A tall and broad man with a warrior’s physique sat at a table, staring at a full plate of food. He sat alone. The meal—a hearty thing, consisting of a fine slice of red meat supported by eggs—looked appetizing enough, and though the man held his cutlery in hand he didn’t begin to eat. He cast glances up at the door, evidently waiting on someone.

When the door opened, his crystal blue eyes sharpened before creasing in disappointment when the person he’d been waiting for didn’t walk through.

“Majordomo,” he greeted, setting his fork and knife down.

“Baron Tielman,” the majordomo answered, bumping a few chairs in his haste to walk across the room. “Your son is delayed.”

The baron briefly toyed with the fork, and a flash of gold pulsed out of his hand as he called upon his aura to deform the metal. The majordomo crossed his hands behind him and walked backward out of caution.

“What was his reasoning?” Tielman asked concisely.

“Well…” the majordomo rubbed his hands together. “Young lord Willem claimed not to recognize anyone when we awoke him. When I tried to remind him of this important meeting, he entirely disregarded what I said. He asked some very strange questions.”

“What sort of questions?”

“’Where am I? What is this place?’ He asked about kidnapping, and called me a… ‘twisted deviant with a head like an orange.’ These statements were undoubtedly intended to foster some sort of idea about his incapability. When we tried to be minutely forceful, Willem was… unreceptive.” The majordomo lowered his head. “I know you said we’re to ignore any tricks he might attempt. As an aura user, he is beyond us in strength, but I didn’t want to call upon the knights unless—"

“Ask him once more to come,” Tielman interrupted. “If he refuses again, you can call upon my knights.”

“At once, my lord.” The majordomo bowed, then walked away.

“One moment.” The baron picked up his plate. “Our meal’s grown cold. Keep it warm. I’ll ring for the staff to bring it out again.”

“Certainly.” The majordomo took the plate, then retrieved another on the table—the plate meant for Willem. He walked away into the kitchen.

After the majordomo had left, Baron Tielman looked at the deformed fork. With a spot of embarrassment, he picked it up, trying to correct the damage he’d done. He tried bending it back into shape, but it ended up looking only more and more awkward. He grabbed other prongs in an attempt to make them level, and eventually he ended up with a somewhat normal-looking fork that only looked odd in comparison to the others at the table.

Time passed, the baron sitting in solemn silence. He tapped the table, waiting, glancing, tapping his foot, watching the shadows change through the window… but no one new passed through the door. He listened for a commotion, but none came. Just as he braced himself to stand, the door opened, and a maid stood at the doorway.

“What?” The baron asked sternly.

The maid looked a little frightened. “Just…”

“She was showing me the way,” a man answered. “I was lost.”

The door opened wider, and the maid shrunk away in his wake. A tall blonde man, who’d inherited the baron’s crystal blue eyes, walked inside. Just as his father, Willem had a warrior’s physique—but more than that, he’d unlocked the warrior’s power of aura. He carried himself in that manner, too—confident, cocksure. He had some right to do so, being so strong at so young an age. Tielman thought his son looked different somehow, but he couldn’t place why.

Once the door shut, Willem looked right at Tielman. “People tell me you’re my father.”

Tielman shook his head. “I won’t entertain your games. Sit.”

Willem didn’t move to sit immediately, and Tielman briefly wondered if his son would openly defy him. Fortunately, Willem pulled back the chair opposite him and sat. Tielman exhaled gratefully, and rung the bell to have their meals brought out.

Willem regarded the staff curiously as they walked in. When his meal was placed before him, he said ‘thank you.’ Tielman raised a brow, and even the serving staff cast him an uncertain glance before quickly giving them privacy.

Willem picked up knife and fork, and began to cut into the steak. “This is novel. A meal with… Willem’s father,” he said, as though the words were awkward on the tongue. “Why don’t you explain what’s going on?”

Tielman had thought he’d need to be the one to broach the subject. He looked at his son firmly and said, “I’ve given you time to reform on your own. I’ve given you warning after warning, but eventually threats must be carried out.” He took a deep breath, preparing for what needed to be done. “I can no longer tolerate your repeated transgressions. You’ve shamed me, you’ve shamed the family, and most importantly you’ve shamed yourself.”

Willem nodded casually as he chewed like they were speaking about someone else. “What do you think I actually did?”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“I don’t intend to go into an accounting of what you’ve done,” Tielman said firmly.

“Why not? You’re a little too young to be forgetting things,” he said challengingly. Meeting Tielman’s icy glare, he continued, “If you honestly think I’m your son, wouldn’t I be owed some honesty?”

Tielman let his thoughts flow freely after the provocation. “Undermining my knights. Causing conflict in the household. Jeopardizing the border the house of van Brugh has guarded since the days of my father’s father with your repeated lapses of judgment.” The baron put his elbows on the table, leaning in. “But above all… challenging the succession. That, above all your sins, I cannot forgive. If we fall to civil war, the border will be overrun. We would be remembered as failures, forevermore.”

Willem nodded. “What’s the verdict?”

Tielman cut through his steak as he spoke. “Tomorrow morning, several things will happen. You will pack whatever you need for a six-month stay. You will board an enchanted carriage bound to the capital, and depart. My attendant will take care of you while you’re there.”

Tielman chewed on his steak, waiting for Willem to bring up some objections. His son sat there, listening and eating, but he asked no questions.

“When you arrive, my old tutor shall provide you lodging. He will teach you what it means to be a van Brugh—disrespect him at your peril. I’ve given him leave to do whatever is needed to bring you back to the right path.” Tielman stared down his son.

Willem narrowed his eyes. “That’s it?”

Tielman didn’t know how to respond to that, at first. He continued to eat, then gave a perfunctory nod.

“What time tomorrow?” Willem pressed.

“You’ll be woken,” Tielman answered, waiting for more queries.

Willem’s gaze went distant in quiet thought before he nodded. “Works for me,” Willem shrugged, then practically inhaled a bite of the eggs. “Ostrich? Exotic.”

Tielman waited for more, eating his breakfast while casting occasional glances at his son. Willem, however, stared at his own plate as he ate. He looked to be lost in thought. He’d seldom seen his middle child this restrained. Callous jokes, witty remarks, undermining observations, unending complaints… Willem was always energetic, ambitious, driven. Now he seemed reserved and distracted.

Though the baron continued to eat in silence, he felt himself losing his appetite. Tielman had hardened himself to be able to meet his son’s typical brashness, only to be met with no resistance. He certainly wasn’t the most empathetic father, yet a change this dramatic… was something genuinely wrong with his boy? Willem had fought so hard to stay within the castle at all times, yet now he so easily left it? Or was this, too, another ploy to avoid any repercussions?

“Willem…” Tielman said, and his son looked up. The words, ‘how are you?’ and ‘is something wrong?’ danced on the tip of his tongue, but he found himself unable to actually say them, just as ever. In the end, he ended up asking, “What do you want to do?”

“To do?” Willem repeated. “Today, or generally?”

“Generally,” Tielman answered quickly, glad his son had steered them the direction he’d hoped to go.

“Generally…” Willem put down his fork, and leaned back in his chair. “This has all been quite abrupt, and I’m not entirely sure what’s happening… but my answer’s never changed before, and it won’t now.”

“You wish to be the baron,” Tielman finished.

“What? No. Business. I want to do business.”

“Meaning… trade? Merchantry?” Tielman asked to confirm, in total surprise.

“Close enough.” Willem nodded, a smile playing about his face. “Once you stop being a piece in the game and start being a player, it’s difficult to imagine going back. No matter where I find myself, that wisdom holds true. And do you know where I actually find myself?”

The baron shook his head, finding it hard to stay focused.

“I find myself in an inefficient market.” Willem shook his head. “Look at this.” He pulled out a silver coin from his pocket and placed it upon the table. “Coins. It’s a curiosity, but fancy silver isn’t exactly a testament to sophisticated financial markets. I pity the traders that have to haul these around.”

“I don’t understand,” the baron said. His vision had some whiteness in it—was he this surprised at his son’s words? “You spent countless days on the training field. You obsessed over unlocking your aura. I thought you followed the… knight’s path,” he finished with a wheeze, bizarrely short of breath.

“I don’t know about any of that.” Willem shrugged. “I’m of a mind that violence is actually quite weak. It takes a very strong man not to engage in vain chest-pounding to display superiority. I like to think I’m a little more than a gorilla.” He spun the coin between his fingers. “No offense, of course.”

At the unpleasant arrival of a pain in his chest, and a roiling sensation in the aura permeating his body, Tielman finally realized that something was very wrong. He clutched his throat.

“Heartburn? Old men should stay away from fatty meats, someone once told me.” His son shook his head with a wistful smile. “Though… you’re in rather good shape. I’m not sure why…”

Tielman tried to reach for the bell, but he knocked it over. He grasped the table and tried to rise, only to find his legs were liquid. He collapsed to the ground, barely able to draw short breaths. Willem came to stand over him, but the baron’s sight was already blurring, and he couldn’t discern the expression on his boy’s face. He tried to speak, but his throat was shut tight.

Despair set over him as he realized that this poison might claim him.

***

Willem stared down at Baron Tielman. He was no doctor, but he didn’t think people were supposed to go black and blue and bleed from the eyes. He grabbed the bell the man had been grasping for moments before he’d fallen and gave it a ring. After a short delay, someone entered—that old man with the wrinkly bald head that had been terrified of him.

“I think we have a problem.” Willem set the bell down gingerly, then crouched before Tielman. “It seems to be mostly his problem, actually.”

Judging from the look on the servant’s face, though—the accusatory, frightened eyes, and the trembling lower lip—it might also be Willem’s problem soon enough. Murder wasn’t particularly well-received in any culture, much less patricide. This young man sharing Willem’s name had sufficient motive and what sounded like a character low enough to try such a thing.

His first day of awakening in this young man’s body was proving to be a rather eventful one.