“Pick it up and try again.”
The words probably echoed off the walls that surrounded us, plain earthen-wrought stone that was as cheap as it was replaceable and just as likely died as they hit the noise cancellation runes at the edge of the training arena. All I knew was that the order was given through closely watched lips, and a good solider follows orders, so I picked up the worn kite shield and readied myself again for the assault.
This time, it took twelve hits from his maul instead of eleven for my shield to again be battered out of my hands and on to the ground. The thirteenth still rocketed for my chest, so I rolled out of the way before my ribs caved in and we had to once again drain Elena, who sat on the sidelines, of her magical energy. Poor girl always looked so stressed when Father and I sparred, but she keeps insisting that is what a normal and well-adjusted response to seeing a boy getting trounced by a man over three times his senior and size.
Unaware or uncaring of her fears, the behemoth in front of me adjusted his stance mid swipe so that he stood just behind my shield and went for an overhead slam with a foreboding sense of finality. Knowing I had to get to it before he got to me, I ducked forward and reached my protection. I threw my back on the floor and held my shield in between me and his implement of war as if it was the only thing preventing me from hours staying in Elenas infirmary, probably because it was. As the two pieces of metal made contact and I felt the rumble go through all my bones, his face twisted with displeasure as I didn’t take the initiative to strike him while he was obviously vulnerable.
“Oblivion, boy. Stop hiding and FIGHT!” He roared with enough rage that I could feel my hair move from the gust of wind that associated all his quick and empowered movements.
Mother always told me that he was a kind man, once. She said that before his campaign Ursur Aegis could see the light of life and appreciate it for the colors it wrought, rather than just use it as a tool against the dark. My brother, on the other hand, confided in me that in the eight years they had before I was born, he couldn’t remember a time when he had seen the paragon smile. Our few servants never directly addressed him out of fear of disturbing his forced retirement, excluding our seneschal Terrik, but he was always an exception to the rule. The public idolized my father the way one would view a dusty museum display piece as if he was an impressive relic, one that belonged in the past. Opinions varied, but one thought was consistent through every mind that met him: He was a hero.
They also thought he was a dick.
It turns out that after serving on the Wall for twenty years as a rare and powerful Wind-Based Guardian and only getting empty platitudes, a noble name that was slapped onto important building before his fall from grace, and a healthy respect for his strength, if not his opinion, turned a once jovial man into something of a sour fellow. He adopted an attitude reminiscent of his fighting style, one that utilized a large amount of physical and mental strength coupled with an even larger amount of spite. It was one of the things that I genuinely enjoyed most about him. Ursur was direct, blunt, and always truthful. If people wanted to run around and play social games with the assumption that he didn’t have enough guile to react, then he would act as they all assumed and play the brute they rightfully deserved.
It was that same brute that was slamming me down and shouting, but he never acted that way to me outside of this arena. It was as if something in him shifted from a placid breeze to raging tornado the moment his feet touched the blood-soaked sand. With his call to action being my personal signal to switch tactics, I pushed myself off the ground during a moment between swings and wedged my further-bent shield into the back of his knee. As fast as he could sense around him with his area of influence of the air, there was a delay, so he was caught off guard and stumbled over me. Such a cheap shot would be considered dishonorable in a duel, but Father and I both knew that there was no quarter nor honor given in war, and every battle should be treated as such. This was no duel against father and son but instead a battle in a war between a boy and a monster.
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He loomed over six-foot and a half, broad and imposing, and was the person who understood my situation the most. It was when my father was “honorably discharged” due to a supposed logistical error that many say his legacy was cut short. A unit of shield bearers were misplaced during a routine wall repair, leading to a Noxxian Lancer disfiguring and stripping him of his sight. Healers of all sorts came and tried every procedure and spell they had, desperate to be the one to restore the Kingdom’s Aegis, but nothing worked. Everyone knew that oblivion magic and its effect were irreversible. After all, it didn’t damage his eyes in any way. They just stopped working, leaving no evidence of a change behind except the tell-tale mark of gray.
My ears shared that same gray, lifeless venation found in his eyes. They hadn’t always, but the day a so-called lucky child turns thirteen is the day that Kaisers Blessing is bestowed, which allows the blessed to affect and be affected by magic. The “to affect” part is why enlistment is available only when one turns thirteen, and the “be affected” part is why nightmares plagued my dreams for years prior to the day. I was the only kid I had ever known to pray every night that I wouldn’t get power beyond my dreams, because I knew that no matter how much I could gain, I would lose something with it. Maybe it would have been something simple, like my sense of taste, or something lethal, like my heart’s ability to pump. All anyone knew was that the Mark was sometimes heritable, and that oblivion always took something important to those that were touched.
My Mark took my hearing. I always knew it would, despite my mother’s insistence that I couldn’t know and should stop trying to predict the unpredictable. Brighten up, she would say. Maybe I would get lucky, maybe the Triumvirate would smile on me, and I wouldn’t get any curse at all. Yet, we always knew I would despite my tearful prayers that bordered on begging, and I always knew it would be my hearing. Even when I was a kid, there sometimes a delay or a stutter in the way sound would hit me. Moments, just a few beats of a heart, and then I would hear what was said, but those few were enough for me to know what I would be forced to trade for magic.
It was the same magic that I used to finish the fight. My father stumbled to the ground, and I used the crimson stained sands against him. I had to reach inside my soul, past the mark that was left behind by oblivion and try to listen to something that I couldn’t possibly hear, but still understand. It was as if those endless grains of earthen memory, each one a silent witness to the world’s unspoken story, chose that moment to act against the man who painted them with blood, both mine and his. With a surprising speed that had to be attributed to material I was moving, the sand snaked over his prone body and began to constrict him, tightening with each breath.
“I yield.” He said with an almost impossible mixture of respect, love, and fury on his face.
I remained silent and still, save for the heavy breathing that came with the exertion of momentarily besting a master, even if he was holding himself back considerably. I knew his tricks. If he really was done, he would break out on his own. No amount of sand or magic that I could muster, or anyone for that matter, could hold the tempest that was Aegis down for long.
Seconds passed as he stared me down, and then he laughed. A short, bark of a thing, his laugh. Then he simply flexed, and the sand that I had ensorcelled was nothing more than dust in the sky as a howling gale exploded off him. My manas connection forcibly broke, I slumped back and fell to the floor from exhaustion. Elena rushed forward to check on me, her nervous mouth moving too quickly for me to decipher, as I saw my father’s violent façade break for a moment with a small smile.
“You’re almost ready. A few more months, at best, and then we can have a discussion.” The way his face shifted at the end of his statement was familiar, as it was the same grimace he always made when we spoke about my plans for the Academy, and my future.
He then spoke a few seemingly reassuring words to Elena before walking past me and into the bathhouse to clean up after our evening training. I waited for him to leave earshot, elongated by his uncanny ability to listen with the wind, and then groaned as loudly as I could manage.
That was not going to be a fun conversation.