The sun was shining through the leaves, always hitting him in the eyes every time he opened them. Iyan was about five years old at the time. He was laying in his mothers lap underneath a tree hidden deep in the gardens. He had escaped practice that morning and was hiding there until she found him. The whole palace was looking for him. But instead of bringing him back she sat down on the grass next to him and he just cried.
Iyan cried so much that it tired him out, he fell asleep right on her lap. Every time he would open his eyes and feel his mother's hand on his head Iyan would go back to sleep thinking she won't be there the next time he wakes up.
"Mom," he said once, "what does it mean to be the king?"
This was while his father was still a king and his mother a queen. Just as Arthein was about to become an Empire.
"I do not know Iyan." She said. "Nobody knows how to be a king."
"Why? How am I going to be a king if I don't know how to do it?" Just before practice that morning he heard his teacher talking to Sir Leo, how his training should become more intense now that he is next in line to the throne, a future emperor.
"Nobody knows how to be a king because nobody is meant to be a king."
"I don't understand." She picked him up and placed him in her lap, they were both looking at the palace in the distance. It was huge even from far away.
"Iyan, what do you see there, in the distance?"
"I see the palace."
"Look further away, what do you see beyond the palace?"
"The mountains."
"What is beyond the mountains?"
"A forest, more mountains, land."
"To whom does that belong to?"
"Father. The king."
"Who gave it to him?"
Iyan sat confused for a moment, he could not give an answer to that question. "His father?"
"Do you know why that land is his, why all of this is his?"
He shoke his head.
"Because he said it is. Iyan, a king, is a man who takes whatever he thinks belongs to him."
With all the spirit in him he asked. "How?"
"Because it does not belong to anybody and if it does not belong to anybody he can take it. Now look over there. What do you see there?" She pointed east, in the direction of the main gate leading to the city.
"The town is there."
"Was that town here before father became king?"
"Yes, long before him."
"Who does that land belong to?"
"King Arthur, he was the one who built it."
"One man is not enough to build a town, he needs people who will help him, who will live in it, who will work in it and who will provide for it. They must come and build houses, make families and feed off the ground they took. Who does that town belong to?"
"People claimed it for themselves, is it the people's town?"
"They have the privilege of claiming a piece of land, a house, a store, their own. Just as you call this land your home. Does that make every single one of them a king?"
Iyan thought for a moment. "No?"
"Why?"
"Because they did not claim the whole town as their own, the king would say the entire town is his, not just a piece of land."
"Would people who live there accept one man as their king? The one who came and said it is his even if he did not work for it."
"No. That is selfish."
"Yet he does not back down, the king tells his soldiers to beat the ones that disagree with him. He is the king even if they don't like it. What does the future of that town look like?"
The little heart in his body began to beat louder. "They will all die. There will be no town."
"So what can the king do with the land that has no people in it, who will he rule over? The rabbits and the crickets won't listen to him, the grass will not grow in the colour he wants, the wind will not blow away from his face just because he said so. A king needs people to rule over, people who he will guide and keep safe so they can each be their own king, on the land they live on."
"Will I make a good king mother?"
She stayed silent for long, looking at the palace in front of them, breathing very calmly. So much time has passed before she gave him an answer that Iyan saw many different clouds in the sky. "I do not know that Iyan, I do not know what it is like to be a king, I only know what a king is supposed to be like."
"Does father know?"
"I doubt he knows."
"Then who?"
"Nobody."
From what Iyan remembers, that is where their conversation ended because a maid from the palace found them. He knows exactly why he remembered that day now, when he was a step closer to becoming a king, an emperor, he is the crown prince now, something nobody can tell him how to do.
The day was a blur, he talked to a lot of people, Neftali bugged him about that woman Gabrielle again cutting the conversation with his mother short, there was fish served at the end for some reason. And all they he wondered. What is he supposed to do now?