A silvery ray of light squeezed through the curtains in one of the many rooms of the Masteria palace. This room was decorated beautifully and, like all others, bloomed gold and royal red. A young man lay in bed, the covers pulled over his face.
One of the palace servants, who looked not a year older than nine, pushed through the young man's dormitory doors quietly and slugged to his bedside, bowing his head. "Prince Domeki," the servant said respectfully.
The young man grumbled. "What is it," he groaned. What could father want from him at this time of day?
"The late monarch King Karogen Rihdan, your father, has passed," the servant boy said solemnly.
Domeki bolted upright, eyes widened. He turned his head slowly to the servant boy with difficulty. "When was this," he gulped.
"Early sunrise," the servant boy replied.
Domeki faced the mirror across the room. He saw his face – shocked, bewildered, excited. "Then why were the bells not rung?"
"Sire," the boy said with a strange emphasis, "The bells were rung." He peered up at Prince Domeki's face with curiosity.
"I… I did not hear them ring…" Domeki's eyes welled up with tears, full of sorrow and intrigue. He swallowed the lump in his throat, and looked at the servant boy's curious face. "Leave me," he ordered, and at once the boy had fled the room. Domeki stared at his hands. "Father… passed…" he whispered. The thoughts of his father's body, which lay lifeless in a casket, sent a wave of grief throughout his body. At the age of ten, he had lost his precious mother. Now, only four years later, God has punished him by taking his father away. What a cruel world, he thought in self-pity. What a bitter end, what a demeaning punishment!
Then his mind lit up with another thought. With his father's passing, that made him the next in line for the throne. Although Yurei is older, the first in line to the throne is always the first-born son. Not the daughter, the son. Domeki was now king. Everything in the Masteria province – all of it belonged to him; the homes, the peasants, the money (O, how he loved the money!), the mountains… everything. Domeki's eyes streamed tears, not knowing if they were tears of pain or euphoria. For a brief moment, Domeki was ecstatic that his father was dead.