Four Days Earlier

“Gran Gran. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Stop.”

“What? But—”

“Hush. I don’t need to know. Whatever it is. I trust you’ll do the right thing.”

“I hope so. But Gran Gran, I need you to—”

“Hush.”

Windham sat in an old wooden chair next to his grandmother’s bed. She was small now, old and frail. Fading. He found it difficult seeing her like this. For most of his life, she’d been vivacious, full of energy and life. But after his grandfather had died just a few months ago, he had watched her gradual decline.

“Are you still cleaning up shit, boy?”

Windham flinched as if struck. Bowed his head in shame and embarrassment.

She made a ‘tsk’ sound with her tongue and struggled to sit up. Windham stood to assist, holding her hand and providing the leverage she needed.

“A boy like you. With so much potential, trailing behind the commoners' horses and waving your hands in the air—” she waved her own hands in the air mockingly. “All for the sake of nothing but shit. It’s not right. You’re better than that.”

He said nothing. Felt like crying.

She pointed a bony, wavering finger at him. “‘Highbloode’ is not just a name. It is your birthright. You come from high blood. And you deserve better.”

Windham scratched his head, puzzled. She may have lost a lot physically, but her mind was still sharp. So where was all this strange talk of “high blood” coming from?

His parents had died when he was very young, leaving his grandmother and grandfather to raise him. They had loved him dearly, perhaps excessively, giving him everything they could offer. Spoiled him, always making him feel special. But they’d never spoken to him in the way his grandmother was now.

“You’re a mage, right?” she asked, the word “mage” laced with mockery.

“Yes,” he answered sheepishly. “You know that I am.”

“And everything you’ve been told about magic, all the things they’ve taught you... all just to make shit disappear.”

“But Gran Gran, that’s all anyone can do. That’s what magic is. That’s all it is. Simple spells used to help and serve the people of Brightholme.”

His grandmother slammed her palm on the bed in front of Windham’s face. “Idiot! You stupid, foolish man-child!”

She had never spoken to him this way. Never. Not even on her worst day. Windham began to question whether his assessment of her mental faculties was accurate; maybe even that was deteriorating.

“Gran Gran, what gives?”

“It’s nonsense, boy. It’s aaaall nonsense.”

“What is? What’s nonsense?”

She leaned towards him, a wicked grin on her face. A menacing, frightening expression, one more addition to her strange behavior.

“You’re right, boy, it is simple magic,” she said. “Cantrips. Huh. A traveling roadside magician pulling rabbits from hats could do better.

“But you’re wrong about that being all there is to magic. Very, very wrong.”

She sat back, bracing herself against the headboard of the bed. Her gaze was unfocused, the smile on her face growing. She was remembering...

“I was a powerful mage once,” she said.

“What? Gran Gran, no you weren’t. You’ve never used magic in your life.”

She smiled, shook her head and looked at her grandson with a sad, disappointed, and condescending kind of pity. “You have no idea what I have done. There’s a whole other world beyond these mountains, Windham Rickter Highbloode. A whole other world, with wonders unlike anything you’ve ever imagined. And power. Power that is rightfully yours.”

“But Gran Gran,” Windham started, with a healthy dose of skepticism. “If that were true, why is it that all the magic I can use is to… well, make shit disappear?”

“Because that’s all they want you to do,” she said with disgust. “They convince the people of Brightholme, these weak-minded sheep, that’s all there is to magic. They do this to keep magic, power, in check. If you could get them to admit it, they’d claim it’s to keep Brightholme sunny and safe. But it’s just as much to ensure none can rise up and threaten their precious Godknight.”

He leaned in. “Could anyone threaten the Godknight? I mean, before Brightholme? When he was still out in the world?”

“No. I suppose not,” she conceded. “Not that I ever heard about, at least. We are not Aeonics; I have only lived eighty years. I never saw him before he founded Brightholme, only heard the stories, and those tales made it clear there was no one who could challenge his power. But that doesn’t mean the Elders don’t fear such a possibility. Or that someday someone new might rise to challenge him.”

“So… So what could you do?” Windham asked, shifting back to his grandmother’s tale. Perhaps even starting to believe it. “How powerful of a mage were you?”

She smiled. “Very. And I was more than a mere ‘mage,’ boy. Anyone who can cast a shit spell can call themselves a ‘mage.’ I… I was a Sorcerer.”

“A sorcerer? What’s that?”

“And it was glorious,” she continued, ignoring his question. “All that skill and knowledge, that might. That power.” She sighed. “Yes. It was glorious.” She turned her head to look at him again. “I was glorious.”

“Okay,” Windham said. He was just trying to keep up, to process this sudden avalanche of surprising information. He had never seen even a hint of the magic she was describing. She was, and had always been, nothing more than his sweet, loving grandmother.

“And what about Grandpa?” he asked. “Was he a sorcerer too?”

She shook her head. “No. He was just a man. A human. He wielded no magic. But the power within him was mightier than any I had ever known.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“What, Gran Gran? What kind of power?”

She tilted her head and closed her eyes. Her smile remained but softened somehow. She was still remembering, and these were happy memories.

“Love, my boy. Mock my sentimentality if you wish. But I loved him.” A single tear moved slowly down her cheek. “Oh, how I loved him.”

Windham felt a lump in his throat. In all his life, he’d never doubted their love. They were open about it, never shy or embarrassed. Loving and laughing and touching, even into his grandfather’s final days.

He wondered if their example was the cause of his deep longing. Longing for that kind of love, that kind of connection with someone else. There had been women in the past; not many, but some. But they had somehow all left him feeling unsatisfied. The hole remained unfilled.

Until Lilliana Centes. He’d known her from afar for some time; she was the High Elder’s daughter, after all. Everyone knew her. But it was only in the past year or so that they had started spending time together. He knew that she liked him. But she was always so distracted, never more so than with her latest hare-brained scheme, the “Paper.” He had to bide his time.

But she’d come around, he was sure. Soon, they’d be away from here. Away, and together.

“I gave it all up,” his grandmother told him. “Gave it all up for your grandfather. We had a child—your mother—and moved to bright and happy Brightholme. Where we could raise a child in peace. And, later, raise you.”

“Do you regret it?” Windham asked, realizing he believed every word she said.

“Never,” she said. “Not once.”

Her face twisted into a little snarl, and for a moment Windham didn’t recognize her. He saw rage in her eyes. And hate.

“Until he died,” she said. “And left me here. Alone. And now… I can’t help but wonder…”

Windham had no idea how to respond.

She looked directly into his eyes. “What would it have been like?” she asked him, as if expecting him to answer. “All that power. And more, if I had continued that journey. If I had only…”

Her gaze drifted away again. Windham could see she was tiring.

“What could you do?” he asked her. She continued looking away. He felt himself growing anxious. Impatient. Suddenly, he needed to know more about her magic. “Gran Gran? What could you do with your magic?”

“It’s not important what I could do,” she said, facing him with a serious look. “What’s important is what you can do.”

Windham sat up straight. Alert and attentive.

“You are high blood,” she repeated. “You are capable of so much more. Destined for so much more. The magic they teach you in here… it’s nothing. Garbage. The shit you sweep. The power out there… that you can only find by leaving this place…”

She let it hang in the air, allowed her grandson to wonder for himself. Windham felt free. Light as a feather. He’d always known he was special. That he was destined for more. Wasn’t it why he’d made the choices he’d made recently? To be free to seek out that destiny?

“Go to the chest, boy, at the end of my bed,” she instructed him.

“Oh,” he said, rising and making his way there. “Are you cold, Gran Gran?”

She waved the question away impatiently, making him feel like it was the stupidest question anyone had ever asked.

“Open it, boy.”

He complied, revealing the blankets he already knew he’d find there. He stood looking at her, waiting for instructions, afraid to speak.

“Take them out.”

“All of them?”

“Yes, all of them.”

He did as he was told, taking them out one at a time and placing them next to the chest until it was empty. He looked at her and shrugged. Now what?

“Run your hand along the side. The side closest to the bed.” He did it, placing his palm flat against the inside of the chest. He rubbed it back and forth several times.

“Do you not feel it?” she asked, sounding disappointed. He felt disappointed himself, like he was failing some great quest.

He stood up and shook his head. “No, Gran Gran. It’s just the side of a chest.”

She sighed and swung her legs out over the bed. “Gran Gran, no! You need to rest. I can—”

Another dismissive wave of the hand silenced him. Using the bed to help hold her up, she made her way to the chest. She bent down towards it, and when Windham reached out to help, she quietly accepted.

“It’s okay, my boy,” she said as she reached in. “I shouldn’t be so harsh with you. It’s not your fault. This has all been kept from you for far too long.”

A moment later she stood, holding an object in her hand.

“Here,” she said, handing him an old, worn leather pouch. He was baffled. How had he missed that? Where exactly had it come from? Was there a secret hatch in the side? Or was it something else?

He looked it over. It seemed ordinary enough. It was stiff and rectangular, with a top flap. A rawhide string was attached to the flap and wound tightly around a button on the front of the pouch. It was big enough to grasp in his hand, and looked just big enough to dip his hand inside.

Windham felt a little underwhelmed. Why go to such elaborate lengths to hide such an unremarkable item? He began to unwind the rawhide but stopped when his grandmother slapped him on the top of his hand.

“Ow! Gran Gran, what gives?”

“Are you crazy, boy?” she hissed. “Don’t open it. Don’t ever open it. Not until you need to.”

“I don’t understand. When I need to? When I need to do what?”

“You will know,” she said. “And never—and I mean never—look inside.” She made her way back to her spot on the bed, again allowing her grandson to help her along.

She got back into her sitting position and sighed heavily. All the moving around had taken its toll. Once situated, she began to talk, almost as if she were telling the child Windham a bedtime story.

“There is a school of magic, boy. Unique, strange. And very, very powerful. It was my school of choice. Very powerful. Very dangerous. And very, very fun.”

She grinned. He couldn’t help it; her smile was so infectious he grinned right along with her. But was this just a simple story? Or something else?

“What kind of magic, Gran Gran?” He was hooked now, scooting his chair even closer to the bed.

She leaned in again, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Tell no one of this. If someone with knowledge of the outside, and the old ways, hears you so much as say these words…”

“I won’t, Gran Gran. I swear.”

She nodded and patted him on the hand. “I know, boy.”

“What is it, Gran Gran? Tell me, please!”

She grinned, wider than ever. Her wild eyes and maniacal smile made her seem almost insane.

“Wild magic, boy,” she said with great flair and relish. “The greatest magic there is. And your destiny.”

“My… destiny?” Windham asked.

She gestured towards the pouch. He looked down at the beat-up sack in his lap, then back up at his grandmother.

He felt warm all over. Happy, excited. He hated his job as a service mage. He’d taken it because the magic they offered, as weak as it may be, was the only thing in this entire land that had ever interested him. It had also brought him close to the Elders, and by extension, the Godknight. The top of the food chain, where he belonged.

But that was where the magic had stayed, stagnant and stale. Never progressing, never a chance to learn new things.

Now, things would be different. In so many ways.

“Gran Gran, why are you telling me all this? And giving me this pouch? Why now?”

She locked eyes with him. “Because it’s all coming to an end. Isn’t it?”

“I… I…”

“Shush,” she said. She closed her eyes, looking tired but content. “I’m old, boy. The power I once wielded is long gone. Never to return. And my love… my love is gone as well. So whatever is going to happen… let it happen.

“So long as you’re happy. And become what you are destined to be.”

There was that word again. Destiny. Windham grinned. So many things were already in motion. Now this. Any misgivings that may have lingered around his conscience were now gone.

His path had never been clearer.