Sonavr (Aldran valemount)
It was one of those mornings when Sonavr felt he should not wake at all. He lay still in his comfortable bed, the sheets warm around him, the room hushed with early light. The world felt far away, like something happening to other people.
A thought kept circling in his mind. soft, persistent, impossible to ignore.
Who was that man... He knew everything about me... A demigod he said ...
Other thoughts whirled, he contemplated he should go to his parents, like fronn has said.
Not with excuses. Not with jest or any other half-truths his father has spoken so far.
He should just go and talk, earnestly.
They would understand what I want... They are my parents... I should give them a chance before I reach meaningless conclusions... I should tell them what scares me and what I carry inside me...
For a long moment, he didn't move.Then he breathed in. Slowly.
And for the first time that morning, the thought didn't feel like fear. It felt like direction.
After some long, heavy breathing steps, he stopped in the main hall of sover.
He approached the door quietly. The house was still half-asleep, floorboards cool under his feet, walls holding the soft hush of early morning. Somewhere, a kettle clicked faintly in the distance, cooling after boiling. The air smelled like night and old warmth and home.
Sonavr paused outside his parents' room.
Just for a moment, his hands hovered. Not because he was Afraid of them but he was Afraid of saying the wrong thing. He closed his eyes once. Then knocked. Softly.
"Come in", said mother.
"Is father in there?"
"Yes I am", father's voice was shocked.
He opened the door with a quiet creak. They were both there, his father by the window, his mother seated near the bed. Morning light filtered in, touching their faces.
"Something wrong?", father asked.
"I- I think we all should talk", sonavr said.
"So now you wan—"
"We should yes", mother interrupted. "Come sit".
Sonavr moved quietly across the room and took the empty chair beside his mother.
"Father. I apologise for everything", sonavr said. "I shouldn't have said those things. Wrong of me to assume things".
After hearing him apologize, Sonavr saw his father's face soften, though just a little.
Fronn's words in tavern returned to him at once..."jemriah had loyalty for every single one of them, he had love for everyone, he doesn't hate. He never does. Even if a enemy comes and ask for his forgiveness, he will gladly put him under his banners and make him a proper knight".
"Father. I have decided that I want to know everything. Hear Every single thing. Tell me what burdens you carry and I shall tell you mine".
Both his father and mother looked at each other... shocked, uncertain, almost disbelieving what they had just heard.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The silence wasn't empty more so it was stunned. Heavy. Full of unasked questions.
Then his father moved first. Jemriah straightened slightly, making a decision within himself before speaking. His voice, when it came, was calm but careful.
"Are you sure?" he asked. Not accusing. Not harsh. Just serious."You may not like it", he continued. "It involves the capital. And some bad things tied to it". He paused. Then added quietly: "We know how much you want to go there".
The words hung in the air.
The capital. Sonavr thought. His place of ambition. Of promise. Of danger.
Of everything Sonavr had ever dreamed of and everything they feared.
His mother's eyes stayed on his face searching him, trying to read not his words but his truth. Sonavr didn't answer immediately. He felt the weight of the choice press into his chest. His dream.The risk involved in those dream. The cost he has to pay. The truth he has to face. Everything messed his mind Then he looked up. Not as a boy asking permission. But as a son choosing his path.
"I know", he said softly. "I still want to go. But not blind anymore". Another breath."Not hungry for it". Another pause. "I am Not willing to become something I don't recognize just to stand there. That is for me to decide, who knows what will happen once I hear your story".
His father studied him. Long. Deep.
Like measuring not his ambition but his spine. His mother's eyes shone, not with fear now, but with a quiet pride she didn't try to hide. Jemriah finally nodded once. Slow.
Grave.Respectful.
"Then we'll tell you everything", he said.
"All of it". He paused. "Even the dark parts. Even the parts that break your illusions about Capital. Even the parts that change your perspective about it".
The room shifted again. Not into comfort. Not into safety. But into truth. And sometimes that is braver than either.
Father said they are going to tell me everything and so... They did.
Story of jemriah and Irene
It all began ten years ago, when jemriah became the First Sword of the Capital.
The city celebrated like it had found a new god. Streets filled with banners and drinks and shouting voices. Even Haldren smiled and that man hated everyone. Grothan was the happiest of them all, louder than everyone, laughing like nothing could ever go wrong again. Kevand, Jorath, Roshaan, Haldren, little Morsan, all of them around me, all of them believing this was the beginning of something good. We were brothers then. Not by blood, but by oath of aegis, by war, by the years we had survived together. They were the happiest jemriahhad ever seen them. The happiest we had ever been.
Everyone knew jemriah had earned the title. Even his father was proud when he placed it on me, a title of the highest importance, one that carried more burden than glory. But at the time, he only felt the honor. The pride. The sense that jemriah had finally become something the world respected.
Then, months later, came the Battle of Liberation. A war that lasted fifty days.
Fifty days of blood and fire and screaming steel. Fifty days where the capital forgot what mercy meant. Streets burned. Forests fell. Civilians starved. The air itself smelled like ash and steel. Songs have called it liberation, but it wasn't freedom. it was control. They weren't saving the city; they were reshaping it. Breaking it. Forcing it into something new. That war didn't just change the capital. It changed everything.
After fifty days, we won. father (king kaisran) crowned himself King of all Five Continents after killing king amren and declared Aegis reach, the capital city. That is also when wrath of aegis became middle continent.
From that moment on, obedience was no longer a choice. People did not follow, they submitted. And if they didn't, they were made to.
The Light Elves had helped them greatly in that war. Too greatly. Their aid was not free. They gave king kaisran a tomb, an ancient magic which can give different powers... and through it, he gained a fraction of the god Aegis himself. Not divinity, but something close enough to terrify the world. From that power, he could bestow gifts that no man should ever wield: unbreakable armor, and a sword so vast and heavy it could split ships in half. All three of them saw it with their own eyes. Jorath wore that armor weeks ago, not like a knight, but like a war hero.
And because king kaisran believed himself forever in debt to the Light Elves, he gave them what they asked for. A seat in the kingdom. Not land, Not gold, Not honor but Power over the law.
King kaisran has always believed himself wise. But this was not wisdom. Everyone agreed that this decision was foolish even jemriah but king being king, he denied it by saying,"It is my kingdom, do not teach me how to rule!"
Four years passed after that.
Each year, a new Light Elf was appointed to shape and maintain the laws of the kingdom, their influence growing quietly, steadily, like roots under stone. What began as a single seat became a system, and what was called alliance slowly became control.
By the fourth year, jemriah was going to be the one who oppose this but that year, Irene was appointed.
It might sound unbelievable, but her green eyes and her long auburn hair made jemriah stare at her longer than he had ever stared at any woman before. Not out of desire. Not out of hunger. But out of stillness that he felt after seeing her. She wore a crown embroidered with gold and gems that caught the light , and a gown that flowed over her pale skin like living silk, moving as if it were part of her rather than something she wore.
She was and still is the most beautiful woman jemriah had ever seen.
Wonder took over jemriah, he wanted to talk to her all day. Wanted to follow her wherever she went. He wanted to listen her talk over and over again. It was impossible for jemriah to dream that. He was bound by oath of aegis, oath of celibacy. Bound to never marry anyone let alone a light elf.
He did it anyway... and everyone hated him for that.
They married each other in secret and Irene was with child. They had to tell king kaisran sooner or later lest he found about them himself.
Because a child in elfs womb grows up faster than any human child.
Fronn kept their secret for a long time. Helped them greatly from prying eyes of capital.
Then one day, they decided to tell king kaisran. Jemriah stood in the throne room listening his fathers angry shouts. He bellowed so loud that he was shaking and his words were coming along with spits.
Jemriah expected his brothers to speak up for him, none of them spoke up.
He had expected atleast of all people, grothan, his sword master, will take his side. He didn't. Kept his eyes down on floor.
A last hope was from his own people. Who worshipped him a like a god. They didn't speak either.
Jemriah fought for the very first time. His words before was always "yes father", to everything his father commanded but he had enough of it. He wanted to run away with Irene and his unnamed child.
Someone did stood up for him, one person he was least expecting out of all his loved ones. Josen forheil. His friend and a rival who he had spent countless times fighting in duels under grothan's grim but commanding voice. Father dismissed him of course but his effort was still etched forever in jemriah's memory.
Father ordered his exile for breaking oath of Aegis but it was jemriah who spoke first.
"I shall gladly take my leave. These voices and all of your blank expressions, I will remember them forever", was the last words he had spoken to them.
He did hear several voices protesting that jemriah should be given another chance, perhaps his father would have considered it. Jemriah on the other hand wanted freedom from all this. He wanted a life free of battles and those envy hiding snakes.
He left the capital with Irene and his child. Fronn begged to come with them and jemriah couldn't refuse him.
They had a single dinghy in which they travelled day and night, harsh weather, harsh people and even Harsher food.
All they could do was survive and they did. They met Iken in one of their travels and saved him from some hounds. Iken declared himself as Irene's brother who will forever protect them. He accompanied them on their journey ever since then.
Their goal was simple, a village in which they can earn some brokels and live a simple life by trading.
Sonavr was growing faster than ever, two summers old. They had to hurry unless they make their child suffer, which at any rate they did not want... whatsoever.
And one day it finally happened. They found an Island, in which they could live. So, they decided to settle there. Slowly making progress, more people joined them here, making a village full of normal people who can live simple life. Away from all the noise of capital and dangers of sumaka.
In one of the engravings on a tree not far from here, they had found this island is called Aravan island, a forest also named after that. Jemriah and Irene worshipped Aravan, not out of fear but simply out of respect.
They were living in peace until jorath found them, jemriah made him promise not to tell anyone until few weeks later he made a revelation that a tomb is hidden here somewhere in the forest.
"That's how I got my sword", jemriah said, folding the sleeve of his tunic. A small chain hung around his forearm. "God Aravan tricked me and jorath has disappeared ever since then, his banner men and knights too".
So that's why brumen and i found nothing in forest... Sonavr thought.
"Now you know everything. About us, about you", a rueful smile across his father's face. "What do you think?"
"You were not fooling me when you said it's a lot", sonavr shrugged. "It really is a lot to handle".
"Surely. These ten years had been hectic. Very much so".
"Fronn was wrong", sonavr said. "About the years he mentioned".
"He is often forgetful", Irene laughed.
"I still don't know what a tomb is", sonavr said.
Both of them laughed. "Neither do we", they said in unison.
"Well, I know a little since I have been in one not long ago. Think of it as a trial of history, that you have to outwit, and also to out strength since a gatekeeper always protects a tomb", jemriah said, recalling.
"What does that sword do?", sonavr asked, his interest piqued. "Have you used it?"
"No I have not. Not yet".
Sonavr nodded. "Can we uh-"
Irene
She could see hesitation on her son's face. He wanted to say something but all he did was bite his tongue, his words.
"We are your parents, sonavr", Irene said. "You should feel safe here. You should not be worried about what me or jem is going to say to you. Be free and ask what you want".
"Is it possible that I become an adventurer?", sonavr said. "Oh no! Don't worry, I will not go anywhere near capital. I just want to travel and adventure. Meet tribes and races that I haven't even heard of. Visit places that are only in my head. Drink and eat food of theirs and relish in them. I... Want all those things. I really want them. That is my wish".
That is not possible... Jemriah would never allow such thing... Irene thought.
"Alright. If that is your wish... then so be it", jemriah said, his words shocking all three of them. "Although I have one condition which you have to obey".
"What would that be father?", Sonavr asked, hiding his excitement.
"Me and Iken will train you. We will prepare you... For an adventure".
At that, sonavr barely controlled his excitement. He threw himself at Irene and embraced her. "Mother, I can finally adventure".
Irene embraced her son with affection and gestured jemriah to do the same. He hesitated but eventually made his way over and found himself wrapped around sonavr and Irene. All three of them smiled. Some tears but they were of joy not of sorrow.
Both of them have grown up.
World of sumaka through eyes of kevand—
I am the eldest son of king kaisran and yet everyone treats me like I am some beggar.
I agree that I have contributed nothing in battle of liberation but I was never good in war. Never good with sword. I am good in history. Learning history is what I want to do.
History is the only thing which makes me want to live. Father does not approve of this. He forced me to learn sword play with grothan. I hate them both.