“Abandoned by your ravens too, huh?”
Johen pulled the hooded man up by the collar and tightened his grip around his throat without a second thought. A lopsided smirk replaced the seething anger seconds later, and he loosened his grip.
“At least, I have someone to abandon me, manipulator…”
The abandoned deity walked away as soon as those words slipped his mouth and took a seat at the table in the middle of the dark tower across the lancet. But he wasn’t smiling anymore.
Mortimor was right. It wasn’t like the ravens to disobey him and follow their own will. Had they grown too fond of the kid after watching over him all these years? Nevertheless, this had to come to an end. He couldn’t afford to lose his most trusted and loyal subjects to a mere kid.
Four windows illuminated the tower that was otherwise cast in darkness. Each lancet pointed to a different kingdom in Fayr, from the ogres in Sál to the humans in Aderbaal, which the Council in Salwodor now ruled over. Their words were law, and those who failed to adhere to these rules were bound to meet a gruesome fall.
But it wasn’t always like this. The deities, his kinsmen, betrayed the rightful king of Fayr after the Alfen Wars ended and took control of the Seven Kingdoms. When he confronted their corrupted ways and demanded justice, they condemned him as an outcast and put him into exile.
Mortimor, “What are you gonna do now? That kid, he won’t make it through the night.”
Johen glanced at the hooded man as he sat across him at the table and waited for a response.
“Leave the kid to me. Don’t you know that I know the best?”
“Why did you tell the mountains to move? Were you really trying to kill—”
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“Go to Forsburth. The sooner, the better.”
“Forsburth?” Mortimor repeated, visibly confused by the change of the subject. “Why? What about the kid?”
“Don’t question my ways, manipulator. Do as I say and leave the rest to me. If vengeance is what you indeed seek.”
Mortimor’s eyes shifted to the lancet with a view over the majestic fortress made of coal. Two of the deity’s ravens were on guard, determined not to let either him or their master in.
“Those two seem fond of the kid. They won’t make it easy for you. I could lend a hand.”
Johen followed his gaze. “No, there’s something much more important you must undertake in my stead in the Inn of the Death.”
Within seconds, the door flew open and beckoned him to exit the coal-black tower. Reluctantly, he rose to his feet and ambled towards the door. It was no use trying to reason with the forgotten deity.
Thousands of thoughts whirled through his mind. For the first time in many years, he wanted to get into the deity’s head and read his mind. What awaited him in Forsburth? Why was the deity so eager to see him go to that macabre place riddled with decadence, death, and corruption? But he couldn’t.
Johen, one of a handful of people in all of Fayr, was able to close his mind off to the cult of manipulators. Then again, it was no surprise. When Boldizsár abandoned Johen at a young age, the Guild of Manipulators, Magolia, took him in and raised him as one of their own.
The wind hit his face as soon as he exited the tower. Before pulling his hood down and hiding his face, he looked up at the towering tower and met the abandoned deity’s blank eyes. Still, he couldn’t read his mind.
Not many people knew what it meant to be a manipulator and a member of Magolia. Most humans wanted to join it to attain immortality and live an easy life far from the Grim Reaper. But they were mistaken.
This gift of immortality bestowed upon them was not a blessing. It was a curse. Only the tip of a sword stained with the blood of the innocent could take their lives and send their souls straight to Faersead.
Moreover, there was a price they had to pay for cheating death. The second a manipulator passed away, either by the tip of a bloody sword or by rejecting to manipulate those they locked eyes with, they were doomed to burn in the fieriest pit in Faersead for as many years as the minds they read to attain immortality – until they liquified and ceased to exist for good, that is. Such was a manipulator’s fate.
That was why manipulators like him, of human descent, needed to manipulate to live forever and avoid ceasing to exist – even after death itself. Such was indeed a manipulator’s fate.
End of Book 1/ Act 1