Chapter 2: Read Between The Lines

There was nothing mystical about our water, but in the warm bath all my pain seemed to evaporate with the steam. I soaked in the tub for some time before I heard a series of knocks to the beat of ‘The Heroes Blessing’ at the door.

“Master Fey, the lord of the house wishes to see you right away.” Sebastian declared, speaking rather dramatically, as he often did.

‘Emilia must’ve been pretty upset if she went and tattled to my father.’

I got out of the tub without caring how much water sloshed onto the floor. A clean set of clothes was stacked neatly next to the sink. The outfit was rather mundane, but it was comfortable so I didn’t complain.

When I opened the bathroom door, the butler was waiting with a pair of matt black boots and a scowl that told me he was anything but pleased to serve me. I mockingly returned his scowl then took the boots and went on to my fathers study.

As soon as I entered, my father asked a rather strange question. “Power… what does this word mean to you?”

After a moment of hesitation I answered, “Strength I guess. For most people, probably strong runes or a spirit companion. Kyla seems to think her magic is enough, but Sven said she still needs a rune. Power can be a lot of… uhm.” I stopped talking when I realized I was starting to ramble. I didn’t really think he was listening anyway.

Titus only grunted to acknowledge my reply. For several minutes he sat silently analyzing the pages of an ancient fable. “King Trestin and The Last Battle For Vania’’ I was familiar with the story because he always told it at bedtime when I was little; However, I struggled to understand why my father was so diligently studying the pages of a child’s fairytale.

Dreading the silence, I cleared my throat. “Father, I’m sorry for disappointing you,” I began with a whisper, then continued in a louder voice, “but I promise I won’t embarrass our family during the entrance exam.”

“What’s this about disappointing me?” Titus mused, wrinkling his eyebrows but not looking up from his book.

For a moment I stood dazed, wondering why else he might’ve sent for me. When I couldn’t come up with anything I asked, “didn’t Emilia tell you about today’s practice? I thought that’s why you called for me.”

“She did, she told me that you’ve improved quite a bit over this past year. Not only your technique, but particularly your endurance. She seemed very impressed.”

‘Endurance… is that how she described things,’ I thought, barely managing to suppress a frown as I recalled the overly brutal lesson.

“From what she said, I got the impression things went well, but if there’s something she left out…” Titus raised an eyebrow, put away his book, and for the first time since the conversation began, his attention was entirely on me.

I waited a moment to be sure he was done speaking, but he didn’t finish his sentence. He only looked at me with a patient curiosity as if he was waiting for me to fill in the missing information. A few moments passed like that before Titus leaned forward and rested his head on one of his hands. I knew I had to say something, but I didn’t want to admit my own embarrassment or make Emilia sound like a liar.

“No, no... I just meant since I can’t use magic and all,” I blurbed without thinking. ‘There’s no way he’d actually believe that’s what I was worried about…’

“Listen son, magic isn’t everything. Lenora and I… Well, we were surprised when we realized that you didn’t have the aptitude, but that doesn’t mean we’re disappointed or embarrassed by you.”

‘Or, maybe he would.’ I didn’t really care, but I thought it best to just run with it. “I know, but I’m still the only noble with no magic.”

“Your mom told me what you asked her about this morning.”

His words were calm and his expression didn’t change, still I was immediately uncomfortable. Titus had a perfect poker face even when he was upset most people wouldn’t know it. “I uh… she did huh?”

“That dream you keep having… I know you’re curious, but a dream is only a dream.”

‘I’m more than curious,’ I thought, but didn’t say. “I know dad, it just seems so real.”

“What’s real is the love your mother and I have for you.” We stared at each other for a few tense seconds. I tried to avoid looking directly at his eyes, then finally looked down at the white marble floor tiles. “You know what I think?”

“Sometimes I wish I did, but no… I don’t know what you think.”

“If I had different parents then it wouldn’t matter if I had magic. You’re probably thinking something like that and that’s why you cling on to this dream.”

He couldn’t have been more wrong. I only wanted to know the truth. I wanted to know why I was different. My desire for magic was independent of this curiosity. For me magic was more about proving myself. If I couldn’t use it then most people would never respect me and the road to becoming a hero would essentially be blocked, but rather than explain all that I just nodded and said, “yea… something like that.”

“Fey I don’t care if you have magic or not,” he said as he reached into a drawer that was normally kept locked. “I was planning to save this until after you passed the entrance exam, but I think I’ll give it to you now.”

He placed a small rectangular box on the desk between us and motioned for me to open it while he locked the drawer again.

My father never forgot our birthdays, but receiving a gift directly from him was rare. Somehow, even as a failed hero candidate, he was as busy as any politician and frequently gone for months at a time.

I opened the small box expecting a pen or perhaps an ornament for my sword's hilt. Instead there was a chain with a shield shaped piece of silver dangling from it. There was a tiny diamond at each of its three points and the image of a serpent engraved on its front face. After briefly fingering the engraving I returned the chain to its box. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it, but that isn’t why I called you. Actually I was going to apologize to you and your sister. Where is Ky by the way?”

“Apologize, for what?” My thoughts raced briefly before returning to the subject of my fathers work. He started speaking but I wasn’t paying attention. I had already guessed the gist of what he’d say.

“…Unfortunately by the time I arrive I’ll have missed the entrance exam.”

His last words were enough to confirm what I’d suspected. Work was pulling him away again.

I was used to him missing important events and didn’t think I cared anymore. However I found it surprisingly difficult to reconcile with that in light of my current struggle to keep a straight face.

“Thanks for the chain.” I said, barely managing a smile, then returned to my room.

As I was leaving the room I heard him shout after me, “and forget about that dream, son. I don’t want to hear about it again.”

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While I was sulking in bed, a hero deployment alert sounded from a monitor on my desk. The web was full of hero fans like myself, so it wasn’t surprising that there were sites dedicated to hero sightings. Everyone wanted to see the heroes in action, but the only chance of that happening was when extremely powerful beasts attacked a city.

At first it was only foolhardy fans risking their lives to find a good vantage point and film the battles, but it didn’t take long before the heroes realized how popular these third rate videos were and decided to record holofilms of every battle.

They even created a site where you could get alerts and watch live as the action went down, of course you had to say you were over eighteen to view or have a parents permission.

Today’s was the rarest among rare alerts. Pyro himself was being deployed, which meant that whatever creature was attacking must’ve been in the upper echelon of beasts.

When the holofilm started the action had already begun.

Like an intangible film over reality, the holofilm layered itself over my room, transporting me to the skies above Baldier. It was a border city not all that different from the one I lived in. Well I supposed the difference would be that Sordiev had never been attacked while this was already the third time in a few months that Baldier had become a battle site.

The attacks only got fiercer and more intense so I wasn’t surprised to see that half the city had already been razed to the ground. Violet flames danced victoriously atop the rubble as multiple crews worked to put them out. Even with magic, the flames could not be extinguished and continued to spread throughout the city.

An earth shaking roar drew my attention to the sky where the hulking form of a black dragon hovered menacingly above his masterpiece. Seeing such a terrible beast and the destruction already wroght, I felt bad for my earlier excitement at the alert. Seeing Pyro in action would be a treat for me, but what about those whose lives had been lost or upended?

“Pyro will save what’s left,” the optimist in me said to sooth the terrified evacuees though I knew they couldn’t actually hear me.

The hero looked like an insect next to the large beast. They hovered face to face only momentarily before an exchange of blows ensued. Pyro’s incredible speed was difficult to follow. I was only able to track him by watching for the white fire he wielded and following the flames to their origin, but by then he was already somewhere else.

The dragon wasn’t slow, but it couldn’t keep up with Pyro’s speed. Although it quickly became apparent that speed didn’t matter because each onyx scale glowed with a violet energy that repelled all of Pyro’s attacks. Then, with a swipe of its tail, the dragon sent Pyro crashing through several buildings like a rag doll.

“Come on… get up,” I said under my breath. There was no way that was enough to kill him, but then he was taking a while to come back from the rubble…

Some evacuees panicked as a wall groaned and crumbled above them. A few stones fell like hail, but clattered harmlessly on the ground.

The tense group relaxed and three of them began rushing towards one who had already gotten to safety. He stood at the end of the alley, hurrying them along as the path they came from was already blocked.

Then, a girl who looked to be the youngest among them, tripped over a crack in the pavement and slammed face first into the compromised wall before falling unconscious on the ground. Hearing the loud sound, the two still in the alley stopped running and looked back to see what had happened.

The man at the end of the alley grimaced at the sight. He hesitated at first, but eventually ran past the other two evacuees to help the girl.

Seeing that they seemed safe, I started scanning for Pyro. I was confident that he’d landed somewhere nearby, but couldn’t be exactly sure where.

As the man and other two evacuees reached the unconscious girl a terrible groaning came from the wall next to them. It seemed to be teetering with the wind, but after a few short moments, the wall fell into the adjacent building and both walls broke apart above the evacuees.

I winced as the bricks rained down on them and wished there was something I could do to help, but this was only a holofilm. The actual people were half a continent away and even if I had actually been there I’d have been completely unable to make a difference.

Pyro rolled out from inside the crumbling building and burned away the largest chunks of the rubble before they could reach the ground, but even with that, I wasn’t sure if the people survived.

As Pyro rejoined the fight, the holofilm was disrupted. Someone had opened my door. I could still hear everything, but the images faded away.

Kyla playfully poked her face out from behind the door and smiled at me in the irritating way she did when she wanted a favor.

“Feyyy,” she sang. “Want to help out your sister?”

“Go away! I’m trying to watch something,” I shouted over the noise of a roaring dragon.

“It’s just another hero fight. I’ll spoil it for you. Monster rampages through the city. Hero swoops in, saves some people, blasts the monster with some powerful magic and boom bam shabang! The whole thing is over and the city is safe again.”

It wasn’t that simple, but she hadn’t just seen a group of innocents get crushed. I doubted she’d ever seen any of the heros save a city. The two of us just stared at each other in awkward silence until she lowered her hands.

“Come on, Fey. I need your help,” she whined.

“Aren’t you a bit old to be acting like this?”

“Aren’t you a bit old to be obsessing over hero fights?” she shot back.

Again, there was silence

Wait… silence…is it over? I wondered. Frustrated by the interruption, I scrambled to get her out of my room and shut the door so that I could see what was going on. “Get out Ky!” I yelled as I slammed the door in her face.

“Is that a no to the favor?” she yelled back as the holofilm’s images returned.

The city was a wreck but no one was evacuating anymore. Instead some were doing their best to contain and put out the purple fires while others searched giant piles of rubble for survivors.

Neither the dragon nor Pyro could be found anywhere within the scene. After a few moments the holofilm came to a stand still then faded away. I had missed the best part of the fight.

“Damn it, Kyla!”

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