PROLOGUE
The young boy was out picking apples when his life was changed forever.
He was the prince of a land far away, the heir to a vast empire. Someday, he would be king. He would rule over all of the people in his land, and he would lead his troops into battle. He would be a hero.
He should be out fighting ogres and saving the damsels in distress his father would tell him stories of, not stuck in this dumb castle. There was nothing to do, and his mother wouldn't even let him spar with the knights.
"You are six years old, and it's dangerous. No more arguing. Now, go off and play with the other children here; your father and I are busy," his mother had told him when he had asked her the day before. But they were so little. Emma was a toddling two year old brat, and he was certain the knights would be better company than she could ever be.
There were a few young servant children, but they were hardly suitable company for royalty.
He had gotten so desperate for a cure to his boredom that he had even tried to enter the council meeting his father and King Charming were at, but that was even worse than playing with the babies. They weren't telling stories of pirates and mermaids, or even sharing the latest news from the ogre war. All they could talk about were numbers, and crops, and the weather, for goodness sake.
One could only be expected to listen to so much talk of the weather before one got bored.
And when one got bored, he must certainly wander off into the deserted apple orchard to play. At least, that's what the young prince told himself as he swung from the trees, knocking apples off the branches on all sides.
Suddenly, he heard an unearthly cry go up from somewhere far away. A haze of green smoke was surrounding the castle.
Finally, something exciting was going on. The boy let out a whoop, and ran to find the adventure that awaited him.
When the castle was finally in sight, he fell silent, halted in his tracks. The guards…they were gone. But why? Where could they have gone? He raced back into the castle on his tiny legs, feeling a hint of fear for the first time in his short life. He ran into the castle, and came face to face with…no one. He ran, searching the rooms and the hallways for a sign of life, and found none.
He ran into the hidden room where he had left the men, and found nothing. There were no footprints, no swords left behind, and no bodies anywhere. An entire high council of men – including his father – was gone.
The prince was truly afraid now.
The boy ran up and down the halls, yelling for his mother, his father, a knight, anybody. He heard a high pitched whine echo his screams, and he ran through the halls searching for its source.
It was coming from the nursery, where he had left Emma happily burbling with her nurse just a few hours before. As he raced down the hallway, he noted that these halls were littered with toppled suits of armor. If Emma's cry hadn't been enough to tip him off, it would have been clear that someone had been here.
A stream of bright light was coming out from underneath the door. He flung the door open, and instantly regretted it.
A woman stood over Emma's crib, surrounded by a red haze of magic. The prince had briefly learned about this in his lessons with his father – red magic was evil, something to be avoided at any cost. Its power was limitless, but the price one paid to use it was never worth the benefits it gave. The woman's face was the only thing visible in the room; the light was too bright to make out anything else. He tried to quietly shut the door, but it was too late.
He had been spotted.
"Why, don't be shy, dear," the woman cackled. "I wouldn't let you leave anyway. Step one foot outside of that door and you'll suffer the same fate as your parents."
"My…my parents?" he asked. "What...what happened…to my parents?"
"You poor dear," she said. She dimmed the brightness of the magic and allowed him to take a better look at the scene around him.
His parents lay on the floor, surrounded by a growing pool of blood. Bright red stripes lined the entirety of their bodies, and the boy couldn't bring himself to look away.
"Mama…?" he pleaded quietly, unwilling to face the truth that lay on the cold floor ahead of him. "Papa…?" He lunged forward. It couldn't be them; they had to be imposters, wax figurines, something. His parents were alive, they had to be.
"Oh, no, dear, I'm afraid I can't let you do that," the woman snapped. With a flash of her fingers she sent the boy flying back several feet, sending him straight into a wall. "You see, I still have to decide what to do with you. Your parents defied me by trying to protect this infant, but you..."
"Please, please don't kill me," the little boy pleaded, tears streaming down his face. "I don't care about Emma, I just want to live, and I want my parents back, and I want things to be normal again."
Contemplating his answer, the woman rubbed her chin. "Hmm. Perhaps you could be of use. Not right now, obviously, but perhaps later…I'll tell you what, my dear boy. I will let you live. Your parents are dead. No force in this world can bring them back; I know that better than anyone. But just this once, I will allow you to escape me with your life intact. However…we can't have you telling the whole castle what you know."
"I promise that I'm really good at keeping secrets! I can do it, I know I can. You can go and take Emma with you and I won't tell anybody, ever!"
"Not good enough, my dear. I need a guarantee that my secrets will never be spilled. I hereby curse you: henceforth, no one will believe the words that come out of your mouth in regards to your past, to the events of today, or to myself. They will be seen as lies, and you will be seen as nothing more than a pathetic liar. No one will place any credit on the words that spill from your mouth, and you will never be able to explain what has happened to you. But you will remember everything, my dear. You will remember everything, but you will be able to share nothing with the ones around you."
The woman grabbed the broom that was propped up in the corner of Emma's nursery. To the young prince's amazement, the broom began to float in the air. The witch snatched the child, balanced herself on the broom, and turned back to meet the boy's terrified eyes one last time.
"I will be back for you, Killian. I will be back, and you will help me."
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