MYLES:

  Bdes cshed, bathed in the subtle sunlight of Kali’s reddish glow. Sweat dripped, and dripped, and dripped off of Myles’s brow as he attempted to defend against the king’s blow. A High Mage did not need to know how to control a bde, he needed to know how to control himself and the gifts bubbling inside of him, Myles doubted that some swordpy would assist in his own inner turmoil. The Usurper had traded in his Arakean Steel, Steel of the Red Dunes, Bckened Red Steel, for a more traditional steel so he did not kill the boy mage.

  Myles felt like a fool whilst sword in hand, clumsy and untrained. Bracken would have been ashamed if he saw Myles fighting like this. Brack was the finest swordsman that Myles had ever witnessed, even seeing Bracken spar was like watching Lothor in the flesh. Bracken Mageson would be remembered as one of the greats of all time, up there with Leonidas Fae “the Lion”, Cassian “The Knight of Thorns” Willow, The “Riverknight” Mully Rivers of Bluebend and King Arthur Storm.

  “Stop!” The King’s voice boomed as he swung his bde over Myles’s head, That should have killed me . Myles saw the simple chance as Damon’s sword arm was away from his face, opening a clear path to his neck. I could kill him, oh. A braver man would, vengeance for my father.

  “I’ve stopped, I’ve stopped. You left yourself open, I thought you weren’t supposed to do that, your grace?” Myles responded dryly. The King had called him into the Great Library to try and sharpen Myles’s dull edge, it seemed the whetstone of sword training wasn’t very effective.

  The King’s worn face looked down at Myles. Golden eyes looking down at him, Fae eyes, regal eyes, the eyes of a king. The King wore a brown tunic linen tunic, nothing too fancy since Damon Ren was a simple man. Myles on the other hand wore a silk white shirt, long and comfy. “You wouldn’t do that in a real fight, boy. This isn’t a real fight.”

  I’ll be fucked in a real fight then. “I suppose it’s nice to know that you don't really want to pulverise me in single combat.” Myles would crumble in a real fight, he would end up beheaded, like father like son.

  “But someone will, or one day you’ll want to crush the enemy in battle.” Damon stepped away, pacing around. Myles doubted that he would ever wish to crush any in battle, he was a lover not a fighter and he wasn’t that much of a lover either. The king pointed his bde at Myles. “You’re quiet, boy.”

  “I don’t have much to say.” Myles retorted, raising his bde in a defensive stance.

  Damon shook his head, his coal-bck locks stiffly moving, the widow’s peak on his brow was shining with sweat. “I sense you have much to say, boy. You fear me, don’t you?” Ren thrusted his bde towards Myles, the boy’s bde snapped to block it.

  “I’d be a fool not to, everyone fears the king!” Myles shouted as he made attempts to block a flurry of jabs and stabs by the king’s royal xiphos. Damon let out a small snicker at the response. Dear Titans, he’s really going to kill me, Myles thought when he saw the look on the king’s face.

  “Yes, but you more so. On the offensive, boy!” Damon shouted at Myles, taking a defensive stance to switch their roles in the melee. He did as he was asked, swinging a few reckless strikes at the king’s steel. Damon blocked and parried it with retive ease, sending a kick into Myles’s gut as a response to the sloppy swordsmanship. The kick was so hard that Myles thought he’d retch, good thing he had an empty stomach.

  He struck at the xiphos, slipping his own bde through the defense and nearly going through the king’s liver. “I wonder why?” Myles retorted, why should a boy fear his father’s killer?

  “You resent me, I know that for a fact. Perhaps you hate me, I wouldn’t bme you.” Damon whispered as Myles and he cshed swords. “Honesty will serve you best, not many people are honest in my presence.” The boy stopped his attack, backing away whilst huffing and puffing.

  Myles shook his head, hatred was something that Myles did not know the feeling of, he couldn't be sure it was what he felt in his belly when thinking of his father, his home. I am a Storm, Myles thought bleakly, he was an orphan after all. “I do resent you, your grace.” Honesty would get him killed, yet he still spoke it. “But . . . I understand why you killed my father and my mother.” His father was a traitor. Let it be known to all the realm that Kadin Drake was a traitor and enemy to the crown, death to traitors, death to treason and death to the independence of those who object. Myles’s mother was at the st of his thoughts, her name had slipped his mind years ago, decades ago. Was he there for her execution? He could not remember anymore, he never remembered.

  “Then you are a smart boy, smarter than most.” The king’s voice was deep as peridot, commanding and imposing, no doubt a maiden could be enthralled by it yet none caught his heart. “I need smart boys, smart boys become smart men and I am cking honest men that are smart.”

  “Honesty gets you killed, Thaddeus the Third executed his honest council, if Thaddeus the Fool had honesty then you’d never be king.” Myles responded, shrugging. All the kings were mad fools, more than most men. They stood in the library built by Fae, in a pace built by Fae’s.

  Tiberius the Schor built the Great Library of Soren, there was none bigger than it supposedly. Compensating for something, Tib? Great and big, the library was, yet it was rather cold in here. The walls are adorned with shelves taller than the giants of old and this was just the first level, there were four in total. If only the coffers were this full today. “Best I have honesty so I’m not like Thaddeus, my uncle was indeed a fool, so were my cousins.” The King smirked, remembering the Five Fae sons and how they dropped like flies during his rebellion. All five of them were named after great kings of old, except Thaddeus Fae’s youngest Dorian who was named after two usurpers, trying to break the cycle Myles supposed.

  “Fools to face you in open combat.” Myles responded, the Ren Rebellion was rather interesting. Damon slew the second born Theseus, named after Theseus “Stormborn”, a legendary king who slew Arakean raiders and fought the Battle of the Red deep in the dunes.

  Damon ughed. “Only one was brave enough, another fought in combat but I never saw him, I believe it was Evander who was sin on The Bck Wave’s bde after leading a host to deal with the fleet from the Archies. Theseus was the best fighter out of the lot of them, and that’s saying something because he was shit at fighting.” The king sneered.

  Dorian Fae threw himself out of a window when he saw Damon and his army riding into Faeton, Thaddeus was fool enough to believe that Damon would never head straight for him, hubris in flesh. Augustus Fae and Cassian Fae were executed the same day as their father, so many heads y at the feet of Damon the Usurper. “Makes a great bald, I'd wager.”

  Damon did not respond, only readying his bde for another round of battle. Myles sighed and got back in a defensive position.

  One thrust of his bde into Myles’s face, then another, and one more. The mage struggled to keep up, as was routine at this point. The king’s bde slipped down and tried to touch Myles’s rib, leaving Damon’s neck wide open. Sloppy old man, Myles thought before bringing the edge of his bde to Damon’s throat. “Yield.” Myles told Damon, unsure if he actually just did that. The king dropped his bde onto the ground before grabbing the boy's swordhand, pushing it aside, and headbutting Myles. Fuck. Blood dripped down from his nose, he brought his fingers up to wipe it and saw the metallic-silver blood of his Elven forefathers. I don’t have the ears or hair, but the blood proves that I’m still one of the lucky few who’s family survived a genocide that shames all of Krellen, the blood of the Laufei drips down my face and runs in my blood forever and always. The Humans were birthed from light, the sister species to Kali and Solyn. And Malek’s kin, the Yaeli, were born from shadow and darkness. But the Laufei were born from something different entirely, they were from the matter that was around long before Soren, long before light or dark, we are life itself.

  “Is that blood, boy?” Damon asked, he forcefully moved Myles’s hand from his nose to examine the mage nose himself. “You’ll be fine, elf boy.” Damon snickered. Myles scowled.

  “I prefer Laufei, elf is a word from the Soric tongue.” Myles responded, elf is a word by their genociders.

  Damon scoffed. “Laufei, Yaeli, how do you even know the difference? You speak the Soric tongue, it does not matter.”

  “It matters to me. Blood, nguage, it’s one of the few things that connects me with my forefathers.”

  “Heritage is a humbug, the future is the only thing to focus on.” Damon muttered. “I must tell you something boy, about my blood.”

  Please god, don’t be an elf, don’t fucking do it. This is my single thing, the thing that makes me unique, well and the magic thing . . . “Yes, your grace?” Myles asked.

  “My son, Kael, will be coming to the pace, and his mother.” Damon said to Myles.

  The boy was shocked, to say the least. The Usurper king who never took a wife had a bastard, actually not that shocking in hindsight. “And his mother is . . .? A Storm?” Myles asked, some storm from Renrun, he assumed. Damon’s cousin, the ckey Iwan Ren, ruled Renrun now.

  “A Carey, they rule Fort Carrow over the coast.” Damon said.

  “I don’t know them if I’m honest, I’d wager they’re a minor house?”

  “They are small, but steadfast. The watchers of the eastern front, their lighthouse guides all the ships and defends against any eastern threats. They endure.” Damon scowled.

  Eastern threats? There’s nothing east but water, water and more water, thought Myles but he didn’t say anything. “And the dy, who is she?” What kind of woman bares this man a bastard?

  “Lynnete, my Lynn. I tried to persuade my father, Lord Edric, to wed me to her but the Carey’s were not a good enough alliance. I would have married her in a heartbeat, alliance be damned. I brought shame upon her and her house by baring her Kael, shame which I could never make up for in a thousand lifetimes.” He let out a long and breathy sigh, “Lord Garrold Carey forbade from marrying her after giving her a bastard, he despised me for taking his daughter's purity before marriage.” Damon expined, he turned away from Myles and began pacing. “Lord Garrold perished and I seized the throne from my nuncle, I filled another bastard in my dear’s belly and once more tried to marry her but everyone advised against it. And that bastard did not survive, stillborn she was, I could have called her Annabel. My dear Lynn was never the same after it, sullen so many times, what difference does a wedding make?”

  Everything. Myles’s jaw clenched, his eyes darted around the library as he thought of an appropriate response. “Uh, ”he let out whilst he thought, “That just . . . uh sucks, but at least you are … you are reaching out to build that bond with your son.”

  Damon looked at Myles, nodded slightly. “You are a good boy, growing into a good man. Stay this way.” Damon pced a hand on Myles’s shoulder. Myles’s jaw clenched harder, repcing Gren, he thought.

  He nodded, “Yeah.” Myles muttered.

  “Son, I need you to do something for me. As my High Mage and councillor.” Damon said.

  Myles nodded slowly, looking in Damon’s piercing gold eyes, eyes to get lost in, eyes of the sun's themselves, Kali and Solyn in iris. “Anything, your grace.” Duty is the death of objection.

  “Theobald Merdus, the coinman.” Damon said. Conman, more like, Myles thought. “I have reason to believe he’s been altering my tax reports, dodging taxes and unwful debt collection. I know you received that letter from Merdus, find out the truth so I can do my duty.”

  “Yes, your grace.”

  Myles returned to his chambers atop the spire, before walking up the grand steps he sent a servant to fetch him food so he could break his fast. The room was cold, icy. He took off his shirt ,leaving himself to the cool, stale air. Goosebumps covered his pale flesh, his nipples hardened in the cold air. Myles looked at himself in the mirror, he considered this mirror to be more magic than anything he could do. Myles was tall, broad-shouldered but still thin. His pin hazel-eyes bore intently into the mirror, examining his body. Unremarkable , Myles thought. His chest and stomach was hairless, unmanly.

  Myles began dressing, a simple bck tunic embroidered with red threading and a pair of bck capris. He ran a hand through his brown hair, mussing it up and trying to style the totally un-styleable block of hair, he tried to move it one way and then another but it ended back down as just a simple fringe.

  Myles cleared a pce for him to eat, moving letters and reports, so many parchments. He moved the tax reports and the Merdus letter. I look into Merdus when I am back from my trial of tar, when I am truly a High Mage .

  Then a knock at the door, deja vu. Myles answered the call and opened the door. A squire, around the age of twelve or so, was on the other side holding a pte full of food. Is this pce understaffed or did one of the servants relegate the third son of a minor house, sworn to another minor house, to bring up my food. “Thank you, sir.” Myles gave the boy the courtesy of calling him sir even if he wasn’t knighted. A strange feeling thrashed around in Myles’s gut as he realized how he towered before the boy, twelve was an age that came and went for Myles, it was his eighth year as a ward of the king and eighth a hostage.

  Five years ago, I was him, Myles thought as he took the tray from the ds hands and pced it on the table. Myles popped a window open to let in fresh air. He then went to the hearth, kneeling and putting in three logs, he could have gotten a firestriker but instead he went the easy way. Energy pulsed in his fingertips, running throughout his whole body like he was made of lightning, that energy turned into sparks, sparks turned to cinders, and cinders made the logs alight. They could have my head for that, an outwed art in the palm of my hand.

  Myles sat at the table, looking at his meal. Soft cheese with soggy bacon, spinach, fried bread with some butter. He made a crude sandwich with the meal, putting bacon, cheese, spinach in between the slices of fried bread. A hearty meal for anybody, especially the mage. He took three bites before setting it back down, perhaps when he returned he’d finish it or let the royal hounds have it for their lunch. Bacon grease sthered his chin, making him feel dirty and disgusting.

  He walked down the steps to his grand spire and down a level, into the first-floor of his spire was a small washroom, with a tub, basin and privy. The privy was a wooden seat with a hole in it, the hole opened into a chamberpot which the servants would regurly take out and repce with a fresh one whilst they cleaned the old one, dirty work. Myles went to the privy and spshed his face with water, cleaning the grease off before walking down the rest of the staircase and entering the celr of the pace, the tarpit.

  He walked down a low-ceilinged and dingy hallway, a knight of the bck sun guarded the tar and Myles needed the tar to eclipse his mind before ascending to a High Mage. A great, bck door stood at the end of the hall.

  From the shadows, bleeding out from the darkness, cutting his way from reality itself, appeared a man. He was old, fifties he appeared, kind eyed, blue they were. “That door contains death if the wrong man walks through it, boy.” He told Myles with a raspy voice.

  Myles frowned, a mage’s magic, he’s not real, an illusion, an eclipse in my vision . He shrugged. “What if I’m the right man?”

  “Then your life will change, you will see men die, men be born, kings rise and kings fall, you will rise from the ashes as a man. You will live for thirty-six thousand days, and thirty-six thousand nights! And it is a thankless job. Do you wish that fate upon yourself?” The man asked.

  “What other choice do I have?” Myles responded.

  “Say no, damn the tar and go home.”

  What home? My home was destroyed in a siege a decade ago, I have no home. “I do not wish to live as a Tarnished, disgraced and disgruntled for the rest of my days. I am too far in.”

  “You will only become tarnished if you fail, you cannot fail if you never try.” The man responded.

  “Then I best not fail.” This man bored the young hawk. “Who are you?”

  “I was you, once. Those days were long ago, when I was a younger man. I rushed into life, into magehood, into duty. Do not make my mistake, Drake. Edmund of House Grafton, grand-uncle to the current Lord Reginald, I’m Duke Percival Holt of the High South’s Mage.”

  Myles crossed his arms. “You speak of servitude and regret, I’ve been living like that already and I am fine with that to continue. I have nowhere else. Go back to your Duke, Grafton. You can’t stop me.”

  Myles pushed the door open and walked into the dank celr, filled with barrels of bck dust. “Sir, knight.” Myles bowed his head to the Knight sitting in the chair. The Sir of the Tar was a weathered man of forty, bald and frail with pale skin.

  “My mage, you have come.” He whispered before taking a knee.

  The sight made Myles feel strange, powerful. A man at his knees, that felt nice. Sir Hon never bent the knee when Myles had taken the previous challenges, why was it different? “Rise, sir. You never need to take a knee for me.”

  “The mage is kind, too kind.” He rose, nodding slowly. “You need the bck, you mean to take the test? I have seen you through the others, I only hope you survive this one. I have seen too many die because of the dreams, because of the awakening.” Hon whispered, mumbled fastly. Gren’s other apprentices, the failures, I am the only to make it this far, Myles thought.

  “So do I.” Myles responded, The Knight of the Bck Sun hurried to get a small portion of the bck on a spoon. The Knights of Bck Sun were the guardians of the Eclipse, an off-shoot to the padins of the sun, one spreaded zealous stories and the other guarded the only thing that stood between men and mage,

  “Please, my lord. Take it in, to ease yourself.” Hon spoke softly, with a light croke in his throat. The powder was all bck, a slight blue tinge in it as the dim light bounced off it. Myles obligated and sniffed it in. His eyes rolled back and let out a groan, ecstasy flooded his veins. It smelt of everything in the universe, and nothing, power and weakness, life and death, fire and ice, darkness and light, elf and human. Myles’s legs buckled, his body was crumpling and Hon helped him to the ground. Myles let out three quick pants. “And now the void water, please. You must continue.” Myles blinked and suddenly he was a thousand leagues, a red desert filled with chains, a blonde and a brunette battling for the universe itself. Red, blood, sand, darkness, light, everything, everywhere.

  His lips were dry, so dry. He saw a decanter filled with bck water brought to his lips and Myles drank, drank like it was the st drink he’d get in weeks, drank like he’d been starved for water in the deep dunes of the red desert. It tasted like a thousand cosmos, stars and suns itself, expanding and colpsing on tastebuds, it filled his stomach but not his thirst. The room swirled and distorted, he was in a thousand worlds and at a thousand different pces all at once.

  “DUM BARID!”

  The words ringed in his ears as he fell to his knees, worshipping at the helm of god in human flesh, our Mas’Jun sent to free us. His arms were in chains, tight chains that scarred his thin skin, and they were shouting a name, a name so strong, so weak, so powerful. What are they shouting!

  “Dum Barid! Free us, Gizzi!” Myles shouted to the figure shrouded in white light. “Save us, Storm! You are our only hope, holy one!” Myles felt the words come from his mouth, words that were not his own and coming from a mouth that was not his own.

  He walked in a market vilge, next to a man who he didn’t know. “A prophecy is a lie that you can use.” Myles told the man, advising him. “You are not a messiah, but you are chosen. Chosen by those with a higher power.”

  “I know, the sves are weak but they outnumber a force. I could probably sell some of them to buy myself an army.” The voice responded, he turned his head and Myles saw his snide and pretty smirk.

  Darkness, so much darkness, an army of it. Myles was at the helm of an army, a leader, follower to a king, never a king himself, always subservient. “There is an army of them, Prince Theseus.” Myles turned his head to the Crown Prince Cadmus of House Fae, a golden eyed youth and king in the making. At Myles’s side was Galen Leto, the Lord of Lensin, Bracken Mageson, the greatest warrior to ever live, Duke Seamus Aston, Brigit the Bck Knight, and Lord Damon of Renrun, the first line of defense against darkness.

  “We have an army too, we are the torch in the dark.” Theseus responded to him. An army of white-haired and shadow-skinned men stand against them.

  “The Yaeli will not stand against us! Light defeats the dark! We shall shine upon them and cast them back in the shadows to hide for another thousand years! They will not win today, and they will not win tomorrow, let us make sure it stays that way forever and always!” Myles shouted to the army at his heels. “To battle! Charge!” Myles’s white horse raced against the army of darkness.

  Myles cut through darkness, and into a room, sulking in the corner and watching. “The gift is strong in Drake, but he is young and untrained! He fights his nature when he should be revelling in it!” A man shouted to Grennard Storm, Myles knew it was another mage.

  “He is a boy! He has no control over the gift, if he tastes the power he won’t stop!” Gren screamed back at the man.

  “Then you have no faith!”

  Myles felt a jolt of pain in his belly, he peered down and saw a crossbow bolt in his gut. He let out a groan and both Gren and the man turned to stare at Myles. “No, no. I’m not here, this is a dream, a vision.”

  “A reality that you never knew until now.” Gren whispered in the air. Myles crumbled to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, and he nded on a chair in a brothel. He heard a boy's boisterous ughter.

  “Do you pn on getting your cock wet this evening?” The boy asked, Myles turned his head and saw a handsome youth with honey-gold hair and a strong nose.

  Myles never knew the man, yet he felt like the two were great friends, or they could be. His name seemed to the tip of Myles’s tongue, teasing him with the letters. “No, Galen. I think not. Do not wait for me if you wish to indulge yourself, a brothel is for fun.” Myles took a sip of wine.”

  “Me neither, Becca’s not working tonight so no point really. But a brothel can be fun even without fucking, right? Some decent wine and pretty sights is alright for an evening.” Galen responded with a shrug. Becca, the image of a whore fshed in Myles’s mind, a beaut of a wench, no wonder Gale had taken such a likening to her.

  “Holy Titans, you just want to see a pair of tits, don’t you?” Myles ughed. The brothel girls were blurry and nondescript, yet enthralling beautiful. Some were topless, with their breasts bared and more detailed than their faces. Myles felt like he’d seen a thousand tits a thousand times, it felt normal for him to be here when some deep within knew he was out of his depth

  “Of course, who doesn’t? Thank the Titans for tits, Myles.” Galen and Myles both ughed like long lost friends, brothers, reunited.

  Myles blinked and the blurry brothel was different, a feasting hall for the ages, the topless wenches turned into fair servants with their blouses done up. And Galen was gone, repced by a man who Myles thought to be Bracken the Mage’s Son for a brief few seconds.

  “You look like you’ve seen a phantom, My. What’s wrong?” The man asked in a cool, deep voice. He had strong brown eyes, ft and pin brown hair.

  Myles thought he was looking into a mirror. “Who are you?” Myles asked, for a small fleeting moment he could have sworn that the man beside said, you , but the words never came and the fleeting moment went into the wind.

  “Cayle, Cayle Drake.” The man raised an eyebrow and Myles felt a wave of sickness fill his body. A torrent of memories flooded through his mind, memories that Myles didn't know whether were real, a vision of the truth or a mirage created by the tar. Cayle charging against the usurper in a bloody st stand before falling to the might of the sword. I was never the heir, I was the spare. I have a brother. Tears fell down Myles cheek, he wanted to tear his hair out for forgetting, how could he forget his own blood? I had a brother, I had a brother, I had fucking brother!

  He let out a scream and everything seemed to fade, he didn’t want this, he didn’t want to forget but he couldn’t stop his own mind from falling out of pce, repcing the old with the new. Damn the Titans and their cruelty, damn the Usurper, damn my father for waging a war that he could never win .

  Myles was adrift amongst the bck of the stars, bck upon bck. He was nothing, a speck in the fragment of the history of the universe. Soren and Arakia would eventually crumble to dust, all memory of the Drakes, the Rens and the Faes would be gone. What is it for? Just to die, pointless. The cosmos were lonely, the universe is a lonely pce. Myles knew this too well.