The Tale of Onora: The Boy and the Peddler of Death by Dylan Saccoccio Page B

began under the Royal Family’s rule and then it continued under your grandfather’s rule. No man who lives in such a manner can be free, not even the ones on the right side of the equation.”
    “Not everyone sees it that way,” the boy responded.
    “Someday,” the man said. “When everything you love is gone, when the ways of life you cherished have been destroyed, you shall discover that you cannot eat wealth or power. I endured such terrible realizations. It would be wise of you to learn from my past.”
    Silence filled the room again. The man approached the window. The wind outside haunted the landscape. He watched it dance with the powdered snow. “Even now, it calls us.” He glanced back and saw himself in his son for the first time. His demeanor softened. “Do you want to know a secret?”
    Surprise washed over the boy’s face. The man raised his brow as if to ask the question again. The boy gave him an eager nod.
    “You saw that my mother was a Nord,” the man continued. “Do you know what that means?”
    The boy shook his head.
    “It means you can refuse to wear the clothes that the gods wove for you,” the man boldly stated. “You can decline their invitations because nothing other than you shall decide your fate. That’s how you were able to make it here alive.”
    “Because my grandmother was a Nord?” the boy asked.
    “It’s in your blood. You can brave the elements,” the man replied.
    His posture became dignified. His tone grew passionate. He tapped the window. “That storm is your life. You can slap nature in the face and walk out into it bare-arsed if you’d like. Sometimes the gods shall test you merely to see if you have it in you to do it.”
    “Why?” the boy asked.
    “Because it is in those moments that you honor your creators most,” the man replied. “You make it known that you are free, that the garments of fate shall not adorn you. In confronting the gods, you honor them with your rebellion, for they created you for it. By doing so you choose to return to them, and thus you show them that they are worthiest of your greatest declaration, the declaration of your independence. It is in this moment that you prove yourself worthy of all their efforts.”
    “What if they punish me for being foolish, for knowing it’s not safe and doing it anyway?” the boy asked.
    The man sat back down in his plush chair. “Life is not safe, nor was it ever meant to be. Safety is predictable. Safety is nothing more than boring theatre. It is when you discard the illusion of safety and step outside the realm of comfort that life truly begins. This is what it is to be a man.”
                The boy mustered his courage. “I want to know why you left me. I don’t want to see it in a dream. I want to hear it from you.”
                “But I didn’t,” the man replied. “I have you right here, along with everything I ever wanted. My wife and my beautiful children… all of them healthy. You are healthy, are you not?”
                The boy nodded.
    “Your mother and I had an arrangement,” the man continued. “She wanted it this way. You were insurance for her and your people, that I would not invade her kingdom because she knew I would never risk the life of my son.”
    Confused silence painted a blank stare upon the boy’s face.
    “She helped me kill the King,” the man continued. “Did she not show you the blood on her hands?”
    The boy shook his head in shock.
    “Funny how the whole truth is never convenient to one’s designs,” the man said. “The only things I left behind were a way of life that did not resonate with me and the toxic people who enabled it. Had I not done that, I would not be here with you.”
                “You cannot possibly know that,” the boy said.
    “I know it because it is,” the man replied. “You cannot know otherwise because what you think could have happened, did not. Right now is the truth.