Interlude

Riselda, the Healer’s apprentice, sat in the windowsill of her room. She sat in the light of the moonlit forest . Eyes gazing at a hidden horizon.

Yes, that was all she was now, wasn’t she. The Healer’s apprentice. She certainly reached her goal. Such a meager, hapless goal. A week ago, she was not happy, but content. Satisfied with her village life. What use did she have for power? What use for riches? Neither of them were of any help that time so long ago. In fact, they were the very root of the nightmarish tragedy that ended her childhood.

She had a last name once. Riselda Laina Carnolian. Born to minor nobility, the Carnolian family. Her father was Marquis Bartholemew, her mother Marquiess Iseult and three older brothers besides. They lived among the outer fringe of Mercia, the Svartalfar capital in the Kingswood. It was prime estate, being so close to both the Royal Palace and the great Kingstones, the massive ring of standing stones that was the grand monument to Druidism. It was her family’s ambition to rise even further among the ranks of the Royal Court, a goal shared by every other noble regardless of rank.

Almost immediately after she could walk, she had carefully prepared by her parents to dive into those fast-flowing rapids. They hired the best tutors they could afford with their wealth, same as every one of her brothers. She was loved, but her parents were distant at best. Their attentions needed to be fixed on the currents of the political stream lest they be swallowed whole by the bigger fish lurking in the depths. It was, perhaps, the greatest way their parents showed their love. That still made it a little lonely in the manor, even with all their servants and guards.

Of course, as nobles, they too could be called upon to serve the Crown in martial capacity. More was demanded of them, in fact, than the ranks of commoners. The common-born soldier could be anything from a fresh-faced farmer wielding a pitchfork to a hardened adventurer clad in magic armor, clasping an equally enchanted weapon in her fist. A noble had to be a trained combatant and an inspiring leader and an adequate strategist to boot. As a result, every single one of her family was either trained classically as a knight or as a mage.

She herself had quite a talent in magic. By the age of eight, she was already casting fireballs and throwing javelins of ice at straw dummies. She was quite proud of herself. So were her parents and brothers and tutors. Everybody seemed to shower her in praise then.

…Such hollow happiness can breed foul things in the heart. With all that space to grow, the signs are well-hidden. Her brothers always competed fiercely among themselves. Her second-eldest, Nolan, was the only one of them who was a mage. He too was talented, and he created a pair of magic glasses that allowed him to identify curses and enchantments with but a glance. He wore them everywhere to show them off, even though he had perfectly clear eyesight. He thought it made him look distinguished and in truth, it did. Her brother’s creations were always delightfully intricate things inspired by Dokkalfar art.

This was one of the things that galled the youngest brother, who was neither a mage like Nolan nor a powerful knight like their eldest brother. He began to nurse a secret fear that he was doomed to fade into obscurity, squashed into nothing between his brothers and his own sister. With the passing of years, that brother’s fear grew into a frightful monstrosity. Who could say what drove him in the end? Rage? Desperation? Envy? All those things and more, she suspected. Whatever the motive, the end result was horrifying all the same. It was a family tradition for the Carnolians to travel to their summer mansion out in the remote outer reaches of the Kingswood to celebrate the twelfth birthdays of each child. Riselda had laughed with glee as each one of her family brought out a present each for her.

Nolan, dear sweet Nolan, made a gift of his precious spectacles. He had made himself another one, he said. It was better to gift away his original pair. ‘It is precious, so it makes for a better gift’, he said as he pressed it into her tiny hands.

Faced with the next gift, nobody was laughing. Who would want a Demon as a gift?

“A birthday song, everyone! One by one, they all fall down-”

One by one, her family each fell to the hellish beast and the thing that had once been their own kin. In the end, only Riselda was left alive. Through selfless sacrifice of her family and her own combat spells, she escaped the mansion with the kinslayer’s voice ringing in her ears. Outside, a contingent of knights, paladins and clerics had just arrived in response to the foul taint of a demonic summoning.

In the roar and clash of battle, Riselda Laina Carnolian vanished and was never heard from again.

In the rural village of Thistle, a young girl revisited the memory of a monster as it screamed and cried. It raged at its powerlessness before abruptly cackling in glee.

“Look, how powerful I am now! This is the fruits of my labor! Am I not strong? FATHER, LOOK AT ME-----! Happy birthday, dear Riselda~!”

From then on, she scorned idiots like that who blindly grasped for power. Reaching beyond your grasp…what good does it bring? It only invites evil upon oneself and the people all around you. She dropped everything that was her past and let herself be taken under the wing of a Hospice matron and her little band of helpers. She devoted herself to this benevolent work. She tried her best to move on and kept to herself. However, there were still obstacles even there. The village Alderman’s son took quite a shine to her for some unfathomable reason and began to shove himself into her life. It quite tested her patience sometimes. Of all the girls in the village, why her? Malcolm was growing into a quite serious problem lately, so much so that she avoided leaving the Hospice for any period of time. Even so, she felt that she was making a good life in the village. If need be, she was confident she could make a pointed objection should Malcolm advance from a problem to a threat. A simple solution to a simple problem.

Then, a stone was dropped into this still pond of a life. A youth was discovered lying just outside the Leystone Circle near Thistle. He was so weak he hung on the edge of life and death. Alarmed at his condition, the villagers who found him swiftly carried him to the Hospice for treatment. Her heart went out to him at first, but then Druid Kiernan arrived and diagnosed his illness.

He was exactly like her late brother. Just another fool who took the easy way to power without considering the price. It really took all kinds, she thought. Her brother had, admittedly, looked a little shifty, but this boy was a far cry from wicked in appearance. Even with the dark, orderly lines that supposedly marked his contact with the Leylines, he looked almost utterly harmless. He was a Dog Poukha of the northern blood, with upright, triangular ears. If he did not have that vacant look in his wide eyes he might look hopelessly naïve, perhaps a little unintelligent.

Finding out that the Leystones took his wits gave her a sense of vicious satisfaction. A fool granted power at the cost of all means to use it. Truly, a fitting punishment indeed. That satisfaction soured in her bosom later on, when she found out that his wits were returning, and quickly.

It felt like a slap in her face.

Still, she would do her job as a Hospice attendant and see to his recovery. She need not know his name. Once he was gone, she could forget him and regain her peace of mind.

Then she faced an Unborn. Trolls? Ogres? Undead? What were those? Mere monsters paled in the face of an existence that only knew how to kill. She realised her own foolishness in the face of death, at the mercy of Unborn fangs.

Evil cares not one is a pacifist or not. Blood flows all the same.

All those years, she disdained her own magic. It was a reminder of her brother and his lust for power. In absence of usage, it had withered to almost nothing. Her attempt to summon fire, once effortless, was garbled to uselessness in between her teeth. She was drained even by such a minor failure. Where was the twelve-year-old girl that once carved a road from the Kingswood to Briarweald? She had the strength to defy fate. How had she been foolish enough to let herself fade from budding mage to damsel in distress? So humiliating! Ah, she had always been strong. She had never truly known the agony of the powerless until this moment.

Then she got saved by somebody who was even weaker than she was.

No magic.

No weapon.

Not even fully in grasp of his own damned mind.

And yet he leapt on something that could rip him apart in seconds and took its eye, albeit by accident. The Unborn released her and Kiernan arrived, putting the Rothound down with almost contemptuous ease.

…It scalded her on the inside. She was wrong all this time. Power and strength was never the problem. It was the person wielding it that mattered the most. She had this lesson shoved down her throat. Evil existed independent of power, as did Good. Without someone or something to enforce them, they were worthless.

Therefore, she was quite worthless indeed.

She held up a hand. Magic flowed and ice formed. It was slow. So slow. If Malcolm busted into her room this very moment and pushed her down, she didn’t think she could form it fast enough to make a difference.

She clenched her fist and shattered the half-formed icicle into slush and snow. This will not stand. Riselda Laina Carnolian will not let this mistake continue. “I won’t disappoint myself.” She swore, out loud and amidst the turmoil in her heart.