Smarmy growls like a wolf, his kindly face crumpling momentarily. Just as suddenly, it smooths. "Of course," he says. "You!"
Marietta looks up sharply, her short neck straightening up in respect.
"You are dismissed, my dear." Smarmy horse-smiles as she bows her way out of the room. Your Uncle watches as she leaves the palace, practically galloping down the path back to the village.
"Very well, nephew." Smarmy stands beside you, his horse-teeth big and square and rotted. "Let us tell the people. I will gather them to hear you speak. As for you... wait here for the moment. You have much to process."
He is right. You mind feels as if is is made of stone. All the pieces of it smash together, crunching and screaming against one another, all so slow. You are an orphan. The king, your father, is dead.
Lost in the sorrow, you don't smell the smoke until it is too late. The fire starts near the door; you finally sense it only when the heat on your backside becomes so uncomfortable that you turn, watching the hungry flames leap from the doorway onto your father's blankets. They race upward, and the bed becomes a pyre for your father's corpse. Stricken, you waste moments staring at the fire blackening his proud coat before your instincts take over. You stumble backwards.
The room's windows look out into the cool blue sky. You run for them, away from the terrible inferno that by now dances around all your father's fine cloths and draperies.
The glass of the windows shatters and tears into your flanks, and then you fall into that blue.
The landing does not instantly kill you. Before the dark takes you, you experience pain that lasts an infinity and no time at all.