At the onset of war, we mustn't fear. We do not cower. We do not hide. We raise our hand in battle, yet we never seek it out. To seek war is to lose our humanity, it is to be consumed by rage. But when struck first, is it not our duty, aye, our right, to strike back?
- Galath Areias, The First
I breathed in, holding the breath delicately as I pulled the bowstring back, careful to be silent as I aimed. The technique had been one of the last skills my father had taught me before his death. It had been three days since my last successful hunt and money was running dry. I knew that this arrow needed to hit its mark, or we would go hungry tonight. The deer obliviously continued to drop its head up and down, consuming the foliage below. It was a majestic beast, glossy brown fur with bits of white dotted in between. It had large prominent antlers and bright, intelligent eyes.
Holding my breath, I let my fingers slowly peel back from the bowstring; I watched the arrow fly through the air and strike the deer between the shoulder blade and its first rib with a loud thunk. I leapt forward, pulling a small blade from its scabbard at my hip. I knelt next to the creature, its shallow breaths showing its last signs of life. I positioned the knife above its neck and slowly pushed it in, finishing off the creature.
"May you pass on into the life beyond, may your soul reach its final destination, may your consciousness understand your life is not without meaning, and may your final moments be filled with peace." The mantra my father had taught me slipped through my lips in a quiet whisper. He had taught me that all life was important, and to take a life, even if for a purpose, must always be met with sorrow and regret.
If only King Tharion held any sorrow or regret.
—
Tears streamed down my face, sobs still escaping despite the hours it had been.
Father had been killed.
My mother picked me up hurriedly, carrying my small body away from our wagon, not even bothering to unload our belongings or tying up our horse. She rushed inside our house, accidentally slamming the door shut in her haste. She set me down and grabbed me by the shoulders. Her expression held many emotions, fear, confusion, but most of all, a raw, overwhelming sense of grief.
"Renric, listen to me," she started, voice shaking unsteadily, "This isn't your fault."
"Yes it is! I got him killed, if it weren't for me-"
"No!" She snapped, startling me, "Stop. It's not your fault." She simply repeated the statement again, as if she was still trying to convince herself it was true.
"I don't know what happened," I began to give an explanation, despite her never asking for one, "one second I was watching the race and then, and then-"
"Renric," She interrupted, her face slowly morphing from pure grief into a stern expression. "Promise me you will never use it again," The sternness disappeared almost as quickly as it had come, "I- I can't lose you too." She said, tears streaming down her soft, beautiful face. Her confusion was still evident. Being from common blood, the inner workings of the Veil were but a fairy tale to us. However, one fact stood above all the mystery.
Only those with royal blood could awaken to the Veil's power.
"I won't mama, I promise I won't."
At my last word it seemed almost as if all the strength had left her body, she sagged into me, heavy, as if she had gone entirely limp. She let out a cry as if her voice could reach the gods themselves and ask for a miracle. I embraced her, my small arms not even able to reach each other behind her back.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, "I'm sorry."
—
"Mother, I've returned!" I yelled through the open door as I dragged the animal into the house. I spotted her by the fireplace, attempting to toss another log into its smoldering remains. My entrance sparked very little acknowledgment from her, eliciting only a small sound from her lips as I entered the house.
"Sit mother, let me." I called over softly, setting down the deer from my shoulder gently on the floor. Her hands shook, slowly lowering the log, but she did not sit till I reached her side. Only then did she fall back slowly into the rocking chair that had been there for so many years.
"You need some sun mother," I said as I dragged open the curtains to let the light into the dark room. "You are pale." I filled a cup with the tea I had left above the fire and slowly turned to face her.
It had been 5 years since fathers death, and yet, it was almost like she had aged 5 decades in that time. Her eyes were swollen with pronounced veins from repeated strain, as if she had recently been crying. Fine lines formed around her eyes and mouth, and there was a dullness to what was once her embracing exterior. She had a head of gray hairs despite her relatively young age, and her posture was hunched, unable to muster the courage to face the world.
"Renric, perhaps I should accompany you to Darrowmere tomorrow, surely-" I interrupted her mid sentence, placing the cup to her lips, letting her take a small sip before placing it back down.
"It's alright mother," I assured her. I knew that despite the passage of time, she was not ready to face our past.
She sighed, hunching even further down. Her earlier resolve quickly fading from her small frame. "Twelve." She croaked quietly.
"Yes mother," I responded with a light smile. "Today is my twelfth, thank you for remembering." I shot her a quick smile before grabbing a log and tossing it into the fire, the warm sensation pleasantly embracing my face.
"Tall." She croaked again; a throat tight from years of grief.
I smiled again, kneeling at her side and grabbing her hand, stroking it softly as I spoke.
"I got one today, a big one too. Father would have been proud." I boasted somberly, the memory of my father weighed heavily on both of our minds despite the many years since his passing. My mother nodded again, this time slower, and I did not need to look to know that her eyes were filled with sadness, unable to cry the tears that had already been shed years ago. I let go of her hand before standing up, leaning my head down and pressing my lips lightly against her forehead.
"I'm off to the market, Mother. I'll be back by dusk." I watched as she nodded slowly before I slipped out through the door. I gathered the bag of rabbits I had trapped in the past few days along with the body of the deer I had successfully hunted that morning and loaded them onto the wagon.
I patted our horse, Balius, gently along the front of his long face and pulled a carrot from my satchel, feeding him a small treat before our brief journey to Darrowmere. I admired his dark, pitch black coat of hair and wise expression that looked as if he knew more than he let on.
"Alright Balius, let's go." I said, pulling the reins, and with a brief neigh we were off.
The route to Darrowmere had hardly changed after all these years. Familiar trees and boulders dotted the path, and a healthy number of villagers travelled to and from the direction of the capital city, likely travelling to other surrounding villages like Kemmerick, or to the capital itself to trade or purchase from the markets.
As Balius trotted along, I lay my head back but did not dare to sleep. The journey was safe, but recently my dreams were not. Nightmares plagued me, and every night they found a place in my subconscious. There were no words, only flashes, feelings, and emotions that weren't my own. They had grown worse in recent months, and some nights I would wake clenching my sheets in a cold sweat. My chest would burn with a sensation like a hot iron to raw skin. The message was never clear, but it always felt like something, or someone, was trying to tell me something.
The golden arches of Darrowmere still stood as clear and bright as they had been the first time I traveled to the capital. The guards nodded as I rode past, familiar with the solitary common-born boy who journeyed to the city each week to trade the spoils of his hunts. Perhaps they wondered where my parents were, or perhaps they couldn't tell how young I truly was.
My father's market stand stood in its normal spot, empty, since it had been a few days since my last successful hunt. I slung the deer up onto the butcher's table and began to carve the deer, removing the fur and portioning the meat into chunks to be sold. I grabbed the bag of rabbits and butchered them as well. I wasn't adept at this process, having only had the opportunity to observe my father when he would butcher our hunts. I had been too squeamish to learn from him. I glanced down at the portions, mentally berating myself for their lack of uniformity.
The customers were plentiful enough. Despite the capital not being quite as bustling as when the royal showcase was happening, with the hunting season winding down demand was high for fresh meat and I managed to sell it all in a timely manner. All that was left by late afternoon was the deer hide which was hanging lonely in the stand.
I began to pack up my belongings, ready to bring the hide back and try again another day before a voice stopped me.
"How much for the hide?" The speaker wore a cowl covering most of their face and an unassuming brown tunic.
"Three silvers." I said suspiciously. The outfit was fit for a thief, something I encountered often in the markets, especially in the late afternoon when most people were leaving the capital.
"This is all I have. Will this work?" The speaker placed a golden coin on the counter, and my eyes immediately widened in shock. A golden galleon, worth one hundred silvers apiece. That amount of money would be enough to last me and my mother for months.
"I don't have change for that amount of money sir, my apologies."
"This? It is not that much money, is it?"
The speaker's matter-of-factness stunned me momentarily. Who could possibly think a golden galleon isn't a small fortune in itself?
"Do you have any smaller pieces?" I asked while suppressing my confusion. Perhaps they were a wealthy merchant from another land. I berated myself mentally for giving a fair price from the get-go, I could've made a much larger profit if I had known of their tremendous wealth.
"Sadly, I do not. Would you take the coin for the hide anyways? I don't need the change."
I couldn't hold it back anymore; my eyes betrayed me and widened in disbelief.
"Uh-" I stammered, "I guess that would be fine, as long as you are ok with it."
"Great!" They replied happily, yet somehow their voice also held a hint of nervousness to it.
I exchanged the hide and took the coin, securing it in the box below the counter. The man slowly turned to leave, but at that moment I caught a glimpse of something beneath his cowl.
A strand of bright silver hair.
Like the boy from the race.
Like the King.
Like the one who took everything from me.
"Excuse me," I called out, voice sharper than I intended. "Would you mind sharing your name, sir?"
"Uh, Ca-" He trailed off momentarily but quickly finished, "Calf."
"You are named after a baby cow?" I questioned incredulously.
"Well, yes, it's a unique name!" He responded indignantly, although his tone was slowly losing conviction.
I crossed my arms, stepping out from behind the counter. "Alright, 'Calf.' I know who you are. Why would the Crown Prince be here, buying hides from a common blood run market stall?"
"Well, you see-"
"Prince Cadyr!" A voice called from far off, "My prince, your father requests your presence! You must return to the castle at once!"
Cadyr's shoulders tensed, but instead of fear, I saw excitement flicker in his eyes. He yanked back his cowl, revealing his mane of silver hair. "Well then," he said with a grin that bordered on recklessness, "how about a run?"
"Why the hell would I want to do that?" I shot back, folding my arms tighter.
"Well, don't you want to know what I'm doing out here? Plus, if I leave you here, you're just gonna tell the guards where I went, we can't be having that can we?" He answered with a cocky grin.
The prince did not wait for my answer before he grabbed my arm and took off. It was so quick that I hardly had a chance to realize that my feet were leaving the ground, and the speed of the earth below me was picking up its pace.
We were flying.
Before I knew it, we had risen several yards into the air and were traveling towards the forest beyond the town's borders. The tremendous pressure that had weighed on me for years seemingly drifted off into the air as I took in the feeling of the wind rushing into my hair. It felt natural, as if the sky itself had been the home I had been unknowingly searching for all along.
I gasped as I took in the scenery afforded from our new vantage point in the sky. It was a stunning scene, bright lights from the capital illuminating the area surrounded by a dark forest on all sides, with the royal castle in the distance on the hill. The horizon was clear of all clouds, and the stars seemed even brighter from the sky than they had been on the ground. The feeling brought back the memories of my childhood, of imagining what it would be like to use magic.
But those memories were no longer fond. I began to feel my breath become shallow, remembering how it felt to watch as the King's magic snuffed out the breath from my fathers lifeless corpse. I remembered the crowd, surging in to brutally pummel his pale, innocent face. Ever since that day I had tried to push away all thoughts about the Veil. The mysterious entity that shared its power to those with royal blood. I had never been able, or perhaps willing, to call upon its power since then.
"Put me down!" I yelled out anxiously, struggling to breath and attempting to be heard over the howling winds flying past.
"One sec," Cadyr replied, before angling us down sharply into a clearing in the forest.
We landed softly, unexpected considering the intense speeds we had been traveling at moments before.
"How was that for an escape?" The prince chuckled to himself, seemingly proud of his childish antics.
I was suddenly aware of the apparent danger in the situation. I was alone in the forest with a royal. The son of the man who had killed my father in cold blood. I struggled for air, feeling my chest continue to tighten despite the fact we had returned to solid ground. Almost without thinking I felt for the scabbard still attached to my hip, slowly drawing the blade and placing its tip at the small of the prince's back.
"Well, I doubt Cornelius is fast enough to follow us all the way out here, I bet we are-" The prince stopped mid-sentence, only then feeling the cold sharp point pressing into his back, "W-what are you doing?"
I held the knife tightly so as not to drop it. My hands were shaking, and I soon realized I was not ready to take a human life in the same way I could take that of a deer or a rabbit. And despite the sense of vengeance welling from deep within me, I knew in my heart that the Prince was nothing more than an innocent boy that day. He had done nothing to wrong me, except perhaps for taking me on a non-consensual flight, but feelings of wrath and anger began to take hold as I uttered my next sentence.
"What were you doing here in the village?" I questioned with a vicious whisper, carefully trying to hide my fear with a steady tone. I was not quite successful, my voice quivering on the last word.
"Hey man if this is about money I have money-" But he doesn't finish his sentence before an electrical current begins to build up in front of me. Quickly I realized the prince was using his magic.
I jumped back several feet before the blast of energy manifested, scorching the section of earth I had been standing on just moments ago. My stupidity hit me like a bag of bricks. I had threatened a royal, an innocent one at that. Furthermore he was likely one of the strongest Walkers in the kingdom considering he was the son of King Tharion himself. I flipped my knife into my other hand, readying myself for a confrontation that I was sorely ill-equipped to handle.
"I don't know what's gotten into you all of a sudden man, I really don't feel like killing one of my subjects so if you could just explain-" He started but before he could finish talking my emotions took hold, the irrational anger at the very idea of magic fueling me as I charged straight towards him with my knife held high.
"Can't you just let me talk," he said before raising a hand in my direction, a plume of fire already building up in the center.
It was all over. I would die here, in the middle of the forest, at the hands of the same magic that had taken my father from me and my mother. My own fear and reckless judgment had landed me here, face to face with an innocent prince who could kill me with a single thought. Threatening him had been a mistake, a mistake I wouldn't make again. If only I would live to make any more mistakes that is.
As if to spite my resolve, however, a familiar sensation began to build up inside of me, taking hold in a way that felt as natural as breathing air. I realized it was the same feeling as that time so long ago, when I had shot a bolt of fire at the same boy who now stood across from me.
The memory struck me with fear, yet somehow the remembrance of that fear seemed to take control, fueling the powers that were manifesting within me.
The energy built up, and at the same time as I watched the fiery inferno leap out at me from the prince's palm, the energy in my body came to a head and manifested in a torrent of water.
In a glorious plume of steam, the fire from the prince's palm met the cascade of water that had burst forth from my hand and slowly fizzled out, leaving no evidence that either magic had ever been there in the first place, if not for the singed and burning plants directly surrounding the prince's feet.
As the steam slowly faded away, I could only barely make out the shocked expression on the boy's face as he dropped his hands in disbelief.
"How the hell did you... you are no common blood; you must be some royal!" Cadyr accused me, yet even his tone seemed to disagree with his sentiment. "But it's not possible, I know every single royal in Karouse, there is no way I would never have seen your face before, and why the hell would you be selling venison in the capital..." His voice trailed off. He had seemingly entered some sort of debate with himself.
Suddenly, however, he seemed to disappear with a rush of wind and in an instant he closed the gap, his hands around my throat with what could only be described as killing intent.
"Maybe you are some assassin sent from another kingdom? I don't know," He spat out, hands tightening, but also shaking at the same time, "Tell me who you are, the truth, and maybe I won't kill you where you stand." His voice held an aggressive tone, yet also somehow withdrawn and nervous, as if he weren't quite sure if he could follow through with his threat.
Even so, I had no way out of this. I had threatened the prince multiple times now and even used magic on him. My mind went blank of excuses, and I decided to simply tell the truth.
"I don't know what happened, I promise you I am really of common blood, my father died years ago and I live with my mother alone in our house. I hunt and sell to keep her alive. I make tea for her sometimes and I keep the fire going and I make her food and... She is growing old. I try to do everything I can to take care of her," My words tumble out, raw and unpolished, "I don't know why I can use magic, it just... happens." I locked eyes with him, waiting for the blow to come. Waiting for whatever judgment he'd already decided the moment his hand met my throat. But I didn't look away. If I was going to die, I'd at least look him in the eyes when it happened.
The prince however does not kill me like I had expected. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and stared back into mine for a few more seconds before releasing his grip on my neck and taking a step back. Surprisingly, he had a wide grin on his face.
"I believe you." He stated simply, still smiling, "When did you awaken?"
I simply stared back in shock, astonished by the prince's trust in my story.
"Oh c'mon, what kind of assassin loves their mom that much," he said while laughing.
My cheeks turned red as I watched the prince chuckle heartily at his own statement.
"Well, I'm all she has left," I mumbled before answering his question, "And I don't know, it just happened suddenly once when I was really young, and I never did it again."
"Interesting," he said, and placed his hand underneath his chin, rubbing what little specks of facial hair the young boy had begun growing, "and also... why the hell did you attack me?"
"Well..." my mind raced thinking of a lie to tell the prince, "You did say you couldn't have me talking to the guards, and when you suddenly flew me into the air I got scared!" I cringed internally at the lie, praying that the prince would continue trusting me.
"Ah well, fair enough I guess, it did kind of sound like a threat." He replied and looked up as if remembering something. "Well, mind telling me your name mister common blood Walker?"
"It's Renric, Renric Demaris." The truth came out involuntarily, somehow the prince's demeanor nearly forced me to place trust in him.
"Well Renric, how would you like to go on a little adventure?" he asked with a presumptuous smile, as if he had already known what my answer would be before he had even spoken.