The Sixth Prince looked at me, his right eyebrow slightly raised, smile slowly placing itself in a small smirk that was too childish for him, and yet was so much him I almost started crying again.

That effortless smile of his that radiated an inner calm not many people could even try to copy, much less had naturally.

There was a glint to his eyes that I could not guess at what meant, even though he was nothing but a child.

I still couldn’t read him. Still couldn’t understand why he did as he did, or what his next step would be.

Or, I supposed, it was just a figment of my imagination, and I couldn’t think up a version of him I would be able to understand.

“I would very much like it if you would eat. If you do not have a full stomach, delusions and lies might fill it and come out of your mouth as I try to question you. It is for my sake that you must eat. Do you agree?” He asked.

Without thinking I gave a small nod and reached out for a piece of bread. It was fluffy and warm. I didn’t put anything on it.

It was in my mouth before I caught myself.

What… had just happened?

He had gotten me to eat, simply by asking me.

Right?

That was the only thing that had happened. He had not threatened me or used any magic on me. He hadn’t forced me. He had simply phrased it in a way where my mind and body agreed that it was the best course of action, and so it obeyed without any question.

It was terrifying.

But only for a moment.

Because when I looked at him and saw the smirk had changed to a barely disguised grin, I couldn’t help but feel even more lost. He was so happy with himself at that moment, he almost couldn’t contain his laughter.

He wasn’t terrifying.

Just a child that had successfully pulled off a prank on another child, though I did not quite understand how.

Was this really The Sixth Prince, the one who could make a normal chair look like a throne, the one who put appearance before all else and would rather die in a way he could control than run and fight?

And yet… 

The way he had spoken, the way he held himself. Child he might be, but the royal air that hung from him had peeked out and made me want to eat despite all my own misgivings.

I shook my head. There was no way.

There was no way any of this was real. Him, the food, the hunger, me.

This was a dream, and the dream had made me eat away the hunger it had given me. The hunger that had led me here.

Maybe the purpose of the dream was to meet him. For what reason, I did not dare guess.

“Good. Now. Can you tell me if you have seen anyone while you have been here? Anyone at all?” He asked, looking at me but giving away nothing. There was no question in my mind about what he wanted to know.

Had The Fourth Prince been here?

I opened my mouth to answer yes but stopped.

Dream it might be, but everything in me told me to not betray The Fourth Prince. He was still my savior. The person who made sure I never went hungry. Gave me clothes, a purpose. Made me into everything I was.

But I also couldn’t betray the child standing in front of me, looking at me with those pure purple blue eyes.

With great effort, I ate another bite of bread, drank some of the juice that had been poured in a tin cup, and talked.

Carefully. Slowly. Like the child I seemed to be.

“I’m not sure who it was, or how long it’s been, but there was an important-looking man standing and knocking outside the door with two big men, one on each side. They had weapons. They knocked a lot and then the important-looking man got angry and they went away,” I said, keeping any significant details away.

I didn’t have it in me to fully betray someone I had sworn my life to, but The Sixth Prince would be able to gather enough from this much, I was sure.

“This important-looking man…” The Sixth Prince started, but stopped himself immediately. Instead, he started taking some of the expensive mold cheese on a bread, and took a bite out of it himself.

I was utterly shocked.

Not at someone willingly eating mold. I had seen that being done at court and while I avoided it myself, it was supposed to be a delicacy.

But at The Prince.

What was he doing?

“Uhm… You… Shouldn’t you…” I tried, my mind almost dying as he kept going, unbothered by my clear confusion.

“Am I not allowed to eat any of the food that I brought, myself? For someone who did not want it, you suddenly seem rather greedy,” he chuckled, and then took another bite, seemingly enjoying it immensely.

It wasn’t that I was greedy or wanted it all for myself. It was rather that I had never seen him eat… anything… ever…

His little mouth devoured the piece of bread in such an ungraceful manner that he might as well have lived on the streets with me, fighting starvation and eating with a deep hunger whenever there was anything to eat.

“Don’t they feed you?” I couldn’t help but ask, thinking of the castle where there were the most delicious and expensive food served multiple times a day, a free-for-all for the royalty who lived there.

Why was he eating bread with me, right beside a pile of trash, on the street, in town, when he was supposed to be amongst gold and jewels, eating carefully roasted meats that had spent all day on the fire, slowly roasting to such tenderness it would melt on his tongue?

“This is my food. I live there,” he said, pointing towards the door.

I was shocked.

“Where?” I asked, sounding as dumb as I felt.

Had I mistaken The Sixth Prince for a peasant, purely because of the eyes? Was the dream messing around with my memories and creating new ones, as I previously thought, because this did not actually happen?

Was this just a baker’s child who was made to look like how I thought The Sixth Prince would be as a child?

“What’s your name?” I asked, needing to know desperately just how far gone I really was.

“My… name…?” He asked, taken aback for a moment before he gathered himself.

I could see it happen. He placed one puzzle piece after the other, until there was no trace left of surprise and only an effortless smile.

Except… 

I had seen it.

I had seen the effort put into it.

My mind was messing with me.

“Lyric,” he said, smiling softly at me, “You can call me Lyric. Who are you?”

“Ma– “

Mallis.

“Mal. You can call me Mal…” I said, trying not to sound as uncertain as I felt.

Lyric was an anagram for Cyril. Either the dream was trying to be funny or I wanted him to be Cyril so badly that my mind was the one who scrambled things apart and put them back together in a way that was nearly and almost but not quite right.

I didn’t want to give my name to ‘Lyric’. I didn’t want to hear him say it in that tender way he did the last time I saw the real him.

I wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“When do I die… When does this dream end…” I whispered to myself, thinking that saying it out loud might just end it all.

It didn’t.

“I wonder the same thing, sometimes,” Lyric said and took another piece of bread. He chewed it thoroughly and then kept on talking, “but things will simply be as they are supposed to be. You, like I, must have been born with that kind of lot in life.”

I couldn’t do this anymore.

If this was meant to be torture, it was working.

Despite having eaten, my stomach dropped. My throat tied itself in knots. My eyes were slowly drowning in tears that once again welled up.

I had no control.

My sin was right in front of me, saying almost the same thing he did just before I killed him.

There was no world where I didn’t deserve this punishment, and yet I could not stay here.

So… 

I ran.

I ran away from the food, from the trash.

From him.

Pain all too real shot up all over, but I ignored it. I couldn’t stay there anymore.

I heard a “Mal!” being called behind me, but I didn’t look back. I refused to look back. Living with my sin was one thing I thought I could endure, but having to relive it when he had the face of a child was too cruel.

Just what sort of poison had The Third Princess given me?

Would I need to kill him here, as well? Would that let me escape? Would I have to relive my sins in different ways until I lost my sanity and finally broke beyond repair?

Would I finally find peace, then?

There was too much innocence. Too much life left unlived. If that was truly what I needed to do, I could not.

Even just as a baker’s son, I could not bear to see that smile as I killed him, again.