Returning to Noro, at the time of the envoy’s blood-curdling scream.

  Noro, though unmoved by the scream due to his alienation from others as a noble, couldn’t contain his curiosity. As a noble, he is allowed on royal grounds except for certain sections of the castle, and he takes advantage of this fact. Strolling to the gate, he walks right through. The guards seize him by his arms, pointing their spears to his neck.

  “Wha—what are you doing? Unhand me! I’m a noble, have you gone mad!”

  “I’m Noro, from the—”

  “We don’t care who you are,” the guards overpower his voice. They say little else before dragging him through the castle on the way to the lower gaols.

  “Bring him to the king, he wants to see him,” a voice from the stairs calls out.

  The guards obey. Noro is dragged by his arms as his knees bump into every possible surface. The guards seem impressed by the level of temerity this noble possessed, to just waltz onto castle grounds after the recent attempt on the king’s life.

  Noro is brought to his knees in the king’s chambers. The guards leave. To Noro’s left stands the envoy—his eyes white, his hair grey, his skin pale. The dread in Noro’s heart is palpable. He can hear the king’s footsteps reverberating in his head.

  He looks to the king. All fear, all emotion is gone. He feels nothing towards this figure, as if it were just a projection. The king reaches out to Noro and cups his chin in his hand, his face bathed in shadow.

  At the port in Cairnreach, soldiers prepare for war. They train on life-sized wooden cut-outs and sharpen their blades on whetstones. They do not dispatch yet; the king has, in all his mercy, decided on diplomacy first. He sends his representative to a meeting in Verez.

  Verez was the heart of the world in the golden age, but now they are a shadow of their former glory. They still host diplomatic meetings out of tradition, but their land and presence offer no leverage.

  Legend has it that a being once brought its head down over Verez and chose it as the birthplace of its child. Verez was protected as such from all sorts of horrors. In war, they were unbeatable—until complacency came. New thinkers came. Revolutionaries came. They murdered the strange creature’s child, thinking in their modernity that war and power were outdated, and that the child was an omen.

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  Verez crumbled soon after. Its residents fear the day that creature brings its head down from the clouds, looking for its kin.

  Perhaps Cairnreach is a modern Verez who “won’t make the same mistake.” Perhaps that is what the king will use to rile up his people for his unknown aims.

  Seraphiel wakes up. Another day of training lies ahead of him. Sol pitches a ball, flying straight towards his face. Seraphiel catches it, then lets go, dropping it to the floor.

  “Be more assured in yourself. You let go thinking you had missed before the ball had even reached you,” Sol informs him before throwing it again.

  The wind today is cool. The sun is overhead, but not too overwhelming.

  Seraphiel plants his feet in the ground, rushing towards Sol with his rapier, going straight for his chest. Sol was adamant they use the real thing—something about realism and conditioning yourself. The aim was to practice form, to fail and repeat, and to watch him grow. They both knew he wouldn’t land the strike, not due to incompetence, but due to the unfathomable gap in speed and prowess.

  Sol moves at the final moment, grabbing Seraphiel’s arm.

  “Perfectly straight. Well done.”

  They repeat these drills for about three hours before Sol sits down on the ground, picks a flower, and starts fiddling with it.

  “How did I do?” Seraphiel asks, seeking some praise.

  “Could’ve been much worse,” Sol replies, deathly calm, avoiding eye contact.

  Seraphiel catches the rage rising in his neck before it can go any higher and swallows it.

  Sol stops his meddling as if waiting for something, then resumes.

  “You in the mood for something more real?” Sol suggests.

  They stand at the dead of night on a rooftop in a village in Seriol known for its violent crimes. Sol notices three men trying to kill a younger man they have cornered in an alleyway. They flaunt their knives while cackling like hyenas.

  Seraphiel is sent down with his rapier in hand, a strange sight—like something out of Don Quixote—standing now to the side of these men. He shudders. He has been thrown into something serious so soon. This isn’t a ball or a trainer; this is real flesh and blood he is supposed to pierce and kill.

  “What the fuck is this pale rat doing here?” one of the men calls out.

  He wastes no time charging at Seraphiel. He freezes, raising his sword to block and failing miserably. Before the knife lands, Sol intervenes—or so he expects.

  The knife pierces him, getting stuck in his rib. He cries out like the child he is and begins crying while panting. The other men look unfazed.The man unwedges his knife from

  The cavity, hesitates, then thrusts again.

  Finally, Sol intervenes.

  He grabs the knife and smashes the man’s head into the wall. He grabs the other two men, takes the knife, and begins to rapidly stab and thrust thousands of times per second—puncturing organs, severing tendons, absolute unrestrained violence. He is painted red, with no expression.

  He turns to the man he just saved, neglecting Seraphiel. The man is in shock.

  “What was this about?” Sol says.

  The man returns to his senses. “These rats stole product from me, man—one kilo of the nose stuff,” he laughs.

  Sol walks towards him, grabs his head, and shakes his neck violently until it rotates separately from the rest of his body.