Not long after the conversation with his cousin, Tramon finally deemed him ready for hands-on training. Like this, Alistar began to learn one of the three moves of the Crown Style’s first tier, which was the lowest tier of the apprentice stratum. It was a simple defensive stance used to block head on attacks, a technique which required the lowest amount of energy to be infused with the movements.

One day, after many hours on blistered feet, Alistar was told to prepare for a spar. No sooner had his teacher spoken those words, than he slashed out with a wooden sword and knocked Alistar down.

“Why did you hit me so suddenly?”

“Quit your grumbling and get back on your feet. You think someone who’s trying to kill you is going to give you a head’s up before they do it?”

The coming hours saw Alistar bruised and battered, as Tramon forced him to make use of his recently learned technique so that he could gain firsthand experience in using it. It quickly became apparent that practicing the stance was entirely different than using it practically. The most troublesome part was retaining enough focus to maintain his inner aura while also attempting to repel Tramon’s strikes.

In the weeks that followed, Alistar became accustomed to making use of his inner aura while in action, and had also grown into the defensive technique quite comfortably. He figured that his first successes were largely due to the additional hours of practice he invested each night, never missing a session save for the odd evenings when Lessa came to visit.

Another benefit of the long hours that he spent meditating beneath the tree out front of Tramon’s home, was that he became much more proficient at handling his magical awareness. He was now able to completely shut out all signals in his surroundings, and if he cleared his mind and concentrated, he could sense life signals within a quarter-league’s radius, though only those of people that had come into their energies. From what he could tell, around one in three people were capable of using magic to some extent, whether or not they were aware of it. Something else that he noticed was that most nobles possessed substantial energies that were always much easier to detect than those of the ordinary townsfolk. According to Mr. Herst, the nobility had originally gained their positions because they had possessed the most powerful bloodlines among the civilizations of centuries past.

When the time came to head to the Hanging Hill to attend Mr. Herst’s lessons, Alistar would run to strengthen his legs. After a month of pushing himself resolutely, he was finally able to make the entire run without pause.

Anice and her friends attended the lessons about once every two weeks, but that only applied to the group as a whole. Sometimes he caught sight of Zech sitting off to the side of the crowd, alone and oblivious to the lesson’s contents, his eyes always clouded over in thought. Other times he might see Corrie lurking in the background, attentive but withdrawn as he drank in every comment, question and answer from behind that shaggy curtain of dark hair. After ghosting along with the group on several occasions, Alistar noticed that Corrie’s eyes were always keen on his surroundings, and that he was much more observant than any of his friends. He was always toting around the same black book, a fat, scarred old thing that he never seemed to leave behind. Of all the other children, he was the one that Alistar felt like befriending the most.

Aside from the times when Anice and her friends—the Dozen, as the other children called them, despite that there were only eleven of them—would attend a lesson, Alistar saw the motley group quite often. A couple of times a week, his cousin made the effort to drag him off to their little camp beside the Greyline, so that he could hover quietly around the others like a mute bug. This took up time that he could otherwise have dedicated to furthering his education, but he was painfully aware that he needed to become more familiar with kids his age, so he forced himself to endure the embarrassment. Even though he wished to become more outgoing, the others gradually lost interest in him and it became a normal thing for him to ghost along in their wake.

He spent the greater part of his days atop the hill with Mr. Herst, privately considering all that the old man had to say. The old Drunaeda spent most of his time atop the hill by his lonesome, for not many people were keen on fraternizing with a descendant of the cursed demons. After passing so much time together, Alistar sensed that the elderly man was very lonely. Sometimes, his eyes would take on an odd dullness, one which was very common among the slaves in Crystellum. Aside from when people gathered for the public lessons, Alistar was the only person that ever visited him. He lived in a little cabin nearby the hill, seldom leaving the area unless to attend Sunday mass or to fetch something from the market.

Often times, midway through a cheerful and informative conversation, the mood would take on a dark turn and Mr. Herst would warn Alistar away from certain topics, almost always those related to religion. Alistar hadn’t been in the city for long, but he could see that Lucianism was a very sensitive matter to most. Whenever it came up in conversation, he tended to keep to himself, at least when he wasn’t speaking to Mr. Herst.

He had recently started attending mass, a large gathering at Mayhaven’s cathedral where people prayed and worshipped Lucian on the last day of each week. During these times, he simply played along with whatever the adults wanted him to do or say, though the concept didn’t hold much weight in his heart.

After hearing countless old tales and forgotten folklore of the Drunaeda, Alistar had learned that Lucianism and those that practiced it weren’t as kind and benevolent as others would have him believe. Even though Mr. Herst never decried or discredited the Lucian Faith, he always forbade him from repeating whatever they discussed. For example, the Inverted had a different name for themselves, one that was no longer known or used. To them, they were the Drunish people, a powerful race made up of many different tribes, all with their own customs and unique physical traits. If Alistar happened to slip up and mention these things to others, there was a chance that it might cause him and his family some trouble. He didn’t understand how good people could be angered by something so small, since such behavior was something that he would expect from the guards at Crystellum, not kind townsfolk. Still, he upheld his promise not to mention such things, even if he didn’t fully understand why it was necessary.

Before Alistar realized it, Mr. Herst had become one of his closest friends, a trusted mentor and a steadfast confidant. The man enjoyed his company, and Alistar could tell that it made him happy just to sit and tell him stories. Oftentimes, he spoke about his personal experiences, usually old tales from his younger days. There was always a hidden moral or lesson in these retellings, which Alistar tried his best to guess after. This was common throughout their talks, since Mr. Herst paused often to question him, seeking his opinions on how the people in these stories behaved, and testing his common sense. It was hard for him to tell, but Alistar felt that he faired quite well with his responses.

Like this, Alistar learned a great deal of things that weren’t known to most people. One conversation in particular stuck out in his memory, because of its abrupt ending. Mr. Herst had just finished telling him why the Drunaeda were not considered human beings, though he disagreed.

“But how can that be? They’re not monsters or demons, so they must be human.”

“They are closely related, but like I’ve told you, they’re not quite the same.”

Mr. Herst had brought a smaller version of his folding chair, which he had made for Alistar over the past week. The day had been dominated by strong winds, which had ushered in a wave of dark clouds that currently loomed off in the distance as if they had suddenly slowed to a stop. The breeze had settled down, and a strong pillar of sunlight bore down upon Mayhaven and much of the county. In the sudden calmness, the two had dragged their chairs out into the sunlight to enjoy the fading warmth.

Today he had pestered the old man to tell him more about the Drunaeda, even though he knew that it made him uncomfortable. He’d tried to learn about these things at home, but there was hardly any material on the subject. Harbouring a growing sense of frustration, he finally expressed his thoughts to his friend.

“None of the books at home talk about these things. It was even the same in the collegia’s library. Shouldn’t there have been writings there, at least?”

“That’s not a question that I should answer,” sighed Mr. Herst, rolling up the long sleeves of his coarse tunic to reveal a pair of pine-coloured arms and the swirly black markings that pocked them. As they sat in silence, several rumbles descended from the distant skies. “That’s enough talk for today, I should think. You’d better hurry home, lad. You don’t want to get caught up in the storm.”