Alev woke up with a hole in his stomach. The grove they had been feeding off of was running out, but they couldn’t afford to move just yet. So they were waiting for as long as they dared, and the adults were pretending that they weren’t that hungry so that the kids could have more.

He was old enough to do the same, no matter what anyone else thought. He slipped out of the rough bedroll and then the tent, already dressed. He had a ritual he did every day since he first learned about the Deluge and the history of Delsy.

First, he looked to the old capital, suppressing a slight shiver at the thought of how close they were to that haunted place. “Your dream will live again,” he promised.

Second, he turned around slowly, looking in the distance towards the members of the Imperial League. “Crowned heads tremble, for your doom comes,” he murmured.

Normally, the words brought him some comfort. They were not a prayer - no one prayed in the village, or at least not many - but they were a ritual, one that connected him to the heroes of only a generation or so. The real heroes, the ones who fought and bled and sacrificed, not the ones who became weeping drunks.

But today, with his belly aching in hunger and their encampment far too close to the capital, they brought only sorrow.

And as ever, he turned sorrow into anger, the same anger he saw in the faces of his parents during late nights when they argued about if they could risk moving on, the same anger he saw during the bitter toasts each Republic Day, the same anger whenever they passed the mocking monuments of the Deluge or heard the news from the Treaty Cities.

The League had killed their dungeons and doomed the Republic to choke and die on land without mana, but that had won them nothing in the end. Their cities were still wracked with riots, their peasants still died in pissant backwaters for the right of kings to rule empty strips of land.

But as ever, the anger could not be used, and so he let it out. You had to let it out, or it killed you, rotted you from the inside like his grandfather or the Old Captain.

All around him, the village was busily working. Sella was watching the children with a gaggle of younger helpers, and he waved to her, glad he had dodged that chore today. She rolled her eyes at him, and then began chasing after a pair of fighting ten-year-olds. Most of the adults were tending to the skinny, scrawny livestock or harvesting from the grove. They would take everything they could to eat, from blades of grass to strips of bark to insects. He began to head over to join them when one of the adults intercepted him.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“The headman said that you were to go hunting today, if you are feeling up to it.”

The headman - Alev’s father - liked to send people out to hunt and gather. Only those who could reliably sense mana could do it well in these wastelands, and Alev was good for his age.

“Alright,” he said, concealing disappointment, and ran off to get ready.

A meagre breakfast of flatrolls and leaf paste later, he had fetched his bow and a quiver of good stone arrows. One of the village beasts was saddled and he seized the reins, vaulting onto its scaly back.

He took a moment to look for mana, blocking out the source behind him from the village, and found a few patches.

He rode off, bow at the ready, eyes scanning the dry, broken ground, looking for any sign of life among the ruins of what had once been the greatest land in the world.

Two days had passed before he began to consider whether he should turn back. It wasn’t a question of distance or time, he had been away for longer, but someone should let the village know that they had a veritable bounty of food. Perhaps some mana had welled up from the earth, for there was a profusion of life: hardy wildflowers, stunted bushes, dangling vines. He even spotted a few sapling regrowing from dead stumps, although he doubted they would last unless they were transplanted.

And of course, all the plants meant animals. He had shot three different birds. All of them were tiny, but he didn’t even recognize what type one of them was, and he had collected a number of small rabbits and rats as well, more than enough to feed someone for a few days if they were careful.

But he didn’t want anyone to think that he was being listened to because of who his parents were. He decided he would find something big, and then he would go back.

Again he searched for mana. It was harder now that there were so many sources around. It was like looking for a campfire while standing in the middle of a forest of candles.

Gradually, he was able to block out the closest sources, and then the smallest, until he noticed a large but fairly distant one. He estimated it would be another two days away, and then he froze, upon realizing what direction it was in.

“Maybe I could go back...” he murmured, “just spend the day hunting around here and then return.”

But the never-quite-fading current of anger seized him. Alev steeled himself and took out his best arrow, one tipped with steel. He was going to the capital. He would face whatever ghosts still haunted it. And he would hunt there.

He began riding almost recklessly, refusing to hesitate, until the beast below him whinnied in protest and his mother’s voice echoed in his head. Blushing, he got off and walked it for a time, slowing his pace.

At this rate, it would take another two days to reach the capital. Perhaps three, just to be on the safe side. But that was alright. He would simply keep hunting on the way.

Maybe, if he was lucky, he could find something impressive before he got there, and he could return early.

Yes, best to just take things slow.