ILIAS PAYNE

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One of the history books was primarily focused on the short life of Decan Lancaster. The early chapters were completely spot on, but later on, history was rewritten to suit the victor’s favour.

I guess I should start at the beginning.

Decan was always a step below all the other nobles. While they were able to at least perform the basics of jynx, Decan was unfortunate enough to be born without the ability to use it. The gates that let a person control mana wasn’t present in his body.

His father, King Diablo, was ruling from the Capital and ordered that his brother, Lord Durwin Lancaster, be lord of Harkhall until Decan came of age. The king then sent his own son, along with the younger of the Quates brothers, Salazar, to be wards of Lord Arynn.

During that time, the two wards, along with a third, Minerva Mobley, grew close as brothers. Since jynx lessons were useless for Decan, he spent the time that would otherwise have been divided into jynx and swordsmanship into the latter. This would allow him to become the only swordsman to master all three sword styles in written history—starting from pawn when he was six and rising up to king when he was sixteen.

During his years of training, he fell in love with Lady Joy Florent. She was betrothed to Lord Arynn’s eldest son, Tytos, and was staying at the Arynn Temple until she came of age. Tytos, however, didn’t love her back as he saw her as just another piece for his family to gain power. Since Tytos didn’t spend any time with her, Decan befriended Joy which sparked something between them.

By his late teen years, Decan and the other wards would help Lord Arynn fight against small rebellions that began to occur in the Marshlands. Around this time, a story was passed around from soldiers on both sides saying that Decan made a deal with the devil to become the strongest swordsman and the devil took his ability to use jynx in exchange.

This would later give him his most popular title: the Sword Devil.

At the end of the Marshland Tussles, Decan was struck with an arrow. He was taken back to the temple and was tended to by the nurses, but it was Joy who stayed by his side and comforted him during his fever. During this, Tytos was betrothed to a daughter of a more powerful house. Decan took this opportunity to marry Joy.

When his uncle died from an infection, Decan and Joy became the lord and lady of Harkhall and thus ended their time as wards. During this, it was rumoured that he became power-hungry and impatient in gaining the throne. With the help of his two ward brothers, he plotted to overthrow his king-father.

When they started their rebellion, only Decan’s close friends stood by his side, but through careful strategy, managed to gain allies and convince houses that didn’t want to fight for his father to stay passive.

However, fighting fairly never happened in war. That was Decan’s downfall as he never expected Salazar, his closest friend, to be a spy for his father. Salazar slowly fed the king information while misleading the Sword Devil.

As the end of the rebellion came close, they rushed inside, sacking the city and barricading its gates. The rebellion made its final move during the day of black sun, claiming that King Diablo was using the eclipse as a fuel source for his ritual. A ritual that used the souls of the Capital as mana so he could achieve immortality and gain ultimate power.

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To fool the people into believing this ploy, Decan ordered his jynxists to put the citizens of the Capital under an illusion. One that made it seem like their souls had separated from their bodies and that they were trapped in endless suffering.

With King Diablo’s reinforcements trying to breach the city gates, the rebellion managed to breach through the Iron Keep and slaughter the king’s soldiers. However, the king proved too powerful, single-handedly taking out all of Decan’s men and putting an end to his rebellion.

Decan was put in chains and thrown into the dungeons. His faithful soldiers were forced to bend the knee to King Diablo and the ones who didn’t were buried within the city walls, making sure they were still guarding their king in some way.

After this, support for Decan declined. As the lords who accompanied him into the capital were held hostage, King Diablo ordered their families to come to the Capital and the same for all the houses that remained passive. He then kept their children as hostages to make sure an uprising like this never happened again.

The king ordered Salazar to retake Harkhall and retrieve Lady Joy, who was pregnant with Decan’s child, and return Decan’s ward, Lady Valentine, to her lord-father.

Upon arriving at the Lancaster’s ancestral keep, the soldiers holding the castle gave it up and revealed that a dozen knights led by Ser Castell and Decan’s squire took Joy and went into hiding.

Knowing that his father would show him no mercy and that this was the end, Decan confessed his crimes before being beheaded, much to the royal court’s protest.

His remaining loyalists torched the countryside in an attempt to lure out King Diablo, but they were taken out easily by Salazar and his forces.

The only remaining piece was Joy, as she was pregnant with Decan’s child. King Diablo wanted to name his grandchild his heir and sent out messages begging for his daughter-in-law to come out of hiding.

She didn’t.

After a few months, there were reports of knights no one recognized suddenly showing up in towns close to each other. King Diablo sent three hundred men as he was sure these were Joy’s knights trying to find a midwife to aid her in childbirth.

The three hundred men found a tower being guarded by a dozen knights. Though they put up a good fight, each knight fell. With the last ones standing befittingly being Decan’s guard and squire. All-in-all, fifty-three of the king’s men died.

When the soldiers approached Lady Joy, she was unaware of the whole situation and thought her husband was still fighting in the rebellion. Heartbroken and overcome with grief, Joy wrapped her arms around her infant child, jumping out of the window at the top of the tower and ending Decan’s line.

Upon further examination, King Diablo’s grandchild was a boy.

The tower itself still stood today, gaining the name the Tower of Joy after her tragic story.

With King Diablo having no heir and with no ability to produce more children, the houses all over Armestis took advantage of this. During the last few years of Diablo’s life, the Nelbrant household started another rebellion, this time succeeding. They slaughtered many of King Diablo’s followers before stabbing a sword through his back.

The only person that managed to escape the slaughter was Salazar—though he was easily tracked down and shot with crossbows from afar, unable to use the jynx he relied on.

The Nelbrandts have been the royal family ever since. The first of them was King Aethas, who reigned for only fifteen years before dying on the way to Mount Ydril for a pilgrimage. Because both Aethas’ sons died during Decan’s Rebellion, the next in line was his nephew, Axel who reigned for sixty-three years before succumbing to old age. The next, and current king, was Arthereus.

While the Nelbrandts were in power, they switched the feudal system this country had relied on to a militarized one that only followed the royal family and the government under it. As time went on, noble houses fell and became like everyone else. The only ones that kept their importance were the ones that had money and trade.

Armestis was heavily militarized as one, with their loyalty being strictly directed towards the royal family…