“You are aware of the Deathless Curse, yes?” she asked carefully.

He raised an eyebrow. “We might be the northernmost princedom but we aren’t savages. There’s a limit to ignorance.”

“I mean not to offend you,” Talla said quickly. “I just—well, you have been exceedingly honest with me and that is something I’ve not come to expect from anyone. May I do the same with you?”

“Of course.”

Despite the likelihood of a backfire, Talla found her shoulders relaxing and took in a deep breath. “Let us be frank, elves are not well-liked across the Six Princedoms. Demons, Wolves, Humans—it matters not. Some hate us openly, some more secretly. But you have been rather kind and hardly appear scared to stand next to me.”

“Why should I feel fear standing next to a lone traveler?”

Is that irony in his voice or does he mean those words? “Many think the Deathless Curse to be contagious. That getting near us will turn them into the same haunted monstrosity that we can.”

The young man leaned back, rubbing his chin contemplatively. “Forgive my ignorance, but does it not only affect elves?”

He mocks me, certainly. Only elves could be affected by it, true, but that hardly stopped the paranoia that came with it. Even if this man was supposedly above petty human prejudices, he should certainly be aware that they existed. But he did not look as though he knew. There was a strange, aristocratic innocence to his eyes. And it was then that Talla thought he might really be able to help her.

You had to be of very high birth to be that sheltered. This little lord might know of Von of Redgrave. “People…can be cruel, my good man. They need a good reason to leave you alone but will take any bad reason for giving you hell. It is the way of things. ” She paused. “The Deathless Curse is a partial mystery. No one knows where it came from or how to treat it. But we know how to prevent it. It’s not a secret.”

He leaned forward, narrowing his eyes in interest. “And I presume given the recent spread of the curse that it’s not something easy to accomplish, is it?”

“In theory, it is. You need to sacrifice your life to chain the Void—keep it away from us for just a little longer. That’s all it takes.”

The man became very solemn. “Sacrificing your own life is not what I would consider easy.”

“But my people have done it before and would have done it again if that’s all it took. I would do it if I could. That’s how bad the curse is.”

“What does it take then?”

“You have to defeat the current guardian in a one-on-one duel first—magic will keep you away from it otherwise. It has to be a fair duel as well. And the thing is, no one can defeat him. No one has defeated him in four hundred years, and so the curse has run afoul.”

Here the man startled back for a moment and held up a hand to interrupt her. “Is your plan to get Von of Redgrave to defeat this man and get himself killed?”

“No…we wouldn’t ask that of anyone. He just has to defeat him. One of us can deal with the sacrifice. But he still needs to defeat him. We need someone—anyone, to do that.”

The man nodded slowly. “I understand. And you think Von of Redgrave might be of help?”

“I know he will be.” Talla stopped. “If he can be convinced to help. Elven coin is not plentiful these days…we have not enough to hire more than one champion for this. Not for a duel this dangerous. To be frank with you, we barely have enough to hire Von. But humans charge less than others—whether because you lot have a shorter lifespan or because you know your reputation as weaker swordsmen, I do not know.”

Talla smiled apologetically. “I know it sounds rude to say it but Von is the only human in the top 50 swordsmen in the Six Princedoms and for a number of reasons, he is the only one we can turn to.”

“It sounds like he’s not your first choice.”

“He is most certainly not.” The corners of Talla’s mouth twisted into an ironic smirk and she looked at the human with a frown. “He’s cruel.”

“Cruel?” The young man appeared very interested in this. “Have you met him before? Please, tell me more.”

At first, the question appeared to be some sort of joke—his aristocratic ways indicated he probably would have met the second in line to inherit Stormkeep. Yet there was something honest about his question and it left her no doubt. He has no idea about the man I met. That was surprising. To think that she who only left her village for short journeys had seen this man’s lord more often than he had…now that was odd.

“My childhood friend, Kai, was supposed to fight Vandyr. He was trained from childhood for the task and he worked extremely hard to become the greatest elven swordsman who ever lived.” It had been tough, as most of his teachers were suffering from the Deathless Curse and could only manage vague advice at times, but Kai had managed to do extraordinarily well for himself regardless. “He entered the Tournament in Blade Valley to try to win himself a Royal Heartbeat—to give himself the edge he needed to beat Vandyr.”

“That makes sense,” the man replied. “They gave out a Royal Heartbeat to the top 8, this last year, yes?" Most unusual, this prize. "How far from it was he?”

“He made Top 16.” Talla knew that sounding hostile would endanger her chances here but she could not keep the bitterness from her voice. Talla herself had lost in the top 32—a mighty achievement still, for a tournament involving the entire Six Princedoms. “Then he lost to Von of Redgrave.”

“Ah.”

“I will never forget it. How Von of Redgrave laughed at my friend's efforts…how he mocked him for trying. He destroyed him. It looked like it was close for a while, but the longer the match went on the clearer it was that the outcome was never in doubt.”

The young man watched her carefully. “What did he say?”

“Von of Redgrave told Kai to give up. He said…he said ‘I don’t give a damn what you’re fighting for. This is a tournament. Why are you telling me all of this before the match? Do you expect me to sympathize with you? To lose just so that you can fulfill your dreams? Sorry, I’m not selfless enough to sacrifice my dreams for your sake.’ Then he went on to destroy Kai over the course of the match. It wasn’t even close.”

It was only at the silence that followed that Talla realized that maybe she had said too much. Shit. What am I doing? This is why they should have sent literally anyone else. Just because I’m good with a sword doesn’t mean they should have sent me here for fucking diplomacy. “Sorry, here you are taking your time to help a foreign visitor and here I am insulting your—”

“I’m afraid Von of Redgrave cannot help you,” the man said softly.

“No, I—forgive me, forget my words, if you would. Please, it’s really important that—“

The young man smiled gently at her and held his palm to interrupt her once more. “Please, you misunderstand me, my lady. There is something you are not aware of.”

“And that is?”

“Von of Redgrave was indeed an amazing swordsman. And he fought against Gilver at the Tournament in Blade Valley. He lost that match. Terribly.”

“Even so, his skill is—“

“—gone,” the young man said quietly. When Talla looked up at him, he smiled sadly and said, “Von of Redgrave, you see, was a waste of skin five years ago. Far from the talented swordsman you know him as, he was a recluse that hardly ever left his room let alone the castle of Stormkeep, preferring to read books than to suffer the cold. He was given a title by the populace, you know? The Lazy Lord.”

“Lazy Lord?” Talla had to laugh at that. Von of Redgrave was an obsessive perfectionist who cared about nothing except victory, working himself nearly to death day and night. Lazy? “Are you certain we speak of the same man?”

He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “Then, five years ago, something happened and he started training like crazy. It was as if he was possessed by someone else. Some say it has something to do with the new swordmaster hired at Stormkeep, but no one knows for sure.” He paused. “I don’t know for sure. But something caused him to become motivated to stop being a shame for his family and the people he represented. Something that made him work incredibly hard. Do you know what happened?”

It wasn’t a rhetorical question—the man appeared genuinely curious. More than that, he was haunted by the question. It was something he wondered before. “I’m sorry, I don’t. I didn’t even know he was ever anything but the arrogant, genius asshole I met briefly when Kai was competing.”

“Von of Redgrave lost badly to Gilver the Demon,” the young man said thoughtfully. “I believe Stormkeep tried to keep the degree of his injuries a secret. He was unconscious for six months after the fight, waking up only recently.”

“Injured?” Talla felt panic approaching her voice. “Is he—is he not in a condition to fight? Can he move?”

“He can move,” the young man said, hesitantly. “His movements are perfectly fine. But—”

“But?”

“But he forgot everything that matters,” he said simply. “Von of Redgrave forgot the last five years of his life. He woke up from his fight the same shitty, useless kid he always remembers being, except everyone is telling him about how amazing he was—which he can’t remember, let alone believe. As far as he’s concerned, he’s just a useless waste of air like he always was and he doesn’t know how to deal with this new life he’s earned for himself, let alone how to hold a sword.”

“How—how do you know that?” Talla felt cold sweat dripping from her forehead. Her hands shook, and she knew why. Please…please do not utter the words I fear.

“Because I am Von of Redgrave,” he said, in a sad tone. “And I fear I am as good as a beginner right now. I have not had a single duel since waking up and my ranking has gone down to #79 in the Six Principalities. My rank protection due to injuries has run out, I am afraid. I don’t even remember having ever held a sword before. I don’t know how to fight.”

“I—“ Many emotions and thoughts ran through Talla’s mind at once. Panic. Desperation. Fear. Failure. Her village. The man before her. His sad acceptance of his fate. The man she had once met, who now looked so different she couldn’t even blame herself for not recognizing. “I—I—“ What was there to say in a situation like this?

Gilver’s words rang in her head once more. “He lost more than a match.” His voice was calm, quiet, but it didn’t feel cold. There was a passionate, burning hatred there. “I took much more than that from him.”

“I—I do not care if you forgot. I do not care if you aren’t capable of what you once were. You are going to become that strong again. We don’t have any other choice.” She stood up and slammed her fist against the table. “I swear this: by the end of this week I’ll have you remember what you forgot, Von of Redgrave!”

End of Chapter 2, “I am Von of Redgrave.”