I don’t remember.

How I ended up under this tree, or what I was doing before waking, is all beyond the point of my memory at the moment. With no other purpose in mind, I look to either side of me, both to find out my current condition and to look for a clue to answering the barrage of questions that have attacked my brain in waves like individual arrows.

“Where in the world…?” I mutter to myself as I examine the beautiful, flower-filled landscape. The smell of dew on crisp grass tickles my nose, while the trickling sound of running water entertains my ears similarly. “Is this a garden?”

Trying to stand up from my awkward position awakens a splitting pain that ravages my lower back. “That wasn’t the best position to lie down in, wasn’t it?” I groan to myself. It isn’t until I reluctantly reincorporate myself that I notice that splotches of brown and gray mire the white undershirt I had fallen asleep in. I brush off as much as I can from it, all the while looking around to see if anybody was watching.

This is when I first meet Daphne.

The moment our eyes meet, a young lady in a blue, jewel-encrusted dress dashes towards me, her long, wavy blonde locks trailing behind her and her heels clacking with every step she takes. I can’t put a finger on her age, but she doesn’t look much older than me. Eighteen, perhaps?

“It’s you!” she cries out. “You’re really here!” She embraces me and holds on a little more tightly than I originally expected her to. Regardless of whether she’s genuinely ignorant of my wheezing, she says, “I can’t believe you actually showed up!”

As she squeals in delight, I feel my nose wrinkling and shrinking. I’m not sure if it’s her perfume or her breath, but if her supernatural chokehold isn’t enough to choke the air out of my throat, whatever noxious fumes she emits are poisoning whatever’s left.

“I do not know how, miss, but sure enough, it appears I showed up…” I choke, prompting the young lady to release me from her vice-like grip. My knees immediately give way and I almost fall flat on my face while gasping and coughing violently like a dying carp.

It feels like forever, but once I finally feel my breathing pattern settling down, I turn my neck to meet this strange woman’s sapphire eyes and address her. “Where exactly did I show up… and who in the world are you?” I ask her.

Albeit not fading away completely, her smile mellows down a bit. “I’m sure you have many a question in your mind, but everything will be perfectly clear in a moment. For the moment, just know that I’m Daphne, and this is my home: Castle Blackthorn!” she finishes by making an extravagant gesture, raising both of her arms to the azure morning sky above us.

Okay, so this young lady is a noble of some rank, and I’ve suddenly appeared as a total amnesiac under a tree in one of its gardens. I think I can come to terms with this… little by little, hopefully. I wish I knew why and how I made it into this castle in the first place, but judging by the way things were going, I don’t think I’ll be getting an answer to that soon…

“Come on, friend! Father will definitely be ecstatic when he sees you finally showed up!” If she heard me groan at the mention of me "showing up" under the tree, she paid it no mind.

Daphne offers me her outstretched arm, expecting me to lock onto it like some sort of gentleman. Regardless of whether I have any experience in treating a noble lady like Daphne appropriately, I take her up on the offer. I don’t remember what social standing I possessed before I “showed up” in this castle, but this sweet lady is beautiful, so I find it in my best interest to at least stand on good terms with her. I wish her perfume smelled a little better, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I definitely looked more like the former.

The two of us walk down the castle hallways together. We pass many a knight, each much taller than me and clad in a full suit of armor. Daphne’s presence doesn’t seem to bother them at all, and many of them stop in their tracks to greet her. Immediately after she’s done bowing at each of them, I feel a chill up my spine, as if I can tell someone was looking at me.

“Am I doing something wrong?” I ask Daphne. “All these knights are looking at me funny.”

She giggles. “They’ve never seen me walk hand-in-hand with a boy my age before,” she whispers. “Since most of them have been around since before I was born, it’s probably a big deal to them.”

I blush a bright red and look down at my muddy boots to hide my embarrassment.

Daphne leads me up a staircase wide enough to fit an entire unit of fully armored knights side-by-side, and we stop at the very top. Before us stands a set of intimidatingly large double doors, tall enough to fit an entire unit of fully armored knights standing on top of each other’s shoulders. Two guards in thicker, spikier suits of armor, one on each side, stand watch in front of the double doors. I shiver, as it’s dawning on me these knights are of a higher ranking than the ones that were already glaring daggers at me in the hallway. Regardless, Daphne walks towards them and greets them with the same curtsy bow that she’d offered to everyone else earlier. Without saying a word, the knights step aside and even open the door for Daphne, who rushes in and motions for me to follow.

“Hurry!” she exclaims. “Father is waiting at the end of this room!”

I recoil, stunned. “What do you mean when you say he’s ‘waiting at the end of this room’!?” I exclaim. “Just what kind of man is your father…?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” a mischievous smile creeps its way up her cheeks as she spins on her heel. “I am the Crown Princess of the Kingdom of Blackthorn. My father, whom you’re about to meet, is the king! Wouldn’t it make sense to see him most often in a throne room?”

“You say that like it’s some sort of fun fact,” I tell her. “I never expected to meet a king today, much less wearing this hideous attire. I could actually lose my head for showing up with a dirty shirt!”

As Daphne walks into the throne room, I hastily try to follow her inside, but before I can even register them moving at all, the knights hold the tips of their silver spears to my throat. “No unauthorized entry!” They yell out at me.

“No, no, wait! He’s with me!” Daphne cries out, calling back her metaphorical dogs. The two flustered sentries huff and remove their weapons from my arteries.

I heave a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Daphne...” I tell her. “I really needed that.” Not a moment after, I feel a wave of dizziness take me over and my right knee soon gives way.

“Hey, are you alright?” she asks me, concern washing over her face as she knelt down to aid me. “Those sentries didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“I’m not sure,” I answer. “I felt something race through my body when I felt those blades pressing against my neck. It’s probably the chills.”

The look of worry on Daphne’s face fades away, and a gentle smile soon replaces it. She offers me my hand, and in one jerky motion, I feel my body shoot upward into a standing position. “Great to hear,” she tells me. 

I hear the loudest throat-clearing noise I can imagine echoing from the other end of the room. “Daughter,” says the gruff older man sitting in the far end of the room while turning to Daphne. “Who is this dirty beggar you’ve dragged into my throne room?” 

“So this is the king,” I mutter to myself. I make a mental note that the way his face curls in on itself when he gets mad makes him look like a total grouch, but the way his obsidian suit of armor almost glows on its own leaves me quivering in my muddy beggar’s boots. I’m almost sure he didn’t even grin when Daphne was born.

Daphne chuckles nervously. I even notice a drop of sweat rolling down the side of her head! “This isn’t a dirty beggar, Father. This is the hero of the prophecy! You know, the one you asked me to summon?”

“Pardon?” I ask. “I didn’t receive the memo.”

Suddenly, the king grew furious. I could have sworn I felt the room shake at this point. “Do you take me for a fool, Daphne!? I’ve squires with less muscle than this sorry excuse of a summon!”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

That must have hurt Daphne. According to the king, the reason I’m weak is that a shoddy summoner… summoned me. That should explain why I must have forgotten everything from my childhood. I’m from another world, aren’t I?

“Go back to your quarters, Daphne. You are to perform another summoning ritual under my supervision once I’m done with this failed byproduct.” He orders. “Guards!” 

“Jeez, you didn’t have to yell like that, Your Majesty,” I say, cleaning the inside of my ear with my grimy index finger. 

The two sentries from outside the throne room stumble in, their hands wrapped tight around their silver spear shafts. Without asking, they rush over to me and latch onto my arms, one for each, with enough force for me to feel the tendons in my shoulders splitting.

Daphne hangs her head and mumbles something to herself. I can barely make out her words. “Failed byproduct, you say…?” She clenches her fists tightly, and I can see a small trickle of blood trailing down her knuckles from where she’s digging her nails into her palms. She sniffles and purses her lips before turning back to her father, mirroring his fury in her swollen, watery eyes. “I can prove you wrong!” she screeches.

“Excuse me, young lady!?” exclaims the king, smashing the side of his fist against the armrest of his throne.

“This man is the hero of the prophecy,” she tells him solemnly. “I know. I had my doubts too until just a moment ago, when he said he felt something running through his body.”

“Something running through his body…” mutters the king. “Is this true, boy?”

I nod. “I’m still not sure what it was, but I think my body has felt fear before, and what I felt back there was not it.”

The king’s scowl of disgust turns into a wry smile. “Is that so? Can you show me?”

“What do you mean?” I ask him. “I don’t think I can really feel that way on command.”

The king grumbles. “If that’s the case, we’ll just have to replicate the conditions,” he explained.

“Excuse me?” I ask.

“Father, no!” I hear Daphne wail as she stretches her arm in my direction.

“What are you waiting for, you two nincompoops!?” the king roars at his two guards. “Drive a spear through his skull!” In response, the obedient guards shove me to the ground and leave me barely enough time to turn around and look up at them before pointing their spears in my direction, just like earlier. They turn to each other, and I take the moment to notice the apprehension in their quivering grip. Before I can voice my concern, however, I notice both of them taking a deep breath and raising their spears to deliver the killing blow.

In response, I thrust out my bare palms towards my two “opponents” and yell out in apprehension. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold it, you two!” My intentions were to get them to talk this out peacefully, but…

… by thrusting my palms towards the two guards like that, I repel their charge with a powerful shock wave of energy… a superhuman maneuver that I obviously did not know I could perform beforehand. It rockets both of the men who were after my life halfway across the throne room and roll for a moment or two before skidding against the carpeted floor, much to the shock of every other knight in the vicinity. “I’m terribly sorry, Your Majesty!” I exclaim, wailing nervously. “I can explain!”

Like hell I can!

He glares at me with a look of sheer enmity before turning to the two guards, who have been quickly reincorporating themselves with a cacophony of slices of steel suits of armor and awkwardly picking their spears back up, ready to charge at me once more. 

They glance apprehensively at their sovereign ruler, as if asking him, “Do you really want us to go at it again?"

The King motions towards them by tilting the right side of his head upwards a bit. “Go on,” His Majesty’s body language implies.

The two knights look at each other in a display of disbelief. One of them, the shorter of the two, shrugs comically, while his taller companion nods in agreement with whatever proposition he was just offered. The two assume another fighting pose, an action which prompts me to raise my voice once again.

 “Hey, time out!" I exclaim. "Don’t I get a say in this!? Didn’t I just prove my strength to you by knocking out those guys once already!?”

The two knights charge in my direction while I’m not looking, and before I know it, both Dumb and Dumber are too close for comfort. I gasp for air, clearly unable to activate my reflexes in time to understand that I have to dodge this attack or else I’m going to get skewered—

Oh, wait, I step away somehow. Another buff from being summoned, I guess? At least my body recognizes I’m not supposed to be pulling these sorts of tricks.

Within the blink of an eye, both knights collapse in a heap on the carpeted floor. Looking down at them, I stand in silence, taking heaving breaths. I turn to either side and heave a sigh of relief knowing they're still breathing and not mortally wounded. “What… what in the world did I just do?” I mutter as the wave of realization finally hits me. I know I lost my entire memories up to about an hour ago, but my muscle memory makes it clear as crystal that I’m not supposed to pull off what I just performed. 

A slow clap rings throughout the room. That macabre smile from earlier has just snuck its way back into the heart of the king.

“I… I don’t get it.” I mumble. “Weren’t you gritting your teeth at me just a moment ago?”

“Daphne,” he turns to his astonished daughter. “I apologize for underestimating your abilities. You have done a fine job of summoning this talented young man.”

“You were testing me, weren’t you?” I bark at the king. “You knew far well that she’d summoned the right guy.”

“I have no intention of revealing my intentions to anyone, much less an uncouth, rebellious stain on society like you.”

“Quit making me mad.” I snarl. “I don’t want to add regicide to my criminal record.”

“Speaking of your crimes, boy,” he announces. “I will pardon each of them and provide you with a noble title if you can prove your loyalty to me.”

“Humor me, Your Majesty. I’m interested,” I lie. I can hear Daphne’s breath grow dryer and faster in the background. 

“Your task is simple,” the king begins. “If you wish to prove your loyalty to me, you will pick one of the two knights you have just bested… and slice off his head.”

“Father!” exclaims Daphne. “Are you really ordering this boy to strike down a member of your royal guard while in a defenseless state!?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what he just said.” As I speak, I try to keep my voice as neutral as I can, such that neither the king nor Daphne can tell my intentions.

The king hands me a silver sword, saying, “Whenever you’re ready, child.” The king releases his grip from the sword, and a cool idea sparks inside my head. I swing the sword up and down, side to side. I’m testing its weight and durability.

Sure enough, it feels like putty in my hands. “It’s almost like I’m destined to wield this sword,” I joke. After making sure I can hold this thing up without an issue, I turn to the king and answer his sinister squint with a mischievous smirk of my own.

“Like hell I’m staining my hands with blood in your name.”

I turn around and swing my blade such that the tip points at the king. “Listen up! I don’t know who you think you are, but you’ve given me no reason to trust you or to believe any of this prophecy ox dung. This talk of heroes and nobility sounds fun, but it’s your problem, not mine.”

“So after all that, you still intend to point your blade at me? Don’t tell me you intend to kill me.”

“Honestly?” I ask. Daphne turns to me, so I nod at her. “I wish I had the guts. I’d be no better than you if I did, anyway.”

The king lowers his head and smiles. “You put up a good fight, Hero, but your hands are just too clean. It would be a waste to crush you right now, so you can leave this castle and explore to your heart’s content.”

“Do you mean it, Father?” asks Daphne. “Coming from you, this is an unnatural act of mercy you’re showing to this man.”

The king nods. “Do not mistake my pardoning of his crimes for mercy.” He glares at me. “Regardless of what path you take, the next time we meet, the fate of the entire world will be at stake. Do not disappoint me.”

“Sure, Your Majesty. Good luck getting there.”

“Daphne, could you please escort the boy to the gates?” asks the king. “I don’t want him wandering around where he shouldn’t be.”

Daphne wipes her tears with the sides of her bloody hands and bows. “Of course, Father. We’ll be taking our leave now.”

...

“So, do you have any idea what you’re going to do now that you’re free?” asks Daphne once we’re at the gates to the castle.

“No, unfortunately,” I tell her. “I don’t really have a goal or a purpose for life that I can remember. I’m definitely not going to follow that prophecy, though. Blazing my trail and becoming a hero on my own terms sounds much more fulfilling.”

Daphne giggles. “You were very brave and heroic in the throne room, so it doesn’t surprise me to hear you say that.” She reaches into the pocket of her dress and fishes out a small purse. “I’m really sorry, but this is all I could sneak out on the way. It should be enough to get you some decent lodging at the castle town’s inn.”

“Thanks so much!” I exclaim, taking the purple purse in the palm of my right hand. “Hey, this is heavier than I thought… You sure you want to give me all this?”

Daphne smiles. “Don’t let Father hear me say this, but I think you remind him of how he behaved when he was your age. So brash and confident, screaming out demands that he’s not sure if he can fulfill himself… If there’s anyone who can save him from himself, it’s you.” She then leans in close enough so I can smell that noxious perfume of hers one last time and drops a sloppy kiss on my cheek. “Godspeed, Hero. May our paths cross again for the better someday.”

As Daphne steps into the castle, I notice the drawbridge raise and the gates close, leaving me stranded on top of a hill in the blazing midday sun. Looking down at the bustling castle town, I feel senses of both nervousness and dread simmering in the pit of my stomach.

Speaking of my stomach…

“Yeah, I should probably get a bite to eat first.”