Jerome woke up shivering like a leaf in the wind. His robes were damp with sweat, and he was lying on the floor. His eyes stung when he tried to focus his sight. He looked up to see two faces staring back at him with concern — Rihal and an astonishingly beautiful lady who looked to be in her mid-twenties.

Jerome wobbled to his feet, feeling mentally drained.

“What happened?” he asked. “Why do I feel so weak?” Vertigo threatened to take him again.

“Let me,” said the woman, her voice sounding so far away yet so loud. She reached up to stroke his sunken cheek with beautiful slender fingers. “Sleep, child.”

He felt a soothing aura engulf him, and he gave in to exhaustion.

“We should let him rest his mental exhaustion,” he heard her say before sleep took him completely.

Jerome lost all feeling as he slept like a child. Soon he came back to his senses. His eyes fluttered open as he woke up feeling refreshed. He sat up in bed and looked around. He was in his room, surrounded by friends. He stood up to stretch, his bones popping as he did.

“How do you feel?” Kilian asked. Jerome hadn’t seen him since he came back from Blade’s Edge Canyon. Besides hearing his voice from outside his study, that is.

Jerome looked at Rihal and he could see the worry in his eyes. He still felt bitter toward his master. He sighed. The bitterness he had in his heart had to go. Otherwise, he’d become a twisted version of himself. His time with the Sovereign had made him realize that.

“Good. I feel good. I was meditating and then…” he didn’t know if he should disclose his meeting with the Sovereign of Vorthe with them.

“The Sovereign is a powerful mind-reader, among other things,” a beautiful voice said behind him.

Jerome looked in her direction. He remembered her. She was the one who put him to sleep when he came out of the mental plane. Her long, dark hair framed a heart-shaped face with puckered red lips. Her tresses fell past her bosom and down to her hips.

She wore a light green dress with a beautiful artwork of vines and flowers that reached past her ankles to display dainty feet hugged by small shoes.

“Jerome, meet Her Royal Highness, Princess Aeldra of the kingdom of Vorthe,” Kilian announced, startling him. He quickly got out of bed and bowed as gracefully as he could.

“Gratitude, Princess for your help, and…for gracing my room with your presence.”

Aeldra Vorthe smiled at him. “You don’t have to be so formal with me, Jerome,” she said as she stood up, walked towards him, and held his hands in hers helping him up.

He quickly realized that she was just as graceful as the Sovereign. Jerome became flustered. He had only been with two royals up close before and never once had he heard, or thought of them with the title ‘prince’. So he didn’t know how to act around the princess.

And the Princess was a stunning beauty at that. He tried his best not to ogle her, to look away from her as she looked up to examine him closely. Albeit, he failed and his eyes always returned to her shapely figure and beautiful face. She only reached up to his shoulders but that was still considered tall as he was quite tall now.

“You look so much alike,” she said, smiling up at him.

“Right? I thought I was the only one who noticed,” Kilian said sarcastically, earning himself a smack on the back of the head from Rihal.

Jerome gaped at them, surprised at their friendliness with each other. He never knew Kilian to be playful. The man had just destroyed that regal image he had had of him for years.

“Could you excuse us, Ash?” Rihal said as the Princess took her seat.

“But Uncle Rihal—”

“There’s no need,” said the Princess. “There’s a good chance she’ll find out about it sooner or later.”

Tension Jerome never knew was present, subsided in the room at the Princess’ words.

“But I will have to swear you to secrecy,” the Princess said to Ash. The tension rose back up.

“What does that entail?” Jerome asked as warning bells rang in his head.

“Calm down, Jerome,” Rihal said. “She just has to say a few words using an aspect of nature as a binding. As long as she says the right words, nothing will go wrong.”

“Well, what if something does go wrong?” he asked.

“I’ll do it,” Ash blurted out nervously, holding the hem of her mahogany brown apprentice robe in a grip that turned her knuckles white.

“Ash? You don’t have to do this,” Jerome cautioned but Ash just smiled at him.

“Don’t worry, Jerome. I’ll be fine,” she took a deep breath, cycling to calm her nerves. She turned to face the Princess and nodded curtly.

“Swear on any aspect of nature that under no circumstance will you reveal the contents of what is discussed in this room to anyone or make records of it outside this room,” the Princess stated calmly.

“I swear on the earth on which I stand that I would not reveal what is discussed to anyone outside this room or make records of it,” Ash repeated. A moment later she gasped and touched her chest, her breath picking up again.

“It is done,” Kilian said.

“‘What’...is done?” Jerome asked for clarification.

“She swore an oath, Jerome,” Rihal said. “Oaths are binding when they are sworn on any aspect of nature.”

Jerome tried to figure out how that worked in his head. He got a pretty good idea of how but it just left him with more questions. Since words were powerful it stood to reason that an oath would be binding. But just how would an oath have power over someone’s actions?

“Now, how much did you discuss with the Sovereign?” the Princess asked, turning toward him.

Jerome cached his questions for later. He looked at Ash with concern, then he took a deep breath and recounted his experience with the Sovereign, although he left out things like his reincarnation.

“Technically, the Sovereign is…your father,” Aeldra Vorthe said hesitantly. Jerome could almost hear the nervousness in her voice. This was a sensitive topic.

“Are you… Is that…?” Ash gaped, unable to complete her sentence.

Jerome held himself together, face down. He was not one to lie to himself. He had seen his reflection for a considerable amount of time to know his face or the semblance of it when he saw it on another person.

~~~

Aeldra Vorthe

Aeldra observed Jerome after speaking, letting her words sink in. Jerome didn’t respond the way she expected. He was calm. Way calmer than he should be. Which could only mean that…

He already knows, she thought to herself. Or at least he suspects. “You’re not surprised?” she asked. Jerome shook his head slowly.

“I know what my face looks like, so I had my suspicions,” he responded tightly. She exhaled a sigh as she saw that he wasn’t angry. Or he was angry, but his anger wasn’t directed at the Royal Family.

“Eons ago,” Aeldra began. “When mankind inherited the powers of their ancestors…”

Mighty empires fell to ruin and new powers came to be. Wars were fought without end to seize better territories. These wars wrought a cataclysm of events that forced humanity to withdraw. The very essence of the world became chaotic and violent, rending warriors limb from limb on the battlefield and grinding them to paste.

As the wars for territorial supremacy raged on, the world grew ever more treacherous. The chaotic energies grew denser and more potent, leaving cities in ruin and mountains leveled. Without direction, the maelstrom of energy swept over everything in its path, leaving only flattened earth and scorched soil in its wake.

But hope yet lingered amidst the chaos, for a being of immortality from a higher plane of existence descended from the heavens. He brought with him the power to quell the raging energies that had plunged the world into peril. It was revealed that the chaotic energies had gained sentience, drawing from the souls of countless fallen warriors who had perished in the battles for supremacy.

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One of the powerful sacred artists in the world at the time, Vorthe, came forward and pledged to watch over the suppressed chaotic energy. Forsooth, it could not be destroyed, lest it unleashes its wrath once more upon the world.

The immortal sundered the energy into two, one born from pure light and the other of the deepest darkness, yet intertwined in their very essence. To Vorthe, he imparted the sacred art of how to harness the light, instructing him that this sacred knowledge of the light be passed down to his descendants.

Thus, it came to pass that Vorthe discovered a dire connection to the very darkness he sought to suppress. A seed lay dormant within him, waiting to be transplanted into a descendant to give the darkness a vessel to inhabit. Only one of the bloodline of he who had embraced the light could become the harbinger of the darkness. Any other soul who dared to assume this mantle would surely perish, their souls lost to the abyss.

Sadly, Vorthe lost three of his own sons to the insidious grasp of the darkness. Each time he had planted the seed within one of his sons, they had succumbed to madness after a mere decade. The darkness was an alien entity within them, unlike the light which was a gentle and easily nurtured force. The darkness hungered for rage, chaos, and destruction, and any who dared to cultivate it was doomed to suffer the same fate as his sons.

And so it was that Vorthe resolved to implant the seed of darkness within the womb of a woman, to bring forth new life destined to be consumed by the darkness.

An excerpt from the Annals of Vorthe,

Written by Nor’d,

First Scribe of the Royal Family of the Kingdom of Vorthe.

The room fell silent when she finished her tale. Aeldra Vorthe knew this was a lot to take in. No one wanted to be a monster. Everyone was the hero in their own story. The child was facing a lot and she had just dropped more than he should be able to handle in his laps. She wouldn’t blame him if he decided he didn’t want to be the Dark One; if he decided to run away and never look back.

The problem was there was no choice for him in the matter. The choice had been made for him at his conception. He was destined to become the Dark One. She sighed helplessly.

“So, what are your plans?” she asked Jerome after a long while of silence.

~~~

Jerome sat there deep in thought. He had a lot of questions. He wanted to know how the Sovereign got his mother pregnant.

“Did he… How did he…?” he was asking but couldn’t find the right words to use.

“If you want to know how the Sovereign got your mother pregnant,” the Princess said, “he didn’t ‘rape’ her.”

“I’m sorry if I sounded out of turn,” he said, glancing over just to make sure he didn’t offend the Princess. She smiled at him.

“You can ask any question you want, Jerome.”

“Then how did he meet her? How did he… ‘do the deed’?” he asked.

“The Sovereign is capable of so much more than the average sacred artist, Jerome. He’s a Transcendent after all,” the Princess said. “He didn’t need to have sexual intercourse before implanting the seed in her.”

Then she turned to look at Rihal. “As for how he met her, I’m not in the position to tell you about it.” She gave him a sad smile. Rihal shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Jerome took a deep breath to center himself. So he was an aberration, born of the world; from the souls of maybe millions that died during the Cataclysm. A monster. He collected himself and decided what he was going to do.

“I wanna go find my friends. I’m sure not all of them are dead… And I want revenge,” he said.

“Are you sure about this, or are you just hoping,” Rihal voiced his concern. He had been silent for a while. Jerome thought it was because they were in a rough patch. He also didn’t know how to address Rihal. He wanted to do as the Sovereign said but it was hard.

“I have nothing else to depend on but hope,” he muttered, looking out his window. He understood Rihal’s concern. But Rihal was not there when it happened, when his family were thrown off the cliff and left to die. Hope was all he had left.

~~~

Ash

Ash clenched her fists in her laps as anger threatened to take her over. Why would they make Jerome into something like this? She knew there was nothing she could do about it. She knew she had no power of her own to change what had happened to him. But the Royal Family shouldn’t have treated him like he was nothing. The least they could have done was make life comfortable for him. They didn’t have to make him live in the orphanage and starve, and get beaten before earning something to eat.

“Ash?” someone called to her.

“Jerome is a kind and caring person,” Ash muttered, her voice trembling from her anger. “He always wants everyone around him to learn new things that are very important. He doesn’t deserve to be made into a monster.”

“Calm down, Ash,” Jerome said, placing a hand on hers. “I’ll be okay.”

“Ash,” Rihal’s voice echoed in her bones, causing her to calm down. She sensed that he had used some type of technique to achieve that. “We are trying hard to help him find a way to make sure he retains his mind after…everything. Jerome is not alone in this.”

“But Uncle Rihal, the Royal Family should have at least taken good care of him. Instead of letting him live in an impoverished place like the slums.”

“I’ll be fine, Ash,” Jerome said, looking her in the eyes with a smile. “I understand your frustration but I’m not complaining. The Royal Family could have done better, yes. But they might have their reason for doing things this way. Besides, we don’t choose how we come into this world; we only choose what we do with what we have.”

“You are right, Jerome,” the Princess said from her corner in the room. Ash wanted to hate her at this moment but found she couldn’t bring herself to. “The Royal Family has had many fated Dark Ones. And we’ve experimented with many different upbringings.”

The Princess paused for a moment as if she was reliving a distant memory. “We have also found that a ‘humble beginning’ was the best way to raise the fated Dark Ones. This way they don’t grow into entitled brats. They work for their rewards and earn them. They learn to put effort in the things they want to achieve, and put effort to restrain the darkness. This way, the madness doesn’t surface early.”

Ash shut her eyes and gripped Jerome’s hand in hers refusing to let go. How long till he wasn’t Jerome again, but a shell of himself?

Jerome cleared his throat to get her attention. “I’ve actually grappled with the rage, you know…and I came out victorious,” he said with a smile.

Ash looked at him with a mixture of shock and curiosity. Does this mean the madness had started already? She held him tighter.

“I can assure you, Ash,” Jerome continued. “I’ll be okay. I already have a way to calm my emotions and keep my equilibrium. I won’t go mad… I promise.”

He pulled her close to himself and embraced her. Ash hugged him back tightly. She made up her mind to believe him. He was Jerome. He always found a way to make things work out. He did it in the slums and she believed he could do it now.

Madness or not, Jerome wouldn’t let anything or anyone beat him down. He wouldn’t be Jerome if he did. She made a commitment to help him too with all of her being.

~~~

Aeldra Vorthe

Aeldra watched Ash breakdown for the boy she loved. It was quite easy to see that she cared deeply for Jerome and not like a sibling either. Teenage love. She had a few memories of her own. But alas, it was robbed away from her too soon and now she didn’t remember what it was like anymore. It was only a passing memory.

Ash seemed to calm down after receiving a hug from Jerome. She bowed her head low and apologized for her outbursts a moment ago, causing Aeldra to smile. Many people saw her as her status — the Princess of Vorthe. But she was so much more than that. She liked to be around people and actually ‘talk’ to them as a person. Not as the Princess of Vorthe.

“I understand, Ash,” Aeldra said. “You don’t need to apologize for loving someone and wanting to protect them.” She watched the teenage girl blush a deep shade of red and smiled fondly at her.

But she sighed soon after, she had expected things to develop this way. From what she knew, Jerome was not one to run away from an adversary.

“Very well, Jerome,” she said to him. “But you’d need to prepare yourself. You’ve been recuperating for a whole day, which shows how badly you need to grow your mental strength.”

“A whole day?” Jerome was surprised.

“Yes. The Curia Regis decided to open Terra Praeta for you so you can gain some good fortune and resources now that you are Sprout.”

“What’s Terra Praeta?” Jerome asked. “I’ve heard from Rihal that I would be going on an adventure, but that is all I know.”

“It’s a void world, separate but connected to our world!” Ash prattled out as if afraid someone else would beat her to it. “What? I wanted to be the one to tell him about it!” she remarked, slightly offended by the looks on their faces.

Jerome smiled. “Thank you, Ash. That was very helpful.”

Kilian smiled, pursing his lips to keep from laughing out loud. Aeldra watched the interaction between them all and was grateful Kilian was very accommodating. She had feared he was going to keep Jerome at arm’s length. But it seemed all her concerns were baseless.

“So, it’s like a pocket world or should I say a separate space or a plane where life can exist independently of this world?” Jerome said.

Kilian whistled loudly to show his surprise. Everyone looked at Jerome, surprised he could understand what was said and even explain it in his own words. Aeldra herself was a bit surprised. A ‘pocket’ was a fitting description for a void world. Why had she never thought about it like that?

“Those are some confusing words you spoke, Jerome,” Rihal muttered, scratching at his jaw. Aeldra could almost feel the tension between him and his disciple.

“Well it is a real world,” Aeldra chimed in, taking over the discussion. “Anyways, Terra Praeta can’t be opened for you alone so the First Elder will announce it at the upcoming Royal Banquet.”

“This sounds far more complicated than Pilgrims’ Keep, so I’m guessing it is. How long will it take?”

“Time in Terra Praeta is different from time here,” Rihal said. “So two years at most.”

“Two years, that’s long! I still wanna go in search of my family, Rihal!” Jerome said, looking worriedly at Rihal.

Aeldra never expected that. She had expected him to jump at the chance to be counted among those going to Terra Praeta. Did he not know what it meant? Only those from the nobility and royalty in Vorthe were allowed the privilege to step foot in Terra Praeta. She looked to Rihal to see how he would handle this.

“You’ve been away, three years, Jerome. Two more wouldn’t change anything,” Rihal gave him a cautioning gaze. Shaking his head slowly, he said, “Don’t take lightly, the generosity of the Curia Regis.”

Those words seemed to do the trick. Jerome calmed down and looked away. She could tell that there was tension between them. Whatever it was they were fighting over, she hoped they were able to sort it out.

“Will Hedon be joining the expedition?” Jerome asked.

The room went silent for a few breaths of time. Aeldra could see the challenge and determination in his eyes. Those were the calculating eyes of a hunter, hunting prey.

“Very likely,” she said.

“That’s all I need to know.”

“Then prepare yourself to meet the Sovereign in person,” Aeldra said, rising from her seat and then addressing Kilian. “Get him something nice to wear, Kilian.”