That evening, Matei found himself following the paths through the palace he had walked as a child. Being in those shadowed halls put him in mind of the night, many years ago, when he had been cast out of the palace.

It had been the night his world splintered into pieces, the night he had discovered he should never have been born. It had been the last night of his boyhood.

Pausing on the threshold of the room where he had slept as a child, Matei closed his eyes for a moment, caught in a web of memory that still stirred in his heart the echoes of the fear and pain he had felt as a boy of thirteen...

It had been a peaceful evening. Young Prince Koreti was sprawled on his stomach in the corner of his untidy bedchamber, bathed in the light of a spirit globe. Open before him was the most recent book to have caught his interest: a history of warfare. More riveting than the text were the sumptuous illustrations of key battles from the First and the Second Great Wars, in both of which the Blessed Sovereigns had played key roles.

He turned the page and then propped his chin on his fist, studying an illustration of Katyander and Broycan, the two of them in active stances with intent expressions on their faces. Broycan wielded a staff, and Katyander needed no such weapon. Power rippled from the both of them, flinging the snarling, mutated creatures that were surging toward them in all directions. Koreti smiled. He hoped someday to be as fierce a warrior, and as great a ruler, as the Blessed Sovereigns had been.

The door creaked open. Startled, Koreti glanced up, thinking that his manservant might have come to check in on him. The blood drained from his face when he saw the man in the doorway; it was none other than the emperor, his father.

Koreti scrambled to his feet. "Your Grace—I know I should be abed. I was studying," he said.

Emperor Korvan, always a man of austere and fastidious tendencies, looked rumpled that night. His expression was one of wild-eyed suspicion, as if he had come expecting to find Koreti engaged in some wrongdoing. The emperor took one slow step into the room, glancing around with a restless, roving eye, as if he expected to see something there in the shadows. Then, his gaze landed again on Koreti.

Being in Korvan's presence was never comfortable. Koreti, normally a confident boy able to charm anyone he met, always felt small in his father's company. To be scrutinized by the emperor was to feel that one had done wrong or that one could never do right—or both. Koreti looked down at his creased sleep shirt, self-consciously smoothing it, and frowned at his naked feet. He was a mess, but how could the emperor have expected otherwise? He had never visited Koreti in his room before.

Looking back up and putting on a brave face, he said, "Father, it's late, what are you— ...Is something wrong, Your Grace?"

Korvan's hands were tight, quivering fists; his shoulders rose and fell with his breaths, and his gaze burned into Koreti. He strode toward Koreti, advancing across the chamber.

Afraid of the look in the emperor's eye, Koreti raised his hands and took a step back. He quailed as Korvan loomed above him. "Father—?"

Crack!

The pain came to Koreti seconds later. The patterned marble floor of his bedchamber blurred in his vision, and he realized he had fallen to the floor. Shaking, Koreti covered his burning cheek with his hand. He picked himself up, unsteady but aware that not standing in the presence of the sovereign was a grave breach of etiquette, even for a prince. He turned to look at his father, tasting blood, and saw Korvan wiping the hand with which he'd struck the blow on the front of his jacket, wearing an expression of disgust.

"Father?" Koreti whispered, betrayed.

"No," said Korvan, in a voice like a whip. "You are no son of mine." His voice caught on the last word.

Korvan had never struck Koreti before. No one had ever struck Koreti before. He fumbled for an explanation, bewildered and hurt. "Father, you're not well. I shall go and get Physicker Naelis to see to you."

He hesitated only for a second, but just as Koreti stepped toward the door, Korvan seized his upper arm and wrenched him back.

Koreti couldn't help it; he was afraid, and his fear made him tremble. Jerking his arm to try to free himself, he said, "Father, you're frightening me and you're hurting me please—"

Korvan shook him so hard his head knocked back. "I should kill you! Bastard! Bastard child!"

Fear gave way to panic. Koreti scratched at Korvan's cold hands, desperate to free himself, but Korvan held him so tightly he would surely leave fingerprints on Koreti's very bones.

An eerie sensation coursed through Koreti's body, something he had never experienced before; it was a vital, deep, primal feeling, as if someone had set fire to his blood. His entire body hummed with energy. Koreti grit his teeth, torn between the warring sensations of this strange internal flame and the bone-cracking grasp of his father's hands.

A white light erupted in the room, and a crackling sensation snapped through the air.

Korvan staggered back, raising one arm to shield his eyes, and Koreti shrank in on himself. When the spots faded from his vision, he stared down at his palms, struggling to understand what had happened.

He had felt that thing—that force—in his hands. He had felt it come out of himself.

Korvan was a few steps away, one arm still raised in a warding gesture, and he stared at Koreti with wide-eyed horror. "What was that?"

The answer came to Koreti at once, unbidden, and he saw the same realization dawn in his father's eyes. Magic.

As if from a world away, Koreti heard his father's voice, a whisper. "Abomination." But he could not spare a thought for what was happening in the room. The shock had rattled him to his core. He knew he must have been going mad, because there was no way it had been magic.

Koreti was a Starborn prince.

"What's happening?" he asked himself, trembling with a mixture of fear and adrenaline. "I don't understand—"

Then Korvan seized him by the front of his nightshirt. For an instant, Koreti was certain Korvan would take him by the throat; the look in the emperor's eyes was murderous. But instead, Korvan flung Koreti away.

He struck the floor, hard, and bit his tongue. His mouth flooded with blood, and his mind reeled. Distantly, he heard the emperor saying things that made no sense, but he could not focus on anything but the vibration in his veins and the nauseating iron tang of blood on his throbbing tongue.

"Your mother is a whore! I have but two sons. Who is your father, boy? I doubt she even knows! Some filthy servant, some low-bred Arcborn bastard! Abomination!"

When Koreti looked at Korvan again, his fear returned, overcoming his physical distress with more urgent concern. He needed to get away. He had never seen Korvan in such a state; he had never seen Korvan express more than the mildest of emotions. The hateful look in his father's eyes and the venom in his voice convinced Koreti that if he stayed in that room, he would die that night.

Koreti crawled a few feet away on hands and knees, and then he gained his feet and sprinted to the door of his chamber. There, his shaking hand on the knob, he turned and spared one final look at his father, desperate to see in that regal countenance some indication of love, some hint of remorse.

Across the polished marble floor, which reflected the glowing spirit globe, Korvan had grown still. He was looking at Koreti, his expression blank. In a calm tone, as if he were simply requesting another goblet of wine from a servant, he said, "Leave the palace and never come back. If I see you again, I will kill you with my own hands."

Earlier that evening, Koreti had dined with his father and the rest of his family at table, as he always did.

That afternoon, he had walked with his brothers to their lessons, laughing as they crossed the Sovereign Square.

That morning, he had visited his mother in her chambers. She had kissed him, and with sunlight in her eyes, she had said, "I love you, dear heart. More than you will ever know."

Koreti could not understand what was happening to him. The safe, happy world he had always known was shattering, splintering into pieces. Were it not for the taste of blood on his tongue and the sore cheek reminding him of his father's brutal blow, Koreti would have been content to believe it all a terrible dream. He whispered, "Father, I don't—"

But Korvan shouted, "Go!"

Any uncertainty in Koreti's mind was washed away with primal fear. He turned at once and fled.

He did not know where to go, and so he ran down the darkened hallways, his bare feet slapping on the polished floors, wearing nothing but his nightshirt but heedless of the shame; he was well past feeling anything but heartbreak.

Why had his father turned against him? Why had Korvan called Esaria a whore? Why had he cast Koreti out? Surely he did not mean it; surely he would change his mind. Where could he expect Koreti to go?

There was only one place the boy could think of, one place—aside from his mother's chambers—where he always felt safe.

Matei blinked, gazing down the empty hall. Following the flight of the boy he had been, he had walked through the palace, tracing a route he had never forgotten, and come to the place where Koreti had become Matei. 

Greetings, Dear Reader. I hope you are having a lovely weekend. 

I deliberated long and hard over whether to dive into Matei's memories. Some of these events were revealed, after all, through Korvan's perspective in the last book...but I felt that it might be good to get to know Matei through the lens of his past. 

Let me know what you think! Your comments are always welcome. Not only do they brighten my day, they let me know where I can improve. Thank you for reading Duty-Bound!