Kael's POV
Two weeks went by before I showed up for my first official day as Aldric's practice partner.
The Silvermane compound perched atop Ashenvale, a large complex that seemed irretrievably out of place amidst the frontier town's ramshackle structures. High stone walls surrounded manicured gardens, training grounds, and a manor house that might not have been out of place in the capital. Aldric's father had clearly been some kind of fallen nobleman, banished to the frontier for political misdeeds he never discussed.
Gate guards checked my documents, official records indicating that I worked for House Silvermane, before letting me in. I felt their eyes on my back as I passed, aggressive and resentful. Everyone knew what I was now. The Error who'd lived through Scriptbeast mauling by sheer dumb chance and a Hero's intervention.
Aldric greeted me in the central training area, far too lively for the early morning. Behind him, standing with stern evaluation, was a man who could only be his father.
Lord Silvermane was everything his son would probably end up being, tall, muscular, with the same blond hair silvered at the temples and eyes that weighed my value in one glance. His Script marks were visible on his neck, runic designs that symbolized him as one of significance in the master design.
"So you're the Error my son has become fascinated with," he said bluntly. His tone was heavy with the weight of authority amassed over a number of decades. "I won't feign to be happy with this accommodation. Your presence is a danger to my family, to my son, and to the stability that we've worked hard to establish here."
I kept my face neutral, refusing to allow him to see the hurt his words caused. "I understand, my lord."
"I very much doubt you do. But Aldric has convinced me to give you a chance, and I spoil my son perhaps more than I should." He took a step forward, and I struggled not to take one back. "Here are the terms. You will train six days a week with Aldric, his sparring partner and strategic opponent. And for it, you receive room and board in the servants' quarters, a modest stipend, and protection from the threats your kind draws. You will not speak of this agreement to anyone outside of this household. You will not endanger my son through negligence. And if you prove more trouble than you're worth, this agreement ends immediately. Clear?"
"Crystal clear, my lord."
"Good." He turned to Aldric. "He's in your custody now. If anything goes wrong, that's on your head." And he strode off, leaving us alone in the courtyard.
Aldric let out a breath he'd been holding. "Sorry about this. My father's. cautious."
"He doesn't like me."
"He's scared of you. There is a difference." Aldric held two practice swords and tossed one to me. "But he'll come around once he sees that you're not going to let your guard down and summon a demon horde or whatever it is he thinks Errors do."
I caught the sword, holding it in balance. My left arm ached still where the Scriptbeasts had clawed it, but the healer had worked. I'd be whole again, if only given enough time.
"So what does being my training partner mean exactly?"
"Primarily getting pummeled around by me," Aldric answered with a smile. "But also helping me brainstorm tactics, challenging my assumptions, and generally keeping me from getting lordly because my Script says I'm going to be the greatest hero ever."
"Easy enough."
"Oh, and one more thing." His expression turned serious. "When we're training, don't pull your punches. My Script vows I'll survive whatever test I'm put through until I make it to battle the Demon Lord. That's right, I can take blows that would knock out normal people and still improve. I want somebody who'll push me to my actual limits, not the limits people think I have."
There was weakness to his confession. The burden of being destined for greatness, of watching you live but not knowing at what cost.
"I'll do my best," I promised.
"That's all I can ask." He held up his practice sword. "Now let's see if three weeks of bedrest have weakened you. Defend yourself!"
He attacked me with great haste, and I barely had time to bring my guard up. The impact jarred my still-recovering injuries, but I gritted my teeth and struck back. Aldric was bigger, faster, and more skilled, disadvantages his Script conferred upon him by default. But I'd discovered something fighting the Scriptbeasts that I'd never quite realized before.
Desperation breeds creativity.
I! couldn't equal his strength, so I didn't try. Instead, I withdrew deliberately, hoping he'd overcommit himself. When he advanced, grinning at the prospect of employing his longer reach to his benefit, I skirted around it and struck him at the vulnerable ribcage.
He parried at the last moment, still smiling. "Good! You're faster than you used to be."
"Exposure to death is a great motivator."
We fell into a rhythm, trading blows and ripostes, one of us feeling the other out. Aldric's powers of Scripting allowed him to recover faster, hit harder, and move as if he had the fluidity of the divine about him. But I had something he lacked, I had nothing to lose.
Every encounter was a lesson. How to read his micro-expressions before he attacked. How to capitalize on the fraction-of-a-second delay when he shifted his weight. How to translate his crushing power into openings I could use.
We sparred for three hours straight, and by its end, I was exhausted while Aldric looked only winded. But I'd achieved seven solid hits, seven more than I'd hoped.
"You're getting better," he said to me, giving me a drink of water. "A whole lot better. At this speed, you might just have a real chance to beat me one day."
"Your Script says that you will defeat the Demon Lord. I don't think I'm meant to be able to beat you."
"Scripts aren't absolute in all times, only in the significant ones." He plopped down on a bench. "And even if you did beat me in a fair fight, then I'd not have trained as hard as I should. My fate isn't a reason to slack."
I sat beside him, enjoying the rest. The morning sun had burned away the chill, and the gardens of the estate created a semblance of peace. For a brief moment, I was nearly able to delude myself that I was merely an ordinary boy out for a workout with a friend, rather than an Error who had to depend on the safety of a Hero.
"May I ask you something?" I said finally.
"Sure."
"Why bother at all, then? The protection, the labor, all of it. You could have just saved me from the Scriptbeasts and stopped there. Why continue?"
Aldric went quiet for a while, staring at something I couldn't see. "Because my Script showed me something. A vision of my final battle with the Demon Lord. I was dying, defeated, ready to die. And in the vision, someone saved me. Someone who wasn't supposed to be there, who didn't have a Script instructing them to be there, but who chose to be there anyway."
He stood before me, and the blue of his eyes blazed with an intensity I'd never seen before.
"I don't know if that's you. My Script does not reveal all. But I suppose if there's even a chance the person with no destiny might be the one to rescue the person with the largest destiny of them all. well, that would be somewhat ironic, don't you agree?"
I didn't know how to answer that. The idea that I, an Error, would somehow be the key to the Hero's triumph was absurd. And yet Aldric sensed it, or at least sensed it enough to stake his family fortune and his own life on the possibility.
"What if I'm not that one?" I whispered. "What if I'm just. nothing?"
"If so, then you're still my friend, and that will have to do." He stood up and stretched. "Let's go. My dad had you booked a room in the east wing. We'll get you settled in, then grab some lunch. Cook does this amazing meat pie every Tuesday."
As I walked along with him across the estate, I tried to ignore the servants who stopped to stare, the softly spoken words that fell silent when we approached, the obvious discomfort my presence caused. This was my life now, security purchased at the cost of ongoing scrutiny, survival traded for reliance.
But I existed. My father was well. And I possessed a friend who saw more than the Error everyone else did.
It would have to do.
For at least this time around.
What I didn't know, what I couldn't know, was something Aldric's vision had shown him too. Something he would never tell me until far too late.
In the same dream in which he'd been rescued, he'd also seen the same person standing over him with a knife, darkness radiating from their body, the world burning behind them.
The person who would rescue him was the same person who would cause destruction to all.
And Aldric had looked at me, at the Error with no destiny, and decided to take a risk anyway.
Because heroes are stupid like that.
And because sometimes, the worst tragedies begin with the best of intentions.