sands asked, looking this way and that, down the street.

The man covered his mouth with his hand as he bowed and then opened the door wide for us.

“So sorry. Thank you for coming. I had no hope–”

“You understand that The Hand cannot heal ?” I asked as we walked inside, and the man closed the door behind us.

“I was told that the gift takes away pain. I think that if she were without the pain, she would have the will to live, to get better.”

“It is not a gift ,” I grunted at the man before I caught myself. I tried to be more gentle with the people I helped, but it was hard to be gentle when I was not a gentle person. I had been formed to be rough, cold, and harsh.

“Sorry, but I am grateful. You bless all of these suffering people. You are a blessing from the Ancients.”

I understood, of course, why people thought that, but I hated that anyone would assume that I was a great blessing. I was a wicked pirate, and if they only knew of the things I’d done, they would never have praised me. But I kept silent about all of that.

“Let them have some hero to hope for, even if their hero has your face,” Sands always told me. “Just let them believe what they will. Everyone needs some good; it helps us in hard times to have hope in someone,” Sands said when we first began to visit with those in pain.

Among the peasants within nearly every kingdom near a port, my name was known. I never expected my deeds to travel so fast and so far, but they had. I even met a few people who had figured out that I was actually Prince Dominick. Like in Embra, when I was there for the Princess Tourney, I helped many people. Sands always pretended to be my servant, and we tried to be discreet, but we had been discovered. Luckily, we convinced the people there not to reveal my secret. I might have, possibly, threatened them a little, but it was an empty threat, even if they did not know it. If Veeto ever discovered that I had used my curse to help people, I had no idea what he would have done to me, but I knew that, at the very least, those few small freedoms I had been granted–if they could be called that–would be gone.

“The Hand, he must focus. We will be in and out quickly,” Sands said with a nod.

“I am ready.” Another lie, because is anyone ever ready to take on someone else's pain tenfold ? No. And there I was, almost craving to take away their pain and make it my own. Maybe, I liked feeling pain; perhaps, that was why I did it. Glutton for punishment? Then again, maybe, I liked to imagine that I was more than what Veeto and his crew thought I was.

I am stronger than they realize.

There were twelve people inside the small, one-room house. I could tell from the expressions upon their faces that they were all hurting in different ways.

Faces are very telling, I thought .

The man who we were speaking with moved over to a bed. A woman was resting there; her face was wet with sweat, and her eyes were closed, her brown hair spilling around her face in a mess. I walked to her side.

“Your wife?” I asked.

“Yes, she has been quite ill.”

“I shall begin,” I said as I knelt beside her bed.

I was not the best with people. I never had been, but that was one reason why Sands was the perfect companion for me. He was very good with people. I slowly took off my black, leather gloves, the gloves that protected the people around me from what my hands could do to them. I looked at the inky, black, spider-webbed veins that traveled up my arms and then branched out all over my body. Whenever I took away another’s pain, their pain remained inside of me, as that inky blackness. It was only a matter of time, I was certain, before it would travel to my face. The black veins had already reached my chest.

I flexed my hands and focused. As I placed my pointer finger gently against the skin of her hand, I felt her pain. It always came slowly, at first, like a small trickle. Then, once I focused on pulling the pain from a person, it all rushed into me. The first few times I did it, it overwhelmed me so much that I collapsed. Over the years, I learned to focus on the pain, focus on it pouring into me and slipping through my veins. I focused on the darkness slowly taking over my body. When I focused on the pain like that, it only took a few minutes to take it away from the suffering person.

I released her hand and stepped back with a slight wobble. Her pain was not the worst pain I’d felt, but whenever a person I helped had an illness, it caused me to feel ill for a few seconds. It passed as Sands placed a hand on my shoulder, grounding me to where we were.

The woman’s eyes opened. She looked at me with shock before turning to the side to look at her husband.

“Dot?” he asked, kneeling beside her, taking her hand in his.

“I feel so much better,” she said.

“Do you feel any pain?”

“No–I think I can endure this,” she smiled.

“Sleep now. You will be well soon,” her husband said.

He then turned to me, and gave me that same look I had seen a hundred times before– Gratitude.

“Thank you, thank you so much.”

Every time I got that look from the loved one of a person I helped, I waited to feel something–anything rewarding. Like always, all I felt was pain.

I nodded.

Then one by one, I touched the other people with ailments, taking their pain, tenfold, upon myself.

“Are you sure you want to keep doing so many at one session? It cannot be good for you,” Sands asked as we made our way through the streets, back to the palace. Before the night was over, we had one last task to accomplish. I’d already had Sands help me rob the kingdom of just enough valuables so that it would not be noticed, yet just enough to please Veeto.

Sands could steal anything without being caught. I once witnessed him speaking with a wealthy lord, for only three minutes, and right before my eyes, I saw him take a golden bracelet, his long chain with a gold pendant, and coins from his pocket.

I believed he got the name Sands because he was shifty with those hands of his, like sand. He insisted that it was his real name.

“You know, I am strong enough to handle it.”

“Sure, strong– insane , you are something,” he snickered.

“I have to do it.”

“What’s the count now?” Sands asked.

“I am back to being even. Five hundred and forty two,” I said.

“That’s–” he paused, looking at me with those sad eyes of his. Sands was not raised to be a pirate, nor groomed for it as was I. He was raised as a thief, however, and somehow, he kept his light-hearted personality intact through all of the darkness of being a pirate’s prisoner on board the Crimson Blade.

“–A lot of people, I know,” I finished his thought.

“Yeah–well, once we are done with the library tonight, are we headed back to the ship?” Sands asked as we reached my royal guest chambers in Thorn Castle.

The night before was the wedding of Prince Gideon and Princess Briar. I would leave as soon as possible since my royal task had been completed. I hated that I was always helping my mother, the Queen of Walden, when she had never helped nor cared for me, her own son. But Veeto kept up correspondence with her, for he liked the connection I had to the royals.

“Yes, I have to give passage to The Grimm. Last night, Prince Stephan paid handsomely for The Grimm’s safe passage.”

“You think Veeto will go for that? I’ve heard of this Grimm , talented swordsman; perhaps, we can get some pointers,” he winked. Sands was already an expert with a blade, but it was true that The Grimm was legendary.

“He has to. I have to keep up my prince persona. He paid handsomely, and we are headed in that direction,” I said with a shrug and stretched out my fisted hands. The tension in them was then released, but I could still feel those peoples’ pains, which I had taken upon myself, pulsing through me. It always took a few hours to get rid of the large increase of new pain. Still, there was always lingering hurt, and I’d learned to live with it. There were different levels of pain, though, and I was only at a four . Three was the constant, and when I was really lucky and at a level one, there were moments when I would actually smile for no reason, or so Sands had told me the last time I was at a one level of pain. When at a one , I felt so light. I almost hated feeling that way because knowing how good it could be, made dealing with pain at level eight and higher even more difficult.

“At a three yet?” Sands asked. He could always read me well.

“Four still, give me a few more minutes,” I said, standing there with my eyes closed.

“It’s true, though, Veeto should agree because a prince would assist,” Sands said. I opened my eyes a few moments later to watch him pull out a drawer where he stowed his knife and then bent down to place it in his boot.

“Three?” he asked as he looked at me.

I nodded.

“Tell me, what are we stealing, other than whatever gold I find that can fit into my pockets?” he asked with a greedy smile.

He loved gold, like no pirate I had ever known.

“The library here is said to be spilling over with books about magical beings. The royal, Gideon, has a private collection, and I need more information on Marren Island and the mermaids that are said to live there.”

“Ah, that’s right; he is bookish! Helpful for us,” he said with a chuckle.

“Yes, I need information about that island. That could be where my sister is, or somewhere beyond,” I said as I sat down on the bed. I needed to change out of my black attire, and back into my princely clothes before we headed downstairs. I hated acting like a prince. I was not even sure I did a good job of it, but no one seemed to say anything about my behavior, which caused me to believe that a prince could truly get away with almost anything–other than stealing. I was sure that it would have caused a war if the kingdoms ever discovered just how much Sands and I had taken over the years.

“So, anything about mermaids or Marren?”

“I was told that Prince Gideon has the most extensive collection of unique maps in all the kingdoms. I traded for one with Prince Stephan, but I want to see more. He has to have something more than what I have found in other kingdoms. Once inside the library, you will do what you do best.”

“There is gold inside the library? Ah, clever—”

“No, there is no gold; we need to steal maps.”

“To be clear, stealing maps is not what I do best, but I do understand what you mean,” he smirked.

“What you do best is stealing, and irritating me. You do that very well, also.”

“My, Nick! How you flatter me,” he said with an impish grin.

I held up a finger, pointing it at him.

“And do not flirt with the maid,” I scolded.

“What? She flirted with me. Can I help my dashing rogue looks? No, I cannot, Nick.”

Sands was the only person who ever called me “Nick.” He began doing so when I expressed to him that I hated being called The Cruel Hand, which was my pirate moniker.

“Dashing, rogue looks? Is that the look you are attempting with your barely-existent ponytail?”

“What? Of course, maidens love long hair on a man.”

“I have never heard that,” I grunted.

“You don’t ever talk to maidens, so how would you know?”

“I danced in Embra.”

“Yeah, sure, and you were as stiff as a plank. When it comes to maidens, you may not be the best at knowing what they like.”

I rolled my eyes. “Planks are sturdy, and—”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“We should go,” I said with a sigh.

“Mermaid things and maps! I’m ready.”

I’d learned about mermaids, first, from a book I found while at a port. It was a book of sea legends, and I began to wonder, to hope, that they could be real. And an island, which was invisible to all, unless brought to it by a magical being like a mermaid, that island would be a perfect place to hide my lost sister.

And if I ever found my sister, I could then get what I desired.

Revenge.

“Okay. Get yourself dressed, and we’ll be off. Do you think this will take more than an hour?” he asked.

“I hope not. I need to meet Veeto and The Grimm at the dock tonight.”

“Then, I’ll be quick in my thievery.”

“You always are, which is why I keep you around.”

“See, I knew there was a reason,” he said with a smirk and a chuckle.

I waved him off and walked to the dresser where I left my princely clothes. With a sigh, I began to take off the clothing I was wearing and donned a different costume, the one that was the biggest lie, and the one I resented most of all.

Prince Dominick of Walden.