Hidden

   He was dying; blood dripping from his mouth; his arm mangled and torn.  As he lay there on the ground, his blood watering the soil, a soft voice said, “You are the one.”

    Gasping for breath he lifted his head and tried to focus on the figure standing before him.  It was a young woman dressed in a white silk gown.  She knelt beside him and gently laid a hand on his brow.  Closing her eyes she began to sing a soft, lilting tune.  Darkness began to swallow him.   Before all vanished, a figure appeared behind the women. 

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    Rotern sat upright, his pulse pounding.  The quite snores of his little brother drifted over to him.  He glanced at the small figure laying there, his mouth slightly open, an angelic look on his face.  Fear snaked up and down his spine.  The dream had seemed real, too real.  

    Slowly, so as to not wake up his brother, he slipped into his clothes then climbed out of the loft into a tree.  His bare feet felt for the all familiar branches until he was able to drop to the ground.  Off in the distance a slight glow surrounded the mountains signalling that a new day was about to begin.

   Shoving his hands into his pockets he jogged across the hard dirt ground towards the small sloped roof stable.  The weathered wood showed its age.  For as long as Rotern could remember, this building had stood here.  It was his refuge, a place he went to when confused or angry.
    The door screeched a complaint as he pushed it open.  It was empty, just like it had been for the past month since raiders had taken all their livestock.  Rotern ground his teeth.  What he would not give to take a sword and go after them himself.   What egged him even more was that the king claimed to be trying to stop them.  “Sure he is,” he kicked a moldy pile of hay.  “He’s in liege with them. "  

    “I wouldn't go around talking like that.”

    Rotern turned and gave a sheepish grin to the tall figure. 

    His father gave him a hard look, “You don’t go around talking like that.  The king has ways of finding out when people say things against him.”

    Rotern rolled his eyes.  “Aren't you being too cautious?  We are way out here, how could he find out?” they had had this conversation before, but his father never gave a satisfactory reason.

    “You don’t know that.  We have to be careful.”  His father’s eyebrows drew together sharply over his dark eyes.

    Determination surged through his body.  He was going to get an answer, a real one.  “What are you hiding from me?  Why won’t you tell me the real reason?”

    Muscles flicked in his father’s cheek.  He turned and left, shoving an old rake out of the way. 

    Rotern eyes followed his father’s retreating back.  There is more.  There has to be.  He has never acted like that before.