Chapter Text
Several winters ago…
The snow was deathly cold under Felix’s knees.
He was sprawled on the ground, his head in his hands, his legs pressed onto the floor, goosebumps scorching along his arms with the force of the chill that was wracking through him.
But the cold wasn’t even the worst part. The winter wasn’t even what was truly hurting Felix. The worst part was the absolute shredding pain that was searing through his chest. His heart was torn apart, his lungs ripping against his ribs, his entire body shaking with the brutal sobs that felt like they were trying to shatter him to pieces.
Felix could feel winter breaking against his skin, making him want to press himself in the snow and drown in it. But even the ice in the air wasn’t enough to sedate the burning pain that was boiling like molten lava in his core.
Felix couldn’t believe it had happened so quickly.
He was barely even a teenager, just a young boy, and in the space of just a few hours everything had been taken from him.
They’d never seen it coming.
Felix had been tending to the fire, waiting for another peaceful evening of cooking with his father, when the front door was suddenly thrown open and ripped off its hinges. Felix had jumped so harshly he’d scalded himself, but that seemed so stupid, so irrelevant, compared to what had happened next.
It was the Kingdom Knights. They’d ransacked through his house, hissing about wizards and sorcerers and the absolute evil of magic and Felix had felt his heart drop when he realised they were speaking about his father.
Felix’s father. The only person in Felix’s life. The one who raised Felix after losing his mother during childbirth, the one who’d loved him and taught him, in secret, how to make the world a beautiful place.
But the royal family didn’t think magic was beautiful, they thought it was satanic, and anyone found to be practicing it was immediately sentenced to death.
Felix had tried to fight back, he’d tried so hard, but he was just a freezing young boy struggling against a whole army of knights. He’d been forced to watch, amongst the shivering crowds in the town square, as his father was led up to the execution post and punished for his crimes.
Felix had screamed and cried and begged, his voice no doubt piercing and heart-breaking in the air, but no one had helped him, all too scared of meeting the same fate.
Night had fallen since then, bringing with it the true bite of winter, but Felix hadn’t moved. He was still knelt exactly where he’d been when his father had been killed. He was still sobbing, his entire body shivering and crying in the snow.
He couldn’t go back to his house, not when the knights had ransacked it, and there was not a single person in the town who would take him in after what happened. He was alone with nowhere to go.
And it’s not like Felix would have wanted to go anywhere. He wanted to stay with his father. He wanted to stay at the same spot forever, the spot where he’d seen his father for the last time.
Felix sobbed harder.
He tried to pull his measly jacket around himself, but the action only caused Felix’s hair to fall in his face and that brought with it a fresh wave of pain.
Felix’s hair, unlike anyone else’s in the town, was a luscious blond. It was almost white, shining like silver in the winter and sunshine in the summer. It fell beautifully round his face, forever healthy and gorgeous and attracting the attention of anyone who saw him.
Felix loved it.
The blond colour was a result of a spell gone wrong when Felix was a baby. His father had been trying to cast a protection spell on him, but something had malfunctioned and Felix had ended up losing all his hair. His father had later described his shock when, a few days later, Felix’s hair grew back bright blond.
They’d tried everything. Hair dye. Hair cuts. Bleach. But nothing worked. Felix’s hair stayed blond and beautiful no matter what they did, and Felix couldn’t say he hated it. Him and his father just told people it was a result of a stray gene from Felix’s mother’s side of the family and both fell in love with Felix’s gorgeous, wintery looks.
But now, as Felix’s hair fell into his face, sticking to his cheeks with his tears, his pain only pulsed harder. He felt a fierce hatred settle in his gut, concocting like a cauldron in his stomach and making him growl and clutch at his hair.
He screamed as he tried to rip it out, agony sizzling through him as his nails dug into his scalp and the strands tugged mercilessly against his skin.
But it was useless. Felix’s hair was stubborn and magic was even more stubborn and Felix was no match for it.
He was no match for anyone anymore.
As much as his father would scold him for it, Felix had accepted that he was basically left for dead.
His hands fell to the ground, fisting in the snow and crushing the ice between his fingers. It was cold. So goddamn cold. Like the king had killed Felix’s father, the winter was going to kill him.
But then Felix’s whole body tensed at the biting sound of footsteps.
The group of footsteps crunched against the ground, thick boots crushing snow with every step. Felix tried to curl into himself, tried to hide his face in his hands, but he whimpered when he accidentally rubbed ice over his skin, no doubt attracting the attention of whatever group of people were walking through the night.
Felix realised way too late that the footsteps were coming towards him.
He flinched back, throwing his head up and whimpering again when he saw the Kingdom Knights, their eyes set firmly on him. They had helmets covering their faces and spears in their hands and yet the sharpest thing Felix could feel was their glare stabbing into him.
Felix tried to scramble to his feet, but his legs were too cold and shaky and he ended up crashing back onto his knees. A hot arrow of anger pierced his chest when he heard the knights laughing at him.
They’d had the guts, the audacity, to kill his father and leave him and now they were coming to what? To tease him? To taunt him? To finally finish the job and kill him?
Felix knew he was shivering out his mind, and that he was most likely not going to make it through the night alive, but he was damn sure he wasn’t going to let the Kingdom Knights take him down without a fight. Not after everything they’d done.
Felix let out a pathetic little growl when they stopped a few feet away from him. The noise wasn’t enough to scare any of them, but Felix smelt a small surge of pride when he saw a few knights blinking at him in surprise.
“I’d keep that mouth shut, boy,” one of the knights snarled back, Felix refusing to let himself be scared.
“And why should I?” Felix retorted back, feeling himself wince at the way his voice shook, “What more could you take from me?”
“I could take everything,” a new voice spoke this time, a voice that was far too regal to be a knight. It came from the back of the group, Felix furrowing his brow when all the knights stepped aside and revealed…
Felix felt his heart the drop.
The king.
The actual king. The ruler of the kingdom. The one who’d ordered the death of Felix’s father.
He was standing in the snow a mere few feet away and staring down at Felix, his gaze hard and angry. Felix shivered harder, his stomach sinking with a very nasty feeling.
The king started to take slow steps towards Felix, walking between the parted knights like he had control over every single one of them. Felix wanted to run, wanted to hide, but he also wanted to throw himself at the one who’d destroyed everything he loved.
Instead, Felix just curled up tighter on the floor.
He could feel the king’s glare boring into him, practically cutting him open and exposing him to all he wanted to see.
And yet, Felix refused to give in. He refused to bow. He looked back up at the king, meeting his glare with one of his own and refusing to back down.
“I thought I’d find you out here,” the king eventually said, the words pronounced like they were poison, “You’re a wicked little boy. And I, as your king, have to do everything in my power to make sure you don’t end up like your wretched father.”
Felix felt a growl start in his chest, burn through his throat and lash off his tongue like an animal. All his weakness was damned as he threw himself at the king, blind rage wrenching through him and controlling his hands like a puppeteer.
“You know nothing about my father!” Felix spat, barely even noticing the grips that wrapped around his arms and shoved him back, “I’d be lucky to end up like him! I’d rather end up like him than as a disgusting murderer like you!”
Felix didn’t even realise what he’d said until his struggling was stopped by a harsh sting to his cheek. He flinched, going slack in the knights’ arms as he tried to process the burning pain in his icy face.
The king was stood over him, hand still raised with the slap he’d delivered.
“Your father may have raised you to be disrespectful, but I am your king,” the king hissed, “I could have you executed for speaking to me like that, boy.”
Felix looked back up, glaring at the king through his bright bangs.
“Go on then, do it,” Felix snarled out through gritted teeth, “Kill me like you kill everyone else, you sick monster.”
The king’s glare hardened to rock and Felix tensed, expecting another slap, but instead Felix just felt another blaze of fear and fury course through him as the king leant down, bringing himself so he was eye-level with Felix, barely an inch from his face.
“You’re lucky I have use for you, boy,” the king whispered, his voice curling at the edges with his growl, “You’re lucky your father raised you to be such a brute. I can see you know how to defend yourself, magic folk like you are always dirty like that.”
Another lightning bolt of anger struck Felix’s chest. He roared, throwing himself against the knights’ grips and almost head-butting the king. But the knights were much too strong for him, and Felix was still too cold and distressed to even fight back when the king grabbed his chin in a biting grip.
“Don’t think you’re irreplaceable,” the king spat in his face, “I can find another delinquent like you if I need to. Don’t think I won’t put you up there.”
With that, the king harshly turned Felix’s head, forcing him to look at the execution post that still stood tall and proud in the town square.
Felix felt himself go limp, another explosion of pain rattling through his chest as he looked at what had killed his father. Tears rushed to his eyes, a sob escaping his chest despite how hard he tried to stop it.
He hated to admit it, but Felix knew his father never would forgive him if he ended up dying exactly how his father did. Felix knew he couldn’t let that happen to himself.
He dropped his head, submitting to the knights’ grip and trying to ignore the absolute devastation bleeding through him as the king laughed.
“That’s more like it,” the king taunted, his voice feeling like knives against Felix’s skin, “That’s the quiet little boy I need.”
Felix managed to raise his head, looking at the king through his tears, “What do you want from me?”
His voice was small, too small, and he hated himself for the way the king looked down at him smugly.
“I have use for you,” the king said, “My middle son, the Second Prince Changbin, is around your age and just starting his royal duties. He rejects every single form of protection I give him. Maybe you can help.”
“How the hell would I protect him?” Felix couldn’t help but let the sarcasm leak into his voice, tensing again when the king gave him another angry look.
“I figured my son would actually enjoy getting to boss around a mindless little criminal like you,” the king said, his voice harder this time, “You can fight, I know you can, which means you can protect him and let him walk all over you like the prince he is.”
Felix felt his heart squeeze, nausea starting to curl in his stomach as he processed the words. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to stick his head in the snow. He wanted… he wanted his father back.
What Felix definitely didn’t want was to take care of the bratty little son of the man who had killed his father.
But then the king grabbed Felix’s face again, leaning in so close Felix felt every single one of his words smack him in the face.
“If you fail,” the king twisted his lips disgustingly around what he was saying, “Then you end up like your father.”
Felix gagged.
The king jumped back, yelling about how Felix was a disgusting brat, perfect to be something as looked down-upon and mistreated as a knight. Felix wanted to refuse. He wanted to refuse so badly.
But he couldn’t.
His fate was sealed.
Felix looked back up at the king, his entire body screeching at him to stop. But he forced himself to meet the king’s gaze, forced himself to nod, forced himself to endure it as the king broke out until evil maniacal laughter.
“That’s a good boy,” the king laughed, “I think we’ll make an excellent knight out of you.”
Felix swallowed heavily. He was now a Kingdom Knight.
Felix was charged to protect the family that had killed his.
He collapsed in the knights’ arms, his entire body going numb as he let them drag him away. The king was rambling about Felix’s new duties, about how much he was going to hate them, but Felix could barely hear him over the high-pitched ringing in his ears.
Felix cast one last glance back at the execution post.
I’m sorry father, he thought.