The Lie’s Keeper

I’ve always striven to be the golden armor of my father’s heart. I’ve been anything and everything he’s needed: a clever strategist in times of complexity, a strong arm during kingdom conflict, his jester through moments of apathy, and a confidant in his darkest hours. I refused to simply exist in the role of a prince, I was father’s lifeline. Over the years, I earned my father’s love and recognition, but his favor always seemed just out of my grasp.

Pride beamed a bit more from his eyes when he turned to my eldest brother. Where I had charisma, my brother had discipline. Where I had charm, he had dedication. And when my father smiled, his joy radiated brightest for my youngest sibling. Perhaps it was a product of timing. She came into his life when he was older and had more time to enjoy, when the weight of the crown was less heavy on his head.

Truthfully, she was also a joy for me. With so many years between us, my little sister felt more like a daughter. Playing the role of jester in her company was never a chore but chosen, genuine fun. Our times together were a bright spot filled with laughter in a life otherwise full of royal obligations. She looked at me as if I was her whole world — something I had never experienced outside of our sibling bond. In her childish way, she treated me as if I was the earth she revolved around, the sun she admired and reflected. When she looked at me like that, it felt as though maybe one day, I could be as great and worthy as our father.

But in a jarring shift, this brightness was eclipsed. She looked up at me with her moonlit eyes, shimmering with innocence, yet her voice filled the air with blasphemy. She spoke against the greatest man I’ve ever known, our father. Her words tarnished his name with accusations too vile to even acknowledge, each one an attack on the heart of my world, my sun.

Father’s confiding voice echoed in my mind: his warnings about mother, hushed secrets about mother’s sanity unraveling, his concerns about her plotting mind, his keen perception of her hidden nature. He’d spoken of her deceptive abilities, she could distort even the most pure and wholesome bonds. Secretly, I was thankful to never have had a close bond with my mother. When he’d told me of these things, I swore to uphold the truth if his concerns came to fruition. Father trusted me, and for the first time, truly and wholly depended on me.

The moment, the confirmation of father’s words had now come to fruition. All that father confided in me was now standing in front of me in the form of a small, royal child. The Lie he’d warned me of was here, and it was spilling from my baby sister’s mouth. This was no innocent child’s confusion, this was proof of the Lie that father foretold would creep across the castle and spread its evil across our kingdom.

Her claims were sickening, repulsive. Each word fanned the flames building inside of me, burning hotter in my veins with each passing second. Looking down at her, I wondered how her eyes could appear so clear and innocent while she described such atrocious and disturbing things — the things of nightmares or a dark and twisted imagination. My father was wise, kind, and generous. The man she was describing was the monster in her fantasy. It was impossible, unthinkable, false.

But the source of the Lie was something I had never expected. It should’ve been my mother, as I had anticipated. I was not prepared for this. Not my baby sister. Not her being the source of this nauseating perversion. Her small voice painted our father as a monster who harms and exploits the young, a force of evil who taints children’s innocence — her innocence. Though her words were simple, the actions she described of father would’ve made him a depraved, warped man who steals what is not his to take. The untrue implications she spewed were filling me with revulsion.

The tempo of my heartbeat was quickening and thumping in my ears. With my eyesight colored by the blood pounding in my veins, my inner vision came together. Father’s wise warnings had been a blessing, but it was my intellect, my clarity in the face of evil, that unraveled the truth. Mother’s hands created this. She had taken the most innocent soul in our family and corrupted it for her own gain. She poisoned my little sister’s mind, coached her to lie, and used her as a pawn to bring harm to father. Mother’s Lie would not stand, and I was not afraid to ensure its erasure.

A primal, roaring force of truth possessed my voice as I confronted the Lie. My voice bellowed with righteous fury, shaking the walls of the room and encapsulating everything in its resonance. I challenged the Lie, questioned it, tore it to shreds with power and authority. The Lie was weakening, I could see the fractures in its stature. I could hear its hesitation and fear. The Lie was frail, tearful, and quivering, but unrepentant. It became clear that the Lie would not be broken by my words alone. To protect father, to protect truth, the Lie had to be eliminated at its root.

The booming strength of my voice was burning, dominating even my own ears. Through the blood-red mist that obscured my vision, I reached for the source of the blasphemy. The Lie yelped, cried in pain, and I pressed on. My rage had been amplified, it grew like a wildfire reducing all of the world’s evils to ash. The Lie was ultimately broken. Through the red, I beat the Lie into omission.

Then, it was quiet. The Lie became silent in the face of my righteously violent fury. My hands were shaking, stinging with the brutal force of truth. The Lie that once filled my ears with blasphemy and cries was finally unable to spread its poison. Its broken form was now collapsed into quiet sobs and shaky breaths. The Lie was shattered, its voice silenced.

I fought against my exhaustion, against the faint feelings of hesitance. My heart was still beating with the strength of a war drum, and the truth was still yet to be admitted. I interrogated the Lie, my voice remaining a biting, unrelenting weapon of justice. I would not allow the Lie to believe it could escape further consequences. Truthfully, I would not allow the Lie to live.

Leading the Lie to unravel its false words, I forced it to face its falsehoods. The Lie unraveled and recanted, finally admitting the truth that I had known all along. Soaking it all in, I felt like a priest who had just conducted the most intense exorcism of their life. With the demon exorcised, the blasphemy had been slain. The Lie was dead, and I had killed it.

My victory swelled my heart with pride. I imagined the next step, bringing my sister to my father. Perhaps we’d have a joint interrogation around the castle’s communal table. I’d show him how I’d proven the Lie’s falsity, how I’d killed the Lie, and preserved his honor. We could even hire a scribe to record our joint interrogation, creating an eternal record of the real, righteous truth. As I decided to execute this idea, I felt pride for my willingness to fight for my father, the truth, justice, the kingdom. The Lie would never live in my reality again. I’d spend the rest of my life ensuring it.

But then, the red in my vision slowly cleared, and I saw her. The face of a small child. The face of a princess. My little sister.

Her moonlit eyes no longer shimmered with admiration. They stared up at me, empty and glassy, full of an absence that was painful but inaccessible.

The Lie was dead, it no longer existed. But now, neither did she.