Chapter 1
Stories are a wonderful thing. They share the memories of those who can no longer share. They immortalize the heroes of our past and condemn those who have done wrong. But stories are a fickle mistress. In our world son, there are conquerors and there are the conquered. Would you care to guess which of the two has their story told?
- Galath Areias, The First
Renric Demaris
"But why did the King let him live?" I questioned, bright curious eyes glancing up at my mother.
"Because King Tharion is a noble man, and the traitor had already paid enough for his crimes, there was no need to punish him further." She responded with a practiced patience that only the trials of motherhood could bring out in a person.
My eyes wandered towards the page, the story told of the last Great War and the might that the King and his royal army had displayed to bring peace to our country.
"Mother, is there any way that I could be as powerful as the King one day?"
"Sadly, there is no way Renric, only those with royal blood are chosen by the Veil, besides, I wouldn't want my little prince in danger either way."
Despite her words, my mind still imagined being able to fly with the winds or channel fire from the palm of my hand. It had been my dream ever since I had first learned of the Veil.
"No fair," I pouted, crossing my arms in dramatic fashion, "Why can't common bloods like us be chosen?
"You never know, have you ever wondered how I start the fire so quickly," A new voice interjected, "I am not just a talented fire maker, clearly I am a Veil walker!"
My eyes turned but even from just the voice I knew immediately who had entered the room.
"Papa!" I shrieked in delight before launching myself at my father. He stood at the door with already opened arms and lifted me into a warm embrace.
"I missed you little one," He chuckled as he softly spun with me suspended into the air, "Look what I got," He continued as he gestured to the large sack he had laid down on the floor.
The shape was unmistakable. My father had proven himself a talented hunter, and most days he tasked himself with finding meats to sell in the markets as well as providing our family with meals. Today's hunt seemed to be a young deer, enough meat to last us the rest of the month.
"Yummy!" I cried out, "Mother mother, can I help you cook it!"
"It is late, let's rest for tomorrow, you wouldn't want to fall asleep during the royal showcase, would you?"
I was suddenly reminded of what day it was. The royal showcase would be a chance to see the wonders of magic in person, and there was no way I could miss it.
"Never ever!" I exclaimed. Without being prompted I rushed off to bed and laid there excitedly, anticipating tomorrow. Childish dreams of magic dancing in the sky comforted me as I slowly drifted off into darkness.
—
In what seemed like an instant the day changed from pitch black to a bright, early summer morning. My mother and father were barely up by the time I burst into their room.
"Let's go let's go let's go," I chanted, as if the more times I said it the faster they would move. My father playfully tossed his pillow at me, pushing my small frame back several feet.
"We're coming we're coming quit your yapping," he said grumpily while pulling the covers back over his head. I leapt into action and tore the covers off the bed and shook his body with reckless abandon.
"Oh, you've done it now," He laughed before lifting me into the air and tackling me down into the bed.
"Will you two quit your rough housing!" My mother exclaimed from the other half of the bed as me and my father fell over laughing uncontrollably.
As I recovered from my laughing fit, I gathered my things and stepped outside into the streets of my home village, Stonewick. It was a quaint, humble village, surrounded by natural outcroppings of stone that were responsible for its name.
Birds whimsically chirped their greetings as I passed by, the sun illuminating my path and casting fractured shadows of the overhanging trees along my path. I glanced up at the clear sky, feeling the warm sunlight glancing off my face as I gathered my thoughts. We would leave for the capital city of Karouse, Darrowmere, in only a few moments for the Royal showcase.
"Ren!" A small, soft voice called out. I turned as my blurry vision adjusted from the sunlight. Even without seeing her however I had already recognized the familiar call.
"Elira!" I called back, walking over to her. She quickly enveloped me in an embrace before pulling back. "How was your trip to Kemmerick?" I inquired.
"Oh it was soo boring! There's absolutely nothing to do in Kemmerick! Not that there's much to do here in Stonewick either… either way, to top it all off my mom got sick on the way back!" She complained, speaking in that rapid fire manner she always did.
"That's too bad, will you still come with us to the royal showcase?"
"No," She pouted, crossing her arms, "My father says it's best if we stay home and tend to my mother." She finished solemnly, although with a tone of acceptance, signaling that the topic had already been hotly debated.
"Ah, well, tell Mr. Thorne I said hi, and that I hope your mother feels better soon!"
At that moment A voice called out from behind me, "Elira! How are you doing? Will you and your family be joining us on our trip to Darrowmere?" It was my father, followed closely by my mother clutching entirely too many bags for what should be just a daytrip.
Elira's expression quickly darkened, and before she could protest I cut in, "Don't get her started."
"I see. Well, we will see you around Elira!" My father said as Elira turned and stomped back towards her home. "Are you ready Renric?" My father turned, grin wide on his tanned, weathered face.
"Of course! C'mon!" I yelped, grabbing his hand and pulling him forward, my mother chuckling as she trailed behind us.
It was only an hour or two's horse ride from Stonewick to Darrowmere, and the seat from aboard the wagon afforded me a proper view of the forests along the trail. It was a peaceful ride. My mother told me stories of how the royal blooded students from Darrowmere Academy would travel into the forest, slaying magical beasts and guaranteeing us common folk safety on our travels.
The gates of Darrowmere were a sight to behold, golden arches propping out of the forest landscape surrounding the city, I spotted soldiers posted at the top of the walls, scanning the surroundings for possible dangers. A pair of friendly guardsmen greeted us, and one ruffled my hair playfully as we entered.
As I brought my gaze up towards the inside of the capital cities walls, my jaw dropped as I took in the environment, it was as if a wind attuned veil walker had forcibly sucked all of the oxygen from my small frame. I had never been to the capital city before that moment. Banners were strewn between the huge, towering buildings, much taller than any home back in Stonewick. The architecture was far more advanced as well, likely aided by the abundance of royal blooded Veil walkers who had an attunement towards earth, able to shape and bend the very ground I stood upon to their will.
People from neighboring villages swarmed the capital from seemingly all angles. If I did not have a tight grasp on my parents' hands, I would have likely gotten swept away by the current of bodies.
"This is amazing," I gasped in awe as I watched my parents also breathlessly taking in their surroundings. They had traveled here before, but it almost seemed as if they were more amazed then I was.
"Yes. Yes it is." My mother stated in amazement.
"C'mon the showcase is starting!" My father exclaimed, now acting like the childish one pulling me along like a horse at the head of a carriage.
"What exactly happens at the showcase?" I questioned my parents. I had been so excited to go to my first ever royal showcase I had never had the chance to find out what actually happened at them.
"Well, the royals typically begin the day with the Elemental bouts," My mother began.
"Yes," My father interrupted with giddy excitement, "Friendly duels between veil walkers using the primal elements. It's like watching a dance more than a fight."
"And then the race of the winds," My mother continued.
"Yes, the races are always amazing, the fastest flyers from the royal army use the winds to travel through the sky at speeds I have never seen before!" My father finished with a giddiness more befit of a child than an adult.
"And every year they end with the Veilguard tournament!" My mother finished, seemingly caught up in my fathers excitement.
"I can't wait!" I replied as we stepped into the town center where the first elemental bouts were taking place. Two Veil walkers circled each other from inside their fighting pits, dug roughly ten feet deep into the ground at various spots within the town center. One stepped forward and was suddenly behind the other, a gust of wind trailing behind him, aiming a lance of fire straight at his opponent's back.
His opponent counterattacked, bringing forth a flow of water from his palm, guiding the fire up and into the air, expelling its heat and ferocity in a plume of smoke.
"Wow," I audibly gasped, taking in the sight. My father was right. The duels were like a carefully choreographed dance, with every detail calculated down to its last inch, although still holding an air of spontaneity.
As the bouts wound down, me and my parents found ourselves in the middle of a dense crowd of onlookers, staring anxiously at the racers lining up near the tall starting structure for the race of the winds. Peculiarly however, I spotted a child in the race no older than myself among the grown men of the royal army. Quickly, I realized so had the crowd.
"Is that a kid?" a spectator asked incredulously.
"Aye, it is the King's son himself, Crown prince Cadyr." Another responded.
"But he is just a kid, what's he doing in this race!" The first person to speak yelled back in confusion, his voice fighting with the cheers of the crowd.
"He is a powerful mage already, it seems the King sees him fit to race, and if King Areias does, why shouldn't we?"
The people immediately surrounding us fell into a hush, the name Areias travelled through those close enough to hear and elicited scattered gasps of surprise. The king's surname somehow held a tremendous weight within the people. A ripened curiosity began to bubble up in me as I struggled to get a good look at the race.
"Wanna lift?" My father questioned with a grin, and without waiting for an answer picked me up by the arms and placed me atop his shoulders, giving me a much better view of the landscape that I had not been able to take in from the spot on the ground.
The capital center was a large circle with crowds of people taking up nearly every inch of land. Some people stood in their homes in the town center, viewing the race from their balconies and roofs. There were lanterns strung about between buildings as well as banners celebrating the royal army's appearance in Karouse. The race's outline was marked by pillars of earth in the sky which must have been held up by unseen mages.
I turned my head and noticed a group of people situated around an intricately designed throne, slightly elevated as if to give off a sense of importance. My eyes spotted a man with a crown, the one from the book my mother had read to me the night before, surrounded by a small group of royal soldiers.
"Is that the King?" I questioned my father below me while simultaneously pointing towards the throne.
"Ah yes, even he has come to watch the showcase, perhaps even to cheer on his own son."
I watched the King from the spot on my father's shoulders. He looked somehow even more regal and commanding than he did in the pages of the book, dressed in a white and gold suit of armor with a fur cape hanging from his shoulders. His head was full of bright silver hair with a decorative crown placed atop. He had a light smile that didn't quite reach his eyes as he overlooked the race.
"Look Renric, the racers are coming!" My Father shouted excitedly, and I turned to catch the racers rounding the corner headed straight towards us, flying at speeds that I could barely fathom.
I noticed the boy, Cadyr, currently in second place. He struggled intensely to catch up to the first-place flyer. Immediately, I noticed his striking silver hair blowing in the wind as he raced, much like his father, the King. I brought my hands up to my face and cheered loudly along with the crowd.
"You can do it! Go! Go! Go!" I cheered for the prince, the sight of a boy nearly my age in a race like this was inspiring. The crowd's noise around me seemed to also be cheering for the boy, an unlikely hero for the common blood crowd around me. The boy raced quickly, but every time it seemed he was about to take the lead, the older man in front cut into his path, blocking him with his much larger and muscled frame.
As I watched the race unfold in front of me, I could not help but imagine myself flying among the royals, wind flowing through my hair as the ground raced past in a blur. The feeling had grown so intensely that I could have sworn I had been flying right alongside them.
The crowd's cheers surged as the final stretch came around, the boy was mere moments from taking the lead. I stretched my hands out, as if their presence could somehow spur the boy forward.
It was at that moment that the excitement took control. My heart burned from deep within my chest. The pressure built, a strange heat pooling in my palms, as if the sun itself was trapped beneath the surface of my skin.
Completely unaware, a burst of fire shot out from my fingertips-
It was headed straight towards the boy.
Everything seemed to happen in a flash. The firebolt, large and prominent, charged towards him and he was struck dead center in his chest. He fell, headfirst down to the ground of the aerial racetrack. The crowd, as if merged into one being, all reacted at the same time with hazard screams of terror. To them, it seemed like an attack.
It seemed my parents were the only ones who noticed it was me who fired the blast; my father quickly took me from his shoulders and placed me on the ground.
"H-h-how did you do that?" he asked shakily, as if still not believing his own eyes.
"I-I-don't know," I responded honestly, both fear and excitement racing through my body. I had used magic, I thought to myself, and giddiness began to distract me from the situation. It was even more confusing to me than him.
"Treachery!" The voice rang through the crowd, silencing what just moments ago was a terrified wave of sound. "Who dares fire magic at the first born of King Tharion of the Northlands!?"
I watched in horror as a single finger rose from the crowd. Another person had noticed where the fireball had come from. However, rather than being pointed at me like I had expected...
It was pointed at my father.
He grimaced as the crowd around us dispersed in an instant, slowly leaving only myself, my mother, and my father in an isolated group.
"Y-y-yes, it was him, I saw it with my own eyes!" A bystander stated, and soon the fear in the crowd had them all jumping in with their confirmations of the false accusation.
"It was him, he tried to kill the prince!"
"Yes, yes I saw it!"
"He should be executed!"
"It was me, I did it!" My father, in a selfless gesture, raised his hands above his head and shouted.
The King was there in a flash, moving so quickly that he was but a blur in my eyes. The speed of his movements made the earlier racers' pace feel sluggish in comparison. He grabbed my father by his neck, lifting him with inhuman strength into the air.
My mother grabbed me, pulling me back, distancing us from my father. Quickly I realized she was trying to dissociate us from him.
"Mother stop!" I cried out, before she clamped a tight hand with intense ferocity over my mouth and leaned her head down to whisper in my ear. I noticed tears falling from her eyes as she spoke.
"He is saving you, in fact, the both of us, if they figure out that we are a family, you will die as well." She cracked, and unable to get another word out, sobbed silent cries, as we hid amongst the crowd.
"Who do we have here, an assassin from the East perhaps? Or perhaps a stray royal unhappy with my rule?" The King said with a vicious snarl, "No matter, what say we make quick work of this would be assassin, eh?" he addressed the crowd, and they surged back with a roar of approval.
There was no trial, no justice, and no chance for the truth to come out. It was quick and casual, as if the life of my father whom I loved so much mattered less than a speck of dust in the eyes of the King.
His body fell to the ground, unable to withstand the monumental shock of electricity that the king undoubtedly poured straight into my father's heart. The crowd rushed in as the King flew off to check on his son. They kicked and pushed my father's already dead body with a hungry rage, as if their actions would earn them favor with the King. The tears that had already been falling came out in torrents now that there was no pressure to hide, my mother grabbed me and hurried me back to our home as I cried out.
"We need to help him, he might still be alive, he-"
"He is gone Renric," my mother cried out in between sobs, "He is gone."
—
"The Veil whispers to those it chooses, its touch is rare, its will unseen."
-Altharion Vellin