While it was nice to not be chased by enemies any longer, Frances found the tunnel was growing increasingly claustrophobic as the days went on. The walls just seemed to keep closing inward, the tunnel turning ever so darker. The noises of the column of refugees and villagers thundering on even longer. The smell of so many animals and people packed together filling her nose.
On the fifth day, Frances had much to her own shame, politely demanded Timur to hold her during a rest stop.
The stop itself was in a cavern with two shallow pools in the centre, one flowing into another. Some kind of hidden channel with a cistern feeding the two pools. The cavern itself was large enough that most of the villagers and refugees could enter and rest. Several different tunnels met around this cavern which seemed at least partly tunnelled, but also partly created from erosion.
It was in a corner of the cave that Frances sat in Timur’s arms, trying both to warm herself and to fight the phantom chill playing over her skin.
“I’m sorry. I’m not afraid of the dark, but I… I don’t like confined dark places,” she whispered.
Timur, stroking her hair, gently caressed her cheek. “It’s alright, Frances. Did… did your parents lock you in them?”
“Kind of. My room in their house was a walk-in closet. They’d lock me in there after they beat me.” Frances looked up at Timur, trying to focus on his face, instead of the memories that threatened to well up in the forefront of her mind. “It’s kind of strange. When I was younger, the walk-in closet was kind of my refuge. They never beat me in there. It was too small and I had a few things that just made it feel comfortable.”
Timur pursed his lips. “What kind of items? Perhaps we can re-create them so you can feel safe?”
“Well that—but, um. Huh.” Frances blinked owlishly. It was this kind of thinking that led to Timur sometimes catching her off guard.
“I mean, did you perhaps have something that made you feel better? A blanket maybe?” Timur asked.
Frances swallowed. How had she survived alone in the dark? Her parents hadn’t give her anything to help with the loneliness, or the pain from when they’d beaten her up. If she was cut, they’d make sure to bandage them but that was it.
No, now that she thought about it her parents hadn’t given her much, but they had given her something.
“I had some old crayons and pencils. My sister Denise had half-used them, but I used them to write on the walls and draw things. That made them feel nicer, you know?”
“Hmm, anything else?”
“I read books. I had a small flashlight or lantern. I can’t remember. Maybe I had both at different times.”
She felt Timur’s arms shift around her. “What if I tell you a story?”
“Like a historical one?” Frances felt a smile spread her lips. “I loved your story on Kallistos. Do you mind if I make a suggestion?”
Timur grinned and let go of Frances so they could better face one another. “Sure! What is it?”
There had been a question bothering Frances for as long as she’d started learning about the Great Wars. She’d never had the time to follow up on it, or the opportunity, but she did now.
“Timur, can you tell me about the other two Otherworlder Wars, the Second and especially the Third War? People keep saying that most of the knowledge around that time has been lost, but how can that be when Erisdale, Lapanteria, Roranoak, Erlenberg and even Alavaria as it is today came from it?”
Her prince stroked the stubble at the end of his chin. “Honestly, because the Third Great War isn’t really discussed in Alavari society, or studied, I’m not sure if I can give you a complete story. We don’t like talking about it, and as you said, a lot of our knowledge from then has been lost.”
“Do you have a guess then?” Frances asked.
“Well that I do.” Shuffling around on the ground, Timur settled himself into a cross-legged sitting position. “So to understand what led to the Third Great War, we must understand why there was a Second Great War and then a Third. The two took place within two hundred years of one another.”
“Oh? Is Timur telling a story?” squawked a familiar voice. Frances and Timur looked up to see Olgakaren walking over and settling down near them. “Have you heard his stories, Frances?”
“A few,” said Frances, smiling warmly. “He told me and Epomonia about King Alan and Queens Moragon and Yalisa.”
Aloudin and Epomonia, who were talking in hushed voices not so far away, not so unsubtly shuffled close to the growing group. “Do you mind if we listen in as well, Your Highness?” Aloudin asked.
“Of course. Where was I? Right, the Second Great War. First off, I need to warn you all that everything I know is from the Alavari perspective. There’s going to be some noticeably anti-human bias here. It was far harder to colour the history of the First Great War because of how the humans helped the Alavari, but the second is much easier.”
Timur laced his fingers together, his brow furrowing. “What is not very well known by most Alavari is that right after the First Great War, Humans and Alavari lived together in those days, living together in the same cities, the same villages and even interbreeding. The trouble began when the main lineage of King Alan’s dynasty, the Goldenboars, failed. Now, King Alan and his successors didn’t rule over an Alavari kingdom as we see today. The monarch of Alavaria was the first chief amongst chiefs, holding sway over numerous lords and ladies that controlled different fiefs, counties and cities. The ruler of Alavaria’s power came from the fact that he descended from Alan and those that helped liberate the people of Alavaria from the goblins. They were the arbiter, the final judge in all matters and under their banner they led the Alavari through any crisis that might arise.”
“But then the Goldenboar line failed. The traditional story goes that King Richard the Lovefool was told by his human mistress, Kenaria Stringweaver that his wife Queen Raela and brother Prince John were plotting to murder him. So he had Raela and John tried and later executed them and Raela’s daughter, prompting an outroar amongst his nobles. He spent the rest of the years of his reign crushing Raela and John’s supporters and trying to elevate Kenaria to queen.”
“That sounds incredibly stupid,” said Frances, arching an eyebrow.
Timur’s eyes filled with glee. “But here’s the thing, Frances, I’ve read the original court records for Raela and John’s trial. The evidence presented is compelling and well-supported. Memory crystals, even a truth spell cast by a Named Wand called Justificier were employed. It wasn’t a fake trial. Kenaria might have been influencing King Richard, but as far as I can tell, she was telling the truth.”
“Wait, Raela and John wanted Richard dead and Kenaria… was being a loyal servant of the king?” Aloudin stammered.
“Well, loyal may be stretching it. We don’t know enough about Kenaria to tell if she was a loyal companion to King Richard, or if she was manipulating him. We only know how she and Richard’s stories end. Sometime in the tenth year of King Richard’s reign, assassins broke into the royal apartments and killed the pregnant Kenaria along with her only child. King Richard caught the assassins later, but he refused to have children with any other women for the rest of his life. Despite the pleas of his nobles, the Goldenboar line ended with Richard.”
“What happened next was utter chaos. The monarchy ceased to exist and all the regional lords and ladies began to fight amongst one another. Richard had also surrounded himself with human followers and favourites that Alavari resented. When he died, the Alavari started to take out their fury on all humans. In the vacuum of power, and the fighting that occurred, it became far easier to trust one's own species or family rather than try to cross family lines. Scattered as they were in Alavaria, humans began to flee Alavaria and to the south and west to the human cities by the coast.”
Noticing Timur was swallowing and wetting his lips more often, Frances passed her bottle of water to him. Accepting with a quiet thanks and a grateful smile, the prince took a long sip and passed the flask back to Frances. “In the end, the dynasty that brought stability back to Alavaria was House Carver, descended from Queen Moragon and King Alan’s children.”
“Wait, I thought the Goldenboar dynasty was destroyed?” Olgakaren asked.
“It was. When King Alan and Queens Yalisa and Moragon were trying to determine the succession for the kingdom, they decided that those of Queen Yalisa’s descent would be the Goldenboar Dynasty. Queen Moragon’s dynasty would be known as House Goldenbear.” Timur grimaced. “House Goldenbear was essentially destroyed in the civil war as it was one of the few houses with a significant number of human members and King Richard had favored them above all the other houses, which put a target on their back. One of their members however, a half-centaur called Malik, formed a cadet house called House Carver after marrying a centaur chief’s daughter. During the Chaos, House Carver operated as mercenaries for other larger houses, building an elite force of mounted archers and lancers that primarily consisted of centaurs from the plains of Alavaria, but also included goblin wolf riders and other horsemen.”
“Eventually, Lady Saadi Carver seized her chance and took on Lady Therathosia of House Greyhammer, one of my distant ancestors in the battle of the Two Princesses. The battle itself is pretty interesting, but to summarise, Saadi Carver won and as a descendant of King Alan, she claimed the White Crown of King Alan for herself.”
“The problem was that she came to power over a divided Alavaria. An Alavaria that was suffering raids from the human city states of the coast. She managed to keep the country unified by moving the capital to the more central and easily defensible city of Glendan, but the human raiders, led by the League of Roranoak, were proving a significant threat to Alavaria. Queen Saadi kept the country together despite these pressures however, but after a long, mostly peaceful reign, her granddaughter Queen Aliya took power.”
“Queen Aliya declared war on the League of Roranoak ostensibly to stop the raids.” Timur took another sip. “Of course, these are her words and those that wrote down the history. I suspect that Queen Aliya wanted to try to both reward some of the noble houses that had supported her grandmother with land and to secure greater wealth for her family. The war went very well at first. The Carver’s dynasty cavalry was the best on the continent and they had some amazing mages, but then the League summoned the Otherworlders. That quite suddenly turned the tide of battle and soon Queen Aliya was battling Otherworlders in front of the former capital of Minairen, fighting off against the leader of the Otherworlders, the warrior Stewart Danrowan.”
Not much of a battle that was.
All eyes turned to Frances, who stared at Ivy’s Sting.
“Ivy, you were there?” Frances asked, more shocked that her wand was speaking about her past rather than the fact that she was speaking.
Yes. Queen Aliya was ambushed, alone, away from her army by a force led by Stewart. The Alavari tell tales that she fought us hard, and we let them, mostly because we were too ashamed to do otherwise.
“Ashamed?” Epomonia whispered.
We were winning the war, but barely. The strike towards Minairen was the last thing we were hoping would work, and the reason we managed to separate her from her forces was because Stewart was holding her younger son hostage. My wielder tried to stop it, but Stewart had already killed the queen and her child.
“That explains why the battle accounts don’t match up,” muttered Timur. “By Galena, that explains far too much and explains what happened next. You see, after the queen was killed and the Otherworlders left, House Carver’s remaining member, the young King Marek, appointed a successor and abruptly stepped down. He took some loyal servants and just went to the plains where he continued to live as a minor lord, but that was it.”
“The loss of his mother and brother must have traumatised him,” said Frances.
Yes. My former wielder and I… we saw how distraught he was. It stayed with her for the rest of her life.
Frances swallowed, remembering that Ivy’s Sting master in those days was Yvonne the Shaman Slayer, probably the most powerful mage in the continent’s history. That such a proud woman was ashamed of what her compatriots had done indicated how grievous the crime was.
“Returning to the topic,” said Timur gently, trying to inject some levity with his voice. “The family that King Marek appointed was his cousins’ family House Sparrowpeak, a harpy and goblin house also descended from Queen Moragon. They kept the capital at Glendan but made significant changes to the Kingdom of the Alavari. The foremost of them was the formalisation of the Alavari Academy for Magic, the second being the building of a large road network, which included the Great Southern and Northern Roads.”
Tappinger Timur’s arm, Frances asked, “Timur, can you elaborate on what you mean by formalisation?”
“Ah, right. Sorry, it’s a whole other story, but the Academy for Magic has existed since King Alan’s reign. King Warbeak and Queen Chirpaya established it where it was today and integrated them with the kingdom. They set up the system for choosing the Academy Pedagos’s and used the mages the Academy produced, along with the roads that they built, to exert control over Alavaria. These units of mages often rode in armored war wagons pulled by horses and escorted by cavalry. Anyhow, as time went on, the twin rulers of the Sparrowpeak House continued to strengthen central control over Alavaria and the various noble houses and clans within.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As Timur took a quick breath, Aloudin interjected, “Pardon me, Your Highness, but may I ask a quick question?” At the prince’s nod, the orc asked. “How could there be twin rulers of Alavaria?”
“Timur, do you mind if I answer this question?” Olgakaren asked.
“Please! You probably could answer it better than I can given how you’re related to all of this,” said Timur, grinning
Epomonia glanced at the harpy. “Related to all of this?”
Olgakaren blushed. “House Silverclaw, my family, is a cadet branch of House Sparrowpeak. You see, after the First Great War, the harpies took goblins into their mountain aeries. We hadn’t been affected as much by the Goblin Empire and we needed the goblins to help with many of the things we can’t do ourselves.” Olgakaren briefly covered her face. “One of the major things we needed the goblins help with was… well, we needed mates. Harpy blood is rather strange. All offspring from any union between a harpy and a mate are female and three out of four children born from a couple will be full harpies, with a quarter being half-harpy. It’s why half-harpies are so rare. In any case, House Sparrowpeak contained both goblin and harpy members who selectively married and had children to maintain a fairly equal balance. This is why the Sparrowpeak always had two rulers of equal power. The King, a goblin, and a Queen, a harpy. This worked for a while, but if I’m correct it started to fail?”
Timur nodded. “Mm hmm. Yeah you’re right, but it’s not quite right. You could almost say House Sparrowpeak was a victim of its own success. The fact that Sparrowpeak had to maintain goblin and harpy lineages meant that they had a lot of family members to prevent too much interbreeding. This meant they had many representatives and people to send out across Alavaria to exert control over the local lords, and to marry off to local clans and houses. In the one hundredth and ninety-eight year of their reign however, their tactic of spreading their family all over Alavaria created a crisis.”
“At this point, the records get really spotty. Remember, Glendan was the capital then and it was destroyed in the Third Great War, which meant all the records stored there were destroyed as well.”
“Wait, what?” Frances stammered.
“Oh, shoot, you don’t know that. Yeah, Glendan’s a ruin now. It’s not even an interesting ruin. Just burned out buildings and looted rooms. Nothing’s left. The libraries in particular were heavily damaged.” Timur scratched his chin. “Actually its destruction is related to the Third Great War. You see, the succession crisis that occurred due to the dispatch of so many members of royal blood to the provinces. It created a situation where there were many claimants to the thrones of Alavaria and allowed the humans to start the Third Great War.”
Frances winced. She suspected that the humans did have a role in causing the Great Wars. She hadn’t been born in Durannon, but hearing about how the humans had driven the conflict between themselves and the Alavari made her feel ashamed.
Timur paused then, his fingers lacing together. “The problem with what we know is that as the human cities and states at the time were completely destroyed by the resultant war their records are even spottier than ours. It’s… well…” The prince scowled. “It’s taken me some time to come around to this, but I think the typical story we hear about the Third War is… bent, well, not really bent. It’s quite flawed, and possibly even a propaganda version spread by my father.” Groaning, the prince ran a hand through his hair. “Oh who am I kidding? It’s rather full of bullshit that I’ve recently realized makes very little sense unless someone had an agenda to demonize the humans. So I’m going to give you a rundown of how I think the whole war started and played out, but most of this is my guess, which I formulated after re-reading some older sources over the last year.”
“Why am I not surprised that Thorgoth lied about this as well?” muttered Aloudin.
Timur sighed, “It wasn’t too hard for him, unfortunately. I do think humans had a hand in the war’s cause. It’s just a lot more complicated than things let on. You see, at the time, the human cities had formed another league to counteract the power of the existing League of Roranoak. This was the Lapanterian Alliance, which extended all the way into current-day Erisdale. Both alliances however, fought several long wars against each other and while they both survived the aftermath, it left cities filled with refugees and living in squalid conditions.”
Timur shifted his legs so that he was kneeling and quickly, using the handle of his knife, drew a rough shape in the ground. It took a moment for Frances to realize he was drawing a very rough map of the southwestern part of the continent, primarily Roranoak, Lapanteria, and Alavaria.
“We only know what happened next as the Felanian Incident and again, the details we have are scarce. The typical story we Alavari are told is that once upon a time, before the bloody plain of Vertingen was an oft fought-over wasteland, there was a city there called Felania. With natural borders and rich farmland, it attracted a lot of refugees. Too many, and so the humans of the border city of Felania wanted to try to take Alavari land in Gestoch. So they prepared a plan to invade Alavaria. On hearing about this, Queen Piniya and King Warrick responded by sending in a team of mages to abduct Felania’s Lady Mayor Jaraya to stop this before it happened.” Timur looked up from his map drawing. “But when you think about it a bit harder, this makes no sense doesn’t it?”
Frances had been so engrossed in watching the map her boyfriend was drawing take shape, and in picturing the story he was telling that it took her several long seconds for the fact that Timur had asked his audience a question to sink in.
Thankfully, she was not the only person who had to re-engage their thinking skills. The others around her were also either shaking their heads or frowning in confusion.
“No. No it doesn’t make sense,” said Olgakaren. “And that in itself makes sense. My mom, Queen Berengaria, always used that part of the story to criticise Queen Piniya and King Warrick for making an unbearably stupid decision that had no logical explanation, even if the humans were up to no good. So… you mean they had a logical reason that got brushed over?”
“Yes and most people aren’t aware of it, but Lady Mayor Jaraya was meeting with Prince Clawthorn of Sparrowpeak, one of Queen Piniya and King Warrick’s many goblin sons,” said Timur.
Olgakaren gasped, covering her mouth with her wing. Epomonia stammered, “Wait, one our own betrayed Alavaria? Why haven’t we heard about this—Oh, right, unpleasant truth.”
“Well to be honest, we have no idea what Clawthorn was doing meeting with Jaraya because of what happened next. We do not even have a contemporary source that tells us what he was doing on Felania. What accounts we do have say that he went to Felania and was in a meeting with Mayor Jaraya and that for whatever reason Queen Piniya and King Warrick sent a full regiment of their war wagon mages to abduct them both. We’re talking about two-hundred wagons with teams of eight mages and drivers each.”
“It went horribly wrong in almost every way possible. Oh Mayor Jaraya and Prince Clawthorn were both abducted, but the operation, which I think was supposed to be a raid or stealth operation, killed thousands of humans while doing so and resulted in the loss of almost a quarter of the regiment. The fires that raged across Felania burnt the city to the ground. War was inevitable after that with the League of Roranoak and the Lapanterian Alliance putting their differences aside and committing their armies to all out battle and summoning a third generation of Otherworlders. It’s at this point the historical record gets extremely spotty except for several key events. The most significant of them being the near-destruction of the Otherworlder system and the subsequent apocalypse. Sometime during the war, the Alavari led by King Warrick, Queen Piniya and a mage we only know as the Grey Walker, attacked the Temple of the Otherworlders with a large army. For whatever reason, though, the Grey Walker wasn’t trying to destroy the Temple of the Otherworlders, he was trying to weaponize it.”
Frances blinked. The story sounded familiar and she suddenly realized where she’d heard it. She’d heard this from her mother, Edana.
“You’re talking about when Amura and Rathon ascended to Godhood,” said Frances.
Timur turned to Frances, eyebrows raised. “I didn’t realized you worshipped Amura and Rathon.”
Frances pursed her lips. “It’s complicated. Mom, Edana, introduced me to the religion. I find it comforting to pray to them, but I wouldn’t say I’m a true worshipper. I just think I should give them respect.”
“Ah. Well, um, just to be clear, I don’t have any issues with that,” said Timur, smiling. “Though, I am curious, what’s the story behind their ascension?”
Frances wasn’t sure if she could tell the story, not because she didn’t know it, but she wasn’t sure if their listeners were interested. Yet, as she looked around, she saw Timur and his friends were all looking at her intently.
“Well, from what my mother told me, Amura and Rathon were once human mages who fought the Alavari. They weren’t Otherworlders, just skilled mages who were married to one another. When the Alavari mages attacked the Temple of Heroes, Amura and Rathon were part of the defensive force. Nobody actually knew that would happen if someone broke the altar, but people were worried that if the altar was broken, the Otherworlders would be forced to return back. Amura and Rathon defended the altar from a horde of Alavari attackers, but no matter what they tried to do, they were losing. In a last, desperate attempt, as the Alavari almost reached the altar itself, the pair decided to cast a joint spell, using the magic of the altar itself and created the first of the two cases of true song magic, that is, magic that includes both song and lyrics. Rathon provided the lyrics of the song in the demon language, or as we know, Words of Power. Amura provided the actual song itself. In doing this, they would sacrifice their very bodies, using them as fuel for the spell.”
Frances took a deep breath. “The spell ripped their bodies apart and caused a massive explosion that destroyed the temple except for the altar itself, and killed all of the Alavari attackers.”
“Huh, well, we tell a similar story, but there are a lot of differences. For one, we actually know it was the Grey Walker who tried to destroy, or weaponize the altar. I also notice that your story doesn’t talk about the Great Earthquake,” said Timur.
“Earthquake?” Frances asked.
“Yeah. We don’t know exactly what happened when the Grey Walker breached the Temple of the Otherworlders. Some stories say that some mages tried to stop him. Others say that he was a fool. Most agree that he tried to do something heinous and suspect he tried to weaponize the altar. Whatever his motives, he triggered the explosion that killed King Warrick and Queen Piniya and caused a massive earthquake to tear down every city in the continent, and I do mean every city, to the ground. It most affected Glendan, which had been built on a flood plain and whose earth liquefied underneath the city’s inhabitants, killing thousands of people. Fires, started by people trying to use broken chimneys and fireplaces, then ravaged the surviving population centres. Alavaria— no, the continent was destroyed because of what he did.”
Frances stared at her boyfriend. “I don’t understand, if an Earthquake destroyed cities across the continent, why don’t the human histories include it?”
“I have no clue. That’s what is so puzzling about this. Human histories don’t talk about the earthquake, Alavari histories don’t mention Amura or Rathon. When you combine them together it kind of makes sense, but there are still gaps missing that we can’t fill.” Timur glanced at Ivy’s Sting. “Unless you witnessed something, Ivy?”
Frances caressed her wand, wondering if she had seen something as well. However, she could already feel Ivy’s disappointment.
I’m sorry. I was… being studied by a particularly cruel human mage. He was crushed by the earthquake when the earthquake collapsed the lab on him and I survived by chance, only to be looted by another mage.
“It’s alright, Ivy,” said Timur, touching the wand with his hand. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
Thank you, Timur.
“But yeah, that’s why we don’t know much about the Third War. It continued even after the Great Earthquake, destroying civilization in its aftermath, leaving the survivors to pick up the pieces,” said Timur. He sighed. “I don’t know much about what happened in the human countries. I only know that in the aftermath of this disaster, the dynasty that rose to power was House Greyhammer, my family.”
“The Greyhammers have a complicated relation to the previous dynasties. They are descended from the line of Moragon and the Goldenboars, but due to strategic marriages, the blood of the Carvers, and the Sparrowpeaks also ran through the Greyhammer house. That gave them significant legitimacy. Secondly, the Sparrowpeaks were devastated by the loss of their King and Queen, and also several royal heirs that had been part of the army. Further fighting during the Third Great War meant the rest of their royal heirs were killed. Thus, there was a need for leadership in Alavaria that my family filled, using their base at Minairen to do so. Finally, my family had some incredibly powerful mages, which we leveraged in the war to provide protection to the devastated Alavari settlements and to exert our power. As such, after the Third Great War, my family became the ruling dynasty and secured our power by more strategic marriages between the families of other Alavari lords and ladies, creating the custom of every Alavari king or queen taking multiple spouses.”
“Oh, so that’s a recent custom?” Aloudin asked.
“Yes, in the span of things,” said Timur. He clapped his hands together. “And that brings us to well, our current situation, any questions.”
Several of the onlookers shook their heads, Frances was not among them. She was still thinking about what the tale her boyfriend had told her. It was a bit insane, a bit crazy, but at the same time it said so much about the world she now lived in and the forces that shaped it. It was a lot to take in.
But first, Frances took Timur’s arm and pulled herself in to kiss him on the cheek.
“Timur, thank you. That was amazing,” said Frances.
Her prince grinned and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Thanks. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
Chuckling, Aloudin, Epomonia and Olgakaren bid them goodbye and went to get some dinner. Frances however was content to sit next to Timur and think about the story. She did have questions, she just wasn’t sure what questions.
“So… what did you think of Alavaria’s history?” Timur asked.
Frances glanced at Timur. “I thought it was interesting. Like… there are a lot of sad events, but a lot of admirable Alavari as well.”
“Oh, phew. I was worried about the last part of the story. You know about the Grey Walker,” said Timur.
Frances chuckled. “Oh him? I mean there are always going to be evil people in history, and in our lives, Timur. I’m not going to judge your entire race because one person destroyed the continent hundreds of years ago.”
Timur sighed. “I know. I was just… nervous, you know me.”
“That I do.” Frances pursed her lips. “By the way, why was the Grey Walker called the Grey Walker?
“Oh, well that was his epithet. Apparently he was a troll mage so powerful and so skilled that he’d just walk through his opponent’s spells. Our stories say that he approached every fight like he was just going for a stroll, and that he… he could even taunt people between singing and Words of Power.”
The young mage and prince both fell onto the same conclusion and froze for several long seconds. Their eyes meeting, Timur and Frances stared at one another, mouths agape. They knew what the other was thinking, but they refused to believe it.
“But that’s impossible. It can’t be him. The Grey Walker… the Grey Walker can’t be King Thorgoth. That was four hundred years ago!” Timur stammered.
Frances nodded slowly. “Yes, it is. Except… I have never heard of a mage that had that kind of power or fought like that and we both do.”
“It would explain why I’ve never seen my father practice his magic. It also would explain why he’d discard King Alan’s crown. Whitey would realize who he was in an instant,” Timur whispered. “Still doesn’t explain how he survived for four hundred years.”
“Wait, Timur, remember the Summoner System. Remember, the Grey Walker tried to destroy it, or maybe turn it into a weapon. What if in his failure, something went wrong with the magic?” Frances whispered.
“What went wrong?” Timur asked.
“The system pulls people from other worlds into Durannon. What if the system pushed Thorgoth into the future?”
“Still doesn’t explain why he’s so young, though. The Grey Walker was already in his prime when he disappeared!” Timur exclaimed.
Maybe it wasn’t a summoning, maybe… just maybe, Thorgoth was reincarnated with all his memories.
Timur and Frances stared at Ivy’s Sting. “Reincarnated? Can the system do that?” Timur demanded.
“I don’t know, but from what it told us, anytime any Otherworlder wants to return to earth, they can demand to do so and keep their memories.” Frances swallowed. “That’s… that’s very similar to reincarnation. Or at the very least, it proves the Otherworlder system can transfer memories.”
Timur stood up, not so quickly to rip his arm from Frances’s grasp, but sudden enough that she lost hold as he staggered to his feet.
“It has to be a coincidence. I mean, yes, it explains a lot about my father’s experience and his mage power, and it even matches up with how he hates humans, but it can’t be. It’s too strange!” Timur insisted.
Frances almost agreed with her love. All the evidence they had was circumstantial, and based purely on coincidence. She didn’t want to believe it either. Yet there was still one question that she suspected she had the answer to.
“Then Timur, can you tell me why the Grey Walker is called the Grey Walker?”
She could only see Timur’s back, but even then she could tell that the prince had frozen. When he turned, Frances saw that he had paled and his hands were shaking.
“I—in the past, many mages had mage epithets that incorporated part of their family names. I—it’s like the Grey Walker was called the Grey Walker… because he was part of House Greyhammer. All of which suggests that… Oh Galena.”
That King Thorgoth is the Grey Walker. Ivy’s Sting whispered.