Feature Story
Homecoming
by Fran Jacobs
HOMECOMING
by Fran Jacobs
I can still remember how excited my village was the spring my brother Tyran came home. Everyone was in high spirits and the village itself had been transformed. Lanterns and garlands of spring flowers hung from the houses and the village square had been readied for the celebrations, with heavy tables and chairs, dragged out of the tavern, for the feast. The air itself smelled sweet, of cakes and pastries, which made my mouth water, but then everything was sweeter since the Dark One’s taint had gone.
It was still hard to believe. The Dark One lived in the Forbidden Mountains, but his touch had been widespread. Faint at first, it brought about winter, disease, death, all natural parts of life. But, over the centuries, his touch had gradually grown stronger and life had become dark and hard. Winter lasted longer, harvests failed more frequently, plagues became stronger and more common, and more children died in infancy. But there was nothing that anyone could do. We all knew that only one person could stand up to the Dark One, push back his hold and reset the balance, the foretold Sun Prince.
We’d just never imagined that he would turn out to be Tyran. And now, after fulfilling his destiny, after driving back the Dark One with the Crystal Blade, he was finally coming home.
Mother was the first out the door, when we heard the hooves clattering outside and Tyran’s voice called out a greeting. My father quickly followed her and, by the time I joined them, I couldn’t even see my brother, he was lost in their arms. I lingered back against the farmhouse door. While I waited my turn, I let my eyes glance over the three people who had come with him, people that I’d heard about from songs and stories, who were heroes just as much as my brother was.
It was easy to put the names to the faces. Princess Anlia, now betrothed to my brother, with her long golden hair, delicate features and fine-cut clothes. She was beautiful, graceful, and her hair shone in a way that I knew mine never could. Beside her stood a tall and muscular man wearing a mail shirt, with a sword at his hip. That was Devrin, the scarred lieutenant of Tyran’s army. The other man was Breth, the old man who had started it all two years earlier. He looked the same, dressed in robes, with his long white beard and hair. When he saw me, he smiled, but I didn’t smile back. It was Breth’s fault that Tyran had left in the first place. He was the one who had seen Tyran and recognised the signs that marked him as the foretold Sun Prince. And it had been Breth’s insistence, that he was right about who Tyran was, that had led our parents to revealing the truth. That Tyran had been adopted, found in the woods as a baby, and that there could, therefore, be some truth in Breth’s words. That, in turn, had led to Tyran leaving home to find out the truth, leaving my mother to cry herself to sleep every night for months. No, after all that Breth had done to us, I didn’t want to be friendly towards him.
“Aren’t you going to say hello to me, brat?” asked a familiar voice. Tyran, who had been released from my parents’ embrace, now stood there, looking at me.
My brother had always been considered handsome, strong and lean, with blond hair and blue eyes. Now he looked thin and haggard and there were bags under his eyes and a scar across his cheek. His blue eyes, when they looked at me, seemed sad, almost tortured and I didn’t know what to say to him. He didn’t look the way that I’d thought he would. He didn’t look like a hero.
“Don’t call me that,” I muttered. “I’m only four years younger than you and I’m not a child anymore.”
“No,” he said, looking me over. “No, Myla, you’re not. You’re a young lady now.” He smiled and put his arms around me, holding me against him. I hugged him back, clinging to him tightly, until he eased me away. “Well,” he said. “I’d like to get washed up and changed, if that’s all right.”
“Of course it is,” my mother said. “Myla, will you help Princess Anlia to take her bags up to your room?”
“Of course,” I said cheerfully. I led the way up to my room and set Anlia’s bags down onto my bed, before I turned to her. “Can I help you unpack?”
“No, thank you,” she said, opening the first of her four saddlebags. “I can manage.”
“Well, can I get you anything to eat or drink? You must be thirsty after that long journey.”
Her pretty smile was sad as she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m fine, thank you, Myla.”
“All right, then I’ll see you downstairs.”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
I left her, heading back out into the hall to make my way into the kitchen to help my parents prepare supper, but as I was passing Tyran’s room, he called out to me. I slid into his bedroom and found him standing in front of the mirror. He’d washed and changed his clothes and for a moment all I could do was stare at him. It was the first time that I’d ever seen him look like a prince, in fine clothes of brocade and velvet, even with his dishevelled dirty blond hair.
“Gods,” I said, reaching out to stroke the velvet tunic. “That’s beautiful.”
“Yes,” he said. “I guess so.”
I glanced behind him at his still unpacked saddlebags. There were more fine clothes in there, silks and satins, in all the colours I could imagine, and lying next to them was a sword. I could only see its hilt, the blade was encased in the scabbard but I knew what it was and it sent a chill through me. “That’s it?” I whispered. “The Crystal Blade?”
“Huh?” He turned and followed my gaze. “Oh, yes.”
“Is it true that only you can lift it, that it’s as light as a feather in your hand, but for everyone else it’s as heavy as a mountain?”
“Seems to be.” He turned and pulled it free of its scabbard and held it up. It had a golden hilt, the colour of sunshine, and streaks of yellow metal ran through the crystal blade. The sunlight streamed in through the window behind him, passing through the glass of the blade and refracted, creating a rainbow on my face. Then, with a smile, Tyran turned and handed it to me. I stared at it and then reached out. At first I just touched the blade, running my fingers across its smooth, glass surface. It felt warm, as though it really was infused with sunlight, the way the legends had said it was. Then I reached for the golden hilt. When he was sure that I had a good grip, Tyran released it.
Almost instantly I was pulled forward by the weight of the blade, dropping it onto the floor, narrowly missing both our feet.
Tyran laughed as he bent to pick it up, but I wasn’t smiling. All I could see, when I looked at him, was the Sun Prince, in his fine clothes, holding the fabled Crystal Blade. I couldn’t see my brother anymore. He was gone and I knew that he wouldn’t come back.
With tears in my eyes, I turned and fled.
Tyran found me crying beneath ‘our’ oak tree in the garden. It was the tallest one on the farm and, as children, we’d spent hours up in its branches hiding from our parents and our chores. Over the last few years it had been bare, without any leaves or acorns, because of the Dark One’s touch, but now I could see shoots on its branches again. Signs of what Tyran had done, what he was, were everywhere it seemed. I couldn’t escape it.
“I’m sorry, brat,” he said quietly, sitting down beside me. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s not that,” I sniffed, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “It’s just . . . that sword, it brought everything home to me, that’s all. I’d heard the stories, and seen the changes, but it’s different to see the proof, to know that you really are the Sun Prince.” I wiped my eyes and glanced at him. “And not my brother.”
“But you knew that, Myla. Mother and Father told you the truth the same night that they told me. And you must have always wondered why I was blond and blue eyed, when everyone else is so dark.”
“Not really,” I said. “And I know what they told us, and I knew that it was true, but it’s different to see it, Tyran. And that blade . . . That’s the Crystal Blade, the sword out of legends. The one carried by the Forgotten King, your ancestor. The one only the true heir can wield, against the darkness.”
“I know what it is,” he said stiffly.
“Yes . . . well, I can’t deny it now, seeing it. I-I can’t pretend that you’re still my brother, that someone made a mistake and that one day you will be coming home, for good, because you won’t. You’re a hero with a magical blade, who will marry a princess, be crowned king and leave us all behind.”
“No!” He shook his head vehemently at that. “No. That’s why I came home, to bring you and Mother and Father back with me, to Court.”
“I know that-.”
“No, Myla. Not just for the coronation, but to live with me. If you all want to, of course. You’re my family, I want you there.” He gave me a faint smile. “I think you’ll really like it. Lots of pretty dresses to wear, servants to wait on you-.”
“Oh.” I smiled faintly at him. “I’d like that. No more horses to muck out, or logs to chop, or water to draw from the well.”
“Exactly, although you may find that you miss all of that.”
“Do you?” I asked him. “Do you miss it?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “I miss how things used to be, how I thought that they were going to be. When I was on the road I really missed Mother’s cooking and lying in my own soft bed.” He looked at me. “I missed Cassia, too. How is she?”
Cassia, the village beauty, the raven-haired girl that Tyran had been courting before Breth had come to the village. She and Tyran had been betrothed, but after he’d been gone a year and stories had drifted back to us about Anlia, things had changed. “Married,” I said quietly. “To the tailor’s son.”
“Oh.” Tyran nodded. “Ranel’s a good man, I know he’ll take care of her.”
“And you have Anlia now anyway.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I guess so.” He coughed and got to his feet. “Come back inside. Mother’s preparing some tea and cakes. You’d hate to miss out.”
“Yes,” I said, sniffing. “All right.”
*
I woke to the sound of footsteps, coming down the stairs. I sat up, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “Who is it?” I called out.
“It’s just me,” Tyran said. “Sorry, brat, I forgot you were sleeping down here while Anlia is in your room.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “What are you doing up?”
“I had a nightmare. I just wanted to sit down here, perhaps read, but I’ll go back to bed and do it, I don’t want to disturb you.”
“No,” I said. “It’s fine. Come and sit with me, Ty.” I heard movement in the darkness and then the sound of a chair being scraped back as Tyran sat down. “What was your nightmare about?” I asked him.
“The same thing it’s always about,” he said. “And have been ever since I found the Crystal Blade and all of this was brought home to me. Tecorach, the Dark One.”
I swallowed at hearing the Dark One’s name. “What . . . what happens in it?” I whispered, not sure that I really wanted to hear the answer.
Tyran sighed. “I dream that I’m in the Forbidden Mountains, searching the caves for him, and it’s dark all around me, as though I’m blind. I stumble on, with my hands stretched out either side, pressed to the wall, which feels wet and sticky beneath my fingers. I can feel eyes on me, burning into my back, but when I call out, demanding to know who’s there, all I hear is laughter . . .” Tyran shivered. “I can still hear it now, Myla. It makes my skin crawl now, just to think about it.” He sighed again. “And then something knocks the blade out of my hands and pushes me to the floor. I turn over and all I see is two red eyes, burning like hot embers, floating in front of me. I try to speak, to cry out, but I can’t. I can’t make a sound, not even whimper, it’s as though something has stolen my voice, and I can’t move either, I’m being held down by something cold and heavy. And then . . . and then I hear the screams . . .”
“But it didn’t happen like that, did it?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “In the end, it did. It was dark, I couldn’t see anything, just hear the laughter and feel eyes, burning into me, and something did hit me, knocking the blade from my hands. But Breth had been sure that all my dreams about the Forbidden Mountains had been a prophecy, warning me of what was going to happen, so he’d had a leather strap fastened to the hilt, so I still had a hold of it. I pulled it back into my hand and swung around, in the direction of what had hit me. It struck . . . something and then a flash of light burst from the blade. In that flash I could see him, Myla. The Dark One. He . . . he looked like a man, dressed in black, but his eyes . . . they were red and they seemed to burn into me. I could see hate in his eyes, Myla. I’ve never seen anyone look at me like that before. It chilled my blood.”
“But you killed him,” I said.
“Banished him,” Tyran corrected. “I don’t think he can die. And yes, I swung my sword at him, it hit him, passing through him as though he were made of water, but he shrieked and . . . and then he was gone. It was all rather anticlimactic, in the end. All those stories, the legends, about what great things the Sun Prince would do, how he would bring light to the darkness, drive it back, all of that, and all I did was swing my sword at him.” He laughed bitterly. “It was like when Mother used to put a lantern in my room, when I was a child and scared of the dark. She told me the light would drive away any of the monsters under the bed, or in the closet, and I felt safer with it there. And that’s all I was, Myla. Someone with a lantern.”
“No. No, Ty, there was more to it than that. No one else could do what you did-.”
“That was a fault of birth, Myla. Not because I was skilled, or clever, or powerful. I just happened to be born who I am, the only one who can wield the only blade that can banish the Dark One. It was just chance. I’m not a hero. I don’t deserve all of this attention.” Then he groaned. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be dumping all of my problems on you like this.”
“I don’t mind-.”
“No,” he said, getting to his feet. “It’s unfair of me. I’m sorry. I’m going back to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“All right, Tyran, but we can talk some more, later, if you want?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, maybe.” But I knew that he wouldn’t.
*
I was nervous that evening as we all walked down to the village together. I wore my new dress, one that Mother and I had spent weeks making, just for the occasion, and my dull brown hair was tied back with a jewelled comb that Anlia had lent me. She looked beautiful, with her golden hair loose around her face and a dress of dark green satin, pulled in tight at her narrow waist with a brocade cincher. Tyran was also dressed in fine clothes, with his blond hair gleaming, and the Crystal Blade hanging from his waist. They looked really good together, every bit the king and queen.
As soon as we entered the village square, a cheer broke out. Tyran flushed and looked uncomfortable, but my parents and Anlia were beaming. When the cheers died down, people moved in, surrounding my brother and Anlia. I could hear them asking questions, wanting to know what it had been like to face the Dark One and I heard Tyran reply, but the story he gave them was nothing like the one he’d given me. His story was now full of excitement and tension, building up the danger, and his own bravery. He wasn’t just a man with a lantern in this story, he was a hero, and everyone was hanging on his every word.
It was nearly three hours later when people finally stopped harassing my brother with questions and slipped away to dance or find something to eat and drink. I could see the relief in Tyran’s eyes, but before I could go over to talk to him, I was pulled into the dancing by my father. For the next hour I was kept on my feet, whirling around with different partners, men and boys, until I was hot and out of breath and finally managed to excuse myself. I slid to the edge of the square, where the tables were laid out with food and drink, and started to help myself.
“You’ve become quite a lady in the last two years,” Breth said, as he appeared at my side.
“Thank you,” I said, coldly, turning away from him.
“Still angry with me for taking your brother away, I see? You know that it was his destiny, Myla.”
“I like to think that people can choose their own destinies,” I replied.
Breth laughed, as though I were a child who had said something stupid. I stiffened and walked away but he came with me. “But don’t you think that things are better now?” he asked. “Already things are brighter, it’s warmer, the flowers smell more sweet and it looks like it will be a good harvest. Don’t you think it was worth it?”
“I don’t care about the crops or sweet smelling flowers,” I said. “We would have managed with a poor harvest, we have before. What I care about is Tyran.” I glanced over at where he stood with Cassia on the edge of the swirling dancers. He had his hand on her arm and they looked deep in conversation.
“So do I,” Breth said, following my gaze. I snorted. “I do, Myla. And I know that he’s upset at the moment, that he feels out of place and isn’t himself, but he’ll come around. He’ll settle down, when he’s had a chance to get used to the changes, and he will be happy, Myla. You’ll see.”
I watched as Cassia pulled away from my brother, and turned to cross the crowded floor to join her husband at the other side. Tyran seemed to crumble, his shoulders slumped and he hung his head, before he turned and walked away. “He would have been happy here, too,” I said.
Tyran didn’t return to the square that evening and, when the dance was over, I returned to the farmhouse with my mother and Anlia, leaving my father, Devrin and Breth to search for him with some of the villagers, who had eagerly volunteered to help. We didn’t say much, back at the house. My mother warmed some milk for us and tried to comfort us all by telling us stories of how far Tyran would roam, as a boy, how worried she would be, only to have him come home at dawn without a scrape on him. But I don’t think that Anlia was really listening.
My father came home, somewhere in the middle of the night, having given up trying to find Tyran in the dark and, a little before dawn, Tyran himself returned. It was clear from the way he wavered as he walked into the room, before the smell of wine hit us, that he was drunk.
Anlia got to her feet. “Where were you?” she snapped.
“I went for a walk,” Tyran replied.
“Without telling me?” Anlia said. “You left me alone with all those strangers, Tyran.”
“You weren’t alone, Anlia. Breth and Devrin were there, and my parents and Myla.”
“Yes, but I went there with you. This was your celebration and I’m meant to be your betrothed and you left without a word. People kept asking me where you were and I couldn’t tell them because I had no idea. I was so embarrassed, Tyran.”
“I didn’t set out to embarrass you, Anlia,” Tyran said coldly. “As hard as it might be for you to believe this, you didn’t actually cross my mind at all.”
I stared at Tyran in surprise. I couldn’t believe that he’d just said that and a quick glance at my parents showed me that they were shocked too. Tyran had always been the one to step into an argument, to try and keep the peace, and had never had a cruel word to say about anyone. I couldn’t believe that he had said something like that to Anlia who didn’t deserve it. I wanted someone to say something, to put an end to this before it went too far, but nobody moved, and I knew that Tyran would never listen to me. I was still the ‘brat,’ in his eyes.
“No, I can believe it,” she said, her mouth set into a hard line. “You’ve barely spoken to me since we left the Forbidden Mountains, let alone kissed me or made love to me, so I’m not so naïve as to think you would suddenly start to worry about me now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Anlia,” Tyran said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Please forgive me for having other things on my mind than talking to you about dresses and who’s sleeping with who at Court.”
“That’s not what I want to talk to you about, Tyran, but of course, you wouldn’t know that as you never bother to find out!”
“Well perhaps there’s a good reason for that. Perhaps I don’t think that you can understand how hard this is for me!”
“It’s hard for me, too. You’re not the only one who has had their life thrown upside down.”
“No,” my brother said. “No, I know that. Your father was murdered and the Dark One’s followers took you prisoner. I know that had to be hard, but we rescued you, you got to go home, you got your life back and everything will go back to normal for you, but not for me. I’ve lost everything, my family, the girl I thought I’d marry, the life I thought I’d have-.”
“You still have us,” my mother interrupted, finally finding her voice. She sounded hurt.
“He knows that,” Anlia told her. “He’s just being melodramatic, and feeling sorry for himself.” She turned back to him. “You have to stop this, Tyran. You have to stop thinking about what could have been and start enjoying what you have.”
“Oh, yes. My prizes, my reward. Castle, crown and princess.” He reached out and grabbed her arm. “You’d better come with me then, let me enjoy what I’ve won.”
Anlia’s hand shot out and slapped him across the face, spinning his head to the side. I flinched again, from the sound of hand hitting flesh, but Tyran only looked at her, his blue eyes narrowed with anger as blood ran down his chin from his lip, cut by the ring she wore. “I’m not a prize, Tyran. I’m not part of your spoils. I chose you. I want you. I love you. I would have stayed with you whether you were the Sun Prince or not. Although now I’m starting to think that you don’t deserve me.” With that she turned on her heel and went up the stairs. A moment later we heard the sound of a door slamming.
“Tyran-,” my mother began.
“I’m going to bed,” he said simply, and went upstairs. His door slammed a moment later and there was an awkward silence.
“I think,” my mother said slowly, after a few minutes, “I think that we’d all better go to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“Can I go and see how Tyran is?” I asked.
“I think you should leave him alone tonight,” my father told me. “Let him calm down.”
“But-.”
“No, Myla. Just leave it.” My father leaned down and kissed my forehead. “Sleep well, love.”
“Goodnight.”
No one mentioned the argument the next day, but there was a strained atmosphere in the house. Just after breakfast Breth came around and Mother chased me out of the house to give them some privacy, suggesting that I go down to the village to see Karif, the boy I’d danced with most of the night before. Instead I went outside and around to the kitchen door to spy on my brother’s conversation with the man who had started all of this.
“I know I was harsh,” Tyran said. “That I shouldn’t have taken it out on her, so you don’t need to tell me that, Breth.”
“All right,” Breth replied. “I won’t. But I will ask why you did it, why you’ve been ignoring her. She cares about you, loves you, it’s not fair-.”
“No,” he said. “I know that and I’m sorry, I just can’t help it. Every time I look at her now I see what I’ve lost and what I’ve been through. She’s a symbol for all of that, Breth. For everything that has happened to me.”
“I can understand that,” Breth said, calm as always. “But it will pass. You will be happy together, you will have a good life together and you will be a good king. You just have to be patient.”
“I wish that I could believe that,” Tyran said sadly. “I really do. I want to look at Anlia and see the girl that I first fell for and I want to believe that I’ll be a good king, that I’ll do the right thing, but I’m scared that it won’t be like that. I could ruin her life, by marrying her, feeling this way, and I could ruin the lives of thousands of people if I make the wrong decision as king. So many people are going to depend on me, Breth, and I’m just not sure that I can do this. I’ve never had to make a decision of my own before, everything in my life had already been decided for me. My father told me what chores to do here on the farm. You told me where we should go to look for the Crystal Blade, deciphering the histories and old clues that we found. It was Devrin who organised the attack on the Dark One’s followers, to rescue Anlia, and it was the prophecies of the Sun Prince that sent me to the mountains. And everything after that has been the decision of Anlia and her father’s old councillors. I’m scared that I’m going to let people down.”
“And that’s probably what will make you a good king, Tyran. That you care about the effects your decisions will have, that you want to do the right thing by your subjects.”
“That may not be enough,” Tyran said.
“No, it may not, but it is a start, Tyran. You just have to trust yourself, listen to your instincts, and know that Anlia and I will always be there to advise you. And yes, you may make mistakes which will affect people and could make their lives harder, but you could also make their lives better. You have to think of that, Tyran. Think of the good you can do and don’t let fear take over. If you had done that in the mountains, you would be dead now, so don’t let it happen to you now that it’s over.” Tyran didn’t say anything and Breth touched his arm. “You have a choice now, Tyran. And I know that you’ll make the right one.”
After that, Breth left the room and Tyran was silent. I saw him standing there, staring out the kitchen window, but I don’t think he saw me. After a while, when he didn’t move, I turned and slipped away. I went for a walk, to clear my head and to waste time so that my mother would think that I had gone to the village as she had asked. When I returned to the farm around noon, Tyran and Anlia were sitting in front of the fire together, he had his arm around her and they were talking quietly. He smiled at me as I came in and apologised that I’d had to hear their argument, then he invited me to play draughts with him, the way we often had as children, on the set that my father had made for us. The rest of the afternoon and the evening passed like that, with Tyran being his old self again, teasing us, playing games, and cuddling and kissing with Anlia.
In the morning, he was gone.
My father organised another search, a proper one, spreading out for miles into the woods and surrounding countryside, but there was no sign of him, and after two weeks, the search was called off. Anlia left soon after, returning to the Golden Palace to arrange a proper search from there, but there was still no sign and after another few months, she gave up. A year later she married a nobleman at Court and they had two children. I hoped she was happy.
Two years later I married Karif. He’d been a great comfort to me during those early months, after Tyran had disappeared, and we’d gotten very close. A part of me hoped that Tyran would come to the wedding, that he would turn up, like a hero out of legend, and be there for me. But he didn’t. I had that same hope when I gave birth to my first child, a boy I called Tyran, but again, there was nothing. That hope never really died in me.
After a while people stopped wondering what had happened to Tyran and the statue, appointed in his honour which stood outside the Golden Palace, became known as that of the Runaway Prince. In the village, where we had grown up, people would have a drink to him, from time to time. A toast, to the hero, the chosen one, and they would share stories of how they had known him and of his exploits.
But to me he was always Tyran, my brother.
Fran Jacobs graduated from the University of Nottingham with a Masters degree in Ancient History in 2001, and now lives in Swansea, South Wales, where she runs an online gothic website, Megaera’s Realm. Fran mostly writes fantasy, with a penchant for the darker side of it, and her stories have been published in a variety of magazines including Forgotten Worlds, Nanobison, Neo-opsis and Alien Skin Magazine. She also dabbles in writing macabre short stories and articles on witches, black magic and vengeful female poisoners.
Her debut novel, the Shadow Seer, Book One of Ellenessia’s Curse has been published with Writers Exchange E-publishing.
You can read more about her past achievements and future projects on her website:
