Chapter 2 #2
His feet felt frozen. He didn’t want to move, but his father gave him a nudge, and suddenly he was stepping forwards, into the tent...where men and women died right in front of him.
Table after table, the soldiers that had been brought back from last night’s battle were utterly shredded by the enemy. By darksoul magic and stinking, spoiled wounds that he knew they had no hope of coming back from.
He’d heard of it, this kind of war-earned death.
But to see it with his own eyes?
Soldiers groaned, and others shouted prayers to the gods as the Ehvermages worked on them, and the smell reeked with the burn of cleaning alcohol, and someone nearly knocked him over as they carried a bucket of bloody rags out the door of the tent, and—
It sloshed onto his boots.
He’d cleaned them for what felt like hours this morning, never satisfied with the work of the servants, and now there was blood on them. There was blood on his toes, and his heart did a little nervous twitch, and...
He was going to be sick.
He spun around, ready to release the contents of his stomach. But he came face to face with his father instead, who still knelt on one knee, the tip of his sword digging into the frozen earth as if he’d been waiting.
As if he knew Arawn would be too weak to handle what he saw inside the tent.
“Boys without crowns? Boys who are not fated by the gods to rule? They end up here, Arawn,” the king whispered, looking down at him sadly.
“But they have no power to fight with, so they wield a borrowed sword instead. But what good is a sword against a creature that seeps shadows, a beast that boasts unpillared magic? What good is a sword...against creatures who ride the Acolyte’s raphons?
Their claws are built for shredding, dismembering, beheading.
Their fangs are meant for ripping out throats, and there is no invocation, Crown Prince, that can bring a man back from a wound such as that. ”
Arawn was trembling now, and not from the cold.
No, it was because he could still hear soldiers dying behind him. Gulping, shuddering breaths as the Ehvermages worked to close their wounds...but ultimately, they met their ends.
“But you, Arawn Laroux, are not just a boy,” his father said. “And thank the gods that you will never be.”
His voice was an anchor. It was strength and it was a promise as solid as gold.
He wanted to have such strength for himself.
He wanted to be older and stronger than this, as he forced himself not to stare at the blood splatters on his boots.
“You were born with the kiss of the Five on your brow, the promise of being a Crown Prince...and there is no greater gift.”
He rose back to standing, so Arawn was looking up at him. So the snow blurred his edges and Arawn noticed, slowly, the way the sea of passing soldiers parted around his father, as if they feared him every bit as much as they respected him.
Will they ever do that for me? he wondered. Will they ever look at me like I’m something great?
“Someday, you will be in this fight,” the king continued.
“Leading these very men and women. But you will not die like they do down here, helpless and hopeless on the battlefield. No, you will be in the sky, because you carry my blood, and with it, you will someday become an Eagle Rider. You will soar on the wind and wield a glorious, pillared magic, the kind that only the gods can give, so long as you are pious enough to earn it. You will lead these people. Not to death, but to victory. And someday when you pass on, when the Five welcome you into the Ehver...they will decide if you are worthy enough to enter through their gates.” He reached out and took Arawn’s hand in his.
He felt so small. He felt like just a boy...
And now he didn’t know if he liked it.
His father’s next words seemed to catch on to that realization.
“If you were just a boy, Arawn, you’d have a hard time earning it.
But a Sacred King?” A smile lit up his father’s face, as rare as the sun, just for a moment before he reigned his emotions back in.
As any good Sacred should. “A Sacred King is raised the way you are, bored and wanting more...so that someday, when his magic is finally unleashed, the Five will bless him tenfold for it.”
He dropped Arawn’s hand, leaving him cold.
“You will stay here until nightfall as your penance for doubting. You will help the soldiers load up the carts with their dead. And by darkness, you will send off the living when they head off to fight. Have I made myself clear?”
His stomach churned. But Arawn inclined his head. “Yes, Father.”
“King,” Draybor growled. “Never see me, nor yourself, as anything but.”
“Yes...King,” Arawn said back.
And the king left him alone.
All day, he helped the nomages lift their dead onto carts. He helped write their names on worn scrolls, so that they could be passed on to the Ravenminders in their towers, so that their loved ones would find out, soon enough...that they had died fighting in a war they could not yet win.
When the day ended, and the soldiers formed a line and began to march, solemnly, into another night of war...
Arawn counted them all. He prayed for each of them, one by one.
How many, he wondered, will be loaded onto carts tomorrow?
How many will be dead?
His crown still felt like a burden, even as he marched the long staircase back north.
Even as the shadow of the Citadel fell upon him, and he found himself standing safe and sound before the ancient tree.
He stared at all the swords as the snow danced upon his head, and the war rumbled on the other side of the wards.
But he felt it like it was inside of him.
He felt the boom and roar of the Acolyte’s awful magic...
And he hated it.
Someday, Arawn thought, looking down at the dried blood on his boots and his hands. Someday...I will be a great Sacred king...and nobody will ever have to die by darksouls again.
He would keep his promise.
He would keep it, even if it broke him.