Edwin sat on his knees. His brow beaded with sweat.

King Arthfael sat on his ornate throne, staring down at the man. The king was thinking silently. There were others in the room, but they didn’t matter in the moment. Edwin knew the punishment that he faced. A life for a life.

The King's eyes were closed. The shoulder length blonde hair matched his short beard sat limply almost as if wet. His sharp features worked well with his soft, blue eyes. The King was by all means handsome. Edwin admired everything about the man that sat upon the throne.

Vayne had already recounted what he had seen Edwin. No one heard the conversation that Edwin had with the woman before killing her. Edwin felt justified in his actions in the moment. The woman had said that she would kill the princess, and he would give his life for hit. It was his duty.

She had not been permitted to attend Edwin’s sentencing. It made sense in his mind. She was very strong-willed and would not take the event lightly.

The King has heard both Vayne and Edwin’s accounts of the story, but without proof, the King could not wholly trust the word of a servant.

After what felt like years, the King spoke. “Edwin Throne-Breaker. You have killed a fellow servant. You claim it was your duty, but your victim was a long time servant here. She never showed ill will toward any other being. I then must judge between the character and actions of two servants. One of which is dead.”

The room was silent as the king paused. “The law is clear. There is little that I can do. You took the life of another and now must lose your own. You seek nothing more than to honor your family though, therefore you shall not be killed. You will live in exile for the rest of your life. For you this is a punishment truly worse than death.”

Edwin gaped in disbelief at the king. Death he could have taken. He knew that the King was right. This truly was a fate worse than death.

Edwin felt that he had to respect the law. He rose slowly to his feet with his head hung low and bowed to the king. “Thank you, my king.” His body and mind felt numb. He could't move.

Guards on both sides of him, men that he knew and once called friends grabbed his each of his arms and began dragging him out of the room.

The room remained silent as the small crowd of nobles watched Edwin as he was dragged out of the castle and out of the city.

Vayne met Edwin's eye. Veyne held an air of truimph and defiance. His cruel smirk was more than Edwin could take. He began to weep and shake.

The walk was long. The guards, his friends, dragged Edwin out of the city without a word. The streets were empty except for a few people. No one paid any attention to the guards or Edwin.

Edwin had nothing, and he felt it. No money, no clothes, no weapons, no money. There was little chance that he would be able to survive for long outside the city. He had no resources at his disposal.

The guards threw him on the ground beyond one of the small doors that guards used to enter and leave the city. Then the door was slammed behind him forever. With the slam of the door, Edwin felt the full effect of his sentence. The weight of the world was crushing him.

As the man lay on the ground, tears began to flow harder.

After a sleepless night by the city door, Edwin began to feel the sharp pains of hunger.

He knew that he would have to relearn many skills that he hadn't used since he was a young boy. He used to be a good hunter and tracker, but it had been many years.

Edwin started toward the southeast. He knew that once he reached the forests to the east, there would be more food. Until he reached that point though, food would be scarce.

His head throbbed and his feet fought each step. Exile. The word echoed in his mind. He was the first man put into exile in many years. Even an execution would have been more merciful than the shame of being the only exile in the world.

Every ounce of his being begged to turn back and plead for forgiveness. He knew that there was no turning back at this point. He was too far gone. He knew that returning would mean his death regardless of the reason. He would almost prefer to go back just for that reason.

Vayne’s face burned in Edwin’s mind. The beady, black eyes, the short black hair, the cold stare, the angled features. Every detail was etched into his mind perfectly. Edwin hated the man. He wasn't sure how, but he knew that Vayne was at the center of everything that happened.

After two days of grueling travel, Edwin was beyond ready to give up. There was no wildlife. Despite being beside the King’s Lake, there was nothing. Edwin thought it fitting that his luck was so poor. He was resigned to the fact that his wretched life would soon end.

As he topped the crest of one of the many hills, he saw a small tree stump placed oddly in the grass not far from the water’s edge. The small stump was strange. There were very few trees that grew in the plains. Edwin felt drawn to investigate.

The glint of steel caught his eye as he approached. A hole had been dug into the stump. In the hole laid a black dagger. The grip was pitch black and the butt of the handle had a sharp curve that was supposed to sit under a small finger. A thin spike persuader sat underneath the butt. The small guard and curved blade were also black, though not as dark.

Edwin stared at the knife for a moment. It looked expensive. The craftsmanship was the best that he had ever seen, better even than that of the smiths that created weapons for the Dragonknights and King’s Guard.

He reached down and slowly wrapped his hand around the hilt. It was cold. Like the cold truths of justice, he chuckled silently to himself. The knife was heavier than it looked, but it felt perfect in his hand.

He turned the blade in his hand and noticed a faint inscription on both sides. The writing was faint and identical on both side, but it was in a language that he could not read. He had never seen such a rough looking language.

Maybe it fits. The name of a blade forgotten just like the name of the man that holds it. Edwin squeezed the grip tightly.

Edwin nearly smiled at his thought, but then he looked away from the knife and remembered his plight.

The landscape seemed bleak. “Justice,” Edwin said aloud to no one as he began his walk again toward the forests beyond King’s Lake. The word sounded familiar. It nearly gave him a feeling that he hadn't felt in days. Hope.

He knew that soon he would reach Overlook Hill. It was a small village set on a hill above the lake. From the village, he would be able to see both Ilian and the forests that he was trying to reach.

He hoped that he would be able to find some scraps that had been thrown out. He was starving. He would take anything at this point. He had even take to chewing on weeds that he found to sate some of the hunger.

His pace quickened, but he didn’t notice. He could not explain nor did he notice, the breath of purpose that he had experienced. A single word that rested in his mind had replaced his sadness. Justice.

He felt like he was nearly being guided to Overlook Hill. Justice was now leading him.

Within the hour, he spotted the small village. He did not dare approach the village. He would be executed upon entering the town if any guards were there with knowledge of his exile.

He instead would find a spot to rest nearby without disturbing the nearby farmers.

After a few minutes of searching, Edwin settled on a flat piece of grass. The sun was setting slowly, and he was exhausted. He sat in the grass and enjoyed the cool breeze. The pains of hunger had vanished, but he knew he would have to eat soon. He wouldn’t finish his journey to the forest if he didn’t eat.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He leaned back into the grass. The ground was soft. He slowly drifted away.

A sudden scream broke the silence of the night.

Edwin leapt to his feet. The knife was already in hand. Edwin ran as fast as he could toward the scream.

He saw two dark figures struggling on the edge of the village. He could see the silhouette of a large man fighting to hold onto the screaming woman.

It was late, so Edwin knew that there were likely few if any that heard her scream. Justice. The single word crept through his mind.

He reached the pair before the man could get a firm hold on the woman.

Edwin could see a small piece of cloth wrapped around her mouth. How she had uttered a scream at all, he was unsure.

The man didn’t notice Edwin’s approach. He was too busy fighting with the woman.

Edwin tucked in his arm and slammed into the large man with all of his power. The man and woman were both sent several feet. The man’s face was buried in the dirt. The woman was motionless on the ground.

The man climbed to his feet clumsily. He was clearly drunk. “Wh-who d’you think you are? I demanded that no one leave their home tonight. I’ll have your head for this. Thinking you can attack a soldier from Ilian.”

Edwin barely heard the man speaking. His only thought was of justice. The man pulled a dagger from his belt and lunged for Edwin’s throat.

Edwin sidestepped and put a boot in the man’s back sending him tumbling again. “You are guilty of your sins, soldier. You abuse your powers and those that you are sworn to protect. Your sentence is death.” The words flowed naturally from Edwin, but he felt as if the voice was not his own.

Before the man could rise to his feet, Edwin’s kicked away the man’s knife and planted a knee firmly on his back. Justice, he thought with satisfaction.

The knife seemed to drink the man’s blood as Edwin pulled the man’s head back and slid it across his throat.

Edwin realized that he was smiling as he executed this man that he didn’t know. He glanced over to the woman, but she must have gained courage and ran home.

Edwin knew that he needed to run. It didn’t matter what he said as an exile. He entered the town and was to be put to death despite his good deed.

Edwin turned and ran. As he ran, man’s death last breaths echoed in his ears, and he couldn’t stop replaying the blood seeping on to the dagger.

His heart was pounding in his ears. He felt alive. He knew that what he had done was wrong, but he had just taken a vile man from the streets and saved a woman.

He knew his smile was out of place, but this was hope. He had no purpose for the last few day, but this was something. It was a purpose, and justice felt good.

It felt like he had run for hours without stopping. His heart was bursting with excitement. He occasionally had to fight off fights of wild laughter. It was exhilarating and horrifying. Edwin ran until his legs were numb. Once they gave out, he fell to the ground and allowed his body to rest. He knew that he couldn’t rest for long, but he had no choice.

He tried to fight sleep, but within seconds sleep won.

Edwin was standing over the corpse of the man that he had killed in daylight. He reached down to his belt to feel for his knife. Relief flooded over him. He had his knife. He felt the urge to kneel down and look at the man’s face. He did.

When his hand touched the man’s head, he felt a rush of pain, anger, and sadness. He pulled his hand away and then stared at it. Nothing had changed, his hand was fine, but it had scared him.

He realized suddenly that he wasn’t alone. A handsome man wearing heavy plate armor stood over him. The man looked to be in his forties. His black hair traveled down the sides of his face and over his shoulders. The man had a gaunt face and the entirety of both of his eyes were blue. “Touch it again,” the being whispered.

Edwin obeyed. His body reached down against his will and touched the man’s head.

Instead of a jolt of pained emotion, he saw the sins committed in the man’s life. The man was called Jeol. Jeol was what many would consider a good man. He fulfilled his day to day duties as a soldier well enough. What was done in the late hours revealed his true nature. He was a thief and often took bribes. He bullied those he was sworn to protect into looking the other way as he took advantage of many. Especially women. Edwin saw the face of every woman that the filthy man had ever touched. It made his skin crawl.

Edwin drew his hand back and smiled. He was glad that he had killed Jeol. He would no longer be able to exercise his unrighteous dominion on others. Woman would be safe from his filthy hands.

Edwin began to laugh again uncontrollably. He fell back and laughed harder than he ever had before.

The being standing over him cleared it’s throat. Edwin’s eyes shot up to the man. The eyes made him beyond uneasy.

“You see why he needed to die then?” the being asked quietly. Its voice was cold but familiar. He recognized it from when he sentenced Jeol to death. It’s voice was his voice.

“What are you?” Edwin asked trying to sound at ease. He stood and looked the being in its cold eyes.

“I am your hope and newfound purpose Edwin. You may call me, Tilrer. I am an Aishan,” it said with a thin smile.

“What does that mean and why are you here?” Edwin growled as he reached for the dagger, but it was gone.

Tilrer smiled and laughed at the man. “I am here to save you Edwin. You are lost, are you not? Weren’t you broken at the loss of everything?”

Edwin’s glare intensified. “I should kill you where you stand.”

Tilrer’s smile slid from his face. “I think that you and I will get along once you learn to listen. Let us consider instead a challenge to determine whether or not you listen.”

“What do you propose?” Edwin asked. He had no intentions of doing anything for the creature, but he at least felt like humoring it.

“I think that you and I could duel over it. How does that sound?” the Aishan replied casually.

The thought of holding a sword again was nearly enough to make his mouth water. He nodded almost instinctively at Tilrer.

Tilrer drew a longsword from a sheath that Edwin didn’t before notice. It looked almost identical to the sword that Edwin had grown to know intimately while he was guarding Princess Lilia. Tilrer hand the sword over and then drew the black dagger.

“Where did you get my knife from?” Edwin demanded. He was getting quickly tired of the creature’s tricks.

“It belongs to me, but I allowed you to use it. Now I will let you make the first move now, Edwin.” Telrir said as he slid into a defensive stance.

Edwin recognized the form. It was a simple stance, and he knew just how to break past it.

For a moment the duo stood silently staring at each other. Edwin rolled to the balls of his feet and lunged to the offside side swinging carefully. He knew that there was no way that the man could safely catch the sword at that angle.

Right when he should have felt his sword touch flesh, he instead met steel. With the impact, the sword shattered, and Edwin felt the ground disappear from underneath him. He was engulfed in darkness almost instantly.

Edwin shot up. His knife was still in his belt. His clothes were sweat soaked despite the cold morning air. It was all just a dream. He sighed with relief.

The sun would sun peak over the mountains in the distance. Sunlight meant that someone would soon find the body, and people would begin to search for the killer.

His entire body ached from his travels, but his legs were by far the worst after running so long the night before. He forced himself onto his feet and began walking toward the mountains.

Just north of the mountains sat the forest that he was working toward.

As Edwin reached the crest of a hill, he thought he caught a glimpse of the man that he fought in his dream.

Edwin quickened his pace and moved toward where he saw the man. Whether it was his curiosity or something else that drove him to follow, he was unsure. Regardless, he followed the Aishan.

The hills rolled for miles, until they grew into mountains. Edwin’s trudge had turned into a purposefull march. He caught glimpses of the Aishan off and on. The slim, armored man was far in the distance, but Edwin refused to lose sight of the being.

He had questions for the being. It could not be coincidence that the thing was in his dreams and now in the distance as well. He needed to know how he saw the man’s sins, and why they were both there in his dream. Edwin seemed to question everything that he had ever known. His hunger for answers had grown over his actual hunger.

Edwin stumbled after the Aishan until the sun was nearly setting. Once the sun left the sky, he caught the scent of a fire. It was weak, but suddenly Edwin’s hunger grew intense. He thought that the smells of something cooking occasionally cut through the smell of fire.

As he climbed over the crest of a small hill, he saw the fire. The smell of stew was suddenly much strongers. He could see a small pot sitting on the fire, along with a single figure stirring the contents slowly.

Edwin crouched down and crept closer. He was fighting the urge to steal as much of the food as he could. He reminded himself each time the thought came that it was not right. He knew that he could not give justice and not live that same law himself.

“I know you are out there, Edwin,” the woman at the fire called out once he reached clear earshot. “Come and sit by the fire. The food is ready.”

Edwin froze. He knew that he didn’t know the woman. How then did she know him? He rose from his crouch and walk closer slowly. He clutched the dagger warily. He didn’t plan to use it unless necessary.

The woman sat patiently as Edwin slowly walked toward her. She stood once he entered the light. She was wearing a mask that covered all of the features of her face. The mask was plain and white with a crescent slit cut out over her left eye and a circle over the right eye. As he got even closer he saw the faint outline of a smile that had been etched into the mask. Her hair was long and dark. Probably black, but it was hard to tell in the dim light. She was slender, yet he could tell that she was muscular by the way that she moved. She wore a dark red silk dress that seemed to flow with the wind, despite not even the lightest wind was blowing this night.

“Why do you wear a mask, women?” Edwin asked gruffly. All of these people that seemed to know him made him uneasy. He knew there had to be something at work, that he could not trust.

The woman nodded at him. “I am one of the Masked. My name is Shyra. It is my oath to always wear this mask.”

Edwin froze. The Masked. He knew that he had heard that name before. Maybe somewhere in the capital. “What do you mean that it is your oath? To who?”

“Please sit and eat. The stew has finished, and you haven’t eaten in several days. We can talk as we eat.” The woman said as she leaned down and began scooping food into a bowl for Edwin.

Edwin frowned, but he took the bowl gladly. He knew that he couldn’t refuse any food offered to him. He didn’t know when his next meal would be. “So who is this oath to and what is it for?”

She sat across the fire from him and was silent for a moment. “I think that much will be explained soon, but Tilrer is to whom I pledge my allegiance. The mask protects me from many dangers.”

Edwin was satisfied with the answer. Though she told him little, he knew that Tilrer had to have been involved at some point. “What is Tilrer? And what does he want with me?”

“Tilrer is an Aishan, as he already told you. What that means, few remember. As for what he wants with you, I would assume that he would like for you to become one of the Masked, but who is to say. He only knows what he plans. I am simply sent to take you to him,” she said as she rose from her spot on the ground.

She strode toward the former-guard. After his third bite of stew, he was fast asleep on the ground. The stew spilled over. The poison had worked well enough. It was a little slow, but it also wasn’t meant to harm the handsome man. Just make him sleep.

Shyra looked up as some of the other masked flowed into the light to take him.