His brother's office was trashed. Papers strewn everywhere, bookshelves defiled of organization– tomes, and scrolls opened-ripped and thrown from their shelves in wild anger. He'd emptied the desk drawers of their contents. Inks, quills, and pens scattered, goopy pools of black staining a deep blue rug. His hands pressed and prodded at every brick and every nook and seam, searching for any hidden room he was not aware of. Even the furniture was moved from its original spots. Dragged about, tipped on their sides, cushions flipped and scattered. He'd done it on purpose. He could have snooped through everything without leaving a trail. But instead he destroyed the room in the process. Esali wanted the bastard to know he was furious.
"Guards!" He shouted.
Two men entered, one in informal and rugged leathers and one in a neat uniform of pale sand. One of his brothers' men and one of his fathers clones.
"You are not to let any maids enter this room! I want no one to clean it!"
"Yes, your highness." His brother's man, a fellow biting a lip in contained amusement, bowed immediately while it took a moment for the clone to follow. The clones were never too good at taking orders from anyone beside their creator. He looked for his master before rules and etiquette registered in his head and he bowed to the crown prince.
Esali stormed past, leaving his own guards(another duo of men) stumbling behind him. The sounds of slippered feet slapping smooth marble echoed through the wing as he stormed towards his next destination. The formal office had yielded no results, but the one connected to Yuens personal quarters would probably hold more sensitive information.
His hand grasped onto a handle and he slammed his shoulder into locked doors. Pressure rose and his eardrums popped as magic of a ward clashed into his body and he stumbled back. A blink and fiery rage rose within him. His tantrum threatened to turn violent as a thousand thoughts of how to destroy the doors unfolded in his mind. A brief moment of imminent emotional explosion was snuffed out by a pink hand on his shoulder, steadying him.
"Your highness." A voice like a smooth river purified the air in a momentary calm. Wyn, who had taken the morning to meet with the military council about promotion, was met with a face that had begun to look deranged. Esali's eyes were heavy and tired, and their crystalline amethyst did not sparkle. His hair had grown out some and was hastily tied with a white ribbon, ringlets messily falling from its hold. A bottle of nectar from Yuens office was held in one hand and he swayed with a whining sigh and stumbled in Wyn.
"Please, Wyn." Hot breath with nectary notes of amber and milk caressed his cheeks. One arm was wrapped around him and an accusatory finger was thrust at the accursed doors. "Please, open the doors for me." Esali begged.
Wyns eyebrows knitted together. He hated seeing Esali in such a state, it ate at him. He'd watched the prince spiral after his brother's departure. A slow unravelling unlike anything Wyn had witnessed of him before. He was a prince and an heir who often had the tantrums and meltdowns to match, but this was different. "I do not know who created that ward, your highness." The swordsman did his best to keep composed in front of the other guards. Standing rigid and gently lowering the prince to the ground when he decided to collapse.
"Then help me blow the damn wall down!" He wailed, fat tears springing to his eyes.
"Just a couple more days and Prince Yuen will return." Wyn softly stroked lilac curls, desperation to calm him pulling at his heart.
"Something is wrong," Esali was sobbing now, heaving breaths between every sentence. "I can feel it in my blood. Something is wrong and the answer is behind that door! Why else would he have enchanted it!?" He ended in a scream of rage, and his arm flew out, almost smacking Wyn, and little purple petals erupted from his palm. Hundreds of thousands that shot at the door unnaturally hard and sharp. The ward wobbled, great 'whomping' sounds bellowing through the halls. Petals rained around them, spreading across the floor and filling the hallway in a wave of shimmering wisteria. They slit into the wood, stuck and layered so thick the doors became entirely floral. Covered in his assault the ward held strong and did not allow the wood to break.
He pulled his hand away, his rage dwindling with the burst of the attack. The hall was flooded. Only the floor around Wyn and Esali remained bare. The two guards stood sternum deep in purple a few meters away, both looking a little anxious.
The bottle in his hand clattered as it hit the floor. Rolled in a half circle, its pearly contents spilled and soaking their knees. Esali listlessly rose, sparkling tears leaking from his eyes. Wyn's hands fell away as the prince shrugged him off, retreating from the halfway. His petals split for him. "You are dismissed. I'd like to be alone."
"I cannot-" As soon as the emperor's clone began to object, the petals sucked him in. Ripped the guard from his feet and pulled him under their surface. Purple silky pads exploded like confetti as the clone disappeared down the hallway and around the corner a scream trailing after him.
Then his floral sweet storm swept around him and he shot off, riding the flowers away from Yuens chambers and whatever secrets his brother had sealed in the bedroom.
It was surely responsible for the growing unease within him. It had started as a small discomfort, sitting with his father watching him flirt with the young treasurer. And it'd grown feverish and all consuming. A raging anxiety and paranoia that whittled away at his brain. Esali was going mad. He'd stared into the mirror many nights and had affirmed so. A craze had entered his eyes, and a neverending rise of bile burned his throat. His sternum swelled and his stomach sank as his body tried to convince him that devastation was a thin silk screen away.
It only grew worse day by day and today he'd broken. His energies fluxing in emotional turmoil, magic and petals carried him in a rapid blur through the palace.
The doors of his bedroom burst open, its familiar layout left in its disarray. Bedsheets strewn across the floor, not a single pillow on the bed. Half of the canopy strung up without care. Esali crashed through the room, petals and leaves exploding into even smaller versions of themself. Furniture in deep tones shook as his energy followed him. The air shimmered and a line of magic shot for his finger. It snagged an emerald duvet embroidered in leaves and reeled it back towards him. Petals tucked him into bed as he wept. The wisteria that grew across the ceiling of his chamber began to glow in luminescence as it ate from his unstable aura. After a moment it fell in sync with the strobing shine of his skin. New blooms formed and it began to rain purple, the great flowery cones multiplying with his tears.
Sweet and floral aromas did not dry his eyes but lulled him from his body, taking him through the veils of sleep and into the astral.
Placed him upon the soft thin grass that welcomed him. His petals, cupped and folded, fluttering down to join the lush green that enveloped him. He began to sink towards the void of true unconsciousness. The only place he had found relief from his misery.
The darkness pulled him down… then spun him around and little wisps of grass rolled beneath him as he was pushed to a surface. Red stained behind his eyelids and when he opened his eyes he found a sky wild crimson and churning. The endless green contrasting in vivid saturation.
He rose to his feet, sniveling with swollen wet eyes, and took in the field. It's endless expanses billowing and yet no wind blew. The green blades snapped then rushed him and Esali flinched, as they went past. Again they snapped and rolled towards him, but this time as they passed little wisps of grass gripped at his feet. Twirled around his soles and braided themselves between his toes and turned him.
The plummeting siren of doom struck him as he beheld a giant tower. The sorrow he had felt amplified and twisted from its pristine white walls. At the very top, obscured by rings of sunlight was a figure. Splotches bloomed in his vision as he squinted, trying to see around beams of light. The figure moved, adjusting its arms and Esali barely had time to react as he registered it as an archer taking aim.
He jumped to the right as an arrow whistled past. Another one ripped through his skirts.
Flowers tunneled from beneath him as he shot off into the field. Attempting to flee, he swiftly made away from the tower. Then searing pain followed a swift shuck as an arrow lodged into his shoulder.
He turned, hissing with his ears pinned back and found the tower right behind him.
Arrows littered the field as they chased him. Teeth bared and clenching his wound he ripped out the one in his shoulder. The pain quickly muted in the fuzz of the dream world. He circled around the tower, the archer remained obscured at every angle.
Annoyance and turmoil stitched into him, propelled him on as he cut towards the tower. Arrows raining down, he traveled the windowless sides. Rising its height and as he neared the top he sped up, out ran the archer. And when he finally breached the end of the brick, ready to attack with petals swarming his first, he found an arrow pointed right in his face.
Held rigid by a pale figure with inky hair.
His eyes widened, the anxiety buzzing in his veins. Then before the arrow left its draw, thick branches of grey and pale white came to warp around the figure.
.
Esali's eyes snapped open, jumping from his bed. A swipe of his hand and his flower were withering into dust. He ripped open the curtains to his balcony, found it empty.
Charged into the bathing room and also found nothing. He opened the doors and looked into the hallway. Only the guards he'd left behind earlier stood outside. He slammed them shut and looked under his bed.
Those grey and white branches seared into his vision and the energy of the night prince suddenly fogging up his room.
"Delta! I can sense you in here, come out!" He demanded. When no reply came he felt stupid.
Esali went back to the hallway, cracked the door open. "Was Delta out here?"
The guard shook his head.
He nodded, shut the door more politely this time. Searched everything once more and found no traces of the grey bastard. And yet his energy swamped the room; crisp sap, ink, and fire.
The crown prince knotted fingers in his hair, fighting the urge to scream as fresh tears leaked from him and coiled back into his bed.