The air inside the tent had turned into a static-charged vacuum, but outside, the silence was broken by a sound that made Athel's blood turn to ice. It was a shriek, visceral and raw, echoing from the depths of the silk-lined pavilion.
"Mother!" Athel roared, his consciousness flickering back into focus. He tried to lunge toward the entrance, but his limbs felt like leaden weights. Before he could take a step, two soldiers slammed him down into the dirt, their gauntleted hands pinning his shoulders.
"Let go of me! Let me go!" Athel thrashed, his voice cracking with desperation.
The soldiers didn't even look at him with malice, they looked at him with bored amusement. "Look at the little cub," one mocked, his voice muffled by his helm. "What are you going to do about it, boy? Cry us a river to float your carriage in?"
The other soldier joined in with a raspy laugh, digging a knee into the small of Athel's back.
Suddenly, the screams stopped. A heavy, suffocating silence followed before the tent flaps were thrown open. Sir Frederick emerged, but the arrogant smirk he usually wore was gone. His face was twisted in an expression of pure, unsatisfied rage, and he was gingerly holding his jaw as if it had been struck by something solid. He was muttering under his breath, a string of curses that suggested things hadn't gone according to his plan.
As Frederick walked past Athel's grounded form, he stopped. The sight of the boy's defiance seemed to be the final spark for his temper. Without warning, Frederick swung his heavy, steel-toed boot.
The first kick caught Athel square in the ribs, knocking the wind from his lungs in a painful wheeze. The second caught him in the face. Athel's head snapped back, the taste of copper filling his mouth as he collapsed into the dirt.
"What... did you do... to her?" Athel managed to choke out, his vision swimming in a haze of red.
"Shut it, brat!" Frederick snarled, bringing his boot down again in a punishing stomp. "I'm not in the mood for your pathetic antics."
Athel's head hit the ground with a sickening thud. The world around him began to blur into a cacophony of laughter and mockery from the surrounding troops. He felt like a broken doll, discarded in the very dirt he had spent his life tilling.
"Get moving!" Frederick barked, turning to his subordinates. "The mage says the boy has 'potential.' We're taking him. Bring the woman, too."
Athel felt himself being hauled up by his collar and dragged across the town square. Through a slit in his swollen eyes, he saw his mother. Octavia was being herded like a common slave, pushed along by the butts of spears. She looked toward him, her emerald eyes wide with horror as she saw his battered face, but every time she tried to reach for him, a soldier shoved her back.
They were tossed into the back of a waiting carriage, a stark, barred wagon meant for transporting prisoners of the state. As Athel hit the wooden floor, Octavia scrambled to his side, her hands trembling as she pulled his head onto her lap.
"Oh, my sweet boy," she whispered, her tears falling hot against his bruised skin. "What have they done? I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry."
Athel tried to reach for her hand, to tell her it wasn't her fault, but the darkness finally claimed him.
---
The journey to the seat of the Northern Marches took two agonizing days. The caravan grew as they traveled, picking up more "potential candidates" from various villages along the border. By the end of the first day, three full wagons were filled with children of varying ages and their distraught parents.
Despite his injuries, Athel forced himself to stay alert during their brief stops. While Octavia did her best to comfort the other mothers, whispering words of solidarity to those who had been dragged from their homes, Athel spent his time observing. He watched the way the soldiers maintained their gear and listened to their conversations near the campfires.
"The potential will be the front of this kingdom," he heard one guard say, his voice thick with a mix of pride and fear.
The front, Athel thought, his jaw tightening.
On the morning of the third day, the horizon changed. The rugged hills gave way to a valley dominated by a fortress-city. As the carriages passed through the massive, fortified gates, Athel saw the sigil carved into the stone, the same crest Frederick wore on his chest. It was the mark of the House of Rodwell.
This was the land granted to the "hero" Leyhwin Rodwell sixteen years ago. What had once been a modest northern outpost had been transformed into a monument of stone and steel.
The carriages wound through a maze of intersections, passing bustling markets and rows of uniform stone houses, until they reached the inner sanctum of the city. There, perched on a hill, stood the Count's mansion. It was a sprawling, three-story titan of architecture, surrounded by a front yard twice its size and enclosed by soaring steel fences that looked more like the bars of a cage than a decorative boundary.
Athel and Octavia were ordered to disembark. Standing in the shadow of the mansion. They both felt small, due to the size of the building in front of them and the sheer importance of the person that is the Count.
Waiting for them at the base of the grand marble stairs was a man who seemed to belong more to the house than to the world of the living. He was middle-aged, dressed in a pristine black-and-white suit that lacked even a single wrinkle. His brown hair was combed back with mathematical precision, and his posture was so rigid he could have been mistaken for a statue.
"Greetings, people of the North," the man said, his voice smooth and utterly devoid of emotion. "I am Hamlet, the Head Butler of the Rodwell estate. Our Master has commanded that you be accommodated with the same level of care as an esteemed guest."
He gestured toward the towering oak doors of the mansion. "Please, follow me."