Chapter 003

  Belmond nodded. He knew the routine as intimately as the sequences of cuts and parries they drilled every morning. Only the puncture points shifted. Father always claimed it eased the pain and hastened recovery, a method Aria had mastered long ago, before she ever bore the name Blackwood. He stripped off his sodden tunic and sat with his back to his mother, forearms resting on crossed knees. She slid a small metal case, no larger than a walnut, beneath his nose. She twisted the lid, revealing a blue, scentless salve.

  “Breathe slowly,” she murmured. “Focus your aura.”

  He inhaled deep. She took a step back, positioning herself directly behind him. Against his skin, she pressed the cool metal object his parents called the Elpis. It was the size of an egg, its surface composed of golden scales of varying shapes and sizes, overlapping like armour.

  She began to trace patterns along his spine. First came straight lines running parallel to the lumbar, then concentric circles, and finally spirals spreading toward his shoulder blades. Wherever the Elpis moved, his skin tingled, as if something dormant beneath the surface was being roused.

  Belmond drifted into the silence of his own interior. Beneath his ribs, he felt a thrumming. The Nodus woke gently, beating with its own rhythm, independent of his heart.

  He felt the first prick between his shoulder blades. Sharp. Precise. Aria drove the first needle in with a single, sure motion. The second she inserted just below the nape of his neck. The third and fourth she placed along the spine. The needles went in shallowly, yet each seemed to touch something far deeper than mere flesh.

  “Good. Picture a golden sphere on your forehead,” she whispered. “And now a second, larger one, right before you. Vast as the sun. Feel the warmth radiating from it, warming you.”

  He felt further pricks, each at a different point on his body. One just below the ribs, another by the right kidney, a third almost at the hip. Each needle found a new home, as if Aria were following a constellation known only to her.

  “Breathe deep,” Aria whispered. “Imagine you are extending your hands before you. The sphere from your forehead flows into your palms, and then you press your hands to your chest. Let it permeate you. Let it in.”

  With a delicate motion, she slid the Elpis between the needles. She set it down in the silver casket beside her. Then, she began to withdraw them one by one, with the same fluid certainty with which she had placed them. When the last needle left her son’s skin, she gathered them all, slid them into the casket beside the golden Elpis, and snapped the lid shut.

  “Relax.”

  She took a cloth, soaked it in the bucket, and gently wiped his back.

  The punctures were so precise they left not even a pinpoint mark on the skin. He felt nothing, even now, as the damp fabric passed over him. He felt fresh, restored, as if he had just awoken from a deep slumber.

  “Done.”

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  He turned his head to look into his parent’s eyes. The golden ring around her pupils had drowned in the depth of the green. The harsh mentor had vanished, and in her place, the mother had resurfaced. She rose in one calm motion and handed him his gambeson.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  A deep, almost brazen sound rolled over the estate. In the distance, the red towers of Tyron announced noon with bells of oriralucon. The daily ritual was a reminder, an inevitable countdown to the next coming of Nerius. Five years. That was the span of a Pentad. The Erycian Cycle, as the chroniclers liked to write. He remembered his father reading it to him for the first time. The number of strikes told which year of the Pentad was currently passing.

  “The first strike shall echo against wall and street. They name it Izuldar, the Year of Dawn, when gates open and life returns from hiding, though fear still remembers the dark.

  The second strike shall carry the sound betwixt forest and hill. They name it Belor, the Year of the Wanderer, when roads become the world’s veins, and men chase their fate.

  The third strike shall fall heavy, like a toppling crown. They name it Regis, the Year of the King, when laws harden like iron, and swords do not rust in their scabbards.

  The fourth strike shall spill over the living, thrumming in hearts even unto sleep. They name it Alarion, the Year of Twilight, when disputes fade, and the counting of days and stones in the wall becomes a silent prayer.

  The fifth strike shall be born in silence, shaking the entire world. They name it Nerius, the Year of the Black Sun, when a bloody eye cracks the sky, and the unsaturated march with a step that neither weapon nor prayer can drown.”

  Belmond counted the strikes, just as his father had taught him. First. Second. Third. Fourth. Silence. That moment where everyone waited for the fifth. He breathed a sigh of relief. Four strikes. Alarion. Not yet Nerius.

  The fifth strike, the harbinger of the Year of the Black Sun, had not yet come. Its time would arrive when the Blood Moon Nerius came dormant to eclipse the sky for twenty-eight days, melting day and night into one boundless obscurity. Then, these same bells would toll incessantly, warding the walls against the Dark Parade. The current Year of Alarion was merciful, and the bloody tears of Nerius had not yet fallen upon the lands of the Empire.

  Two Pentads had passed since the day of his birth. The coming one would be his third. With it, he would cross the threshold of adulthood. Fifteen years. By law and tradition, he would cease to be a child under the care of his House. He would be able to inherit, to swear oaths, to enlist in the Imperial Legions without the consent of father or mother.

  Legions or the Academy. He tightened his fingers on the sleeve of his gambeson.

  Uncle Darian was due in Tyron before the month was out. He hadn’t seen him since he was perhaps seven. He didn’t remember the face, but he remembered the smell of rust. This time, he wasn’t coming to visit family by the hearth and reminisce about old times. The Provincial Council had summoned him officially. He was one of the finest infantry commanders in the Imperial North, tasked with preparing the garrisons for what was to come. Five years ago, during the last Year of the Black Sun, the artisan district had run with blood. He remembered smoke rising above the rooftops, screams drifting from streets away. Mother’s face had been white as chalk when she opened the door and drew her sword. She went out. She slammed the door behind her, leaving him with his father. She returned only later, covered in blood that did not belong to her.

  Three hundred and eighteen dead. Smiths, weavers, carpenters, cobblers, tailors, their wives, their children. The Tainted had gone through the workshops like a scythe through wheat before the oriralucon bells could tear the night apart. No one had expected an attack in the very heart of the city.

  This time, Tyron was to be ready.

  “Bel. Hey! Belmond Blackwood, wake up!”

  His mother’s voice tore him from his reverie.

  “Forgive me, Mother.”

  “Just like your father,” she smiled. “Go on now, your father is likely waiting. Take a proper bath before you see him. I’m going to check the snare by the northern wall. Perhaps something bigger has finally been caught. Tell Father I shall return shortly.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  He bowed once more, and in that simple gesture lay something more than respect. There was admiration for her craft, for every fluid movement and precise cut. He dreamed that one day he would cross swords with her as an equal. He knew the price. Thousands of bruises and abrasions, hundreds of hours on this sand, before he could force her back even a single step.

  He walked away. When he reached the stone steps leading up, he paused and glanced over his shoulder. Aria was kneeling in the centre of the square. She lifted her face to the sky, the sun’s rays brushing her cheeks with a golden glow. Slowly, she spread her arms, as if she sought to embrace the sun entire. She held the pose, motionless, breathing in rhythm. He knew this ritual. Her daily prayer, a moment of respite after training. He turned and started up the winding path, looking back no more.