As my seventh birthday approached, I had waited patiently for my parents to provide me with this magic tutor. I presumed they were still gathering the money. Until then, they supplied me with a private library pass to a rinky-dink library set up in the Copper Ring. It was no more than a mere shack with some books traveling merchants and visitors had left behind on accident, found in dumpsters or donated. I had spent my days devouring everything they had on the subject of Elvish magic and the Sylvan language which was, unfortunately, not enough. As a result, to satisfy my appetite for knowledge, I read books on anything related to magic.

While heading to the library on the day of my birthday party, my mother had asked me to swing by and pick up the cake for the party. I told her that I couldn’t, as I planned to play outside the river next to the outer wall.

“No, I’m sorry. By the time you get the cake it'll start to get dark. I don’t want you out when Shifu roams the jungle. Please come straight home.” Ah, yes. Shifu the child-eater. A fairytale I’ve been told since I could sit up and listen. I wasn’t too scared of a fairytale meant to keep children in check, but she seemed to take is seriously enough.

After some deliberating, I reluctantly agreed to get the cake. I was told it was down the street from the library. She was a friend of my father’s from childhood and the cake was a kind of lemon meringue. They didn’t have the thing where you put your name in frosting and blow out candles. Instead, in Skorwind, you’re supposed to give the first slice of cake to someone who means something to you that year of your birth. Every year it rotated between my mother, Hestiana, and Timu. This year was my mother’s turn again.

I walked down the street until my tiny legs began to wobble. I finally got to the place where the sign had a cake with swirls carved into the sign. The bell made a little ding when I entered but no one was there to greet me at the counter.

I was a busy birthday boy so I let out a quick, “Hello!” and looked around.

My tiny body could not yet peer over the counter, but I heard the door behind it open and shut. Then some pitter pattering of footsteps before a squeaky voice asked, “Is anyone here?” My own squeaky voice responded with, “Hi! My mother sent me to pick up a cake?”

A tiny human woman about middle age revealed herself, hopping up and balancing on the counter with her elbows.

“Hello! You must be Timu and Mala’s son. They told me a few days back you would be coming to pick it up.”

A few days back? My mother only told me this morning!

“I am! Hello to you, miss.” I said.

“My, how polite. Let me get you the cake,” She said. “Hold on, I’ll need some assistance. Clary! Clary, come out here and help your mother!”

I heard more footsteps, lighter. More timid. A young girl, my age and about her mother’s size, came out.

“Clary, say hi the nice boy.”

“Hello.” A shrunken voice whispered.

Her hair was violet and lavender eyes were cast down so as to not face me directly. She had a round face and twiddled her thumbs in a hope that that would cast some invisibility spell on her.

“Hello, Clary, was it?” I asked. She nodded her head.

“I’m Egen. Egen Eres. I’m the son of Timu Eres and Mala Eres. Nice to meet you.”

I didn’t tell her my middle name. It turned out that “Danger” pronounced “Dahn-jer” in this language meant mule. Apparently my dad ‘thought’ of it because I was too stubborn to die during birth. I pictured that dog-eared goddess up in heaven laughing as she pushed it into my dad’s mind. Only I would know that this middle name was secretly badass.

Clary shied away and helped her mother with the cake. Two tiny women approaching an equally tiny child. A cake half the baker’s size.

“Thank you so much. It’s quite large!” This was a lot of cake for the four of us at home.

The baker looked at Clary expectantly. She then looked back at me and said, “My daughter would love to help you get it to your house.“

“Oh! Uhm,” I stared at the timid girl, “I appreciate it, but I have more errands to run and I’d hate to depose your daughter,”

“Nonsense. It will be good to spend time with another child her age. Clary!”

Ah. I had begun to understand that I was part of some elaborate plot our parents had set up. In the dark of night, I too had heard my parents mutter that I didn’t spend enough time with other children. That I hung out too much with the maid or books. Or the maid while she and I read books. Well, sorry if I was a big maid guy but other seven year old’s my age were… seven years old! I looked at Clary, who had slight tears in her eyes at even the idea of my rejection and sighed.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“I would love the help. Clary please, we insist you stay for dinner as well.”

“Lovely!” Clary’s mom said. And just like that it clicked with me why the cake was for more than four people.

I walked and when I got tired, we would switch off. It wasn’t a long way back to my place. But we weren’t going to my place. I turned up the street and made my way.

“Uhm,” Clary piped up, “Where are we going?”

“I have to make a quick stop outside the copper ring. It’s right next to the wall though so it’s not too deep in the jungle.”

She barely talked. I kept trying to engage with her but she had this complete stoneface and would just blush as soon as I asked her something.

I sighed. I never palled around with other neighborhood kids. The nature of the copper ring was transient. It’s for merchants who pack up and leave for more bartering in other towns. It’s the kitchy part of town that sells trinkets they claim are made by Skorwind tradesmen but were really cobbled together from someone else. I didn’t have any friends. Maybe that was a mistake.

“So..” I tried once again, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“I mean… are you going to be a baker like your mom?”

“What else would I be? My dad is a guard but I don’t want to live that life.”

“Baker is a good trade. Is that what you want?”

She stared at me confused, then swallowed her throat and looked away.

“So there is something,” I said.

She shook her head.

“Hmmm,” I said, “Want to know what I’m going to be when I grow up?” To this, she nodded her head.

Right before we left civilization and entered the jungle, I pointed down the main road, the one that carried the Pharaoh into town.

“I’m going to be Pharaoh.”

Clary looked at me, a moment of awe in her face before she let out a polite giggle, “Only those with royal blood can be Pharaoh, silly.”

I smiled, “Guess they’ll have to make an exception for me. We’re almost here.” We made it to the location along the wall I’d set up a day before. It was a little refuse for the waste of Skorwind to be spilled out from their sewers. I’d set up a scarecrow. Mostly just a burlap sack stuffed with hay.

“What are you going to do?”

I pointed my hand at the scarecrow, “I’ve been practicing my elvish magic. I want to try something.”

I focused on the scarecrow. While it was not as simple as saying, “I cast a fireblast,” I could get creative. I could focus on the things that caused fire to accelerate, like oxygen. I muttered under my breath and a tunnel of wind started from my hand all the way to the scarecrow. The grass and brush started billowing around me as I held onto the concentrated vortex of wind. Clary’s hair and clothes were being pulled as my wind tunnel dragged her in, then I lit my hand with fire. The flames traveled like a spire up the wind tunnel and collided on the scarecrow, engulfing it in flames and knocking it off its post from the strength of the blast.

“WOW!” Clary’s voice finally spoke over a whisper. I turned to her. She had a starry eyed look, “That was amazing!”

A few months ago I could barely hold the flame in my hand! Now it was ejecting from me like a dragon breathing fire. And yet… it still wasn’t enough. The incantation took way too long. I thought about Peyat and how quickly he moved. If I pulled that, I would have been slain. Was elven magic really an inferior form of battle magic? I couldn’t believe it.

“Oy! Kid!”

I turned and saw a tower guard staring down at me from the top of the bronze wall. He waved and screamed, “That was bloody amazing!”

It was a nice birthday celebration. My parents came up to me and. Clary only got more shy when she got to my place. My dad had already met her and knew she was shy. My mom was overly nice and kept glancing at me, smiling. Hestiana cut carrot sticks and served them to us. When we went to open the cake, my mother dragged me by my ear and asked why it took so long.

“You didn’t drag this cute little girl into the jungle to play, did you, my sweet young child?” My mom asked.

“Ahh!” I bellyached, “I didn’t, my sweet old mother. We just got lost.”

Upon hearing that, she pulled my ear harder. Mala turned to ask Clary, who was blushing again and fiddling with her thumbs.

“Dear, did my rascal of a son take you into the jungle? If so, I’m so so sorry. He shouldn't have done that.”

Clary piped up and said, “No, we didn’t. It was my fault. I didn’t know the way.”

My mother and I both let out a sigh of relief. She let go of my ear and told me it was time to give out the first slice of cake. I cut it, and looked at my mother, father, and Hesti. Then I turned to Clary. I walked right up to her and presented her with the lemon cake her mother had made us.

“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Clary. I hope we can be friends.”

She took it and mumbled thank you, then ate the first bite. I turned around to get my own slice, Clary spoke up and said, “The Jade Spider.”

I looked back at her, wondering if I misheard, “When I grow up,” She said, “Instead of a baker, I’d like to be a Jade Spider. It’s a group of assassins that serves no nation and… yeah.”

I let out a laugh, “I can’t wait! Looks like we both have our work cut out for us! I’ll be the Pharaoh, and you’ll be my trusty assassin. Sounds good?”

She smiled, her purple eyes finally matching mine.

“Sounds amazing.”