Arion had at last finalized his duties on the northern border and was ready to depart for the capital. There were only a few weeks until the season of infected beasts began, a bleak period that, ironically, always began just days after his birthday.
'What a joke,' he used to think as a child and later as an angry teenager recovering in isolation. He remembered the infected soldier who had killed Dax's most trusted man, the sudden attack, and the brutal reality of being infected himself at only eight years old. He had endured months, then years, of agonizing treatments, constantly monitored just so the kingdom could be sure he wasn't a monster.
Most normal people got to enjoy their childhoods. They got to grow, make stupid mistakes, and, in the best cases, outgrow them.
Arion didn't get that luxury.
