Troubled Shores

"I want my Mama! Pleathe, I want Mama," Jarred screamed once again, "Pleathe, pleathe, take me back to my Mama!"

Jarred had been screaming for hours and no-one had come, he stopped screaming and looked around at the cabin that Lord Gregory had imprisoned him in again. It was clean and had a small bed with a stuffed straw mattress and a warm woollen blanket and plain, white sheets; his favourite toy, Bink-bink, a Kin doll that he had had longer than he could remember, lay reassuringly on the pillow. The small cabin also boasted an ornate chest for clothes; a small wooden washstand secured to the cabin walls, carved in with the same design as the chest; and a small pot and strips of plain undyed cloth for obvious uses. It was comfortable, but Jarred did not really care, if fact as he was so used to luxury this was not much of a room to him, he thought it quite dull and he felt sick because of the motion of the boat. He wanted Jasmine to come get him, she always looked after him, she always cuddled him, comforted him, she was always there, 'Why wasn't she here NOW?'

Then, suddenly he remembered what Lord Gregory had said to him, and felt as if he was actually going to throw-up, "You stay here Jarred, and if you are a good boy there will be nothing for you to worry about." That was what he had said to him when the blind fold and those awful ropes had been untied; they had not taken the gag off straight away. Jarred had been told that he was going to Camira to marry Marissa, and that his parents had been glad to be rid of him and his mischief. "Especially," Lord Gregory had said with a sneer, "Your Father." He remembered this last remark his eyes filled with hot tears as he thought of how much his Father had yelled at him that morning, it must be true, his Father did not love him, he had given him to Lord Gregory to get rid of him.

Jarred lay down as the tears fell from his eyes and down his cheeks and pulled the blanket up over his head. He rolled over so that he was curled up around Binky. He lay there alone, without his mother there to comfort him, in that bare, dark room and cried himself to sleep.

Endon was sitting under the climbing tree, this was The Place, whenever the twins wanted to play by themselves, or perhaps set up a plan to set the Grand Duchess of Tamar's dress on fire; The Place was where they went.

Endon squeezed his kin doll, Kinky, very tightly, he was very scared for his little brother. He always knew how Jarred was feeling, and he knew that right now, his little brother felt really, really scared and really, really upset. He thought of how he had woken up last night, feeling his brother, curling into a ball to mimic what his brother was doing hundreds of miles away, and moaning over and over again, 'They don't love me, they don't love me…" That was what Jarred was saying, that was how Jarred was feeling, and Endon could not bear it.

Jasmine could not eat, she could not drink, and she could not sleep. She shook where she sat, she suffered from anxiety attacks, she needed her little boy back, she needed to hold him and tell him how much she loved him. "Oh, that evil man, I am going to make him pay, he is going to rue the day the demons of Hell ever spawned him."

For three days, she had been barely alive, but now it was if she was waking up from a terrible nightmare as a clear thought finally punctured through her misery, "I have to go and get him."

"Leif will never let you," said the practical part of her brain, "he will say that it is too dangerous."

"I'll just have to make him see that I have to go!"

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Leif could not read the page in front of him, it blurred before his eyes, and he could not read a thing about the agricultural state of Dread Mountain. He had tried to rouse support from other neighbouring countries to help get his son back but all of their replies, although sympathetic, had been useless. The tone of all of the correspondence being, "We are terribly sorry but our relationship with Camiro is an important political matter for us, and we cannot endanger it," in other words, they were all terrified of what the world power would do if they went against their wishes.

"Oh Gods, I need to save him, I need to get him back. Endon is pining after him; I have not seen him touch his food for the last three day. He's scaring the living daylights out of me, I still can't believe what he said last night, it sent chills running up and down my spine, 'he's scared Daddy, he wants to come home, but he's scared you don't love him anymore…he's scared.'

"And Jasmine, my poor dear Jasmine, she is haunted, she hasn't gotten out of bed in days, she looks terrible…but I don't suppose I look any better…"

"I have got to get him back!"

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Obsidian Crystal