Chapter 4 - Gentle Slumber

  Elrin felt his heart hammer against his chest as he walked up the cobblestone road toward Heligsol, the Bloodkind academy. The gates rose ahead, iron and stone.

  “Do you really think they’ll accept me?” asked Elrin.

  “Of course they will,” Eadward answered softly. “They accepted me, did they not? And look at me now. The first Commonborn knight to serve the kingdom.” He ruffled Elrin’s hair. “And you will be the second.”

  Elrin imagined the day he would become a knight, and awe filled his chest. Eadward walked beside him in his cloak, looking impossibly sure of the world.

  Just before they stepped through the gates, Eadward stopped and knelt. He tied the necklace around Elrin’s neck with careful fingers and smiled. “They will make you into a great knight,” he said, like it was already decided. “And you will be safe. Heligsol is the safest place in the realm. Nothing will happen to the academy.”

  A ginger boy with a scar hovered near the line of new pupils, clearly trying to look like he belonged, eyes darting everywhere except the gates.

  Elrin gripped the charm until it warmed in his palm and nodded so hard his neck ached.

  A deafening crack of thunder shook the ground. The sky above Heligsol went black. Elrin turned back to his brother, only to find him unconscious and bloody. A blue flame hovered above Eadward’s chest.

  “Eadward?”

  Eadward’s limp hand shot out and grabbed the boy’s ankle, his nails sinking deep to bone—

  Elrin woke screaming.

  It felt like a memory lived again, but twisted at the edges. Months of waking up, eating, existing. Every small detail clung too vividly to dismiss.

  He was lying under heaps of rubble, the taste of dust filling his mouth. Elrin coughed it out as he pushed himself to his elbows. The sharp pain in his leg was still there. His eyes jerked down to find a black cat, Lancelot, its fangs buried deep in Elrin’s shin.

  “Get off, you devil!” The boy shook his leg, and the cat sprang away, startled. Then Lancelot began purring softly as he padded his way towards Elrin’s face.

  “Lancelot get off me!”

  Sensing the urgency in his voice, Lancelot wandered off.

  He was the academy’s cat. Lancelot always ignored most students, especially those eager to test their Bloodkind abilities on him. But Elrin only ever offered a hand, a scratch between the ears, and a quiet place to sit. Somehow, that had been enough.

  Elrin looked at himself. Rubble covered his whole body, from the chest down, except for his exposed and bleeding shin.

  Did Lancelot dig me out? It seemed likely; a small mound of displaced dirt sat right beside him. His tunic hung in tatters, barely clinging to him by a few ragged threads.

  He lifted his gaze. The sky above was dark and thick with fog, only a hazy moonlight filtering through. The surrounding area looked utterly foreign. It was a vast, open space enclosed by sheer stone walls—as though an enormous chamber had been carved inside a mountain.

  A mountain?

  His eyes snapped upwards, only its eastern wall visible from his angle, but he knew without a doubt what he was looking at. The King’s castle.

  Then this must be the cave!

  Like a spark of lightning, everything flashed before his eyes, the knights, Wildree, the Demon King, the Craostyr, King Johanne….

  But his brother was the most important thing on his mind. He scanned his surroundings frantically, trying to remember where his brother had been.

  His eyes caught something metallic glinting several dozen feet away, his brother’s unmistakable armor. "Eadward!”

  He scrambled forward, slipping and sliding on the uneven ground. His knees skidded on the jagged rocks as he dove near the object and began to dig. Sharp stones cut into his palms and drew blood from beneath his fingernails, but he didn't stop. He clawed anxiously at the rubble until he found the edge of the armor.

  Grasped in his fists, he pulled with all his might—it gave suddenly and he flew backwards, landing on his back.

  Elrin sat there, motionless, his eyes wide. The absurdity of it left him in shock. He didn’t quite understand what he held in his hands. “Eadward?”

  The boy stared at the bones inside the commander's armor, his mind refusing to process what he was seeing. Long black hair still clung to the skull.

  No. No, this isn't him. It can't be.

  His hands trembled as he reached out, then pulled back. Eadward is alive. He has to be. He's probably just—he's somewhere else, he got out, he—But the hair. That hair…no.

  He grabbed the armor with shaking hands, pulling it closer, searching desperately for anything that would prove him wrong. A different build. A different height. Anything.

  "No..." It came out broken, barely a whisper. All that remained of Eadward were bones and hair. Elrin cradled the body. He tried to wipe away the tears, but they kept coming.

  I’m sorry Eadward…I’m sorry…I knew something was wrong—I shouldn’t have let you trot away that day… he kept thinking as he dug out a large hole with his bare fingers. Gently, he laid his brother to rest, then covered him with dirt. “You deserved better than this,” he whispered, choking on his sobs. “Better than all of us.”

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  Lancelot brushed against his ankles. Elrin wiped his face one last time and rested his hand on the cat’s head.

  The silence pressed in around him. After such destruction, he’d expected someone, anyone, to be here. Not just a cat. And his brother reduced to bones…how is that even possible?

  Then another vital memory surfaced. Johanne’s last moments. Elrin stared at his hands, they didn’t look any different other than being completely covered in dust and dried blood. The boy wondered whether having a Demon King bound inside him would make him feel any different. Shouldn’t there be some sign, some change?

  Maybe it didn’t work after all….

  Elrin took a step forward, then another, and realized his bruised body didn’t ache anymore. In fact, he felt completely rested, as though he’d never been hurt at all. Urgently, he ran his hands down all the parts that pained him before: his chest, his ribs, his hip bones.

  It’s gone—the pain is gone!

  Not only that, but all his visible wounds had vanished. He tore at the remains of his tunic, searching for scars. Nothing. His hands moved to his temple, surely he’d have a scar from the red blade—

  He gasped. His skin was smooth, completely unmarked.

  If his brother had been reduced to bones, how long had he been unconscious? Days? Weeks? But no amount of time would heal a scar like that. No, this must be something else entirely.

  There is only one possible explanation…Mardukai.

  The name echoed in his mind like a death knell. The Demon King was inside him, changing him, healing him. What was he supposed to do now? Move on as though nothing happened? Would he be able to resume his life and act as an ordinary human?

  But that was not possible. After the death of his brother, nothing would be the same again. A darker thought crept into his mind: How would Wildree react if he saw me alive?

  His jaw clenched. No—to hell with that. If the gods were as cruel to him as they were to us, then they’d present him here before me and I’d tear his throat out with my bare hands!

  His heart rate spiked and his muscles tensed. Rage flooded through his body like a dam breaking. This wasn’t just anger. He'd felt rage before, but never like this. Never something that could consume him in an instant, that wanted to consume him.

  He forced himself to take a deep breath, slowly feeling his heartbeats steadied. I’ll have plenty of time to deal with him when I see him. First, he needed to find his friend, Wean.

  The boy made his way across the rubble-strewn ground toward where the cave's mouth should be. When he reached the ledge overlooking Jotun, he stopped.

  Odd…

  The city was pitch black. Not a sound, nor a torchlight anywhere to be seen. Even with the faint moonlight, he could barely make out the shapes of structures below, but they looked wrong somehow. Even in the dead of night, there should be at least a few torches burning to guide the guards and knights on patrol.

  An anxious pang twisted in his chest. He started down toward the square, his pace quickening with each step.

  Elrin stopped before Johanne's statue in the middle of the square, his jaw going slack. Everything above the chest had been destroyed, only the statue’s legs and a shattered torso remained standing. Rubble littered the ground around it. The cobblestones were cracked and cratered, as though someone had hammered the square with tremendous force. Bones lay scattered everywhere, mixed with torn clothing and abandoned possessions.

  The boy bolted through the city. Barely any building still stood. Just wrecks, rubble, and debris choking the streets.

  It looked as though a meteor had struck while he'd been unconscious in the cave. What few structures remained upright were charred black, and on them, impossibly, vines of luscious green vegetation had grown.

  What happened to Jotun?

  He looked around frantically…no soul in sight. Only the faint smell of burnt wood lingering in the air.

  “Hello!” shouted the boy, hoping that at least someone was around to tell him what had happened. “Anybody here?”

  No reply, other than a few bats startled into flight and rats scurrying around.

  He made his way toward the Knight's Quarters. The building still stood, but the gates were gone—torn clean off their hinges. The Quarters looked like they'd suffered the worst of whatever had happened. Gaping holes punctured the walls. Swords, helmets, and pieces of armor lay scattered across the courtyard like discarded toys.

  Lancelot darted inside, after spotting a large rat moving in the shadows.

  “Lancelot—come back!” Elrin chased after him through what remained of the entrance.

  The boy stopped just inside the doorway, his breath caught in his throat.

  The place was riddled with skeletons in armor. Dozens of them scattered across the courtyard, some fully intact, others missing limbs or heads. Most still wore their plate and mail, those that didn't were likely squires.

  It looked like a battleground frozen in time. Not a single wall had been spared: sword slashes, arrow punctures, and massive holes carved through stone.

  Elrin moved deeper inside, toward the stables. Every stall still held a horse, or what was left of one. Skeletal remains stood where living mounts once waited. The stall doors bore deep gouges and splintered wood from frantic kicks, but the skeletons themselves were pristine. Not a single cut, no broken bones.

  This…this was a massacre.

  No—worse. A surprise massacre. Despite the devastation surrounding him, Elrin still prayed that Heligsol—the academy—had been left untouched, that somehow, by some miracle, Wean had survived.

  Elrin stood before the iron gates of Heligsol, Lancelot right beside him. The academy looked…as he left it. Except for the vines that had claimed the walls and crept through cracks in the stone.

  He tried pushing open the gate. Locked.

  “Hello! It’s Elrin—someone, open the door!” He kept shouting, but nobody answered.

  The boy stood there, trying to figure out how to enter. It was impossible for him to climb the gate, not without someone’s help. He glanced down at Lancelot, who sat unbothered, calmly licking his paws.

  “Lancelot.” The cat didn’t react, but his large pointy ears swiveled toward the boy. Elrin crouched down beside him. “Listen, could you please go inside and…I don’t know, do something to get someone’s attention?”

  Lancelot looked up at Elrin, his eyes half closed, and remained perfectly still, like a statue.

  “If only you were a dog...”

  That’s when Elrin noticed movement atop of the bricked chimney extending from the dining hall. He circled around the walls to get a closer look.

  It’s a crow’s nest.

  No bird would nest on top of a chimney that worked every day. Which meant, they abandoned the academy. But where did they go?

  Wildree’s words from the cave echoed in his mind: I did promise Heligsol will be safe….

  Did that coward have something to do with this? The boy felt the rage again, flowing through his veins like poison looking to consume him. Had Wildree orchestrated the destruction of Jotun? The disappearance of the pupils? Of Wean?

  His fists clenched with such force that his nails bit into his palms, drawing blood—

  A cry pierced the air, distant and desperate. Elrin’s head snapped toward the sound. It came from high up the mountain.

  The castle!