The Heir Apparent by Lauren DeStefano

Prince Azure was twelve when his father decided he was old enough to know.
    “This is going to belong to you one day, when you’re grown,” the king said, and Azure listened intently. It was rare that his father spoke to him this way, and without his sister present at that. He knew that Celeste would be jealous. He would find her when he returned to the clock tower and she would want to know what their father had said about the kingdom, because she wanted to be king more than anything. But the king spoke to his daughter even less than he spoke to his son.
    “You’ve always known that one day you’ll inherit the kingdom,” King Furlow went on. “But there are parts of it that you have not yet seen, and you’ll need to understand them.”
    The young prince had, in fact, seen very little of his kingdom. He and his sister were kept apart from the city’s main sections, visiting only for ceremonies and celebrations. He felt that he knew the city only through a sheet of glass. He could see but not touch.
    “It is not all about parties,” the king said. “A king must make difficult decisions that his subjects never see, because they are good for us all.”
    They walked through trees, dodging stray branches and thickets. No one in the kingdom was allowed this far into the woods, except for the hunters on the third Sunday of the month, and the royal family.
    They had been walking for an hour now, and Azure knew that he had never gone this far. He and his sister were required to keep the clock tower in sight at all times, and if they ever forgot, there were patrolmen scattered about to remind them.
    Now there were patrolmen walking ahead of the king and prince, and behind them, keeping them safe. Azure knew the woods. He and his sister had learned to shoot arrows there. But when they reached the metal gate, and the clock tower was long out of sight, he knew that his father was taking him over some new boundary. He had never even known there was a gate at all.
    “You share most things with your sister, don’t you?” the king said. “That’s good. The two of you need each other; when you’re king, I suspect she’ll be of value to your council. But this is something that isn’t for her eyes and ears. You understand that, don’t you?”
    Azure didn’t understand. The gate was still closed, and he didn’t know what waited on the other side. But he nodded anyway. It was the only way he would find out.
    One of the patrolmen opened the gate, which gave a shrill rusty whine.
    “There are things a king doesn’t share with the fairer sex. There are things I wouldn’t even share with the queen. It would trouble her. She has a soft heart. Your sister gets that from her.”
    His mother may have a soft heart, Azure conceded to himself, but his sister most assuredly did not. She could have rivaled him for the kingship if she had been born a boy. She was less troubled than he was, and when they’d found a fox gnawing on a dead rabbit in the woods during the dawn of short season, he’d been the one to look away first.
    But he didn’t say this. His father was the king, and whatever the king believed was a fact.
    They stepped through the gate, but the patrolmen stayed behind.
    “The top of the clock tower has one of the best views on Internment,” the king said. “That, and the top floor of the hospital. You can look out and see the entire kingdom. But you can’t see this here. It’s covered over by trees.”
    This area was dark with leaves and branches, so much so that the grass scarcely grew. Patches of dirt and well-trod moss led their way.
    They reached a series of buildings, and Azure looked at his father, puzzled. “There’s a city here, Papa?”
    “Not a city,” the king said. “It’s a camp for people whose minds have failed them.” The king put his hand on Azure’s shoulder, but it brought little comfort. There was something wrong about this place. The buildings were mortared with mud, they were all