We sat around a dingy classroom. The man in-front of us had a perpetual frown that hadn’t left his face for the last half hour. He was outlining basic tactics, and looking towards me. Apparently, according to him, I had been playing at the ‘first level’ the absolute worst level for anyone to play on. In any actual battle, I would’ve been killed, and my group would’ve been destroyed. The only thing I was commended for was my quote about ‘take as many of them down with you as you can’, and the ‘For The King’ line. The latter of which I was certain he only commended because of the nationalistic qualities it exhibited.

The man then went on to give us a basic rundown of how planning worked. Normally, a lot of planning was in-the-moment pattern recognition. People stuck to the strategies that worked for a situation. Only the best of the best were allowed to strategize on the fly, taking different elements of different strategies and molding them together. We were not the best of the best, we simply didn’t have enough experience to be the best of the best. As such, if we ever had to strategize, we needed to stick to as simple a procedure as we could. Luckily for us, the man had said, we’d often have someone above us calling the shots.

Unluckily for us, I thought to myself, That might also mean that we’d have to march to our deaths.

After that, the end of our day went smoothly. We were forced to exercise until we nearly collapsed, and then eat small bowls of slop that acted as porridge. Than, we were made to practice with our arrows and swords, before finally being dumped back into our small hole at the late hour of twelve o’clock.

I collapsed into my bed and nearly fell asleep, when Tim spoke up. I looked over to the Prince in just the mildest bit of agitation. It had been a really, really long day, and all I wanted to do was let my eyes close. Tim didn’t seem to notice.

“So, you took an authority role too,” He sounded the slightest bit perplexed.

“Yeah,” I turned over in my board-like cot, “What about it?”

“Well it’s just,” He paused, as if trying to find the right word, “It’s perplexing. I guess I didn’t expect it of you, that’s all,”

I thought about that for a moment. It did seem a bit strange, now that I was thinking about it. There’d been a moment where I’d been tempted to leave my entire team behind. Yet, it was that same moment that had elevated me into a leading position. I’d been so angry with that one man that I’d shot him down, and then asserted myself in his absence.

“I…” I tried to find the right way to explain it, “What did you do, when you realized your parents couldn’t be trusted?” I asked instead.

“What?” I had taken things in a completely different direction than he’d likely expected, he had every right to be confused.

“Well I mean, your parents, they sent you here. Surely there was a moment when you realized that you couldn’t trust them anymore, right? It had to have happened at some point,”

A moment of silence, as I watched the thoughts coruscate behind his eyes, “I was ten years old,” He said, words meddling through the rapid darkness of the night, “I...One of the other Noble’s Kids hit me square in the jaw, so I fought back, you know, like anyone would. But...After the fight was over, I had a broken leg, and he had a broken arm. My parents, when they,” He paused, “When they found the two of us, broken and bleeding, they left me without a healer for a week. They said, they said that I should’ve taken the beating, like any Prince should. I think that was the moment that I stopped trusting them,”

I was silent for a moment. I’d had moments like that too. Only, my parents never got me a healer, and there were times when they’d been the ones breaking my bones. I tried to think of something in response, but there wasn’t much that you could say to that.

Finally, “And what did you do about it?”

It was fully dark out, and I couldn’t see the light behind his eyes, “I don’t understand what you mean by that,” He admitted.

“When you realized that your parents couldn’t be trusted, who did you turn to?”

“I, well I suppose I didn’t have anyone to turn to,”

In the full dark now, where we couldn’t see one another at all, “And so you started to rely on yourself more, didn’t you? Because you couldn’t turn to anyone else, you turned things inwards. You started to see that you were the only one you could trust to be competent,”

A voice reverberated back from the pureness of the darkened night, “Yeah. I...I guess that is what happened,”

“That’s why I was able to lead,” I finished, “Because I couldn’t trust any of the others to be as competent as me. I still took their suggestions at times, but I couldn’t trust them to do things right,”

There wasn’t any reply that night. The darkness fell over our voices, and soon, I had fallen asleep.

-7

The week had came and gone. Now we stood amongst ourselves upon wall of the castle. A man stood above us with a sword within his left hand. He stared down at us with hollowed eyes, as he brought that sword down upon each of our shoulders. A ritual that stretched so far back in the spectres of time that it had lost all meaning. Yet one that was still performed nonetheless.

In moments, the sword was upon each of my shoulders, and then falling towards Tim’s. He had a grim set upon his face, one that had not left since the day after our conversation. Something in him had changed, some grit and determination placed within his heart. I could feel it too, the realization that we’d be falling into a war with superiors we might not trust. People we couldn’t expect to do what was right when the time called for it. It was a horrifying prospect to run full tilt towards. But here we were.

There were swords lined up upon a wooden table. Once the ceremony was ver, we all walked over to the blades. They were the ones that we’d been given to practice with on the dummies, each sharpened with a new handle. The handle was the insignia of the King. It was an upside down triangle, sitting in the center of a fully raised sun, with a beam of light shooting towards a crescent moon that sat flat upon its back below. It was meant to symbolize the light of the kingdom reaching directly into the heart of the darkness. So much so, that the moon was forced to take only a small sliver of its true shape.

Of course, if I were more idealistic, and had perhaps grown up as a Noble, than my heart would ‘swoon’ for that symbol. At the current moment, I was doing my best not to roll my eyes at it. The King was often portrayed as a Romantic. A person who believed in the romanticized version of his Knights. Of course, I’d grown to understand that he was only that way when around his people. As an actual King, he seemed almost completely ruthless, and rather uncaring to the injustices committed against his people on a daily basis.

I picked up the sword, and was rather surprised to find that it felt lighter. Though I suppose that made sense. They’d shaved off the sides almost entirely. It looked properly sharp now, instead of just a blunt murder weapon. I would likely be capable of properly cutting something with it. I was of course, hesitant to try such a maneuver.

A commemoration was said in our ‘honor’, and then we were left to descend the tower. Once we got to the bottom, I was surprised by the sight of multiple carriages. I knew they’d be arriving, I was just startled by the fact that we’d be leaving so soon.

“The Carriages will be leaving tomorrow evening,” One of the Generals bellowed, “Tonight, we celebrate!”

Some of the men cried out in surprised jubilation, I raised an eyebrow towards Tim. The boy shrugged, looking towards a fire that had just kicked into gear. Apparently, one of the working Generals was a Warlock. As I noticed this, I looked for the man that had started the flame. He had a stark-black owl sitting upon his shoulder. Immediately, I knew the last order of business I had here.

“Tim, I gotta go do something real quick,”

The man with the black owl was already walking towards one of the towers. I looked around towards the group of men that were sitting around the steadily growing bonfire. It was a spectacle of its own, that was to be certain. The fire itself seemed taller than any man that stood near it. There were sticks aplenty piling themselves towards a gigantic inferno. If I were to be making assumptions, it almost seemed as if the sticks were aloft by magic. With how high they rose into the air, and how little care seemed to be put into their stacking…

My feet led me passed the flame, and towards the door that had already closed. None of the Generals seemed to be around me. Most of them were enjoying the festivities, upon which their seemed to be casks of ale, and food aplenty. My stomach churned as I stared towards the chilli that seemed to be boiling in a fresh pot. With a sigh, I looked back to the door. I needed to learn at least something about my magic before I went into the war. It would likely make life a lot easier for me. That didn’t mean missing out on the last bit of actual food I’d be able to have didn’t hurt.

I didn’t bother knocking, as I pulled my way into the room. Despite the magic that the General seemed to possess, the place was dark. Scrolls sat upon a table, only barely illuminated through the light of the moon. There were books upon books sitting on a bookshelf that my eyes could just barely begin to see. I felt my feet dragging towards one of them, when a fire suddenly erupted into place in-front of me.

In reaction, I scrambled back, tripping over a chair, and then flying against the ground. A man with a robe pooling down to the floor stared towards me. His eyes were hidden, but I could feel a complete aura of rage descending upon the world around me. I quickly picked myself up, and bolted towards the door. Yet as my hands grasped around the exit, I found them slipping, incapable of pulling the handle or twisting it in any mannerism.

The feeling popped. Like a bubble that had been snapped from existence, the feeling washed away from my body. I was left with confusion, and the lasting residue of adrenaline. The sound of gliding footsteps were heard from behind me, and then the scraping of a chair.

“I have been expecting your visit, please sit,” Came a voice.

I dared not look until I was certain that I wasn’t about to die. When my legs ceased their incessant shaking, I slowly turned myself around. He was still in robes, but the hood was pushed back, and I could see two diamond-green eyes looking towards me.

“What…what was that?” I asked, as I pulled myself into the chair that he had set out for me.

“That is what I’d like to call Induced Fear. It was magic, and I was testing your susceptibility,”

“And?” I asked, before I could even think.

“I think you’d be surprised to find that you’re not all that susceptible to foreign magic,”

“B-but… But the…” I stammered, attempting to find a word to describe exactly what had just happened.

“But the fear? Yes, I had to pour quite a bit of my magic into your mind to even have it register. At first, you mistaken it, and simply ended up curious by your surroundings. It was not until I properly revealed myself that the fear-effect was properly induce. Do not believe, however, that this protects you from any sort of offensive magic. All it means is that you’re the slightest bit more difficult to mess with,”

I didn’t have any words. I’d came in here for answers, but now he was producing questions like wildfire. There had only been one tree with a flame, and now he was creating a forest full of flaming trees. Each tree of fire was a different color, and each question was a more complicated version of the last. I chose to keep silent instead, in hopes that he would produce one answer for at least the first question. It was quite possible that I could work on my own from there to figure out the rest.

“Do you mind showing me your familiar?” The man asked, breaking me from my reverie.

“I...Umm...How?”

“How?” The man tilted his head to the side, and then his eyes widened just the smallest bit, “I see… You are more than just a novice, you’re completely new. Tell me, when did you discover your abilities, and why did you not just go to the Venefici? That’s where all the magic kids go,”

I tried to chuckle, but the effect didn’t come out the way I wanted it to, “Didn’t have the money, and didn’t learn I had magic until I’d already signed up to be a Knight,”

“Mm,” The man rocked back for a second, “Well, summoning your Familiar is quite simple. All you gotta do is think about them. Imagine what they look like, and they’ll appear. Do you want me to light another light? Might help,”

“Sure,” I replied, as I went over what the man had said.

What form was I supposed to imagine? Presumably it was the one they’d taken when they morphed, or whatever it was that they’d done. That mask. It had had a place for the eyes, but not one for a mouth. It had almost seemed as if it was meant to be worn by me. I wondered what the man would say about that.

As I focused upon the general shape and outline of the figure, the air around me began to glow. For a moment I was startled, and the effect began to diminish. I put my focus back into it, and in a second’s worth of time, the air shimmered with that dark glow, and then it appeared.

The figure floated just above my shoulder. A mask of pure obsidian. The Warlock in-front of me stared towards the mask for a long moment, his mouth just slightly ajar. Than, he sat back and looked at me.

“Interesting,” He murmured, and then, “Put on the mask,”

“Wh…”

“Child, do as I say, put on the mask,” The man’s voice was firm, and there was something about it that terrified me; I did as he said, grabbing the mask, and pulling it closer to my face.

His eyes brightened as I placed it gently against my face. Than, it latched on. A part of the back began to grow, gently wrapping its way around my face until it met the other end. I grabbed at it, rapidly panicking as I tried to throw it off. As soon as I grabbed the mask, it unlatched, and went spinning across the room, before landing beside my shoulder.

“What the hell?” I responded; the man began smiling.

“The mask is your familiar child, it will not hurt you. Trust me when I say that you will want to keep that thing on for longer than a second,” His voice was now positively shaking.

I grabbed at the mask again, this time pulling it over my face, and leaving it there.