The room was dark and damp, made of gray stone walls that closed in on all sides. A sense of claustrophobia set in. I felt like I was trapped inside a cave. The room was lit by what appeared to be incense candles. Glowing wafts of smoke emanated from the wicks, and I caught a whiff of cinnamon. It was somehow intoxicating. Numerous stone statues lined the walls, powerful figures that must have represented the realm's pantheon of gods. Their jade green eyes stared back at me as I familiarized myself with their figures.

At the far end of the room was a tall, emaciated woman. She sat on a chair made of stone. Her body was draped in a thin white cloak. The walls around her had countless cracks in them. Dark smoke drifted out of the fissures and into the woman's nose. There was a faint smile on her vacant face.

“I am the Grand Oracle. Come to me, children. I will see what I can,” she said.

A line formed. Hildoara was at the front. There were many noble children between us, but there were also numerous children behind me. Complete silence had overtaken the room.

“The people behind you are the children of viscounts and barons. Your wet nurse said that every six-year-old noble will be here, but most knights don't get to take their children to the Holy See,” Dʰéǵʰom explained.

"Why didn't Joanna tell me that?" I thought.

"That should be obvious. She doesn't know."

"How could she not know?"

"Your family doesn't have many knights, the ones that you do have their own fiefs, and she's served your family since she was young. She probably didn't even think about asking what ranks everyone had at her visit to the Holy See," Dʰéǵʰom said.

Hildoara stepped forward. The oracle placed her hands on the princess’ cheeks. Her hands glowed, and the oracle nodded.

“Your magical affinity is as broad as it can get. You’re a wizard, princess,” she said.

I thought, “Dʰéǵʰom, could you tell me what magical affinity is?”

“It’s the sort of thing you're supposed to learn when you get older, but it should be fine to tell you now. There are a bunch of types of magic. Some people are more talented at some types of magic than others. Sorcerers are good at elemental magic, and necromancers are good at necromancy, for example. Wizards have an affinity with every type of magic, but they aren’t as good as people with an affinity with just one type. A wizard can’t make a bigger undead army than a necromancer or shoot a fireball better than a sorcerer. But they can still make a pretty good undead army and be pretty good at shooting fireballs.”

Excitement flowed through me.

"I can't believe it! I'm going to find out what type of spellcaster I am! This is so cool!" I thought.

After getting through the princes and princesses, the oracle moved on to the children of dukes. Then, she came to the sons and daughters of markgrafs and boyars. Dimitri stepped up to her.

“A necromancer,” the oracle stated.

"Not atypical of nobles of his homeland," Dʰéǵʰom commented.

Eventually, I approached the oracle. My hands shook with nervousness. I took deep breaths to steady myself.

"Please go well, please go well, please go well," I begged.

"Don't worry. You'll be fine," Dʰéǵʰom assured me.

"I hope so," I thought.

She placed her hands on my cheeks. It felt like someone shoved dry ice into my face. My instincts tried to make me shy away, but I was frozen. I had to endure the burning pain.

“A wizard, but there’s something else…” she said.

Her eyes widened in shock. At once, the oracle placed one of her hands on top of my head.

“Do you hear me?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

Dʰéǵʰom also answered, “I hear you.”

The oracle said, “Which god are you?”

“You…you can talk to him too?” my jaw dropped.

“I am Dʰéǵʰom,” he stated.

“A Saint!” the oracle declared. “This boy is a Saint of Dʰéǵʰom!”

Every adult and child had expressions of shock on their faces. All eyes were on me. Some people smiled, others' faces were plastered with concern, and still more had expressions of reverence.

“We haven’t had a saint of Dʰéǵʰom in a thousand years!” a priest declared.

“This is truly amazing!” another added.

The oracle took her hand off my head. She grabbed me by my hips and raised me into the air. I felt relief as the burning pain stopped. Then something else came to my mind.

“Dʰéǵʰom,” I thought. “What the fuck does being a Saint mean in this world?”

“It means that you have a direct mental connection to a god. It's how you can talk to me in your head.”

“And that’s supposed to be a good thing?”

“Sure is. It won’t make you perfectly safe, but even people commanded by other gods to kill you will give some pause first,” Dʰéǵʰom said.

My life was mostly the same after I became a saint. Everyone knew a god was talking to me, but I was still a kid. My education as a nobleman ramped up after I returned from that trip, but this was the general custom.

One of the first things I had to study was the Code Duello, a 500-page book detailing all the rules of magical duels. It was an incomprehensible mess that only a spellcaster would be crazy enough to even try to memorize. The rules varied from being incredibly nonsensical to nigh-impossible to figure out. And, of course, I had to know every sentence by heart.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

This was so boring that it made office work look like a roller coaster ride.

I was also taught magic, swordsmanship, polearm use, administration, history, manners, poetry, religion, law, and every other thing aristocrats had to learn. But there was one lesson in particular that was confusing at first.

“Mother,” I asked. “This book says things like dragon and nature spirits were in the world since it was created.”

“They were,” she answered.

“But we’ve only had magic for 250 years.”

“We have, but dragons and nature spirits aren’t magical,” Mother said.

What?

“What? There’s no possible way an animal the size of a dragon could fly without magic,” I pointed out.

She seemed confused, “I don’t see what size has to do with it.”

“Dʰéǵʰom,” I thought. “Are dragons magical?”

“Of fucking course, they are. The people of this world just don’t know they’re magical. They think of them as purely natural beings,” he replied.

“Then why don’t you tell them?”

“It was hard enough for me and Krewh to convince the other gods to let the humans of this world have magic at all,” Dʰéǵʰom explained. “Even with godslayers like you, I don’t want to piss them off more than I have to.”

Soon after, my father took me into a large stone room with a magic circle. The walls were lit by candles. There was a stern expression on his face. Yet, he gazed at me with pride.

"Normally, someone your age wouldn't learn this ritual, but you're more than smart enough to learn it," he said. "Watch and learn."

My father stepped up to the magic circle. He raised his arms into the air and chanted. His body glowed. The glow moved from him to the circle. Then, there was a flash of light. When it died down, a bearded man with pointed ears stood before us. He wore blacksmith's clothes.

"Alright, Count Blitzburg, what do you want now?" he asked.

"Routine weapons maintenance, nothing more," my father answered.

"I'll get to it, then."

The bearded man pulled out a blacksmith's hammer and left the room.

"Who was that?" I wondered.

"That was Filoin, a dwarf I made a magical contract with," my father explained. "Dwarves are nature spirits. They live inside of rocks, even rocks that are smaller than them. The most powerful dwarves live inside of mountains."

I furrowed my brow.

"Mother told me nature spirits aren't magic."

"They're not magical. They're just another part of the world. The ancestors of orcs are spirits of violence. And wood elves, the original elves, are nature spirits tied to the forest they live in. Should the forest die, the elves will follow. And should the elves die, the forest will follow. Now, I'll show you the ritual again. Memorize it."

A while later, I was in my family's solar. I was reading books on various creatures. I came to a chapter about vampires.

"Vampires, servants of the blood god," I read.

Blood god. Those two words convey imagery of war and violence, swords and spears sticking out of blood-stained bodies, libations poured from the cut-out hearts of human sacrifices, and people laughing in maniacal glee as they slaughter everyone before them in a bloody frenzy of death.

None of that had anything to do with the blood god. Krewh, the blood god we’re talking about, was a friendly deity of healing. Most vampires were very skilled doctors from before magic came around. Krewh turned them into vampires, so they could keep healing people long after they'd have died of old age if they stayed human. People saw their blood drinking as a disability and not anything monstrous. People donated blood so the vampires could feed.

Krewh didn't make many vampires after magic came around. The reason was was that magical healing replaced medicine, and spellcasters didn't age.

Another time when I was looking at a book, I saw something strange. It was an image of a human with doll-like joints.

"Marionettes," I read. "Human-sized dolls that come to life when someone puts enough genuine care and love into them. Under the laws of Greenrivers, they have the same rights humans do. Marionettes are incapable of having children."

"There are a lot of nobles married to marionettes these days," Dʰéǵʰom said.

"Why? Don't nobles need heirs?" I questioned.

"Yes, but it isn't as important anymore. Nobles don't age, so many of them just make older relatives their heirs. Marriage alliances aren't as valuable as they once were for the same reason. So, nobles marry for love a lot more than before. And a bunch of them find marionettes attractive."

"I can see the appeal."

"A lot of women hate marionettes. As far as they're concerned, marionettes steal potential husbands," Dʰéǵʰom added.

While most of my life was normal for a noble of my rank, it changed in some ways. I had to keep up correspondence with various other young nobles. After my status as a saint was revealed, every noble in the room wanted their children to be my friends. I had to write letters to every single one of them over and over because my parents thought I was too young to have a crystal ball. Even his Majesty King Eduard the Defenestrater of Greenrivers had his son, Prince Jeremy, write letters to me. King Eduard wasn't even at the Holy See when I was.

Prince Jeremy was 12. I can imagine that he hated being forced to write letters to a kid half his age.

“Maybe I should write about how my best friend is the weird voice in my head?” I thought.

“How about you go on a psychotic rant about how the weird voices in your head are telling you to kill people?” Dʰéǵʰom suggested.

“Very funny. Now onto another topic, I don’t think I’ll ever have any friends.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll take some time, but I’m sure you can make friends with the other little kids you write to,” he said. “Maybe you could even go on a playdate where you say your dolls are action figures and that girls have cooties?”

“That’s a bad idea. Everyone knows that cooties are a type of drug High Elves take,” I replied. “And besides, I don’t trust any of them as far as I can throw an elephant. They only want to use my status as a saint for their own benefit.”

“What about Dimitri and Hildoara?”

I stated, “I trust them as far as I can throw a rhino. They were interested in me before they found out I was a Saint, but it was still for political reasons. Everyone else wants to manipulate me so they can contact you.”

“And now, you’re realizing the downside of being a Saint.”

One day when I was seven, I sat at a desk in my family's solar. It was a large room on the second floor of our castle. Books filled numerous shelves in it, and there were several arrow slits that let sunlight inside. I was reading various letters the other noble children sent to me. The first letter I looked at was from Princess Hildoara.

“Saint Gustav, if you had a little brother, how far would you go to protect him?” it read.

“What a strange letter. It's pretty suspicious. Based on the childbearing laws of Vandalland, she shouldn't have any younger siblings. Is she talking about someone she knows?” I thought.

“She has several sisters and a little brother. You see, the King of Vandalland doesn’t obey his own birth-regulating laws,” Dʰéǵʰom explained. “So, he has all his sons murdered when they reach the age of six. He doesn’t want them to try to take the throne from him.”

I felt like every vein in my forehead was going to burst. My fists trembled in rage.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me this?”

“You can’t do anything about it,” Dʰéǵʰom replied.

“Bullshit, I can’t!” I shouted, catching my wet nurse’s attention.

Joanna asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing,” I grabbed several sheets of paper. “I’m just scheming.”

“Don’t tell me that you’re turning out like Duke Armand,” she sighed.

“Shhh. I’m focusing.”

First, I drew a design for a guillotine with a guide on how to make it. Then I wrote detailed instructions on making someone's death look like a hunting or falling down a staircase accident. I included detailed accounts of successful coups. Also, I told her how to make Botulinum toxin, one of the deadliest poisons. My last step was describing the difference between acids and bases. This was so that Princess Hildoara could invent a magic spell that summons a base because they’re better at dissolving corpses than acids.

“The fact that you know that worries me,” Dʰéǵʰom said.

I replied, “I’m still focusing.”

Then I looked through a book of spells. I found one that created a magic seal. The seal could only be broken by the intended recipient of a message unless enough magical power was applied to destroy the letter itself. It was one of the first spells invented, and it was simple enough for me to master it with ease. Soon enough, I cast the spell. Then I sent the letter to Princess Hildoara. Well, it was more of a packet than a letter, but still.

“And I’ve done all I can,” I stated.

Dʰéǵʰom replied, “You know that this might end up starting a civil war, right?”

“Is the King of Vandalland a good leader?”

“No. He’s honestly pretty tyrannical.”

“Then he should get his head chopped off and mounted on a pike,” I thought.

“You’re right that he should be overthrown,” Dʰéǵʰom seemed conflicted. “Just want to make sure you know what consequences your actions could have.”

“Does that mean I did the wrong thing?” I asked.

He answered, “No. You might have absolutely done the right thing, but we won’t know that for years to come.”

“Then let the die be cast.”