Chapter ten, Advice, for all those amazing readers out there! And now the review (already again - these ANs become shorter every chapter)!

SGJBMCfan98: Me too! I really hope for him it doesn't get any worse and thank you for the review!

Enjoy!

-Writer207

A few months later, Lanny was still a wreck. He hardly came out of his room, only to go to the toilet and to get some food. He also decided he didn't need Teagan to rub it in his face, so he dropped out of school again. He also even stopped trying to kill his cousins, Kings of Kinkow. But why would he stop with a hobby? Well, Lanny stopped because he hated that feeling he couldn't shake off. Guilt pressured him, anger crushed him like a bug and sorrow made him cry silent tears, only to be witnessed by Yama.

Killing someone was killing the killer from the inside out.

Whenever he was out of his room and met someone, they would say Lanny had become much angrier and violent. They knew what happened to his friend – except the Kings – and thus saw it as a way to try and digest this trauma. And the Kings thought up all sorts of explanations why their cousin was so angry the past few days, until they eventually found out when Mikayla told them. She thought the kings knew, but she was wrong. No, they kings just thought Lanny became a little grumpier thanks to puberty.

Nobody knew him, really. That's what came up in Lanny's mind when he heard of that little misunderstanding with the kings thinking he finally reached his puberty. That old hag didn't know him, because she had a bad memory anyway. The guards didn't know him, because they asked no questions and because Lanny himself didn't open up easily. Mikayla didn't know him, despite being older, because she was trained a guard and grew up uninterested in the prince. Especially the kings did not know him; they've only been here for months, too short to know their cousin well. And even when Tito had told the kings Lanny was evil (indirectly) they didn't believe the 'king', making Lanny believe the kings were the dumbest people on the island. Those bullies didn't know him, they just saw a scared obedient little troll prince. Heck, even Mason didn't really know him, even though he had been around for as long as Lanny could remember. The only two people who really know him, were Yama and Herald.

Recently, Yama had given Lanny the silent treatment since the fish thought Lanny should shake it off, because 'it's part of live' and 'it could have happened sooner'. The fish had stopped talking when Lanny told him he was wrong, because Herald had had his whole life ahead of him.

Herald…

He felt how his eyes teared up again, and also this time fought to let them stay there and tried not to let it go. From the corner of his eyes he saw how Yama rolled his eyes, and Lanny would've glared at his fish for doing that, but he just didn't think he still could. He might have even thought about giving Yama away to some other kid or just dump him in the sea, because their relationship just didn't work out anymore.

Someone knocked on the door, and Lanny looked up, surprised. Nobody ever came to his room – nobody! And, for the first time in his life, he didn't know what to do. He was prepared for practically anything, but he wasn't prepared for that one day someone who could not be Herald would want to visit him in his own room. So, being indecisive, he just didn't do anything and stayed on his bed. Whoever was standing at the door just entered, and Lanny tried to wipe those darned tears away of which he thought shouldn't be there in the first place – it happened months ago, it's way too late to mourn.

He groaned grumpily when he noticed his visitors were the kings he's tried to kill or wound in order to become the king himself. "What do you want?" he asked them, not even bothering to look at them.

"Well," Brady began, "we heard what happened to your friend." Lanny sighed, being annoyed. He knew they must feel just as awkward as he felt right now. They didn't usually talk about things like this, and the two only talked to sweet little Lanny when he passed them by accident or when he had a plan involving him talking to the kings. Plus, this is the first conversation they had in months, which made it even more awkward.

"If that's all, then leave!" Lanny said, but the kings seemed to refuse to move or just get out of their cousin's room.

"We're not leaving you here like this," Boomer said, "Did your friend have other friends?" Lanny slowly turned his head towards the two kings, almost boiling in anger because one of them dared to ask that particular question. Yes, he had – by accident they were also my life-long bullies! Not that you care about that.

"Yes," the young prince replied eventually. When the brothers heard this answer, they sat down on Lanny's bed. Knowing he wouldn't be able to get them out of his room anytime soon, he just let that burning hatred slide for a few minutes and decided to let them try and help him. The keyword being 'try', because they weren't really good with helping their cousin they knew almost nothing off.

"Well, how was their relationship towards him? Her? Your friend was a boy, right?" Brady tried, ruining it because he asked Lanny if his friend was a boy or not.

"Herald's a boy," Lanny said, and he almost started yelling at them, "And they're mean." Technically, those four irritating kids were mean, but he didn't know if they had been acting mean towards Herald. But they were mean to him, so they would be mean to others too, right? Boomer and Brady gave their poor cousin a sympathetic look and then Boomer continued talking to his cousin.

"If they were mean to him, you should probably talk to them. Maybe it was their fault he… you know…" Boomer was smart enough not to mention Herald's fate in front of his sorrow-struck cousin.

"I know who did it," Lanny said, his words not more then a whisper.

"Then you should talk to that person. Confront him." was what Brady said at his reaction, assuming Lanny didn't have anything to do with this. Assuming the harsh words Lanny spoke to his friend never affected the course of time. Assuming his friend had been alone. He's right, Lanny thought. Brady was right. He needed to confront the guy who did this. He needed to confront himself – that, or find the one Tarantula person who actually did the killing, but that was out of question.

He stood up and without saying a word he left his room. He didn't even care about the fact he left Brady and Boomer in his room unsupervised. He needed to do this, alone, and with a bit of luck, he could make himself think it didn't have to be his fault but that it had been just an accident with Herald being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Without noticing the change in environment, he left the castle for the first time in weeks – no, months – and walked on the route he used to take when going to school, but then without anyone. He'd be a very easy prey right now, but he didn't care.

All he cared about at the moment were his thoughts.

He almost didn't notice someone bumped into him. He fell back because of the impact, meaning the person who hit him must have been running. He stood up and that person did the same. Lanny recognized the boy as Teagan. The Elder's grandson looked anxious, maybe even scared, and seemed almost a bit too relieved when he noticed it was Lanny he bumped into.

"What are you doing?" Lanny scolded, and instead of answering his question, Teagan grasped Lanny's arm, started running towards the castle and then talked to the young prince.

"No time to explain, we need to get to the castle!" he said. When he let go of the arm, Lanny followed him, even though he had no idea what was going on. But when Teagan was scared, there probably should be a reason for Lanny to be scared, too. And so they ran to the castle. They were never going to make it.

Lanny stopped running when Teagan fell on the ground, with his stomach in the dirt. Curious about what happened, he stayed instead of running to safety. Teagan was still breathing, but he seemed to be unconscious. And, at the back of his neck, a little dart arrow had been shot. Conclusion: someone was hunting and saw them as the prey. Realizing the mistake of letting the unknown hunter come closer to him, he ran away again.

He hadn't known how far this person had been away from them, thus could impossibly know the dart meant for him would hit him after the third step. Lanny dropped to his knees and already felt how he became weaker every second, but giving in to it? Never! He would not allow himself to lie down, to shut his eyes, so who-knew-what could happen to him. He also grasped the dart and threw it away, to minimize the damage.

Every moment, Lanny fought. And every moment, Lanny did not want to lose, yet felt like he was. His whole body trembled. His eyes started to tear up because he did not want to close them, and through the tears, he saw a pair of black boots.

He didn't have much time to wonder about those boots, since another dart – or could it have been the same he had thrown away? – was being inserted in his neck. It was as if a needle pricked in the back of his neck, only this needle drugged him and made him lose consciousness, leaving him to wonder about the black boots of the unknown hunter.