Thank you all for reading. This is the third person version of Silent Sovereignty, personally I love this version much much more. It allows a bigger twist - more in-depth that first person does not allow - also more p.o.v changes between characters. Enjoy. Vote. Comment. xx

In every new generation some of the great shall rise, and some of the greater shall fall.

~ Sebastian ~

The purity of the snow had its innocence licked away with the warm touch of each red metallic droplet. It dribbled down uncontrollably, the blood stained a path of travel from the bodies slit throat. It trickled down the length of the neck and up its grayed face.

A figure of a young man stood underneath the hanging body. His clean shaven features were drawn up in confusion. Hesitantly he reached out his hand and let the droplets pool in his palm. What should have been cold was still warm, this kill was fresh.

He pulled his cupped hand back to him and carefully dabbed two of his fingers, of his other hand, into the blood. The crimson liquid was experimentally rubbed between his thumb and forefinger. The consistency was thick, sticky, sickening himself further as he knew the man— and to see how animalistic his murder had been....

He looked up in confusion when the body began to unfold. The clothing and skin began to peel away like one does to a fruit, the sound of fabric ripping was the sound of the muscle shedding itself from the off-white bones underneath. The process revealed just what lays within a body. No longer enclosed blood streamed down like a waterfall, melting the snow, bleaching it red. A breathy gasp was let out from the young man as he stumbled back to escape the bloods growing grasp.

A loud screech from the air above startled the boy, he threw his head towards the sky to see a black creature plummeting down towards him. A scream did not have time to surface his lungs as he was awoken from his dazed nightmare.

"Bass?" a moan came from under the sheets behind him.

Sebastian sat upright on the bed, his bare chest heaved covered in gleaming sweat. Frantically his eyes darted around the room taking in where he was. Sunlight streamed in through the curtains like arms outstretched, reaching for the bed across the floor. What candles had been lit last night now only billowed smoke lazily. He tried to relax yet, it was only another added piece to the repeated nightmare. He heard his name being said again and looked over his shoulder to the girl who laid next to him.

Her hands rubbed at her eyes as a small yawn stretched across her open pink lips. Her name was Sarah Woods, soon to be wed come new-leaf season. Sebastian watched letting her become his distraction. This was always a fear of his, to wake one morning and not be in the comfort of his bed, but to wake alone somewhere else in realization that his nightmares were real.

Sarah sat up pulling the cold sheets with her leaving a kiss on the back of his shoulder before resting her chin there, innocently looking up to him.

"Don't give me that look." Sebastian breathed out tilting his head back closing eyes taking a deep breath. He was aware she knew how he was going to leave like he did after every night they spent together. She was one of his daily distractions. It only took a lingering glance to have night after night on replay. Though today he had real problems to settle, not childish games to indulge in.

"Don't give me that look." She playfully mocked him and reached her arms around his torso from behind while she left another kiss on his shoulder, closer to the base of his neck.

A small smile could not help but show on his lips as she tried to imitate him. He dropped his head back down to look at her, "You'll have to try deeper than that."

"Or maybe I'll try this?" She pulled herself backwards along with his weight, towards the bed.

"Love, no." He groaned as his back came in contact with the cold sheets once again.

"Love, yes." Sarah settled herself close to his side pulling up the blankets once again. "Every morning it is the same, you wake hardly able to breathe then dress and leave. I won't have it again." Her fingertips started trailing patterns on his chest her mind having been made.

Sebastian stared up at the wood paneled ceiling, feeling her fingertips glide across his skin barely listening to her words.

"Tell me what's on your mind," she spoke softly and leaned her face closer.

He tilted his head towards her a hollowness in his voice, "It's a dark place in there, sometimes I want to escape it myself." Sebastian lifted his right arm across his chest to Sarah's face, brushing pieces of her blonde hair back behind her ear.

She leaned her head against his gentle touch, "If you let me into your thoughts, we could venture the darkness together."

Sadly he shook his head savoring the quiet moment they have together. A selfish part of him wanted her to not marry the man she was to wed. Though what could a bastard offer her? A man with no titles or claim. A half blood prince who spends his afternoons in a forest of the damned where the druids drink the blood of innocents.

Why could he not shake this feeling? He has been with his fair share of woman and has yet to have any attachment. Perhaps it was the thrill of possibly getting caught by her to be husband, the look the man would wear as he opened the bedroom door would be priceless. Sebastian almost chuckled at the thought.

He was pulled from his thoughts as he felt her lips meet his. Slowly he responded unable to help himself, cradled against his side as he rolled over holding himself above her small figure. With hands firmly gripping the sheets on either side of her head, Sarah's hands greedily came up to behind Sebastian's neck not letting his lips escape from hers.

It was a blissful moment cut short by a knock on the door. His head shot up to look over his shoulder followed by a curse. He acted quickly slipping from the sheets, swinging his feet over the beds side meeting the cold stone floor. Sebastian reached down finding his clothing not needing any guidance to hurry, the cold ushering him alone. He tugged his trousers to his waist doing up the front.

"Coming," he called out looking back down to Sarah whose face was red with growing anger at the disruption. "What are you doing? Get dressed."

"Sebastian?" A familiar male voice called out proceeding to open the wooden door, "Who are you talking to–"

Sarah let out a soft laugh pulling the sheets up over her head burying herself in their warmth. Sebastian paused at his bedside holding his shirt in his hands seeing his younger half-brother, Deveron's face appear around the doors edge.

"Deveron," Sebastian snapped hurriedly going to the door his bare feet slapping against the stone with each step. "What did I tell you about knocking?"

"What did I tell you about sleeping with her?" His younger brother whispered loudly gesturing towards Sebastian's bed, clearly able to see the woman's figure made out under the sheets.

"You keep opening your mouth to voice my problems brother, when you need not worry. I know what I am doing." As Sebastian spoke he pulled his arms into the white cotton shirt sliding it down over his head. Part of his words were mumbled by the clothing coming over his mouth.

Deveron shook his head in disappointment, brushing blonde strands of hair off his forehead. "I'm not a child Bass. I know what you do at night, just as I know what will happen to your name once people find out you're with a married woman."

"To-be married woman," he clarified. "Besides, my name is already tarnished in this court, little brother. What's one more accusation?" Sebastian asked while looking over his shoulder towards his bed, "Sarah, love, get dressed."

Both brothers watched her pull the sheets off her now messed up hair as she sat up with the sheets around her, brushing any knots out with her fingers.

Deveron cleared his throat averting his eyes as she stood from the bed, "Morning, Miss Hart."

"Morning to you too, Prince Deveron," she dressed before curtseying out of respect.

Sebastian could not help but roll his eyes at Sarah's sudden change, his head nodded towards the door as she looked back to him. She dropped her eyes to the floor as she drew closer to the two brothers stopping beside Sebastian speaking low, "Tonight, meet me in my chambers?"

He nodded lifting his hand under her chin to tilt her head up, pecking her lips once in farewell. Sebastian noticed his brother averting his eyes to anywhere in the room as long as he could avoid them.

"You worry too much Deveron." Sebastian finally spoke up after Sarah left reaching over on the table collecting his belt.

"We're nearing war and your concern is only on woman and running about in the woods picking flowers," his brother snorted.

Sebastian shook his head once again, "There you go worrying again, brother. Worry about war when war is at our borders." He looked down sliding the belt through the pants loop, glancing towards Deveron's hands noticing how his fists were balled up tight. "If you have something to say, by all means."

Deveron narrowed his eyes as he sneered, "Father's lucky you were not his full blooded son."

A chuckle escaped his lips at the words of his half-brother as he finished pulling the belt through the loops fastening it in the front. "You speak of being a bastard like it is a bad thing. Sure, I have no crown, no land nor titles of my own; however, I do have one thing you never will."

"And what's that?" Deveron scoffed resting his hand on the doorknob.

"Freedom," Sebastian shrugged meeting Deveron's eyes.

The door was pulled open part way as Deveron held Sebastian's blue eyes evenly although his voice faltered uncertainly, "I-I have freedom."

"Do you? Father won't let you live, in fear that he will lose the only pure heir to the throne. But me? They don't care if I die and with that, I am allowed to live." Sebastian watched as his brothers face twisted in thought, he knew those words would eat away at him.

Deveron shook his head, "Breakfast is ready when you are." His words came out mumbled in a defeat against how Sebastian was right, how it always seemed he was right.

Breakfast can wait, Sebastian thought catching the door with his hand before it could close fully. He stood in the open doorway pulling on his leather boots drowning out all thoughts of his brother.

It did not take long for Sebastian to find himself in the dormant infirmary. He paced in the small open space of the windowless stone walled room with a single candle lit. It sat on the medical stand that casted his shadow in flickering shapes against the far wall.

"Sebastian?" A raspy voice spoke questionably as the healers figure pushed a tattered curtain aside that separated his private chambers from his work area, "I didn't expect to see you so soon."

The healer, whose name was misused by the man, was Gilroy, a name of devotion to the King; however, no one needing eyes to tell Gilroy was devoted to the Queen and Queen only. Slowly stiff with movement from sitting all night he came across the room. Gilroy was not an elderly nor was he exceedingly young, he was a man in his forties who was taller than most. Dark circles brimmed under his light eyes, for he could also see the unseen through his dreams as well as Sebastian.

"Were you not there last night? The dream— someone else was there." Sebastian furrowed his eyebrows his pacing slowing to a halt.

"I'm afraid not, Sebastian. It was not me that joined you... I've merely been at my books, there is no time to sleep for the living." Gilroy gathered a blank canvas that leaned against the wall and a piece of charcoal, "Draw it for me?" His voice was soft as if welcoming Sebastian, who was not so eager, to see the brutally murdered man again.

"Has the Queen already been here?" Sebastian asked carefully when he reached his arm out for the charcoal and canvas.

"Not yet I'm afraid. Perhaps you should take this into my chambers?" Gilroy spoke, his eyes took in the half-blood Prince's appearance.

"Or perhaps this visit could wait? We both know no one else should have knowledge of my foreshadowing dreams." Sebastian could feel the healers eyes on him when he looked to the charcoal in his hands.

"What troubles you child?" Gilroy's voice dropped, his tone almost like a mothers to her babe.

His lips suddenly felt dry, too dry. He let his tongue slip out wetting his lips pondering an answer. What really troubled him? The pagans that littered his dreams– the murders that ceased to leave his eyes every time they closed. "I—" Sebastian cut his voice off sharply hearing the infirmaries door open.

Gilroy gestured wildly for the curtain, "In here, now."

He needed no motivation to take the pieces in his hands and briskly duck behind the curtain as soon as the Queens figure came into view. Sebastian stumbled to find his balance in the small space, eyes looking over it all. For a man who takes care of all the people in court, his sleeping quarters were worse than that of a stable-boy. Empty bottles of what appeared to be liquor littered the floor as well as books of study. Not daring to move in fear of his foot hitting against something that would cause sound, his eyes came to rest on the cot. Carefully he lowered himself onto the far end of the hay mattress, the canvas rested on his lap.

The Queen's voice was low with urgency. It was Gilroy who spoke up clearly, "I have not seen the Bastard, nor do I care to.... Why would you think he was here?"

Bastard; oh how that word stung in his heart. Bastard, they say it as if it was a born plague. Perhaps for the bastards Mother it was, becoming a living symbol of proof that her "devoted" husband laid with another woman. It is not the bloody child's fault, Sebastian wanted to retort.

He shook his head, bastard or not he wanted nothing to do with the crown. Sebastian's hand trembled in silent anger clutching the charcoal. He turned his attention to the blank canvas and rested the charcoals tip to its blank upper corner. Art was never easy for him, his mother had always given him lessons telling him repeatedly, "The only way to find a meaning is to draw it clearly."

Whenever he attempted to draw it never came out as it should. A human looked far from a man, even a simple heart looked like a deformed rock.... Sebastian took a breath and dragged his hand down the canvas, drawing a line for the tethered rope. Soon a tree was sketched, he tried to make his motions effortless. Detail was the hardest and where would he even begin to start the body that had shed its skin? Sebastian pondered the thought his eyes wandered over what had already been drawn. Bones possibly, with the skin peeled off to the head— like a banana would, yes.

He had forgotten about the Queen only feet away lost in his creation on the canvas, "Perhaps mother was right." Sebastian mumbled amazed at his own ability that unfolded.

It was as if he had been in a trance that lasted a matter of minutes. What rested now on his lap looked nothing like he had drawn before.

"I thought I had heard another voice when I had come in. What aren't you telling me, Gilroy?" The Queen's words woke Sebastian from his moment of awe. Here in this wretched excuse of a bedroom there was no windows to use as an escape.

He laid the canvas and coal aside standing abruptly. If he was caught there would be consequences— ones he would rather not think of. Eyes frantically searched the walls as sounds of heels drew closer. His heart beated like a bird's wings against air. There has to be somewhere, Sebastian thought while his eyes stopped on a quilt that hung against the far left wall. Why had he not noticed it earlier? Its bright joyful scenery seemed misplaced in this dim lighted room where so many men have came to see their deaths, yet the bottom of the quilt danced as air from behind was urging it on.

Carefully Sebastian reached out, his hand gripping the side of the fabric drawing it aside. A dark tunnel, enough for a mans to crawl on hands and knees was present. Echoes of water that dripped travelled to his ears. He had heard of the tunnels that littered the castle, though has never made time to venture in.

"It would seem like now would be a good time to start," Sebastian mumbled to himself as he reached into the entrance. Slick wet stone met his fingers while in search for a hold. Behind him Gilroy could be heard arguing with the Queen who still had a mission to come into his private quarters.

He dug his boots into the wall propelling his weight higher, until finally the material of his pants were soaked through at the knees after contact with the tunnels floor. In the tight space Sebastian twisted around in an awkward position fighting to reach for the quilt to close over the entrance. A grunt of frustration echoed as his fingertips were a few desperate inches away.

Gilroy's tattered sheet he used for the door could be heard ripping at the forceful entrance. Sebastian turned back into the tunnel crawling further forward into the darkness.