The leader of their party decided that the wizard and her ‘slave’ will be positioned on the right flank.

‘Slave’ huh. Well it doesn’t matter. To be frank I still look like a hobo, and there is no point in getting new clothes, they are only temporary.

They wanted us to be in front, as bait for any possible attack. But when Olana told their leader that we can travel from behind, everyone decided reach for a compromise. Having no desire for someone who you don’t fully trust to guard your back is acceptable reason.

It looks like Olana became a bit more confident as soon as we were not alone.

A person who would be feeling herself safer in a bigger group of strangers…

I really don’t want to think more about her strange behavior, but this strange details raise more and more questions, and debate whenever I made the right decision to travel with her.

She continued to stare at me with expectation, but her actions did not grant her any result. In a game of stubbornness she is strong, but not as much as I am. Maybe she is used to the fact that everything goes her way. Or she simply believes that a single word or glance from her is enough for the world to bend under her.

After about an hour she started the talk herself.

“Listen, I know that you can’t tell me much, but at least your name. We have been traveling for about two weeks together and I still don’t know how to call you.”

After about 10 seconds of silence I answered.

“B117”

I should have replied with my real name, but somehow replied with the blood legion ID.

My name.

[Isn’t it ironic that you have hid you name for so long, but told it to mayor of a small, random village. Oh wait, it was a Qaes village. Right, you killed them all didn’t you? The first, in nearly a decade to hear your name, and their fate was to die by your hand.]

[Did you want to leave at least your name behind? Hoping it would exist in someones memory?]

“Oh, code name. Okay that is already a progress.”

After another hour of silence she continued.

“Okay I am really sorry, I just want to know how my uncle is. I haven’t heard about him in quite some time. I am not asking for information about something important, like your mission or a secret, or information about someone big like the Blood Hand or Saint Protus or The Bleeding Shadow or even that psychopath Inquisitor. Please it is my uncle.”

I continue to stare in front ignoring the question as if it wasn’t asked several times.

“God damn you.” she mutters with scowl.

[Interesting how two names she mentioned is actually the same person, which is the uncle she is asking about.]

Yorgan was always really good at manipulation of blood and hiding in the shadow, but in the end it didn’t save him.

Protus. A Saint?

If only they knew how far are they from truth.

I would give a lot to make him disappear from the face of earth, to take him with me to hell, so much could be solved with his death alone, but alas it will never happen. Even if I somehow will be able to bypass the 12 incredibly experienced Enforcers and Wizards, who are his personal bodyguards and are constantly around him, Protus himself is a totally different story. Even if half of continent gathered together against him alone, they would be but ants before a god. And he would not hesitate for even a fraction of seconds to take capital action.

His words still echo in my mind from time to time.

“Life itself is violence. All societies and all species exist only because of violence. It is the thing that hold us all together, the universal currency, and all other forms of control or existence derive from it. What stops a stranger from taking your property or life? Tell them to stop? Beg for life? Pretty words and laws are worth nothing if there is no violence to uphold them. Don’t be, even even for a fraction of a second, mislead by the existence of some peace preaching creatures, who claim to be able to survive with no violence at all, that is only possible because they live in society of violence, even though they don’t see or understand it. As soon as you extract them from the said society they cease to exist.”

He is not wrong, but he is not right.

It is not all about violence, or at least I try to believe so.

…

A lady in her mid forties is telling stories to a small child on her lap, which is around 5, things about mana and magic, which are just so, utterly, ridiculous. But it compares in no form what she is telling about blood brotherhood.

The evening chill makes all the people bundle together around the fire to warm up. We have crossed sand part of the desert, which is really good news. The rocky terrain, in which we are currently in, does not protect us from the cold wind, and few burning twigs of dried caricature on a tree don’t do a good job of warming us up.

And so we sit all and listen to the story.

“…they are feared by all, their brothers the blood legion, their masters and simple folk. People don’t usually see them, as they hunt during the night. But you can know that it is them when you can smell thick scent of blood accompanied by screams. They bath in the blood of their enemies and become stronger with each battle. But fear not child, they are the darkest creatures of the night, yet they serve the light. They will never hurt innocent, never come into the house of righteous, never spill the blood of pure.”

I really want to laugh right now. This whole ‘be good’ and you won’t die bullshit sound more and more ridiculous with each iteration.

Olana is stealing few glances checking on my reaction to the story.

The ogre and elf party are silent as they look into the fire. They decided to make a proper burial of their friend in the next city, therefore they wrapped his body in cloth and put it on a horse, but the burning sun has increased the speed of their friend body decomposing. This freezing night is accompanied by the smell of rotten flesh to which few wanted to raised complains, but didn’t.

The story continued, painting blood brothers something akin to demons, who consume the blood and can morph into anything they desire, who can kill armies with blood magic.

Most of it is bullshit, but there is piece of truth in it. Every single one of blood brotherhood uses some form of blood magic. There are those who can siphon mana from the blood of enemies, those that turn blood into armor or weapon, those that can manipulate the blood, as if it is simple bending of water, and much, much more.

But it more dependent on affinity, which is much more than people think.

In the most respected books on magic affinity is described as combination of physical body structure, state of spirit and the will of mind. Those books usually talk about the way to find your affinity and accept it as representation of what you are, and what you should be. The only thing scholars talk about in the subject of affinity is philosophical, spiritual and abstract stuff.

But when you start digging deeper you find more, and the more you gaze into the abyss the more abyss gazes into you, literally. According to my finding, the thing people call ‘affinity’ is more of a tunnel to the ‘soul’ of something. In the books, people described that as energy flowing in both directions, where you send the internal mana to that ‘special’ soul through a ‘gate’ and receive elemental or arcane mana back.

According to the modern consensus, those souls and their mana divide into 2 basic pillars, elemental pillar and arcane pillar.

The elemental pillar divides into the four categories, earth, water, wind and fire, while the arcane divides into energy, matter, spirit and gravity.

There was a time when mages theorized that there is a third pillar, internal mana pillar, but it was dismissed a long time ago as just a part of spirit group of arcane pillar.

It is easier to think of it that way, or things get strange and complicated.

It makes absolutely no sense that mana of one group can transform to mana of other group which may belong to totally other pillar. But it is accepted fact and all public theories are built upon it.

Public huh.

Anyway. All the spells that ever existed used combination or subset of mana of those 8 groups.

Many mages don’t know, but elemental pillar actually represents or stands for four states of matter.

Earth for solid.

Water for liquid.

Wind for gas.

And fire for plasma.

Things with arcane pillar are a bit different, some believed that they represented the laws by which our world is governed.

But wizards don’t think about, they don’t need to, they can just feel the ‘gates’. It is as if you are asking how exactly does your body move the way you want, you don’t need to understand biology to make you limbs move. You just desire them to. Mighty warrior can reach the pinnacle of physical strength without knowing even a bit of biology, same is for magic.

It just works, and you can feel it, no need for complicated explanation.

When a person tries to perform a spell, he sends his internal mana through the gate, which causes a manifestation of external mana, which will be used to fuel the spell. And depending on the amount you send to each gate a different type of mana is manifested. Wizards spend all their lifetime increasing their affinity, which results a ‘wider’ gate, with which they can cast more powerful spells.

Every single person has affinity, even the most rural peasant has minuscule but still, an affinity.

I am an exception.

I was always an exception, even at academy.

…

My dad died when I was really young, I don’t even remember his face, just his warm smile and hugs he gave me when we sat on his armchair. Just another death of a soldier in small feud between local lords, nothing noble, a simple ‘issue’ of ownership over a small patch of earth in the middle of nowhere. Ridiculous reason, isn’t it? A small patch of earth was worth more than he could earn in his entire life, more than his life.

Mother was a seamstress in a small town, but the meager earning she was making was enough to feed us. Most of my time I spent on either helping her or reading books in a tiny 7 square meter room she called her workshop, which was also our house. The books store owner next door agreed to lend books to me if I didn’t damages them, for which mother would fix his family clothes for free. I was busy with something which didn’t hinder mothers work and helped me to grow smarter. She was happy with the way things worked.

Life was hard but simple.

When I was 10 I passed a test to local magic academy, which mother greatly encourage me to take. By examinator’s words my “general knowledge and intelligence was barely passable to attend their esteemed academy”.

“Study, learn, become everything you want to be.” were her parting words. Mage Academy students lived in the tower, not allowed to see relatives often.

To become a mage a sharp mind is crucial, and it looked like I had a good one.

And every single country needs mages, a lot of them, they even allow few non nobles to study for free, as EVERYTHING is dependent on mana. I somehow became one of those few.

The mage tower was really far, and I didn’t really want to attend it, but mothers encouragement and happiness when I was accepted changed that. Her smile made me make a step forward.

I didn’t make any friends as nearly all of the students were nobles and looked down on me, and those few non-nobles became lackeys to specific nobles, to which they were going to serve after they finish the academy.

I didn’t care about that, I just wanted to study, learn, understand how the world worked.

I studied with all I had. If I succeeded, I could help and support mother, the only family I had, everything else didn’t matter. And the results were good, I was one of the top students in academy.

Official magic aptitude test is done twice, when a person is 15 and 18. There is also unofficial one done by nobles and academies at about 12, when the magic skills just appear, but it is not taken as a serious magic capabilities assessment test.

During the first test by academy, I failed to manifest mana. Some teachers though that I am slacking and not making and effort, but theoretical test results proved them wrong.

Next they thought that I had minuscule amount of mana and was just bad at manipulating inner mana. I also thought that, therefore I spent years making great effort to fix that, meditating and circulating mana.

The rare letters I was able exchanged with mother, told me that life was hard, but everything was fine. She continued to encourage me to try harder, never give up and results would come. Communication with outside world was limited, and it was hard to be constantly alone, but hope is a strange thing.

I continued my effort in the inner mana circulation and control with mad-like obsession which I had with everything I did.

Few were talking about expelling me for no progress in mana related subjects, but my theoretical knowledge and top results in all test, not concerning mana, gave me options of becoming at least a researcher.

Still, as everyone was already casting spells I couldn’t even manifest mana.

When I was 15, on the official test, I failed again, not being able to manifest even a tiny bit of mana. The grand masters was furious, and to do a small test poured his mana into me to observed the inner state, speed and amount of mana circulating inside of me. He was baffled and told me that I had ‘catastrophically large’ amount of mana and ‘blade like’ control over it, but there were no gates, the internal mana was trapped in me.

There were few who were quite interested, some more in my blood. They spoke about great magic and spells we could accomplish, but I could feel in my bones that they saw me as nothing more than pot of mana.

I didn’t want to be a mana stone in some random experiment.

I needed to protect myself and for that I needed external mana.

Many, even professors, looked at me in disdain, as someone who was manaless, but they somehow tolerated my existence.

First few months after the official test I spent looking into everything connected to inner gates. I found something, a hint of it at least.

There was a legend about ancient wizard, or Titan of Fire as they called him, he didn’t have the gates to water and earth element souls. It was written that because of that he has much more connected to fire and air element souls, that he could transform into fire itself, that he became the voice of fire element itself.

Well it was written that if you take out all pathos and endless praising from the scriptures.

The most logical conclusion I came up with is that there must be some unknown or rare sub-group soul that I have gate connection with. I spent quite some time looking into all possible ones, common and rare, respected and disapproved, even the most disgraceful and dishonorable one. People may have tons of affinities, big and small, I should have at least one.

I didn’t.

The only thing I was able to accomplish through the research is that, my inner mana was rejected by each group of the two pillars, every single one.

But I found something interesting during that research. Engineering and Physics in enchantments and rituals. That was something I could do even without mana, something I could direct my mind at and if I worked for academy as an enchanter or researcher, I would be under their protection, with no fear over my life and safety.

Most of the important enchantments and rituals books were not accessible, but basic ones were. I quickly gained skills and knowledge in that area.

Some time later I received a short letter from the bookstore owner living next door. ‘Your mother died of frost vein disease, the house was sold to close her dept and pay for funeral.’

That day I died too.

I lain in my bed crying for a week. I was never able to help her, show her the same love she gave me. What was I spending years here for? I was angry at world, but more on myself. It was so long since I have seen her, and I couldn’t even fully remember her face.

Only her voice.

“Everything will be okay sweetie.”

“All events have a reason.”

“Life always straightens thing up son.”

“We don’t choose the tools, but we choose what we do with them.”

I did the only thing I could, plunged myself into study. I would do the only thing she ever wanted, for me to succeed.

An idea was born in my head and I spent all available time on it, barely sleeping or resting.

Right before the final aptitude test, I showed a design I made, to the grand master of enchantment department professor Palonto, with who I had a bit more friendly relationship, in hope of getting a position as an enchantment researcher in the academy.

It was a design of flying city, fueled and powered purely by residual mana, which was controlled by enchanted ‘blocks’, whose method of working was not public, but their existence was known. It would levitate powered by several combinations of gravitational magic and would be indestructible and unstoppable. I explained that this city could move around the whole world, in seas and oceans, in deserts and marshlands, or it could anchor itself to some location. And during that process it could gather ambient mana and change terrain and climate around the whole earth to optimal one.

She called me crazy and rejected my idea as utterly ridiculous and impossible, she said that even the ancient wizards of divine era could not do it, and any attempts were useless waste of time. When I asked if I can get a position on research team, she said that she thinks yes, that my non-standard thinking will be helpful to academy.

I was happy, believing that I truly succeeded, first time in my life I started thinking about future, my future, who I can become, what I can become.

They say that one picture is worth thousand words.

On the final affinity test when I was again found with absolutely no aptitude to any soul, it was not shocking at all, I kind of already accepted that I will never be able to cast a spell. But when I saw the smile professor Palonto gave to the arcane grand master, which was especially interested in my blood, everything inside of myself flipped, as if lightning hit me.

Announcement of who would be taken into research team would have been announced the next day, but I didn’t wait for it.

That night I ran away.

That smile, brought clarity to my mind, it was always strange that professor Palonto never taught anything to me, never gave me hints or direction of where to search the subject I was interested in, but was always friendly and tried to hold me close to herself.

My fate had already been decided long before that, an animal fattened for slaughter. That also explained why they kept me for so long, why they allowed my existence. All the professors and grand masters, every single one of them, they knew.

It all explained why they tolerated my existence in the academy.

I didn’t know were to run, or what to do. They would find me in the end, and no one would be able to protect me. Dying in a big ritual would be the best fate I could possibly get.

Traveling to other continent could have been an option if mage academy didn’t have connection with everyone and everything, including ports and traveling caravans.

But even for that I needed money, which I didn’t have at all.

The only other option was that I needed protection of someone or something. But what kind of protector could stand against mage academy.

Something that can inflicts a bone chilling fear, something that even standing against would be a pure suicide, something that would take in a no one like me.

Standing in the middle of swamp few kilometers from academy, only one idea came to mind. It was an idea to which death or suicide was a better option.

But I still wanted to live, even if it was just for few more days.

…

The child continued to listen to the story of the woman, but at least the subject changed from blood brotherhood to unicorns and dragons.

But then suddenly it hit me.

Wait, why is there only one child with this group?

Scanning through the group a started analyzing each one. Half a dozen of vanguards and archers, obviously well trained ex guards. Two really shady guys, trying to looks normal, but for my trained eyes it is not hard to discern assassins and spies. An old man, who has been guiding us the whole path, a guide.

A woman who has been caressing a child, which just fell asleep few moment ago, a nanny.

A child, with perfectly symmetrical features.

A noble, no, someone more important. A royalty.

They all are dressed in simple clothes without attributes, but you can’t hide what you really are.

Funny thing.

The reasons all nobles look very handsome and beautiful is not just that they take better care of themselves. When you are in power, you can choose the best spouses available on the ‘market’. Which means that even if your are ugly, stupid and without any magic talent, you can choose the most beautiful wife with great magic talent, and do that for your children too. Which will result beautiful and talented grandchildren. But that is an example only for only two generation, what about the royalty, nobles and powerful families which had dozens of generations to continue that process.

It doesn’t matter how you started or how you gained the power, even if it was most despicable, dishonorable, pathetic or backstabbing way. In the end, time and power will wash everything away, leaving a fancy fairy tale created to glorify something that didn’t even exist in the first place, but which would cause a complex of superiority for all generations to come.

And now you have someone who even in their ‘hidden’ state can be recognized, because their parents were picky with who to have children. But can you blame the child for that?

[Interesting, how would they react if they knew that you were the one who caused that hell in their city? You killed that child’s parents, leaving him orphan. And because of that all these people had to leave their homes and families in their greatest need, and travel to who-knows-where to protect a single child, which is not even theirs.]

[How do you feel? Should we tell them the truth and have some fun?]

Their dead eyes and tired faces told me enough.

In a day or two we will reach Samolesh, there is no reason to create problems, and my body won’t be able take on much right now.

I just needs to hold for a bit longer.

…

I can see Samolesh in about 4 kilometers, standing between two rocky hills, blocking the only path through them. A choke-point.

But even from here you can see what is happening in the city, people are running around trying to hide from what they believe is the wrath of gods.

The party and Olana are standing in awe as bubbles of fire explosion appear in trails through the city, which are followed by rare purple beams.

For about half a minute absolute silence follows.

Then silence is interrupted by another more aggressive and rapid series of explosions and beams, which are followed by another moment of silence.

From the distance I can see a person in red clothes with a staff, which suddenly appeared at least 350 meters above and away from the city. He may appear immobile but I can see subtle motions of his staff, which end with raised and spread arms.

One of the party members wants to say something, but a flash of light interrupts him and fixes the gazes of everyone on the city. A new bubble of fire appeared in the centers of the city, growing tremendously faster and more destructive than all previous spells together. As it continues to rapidly grow and cover at least a third of the big city. I can see the shock-wave traveling in all direction with enormous speed, to which I respond accordingly and prepare to cover my eyes. Everyone else just stands looking at the event in awe. But few fractions of a second before the shock-wave hit me I saw a thin beam crossing the sky with colossal speed.

The shock-wave hit us much softer than I expected, but the few yelp told me that not many shared my opinion. When I removed my hand from my eyes, the dust and rocks were already setting down, but party members are grunting and trying to get sand and stone pieces out of their eyes.

Oh come one. By the visible shock-wave and dust on the ground you should have expected that.

The city is half-molted with nearly no sound, except the hum after the explosion, crumbling of the city and the coughs of the party. Everyone looked in horror at the city. The clouds in the sky are split apart by a straight line which continues to widen in perpendicular direction I saw the purple beam pass. You can see the big rocks split apart, causing cracks in the same direction, while dark smoke is coming out of them.

“What the HELL was that?” muttered Olana

What are you talking about? This is what wizard battle looks like. You should be able to do something similar to even dare call yourself a wizard.

Returning my sight back to the city I catch a sight of two objects falling down. Trying to focus on one of the object I quickly find out what they are, or at least who it was.

It looks like the purple beam found it’s target.

Well, one of the wizards is dead. If the other one didn’t survive the explosion and heat, we have two dead wizards and a city, nearly erased from the face of earth.

[Isn’t it nice when an issue between two people causes the death of thousands? Nothing that we could possibly know, right?]

While the party is in stupor I start walking back to the horses, it looks like I will not be able to get a decent rest in this city. And the travel should continue whatever happens.

Who knows if anyone survived, and standing here won’t solve anything.

While I ride to the half-destroyed city I rethink my feeling about the situation. There must be something wrong with me, thousands died, but I just don’t really care.

Is it because of who the residents were? No.

Did they deserve that fate? No.

Then why?

It is said that empathy is core of advanced species, a ticket that proves that the species reached a point where they can be considered a high social structure.

What does it say about me if I lost one of the those core properties?

[What’s wrong? You should be happy, you will see few more sunsets than them. You were a tiny bit more lucky than the residents of the city.]

I should be happy because they died and I didn’t?

[That is the way people work. They don’t look at the grand scheme. People get happy because they have a single pieces of bread more than their neighbors, even if they live in total poverty.]

[And we all are simple people, aren’t we?]