CHAPTER 1

Lucan slid his plate forward after inhaling the last bit of his breakfast. As always, he was the first to finish. His father, Sir Golan Zesh, was glaring at him while eating his meal.

Thomas, their steward, had eaten less than both of them. The older man had lost the last bit of color in his hair, and what remained of its gray, balding form was combed back immaculately. He’d been his father’s attendant since before he had been landed by the king, and he had continued to serve the family afterwards.

His father’s men-at-arms were seated around the rest of the long table. Lucan himself was seated on his father’s right, and Thomas was on the knight’s left.

The men-at-arms lined the rest of the table, and they were close to finishing their meals. Good, that meant he didn’t look entirely like a savage. But he had a library to get to and a rare book to read for the hundredth time.

Father had called the wandering collector who’d sold him the book a charlatan, but Lucan might as well have been born with a book in his hand. He couldn’t be fooled easily, or so at least he hoped. He made to get up from his chair but a voice stopped him in his tracks.

His father cleared his throat, his eyes still fixed on him. The king’s knight was closing in on his fortieth winter, and his hair and thick mustache were dark, unlike Lucan who’d gotten his mother’s chestnut hair. “Where are you going?” he said. “Have you forgotten what today is?”

Lucan swallowed the last of his food. “I have not. But there’s still time. I will spend it in the library.” It wasn’t much of a library in truth. He’d taken a small chamber, turned it into a study, and stacked all his books on shelves inside.

“There’s none,” his father said, his countenance oddly severe. He wasn’t a cruel man, but he could be frightening when he thought Lucan was being senseless, and he often did. “I have brought a ritualist.”

Lucan’s jaw slacked. A ritual…for him?

How much coin had his father prepared for this?

Lucan himself had been anxious about his Elder Blessing for months, even if he’d acted otherwise unconcerned while burying his nose in one book or another. How many Skill slots would his Blessing allow? His father had been a prodigy, blessed with four Skill slots without any assistance, but his passed mother had been a commoner with only one.

He banished the memories that came when he thought of her. They would only pain him. But the banishment didn’t work. He still remembered her handing him his first book, her warm smile urging him to embrace that which she hadn’t had the luxury to enjoy at his age.

Lucan shut his eyes and focused on the present.

He’d been hoping to be like his father, or at least to get three slots. The latter was what was expected among nobles. But hope was something and what the Elder Roots decided for you was something else. If his father had prepared a ritual for him, then Lucan could–if he was fortunate–be allowed one more skill slot than what he would have gotten otherwise. He daydreamed of what it would be like if he inherited his father’s talent and received the benefits of the ritual above it. Five skill slots. He would be the talk of the kingdom. But the costs…

“Father, truly?” he said. “How?”

“That is to be discussed later,” his father said with finality. “Now you only need to think of your Blessing.”

Lucan nodded with vigor. He glanced at his empty plate and then at all the other plates on the table which were still not empty. Impatience was eating at him already.

His father sighed, noting his excitement. “I suppose there’s cause for haste.” He stopped eating and stood up. Everyone at the table dropped what they had in hand and got to their feet as well. “The ritualist should be waiting at the sapling. Shall we go?” He allowed a bit of mirth to seep through his features.

Lucan repaid it with a wide smile. “Yes, Father.”

Soon, his father was leading their party out of their small stone keep. He’d told Lucan that it had cost their family a small fortune just to build one as small as this. The keep was surrounded by a wooden palisade to protect it, not that anyone could easily climb up the man-made hill it was built on without coming through the walkway that connected their keep to the settlement. The keep sat at the zenith of their motte-and-bailey, the settlement wearing it like a crown.

His father led them through the wooden gate of the palisade and down onto the walkway made of rough planks that eased the steep descent of the hill. They soon reached the small moat that surrounded it, and the walkway morphed into a wooden structure that was made to support the hardwood drawbridge that covered the gap. It was already lowered and they promptly passed over it. The rest of the walkway opened up into the bailey, which mostly housed their craftsmen and most prominently contained a stable, a smithy, a small barrack, an even smaller inn, and a large cattleshed.

Most of the bailey’s inhabitants were up early as was expected, and they greeted him and his father as they passed, promptly joining their procession at the tail. He received a lot of ‘Good fortune’ and ‘May the Gods give you a wide berth’ as he walked through the empty flat strip that counted as a street between the man-made hill and the bailey’s wooden gatehouse. The bailey itself was surrounded by a high oaken palisade, and its gatehouse supported another hardwood drawbridge that crossed the bailey’s moat.

His father, Sir Golan of House Zesh, headed the procession, followed by Lucan, Thomas, and the five men-at-arms. Behind them, came the inhabitants who’d caught onto their passage.

Once they got through the gatehouse and over the drawbridge, Lucan gazed at the flowing body of water that was a small distance from the motte-and-bailey. It was too wide to call a stream and too narrow to call a river, though the people called it a river regardless. A boat could float down the river, but a barge wouldn’t be able to evade the few rocky outcroppings or the mud islands. That was why they received no trade through it.

On the other side of what Lucan knew was originally an ancient Imperial canal, farmland sprawled into the distance, interspersed with barns and houses. Peasants dotted that farmland, likely having begun working their fields at dawn. Lucan’s household had still been waking up at that time to break their fast.

A sturdy wooden bridge crossed the river from their side of the canal to the other. Their procession crossed it and converged on the sapling. It stood near the dirt road that cut through the farmland, shadowing the canal which came from the northwest.

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It was called a sapling, Lucan mused, but it was taller than any tree in the vicinity. Its bark was gray, edging on white, and its branches were bare and bony. This was what happened when you planted a small piece of bark from the Elder Roots in fertile soil. The Roots were dubbed thus after the long ancient Elders, who’d disappeared before his people’s arrival on the continent, leaving only their grand monuments behind.

The sapling grown from that piece of bark would keep growing until the land could no longer support it, then it would shrivel and die. Then they would bring another piece and plant it at the same spot to grow until its similar and inevitable death. It was given a wide berth by the surrounding farmland, as it often killed anything grown near it.

Now, after his sixteenth winter, he would get his Blessing from this sapling.

Under the sapling, a man in dark robes pored over a large circle drawn from smaller circles on the dirt. A ritual.

As they got closer, Lucan could see that the circles were painted with purple ink, likely made from the blood of a Labyrinth beast. The ritualist greeted his father as he noticed their arrival. “Sir Zesh.”

“Mage Yurev,” his father said. “How goes the preparation?”

“All’s well. The circle is prepared. With the orbs we can begin,” the ritualist said. He was a short man, barely Lucan’s height, and quite a bit shorter than his father. His hair was a dirty brown covered by the hood of his robes. Some of it was matted to his forehead.

His father gestured to Thomas who had an unusually large pouch on his belt. Their steward took it off and stepped forward, handing it to the ritualist.

Mage Yurev pulled a golden orb out of the pouch. It was metallic and round, except for the part where the frozen impression of a screaming face pushed out against its surface from the inside, as if trying to break out. A God Orb, Lucan thought. A fortune no wider than your palm. The Orb would have cost at least two Royals. Many of those who earned them kept them for themselves. You didn’t come across a Herald beast every day, and there was nothing to ensure that you would be able to kill it if you did.

The ritualist put the orb in one of the smaller circles at the edge of the larger one. He took out another orb and put it in another circle. Then he took out another and another and another. Six orbs in total were spread around the circle. He turned back to Lucan’s father and said, “If you will give him the last one, Sir.”

Lucan’s father nodded. Then he opened his own pouch and took out an orb that widened Lucan’s eyes in spite of him. The orb had the impression of two screaming faces. A Twice-Souled Orb. It had to be immeasurably more valuable than the already expensive Orbs that were present.

His father handed it to him, and Lucan received it reverently, softening its already slow landing into his palm by bobbing his hand down with its weight. It was exactly as large as his palm, and heavy. The dark gold metal was smooth and cold to the touch.

It took a moment for Lucan to come out of his thoughts to see that everyone around was looking at him. A crowd of peasants had formed a circle around the ritual, along with those who’d followed them from the bailey. Closer was the ritualist who was gesturing for him to walk into the ritual circle.

Lucan glanced at his father, who nodded at him firmly, then stepped into the circle, making sure to avoid trampling any of the lines. The ritualist pointed to the exact middle of the circle and Lucan complied. “Sit.”

Lucan nodded and sat down cross-legged.

“Hold the Orb steady, close your eyes,” the ritualist said.

Lucan cradled the Orb in two hands and closed his eyes. He heard the murmurs of the crowd. A stiff breeze invaded his clothes, quickly turning into a tempest that buffeted him. His eyes fluttered but the rough voice of the ritualist stopped him from opening them. “Be at ease.”

Lucan tried, but his flesh was beginning to burn and he felt as if liquid fire was burrowing under his skin, expanding through his body before settling into a hot soreness all over.

“Get up,” the ritualist said, a hasty note in his voice. “Your body will not bear it for long. You must touch the sapling now.”

Lucan opened his eyes. The circle that had been drawn with beast blood was gone and so were the Orbs that had been placed on it. He realized that a weight had also disappeared from his hands, and he looked down, seeing that his own Twice-souled Orb was gone as well without him noticing. Something else immediately caught his eye. His skin was glowing with lines of red. His breath caught and he stared at the lines. They were an unintelligible mix of circles and runes, all linked together and extended all over his body, their shine apparent even from beneath his clothes.

“Move,” the ritualist commanded, bringing him out of his trance. The cowled man was standing over him and pointing towards the gray tree.

Lucan hopped onto his feet, nodding and stumbling towards the Elder Sapling. The tree was left out in the open, but it was still surrounded by a small wooden fence engraved with a simple bronze enchantment to prevent children from ruining their prospects.

He stepped past the open gate and walked under the bare gray arms of the sapling, reaching its trunk and laying a hand on the rough bark.

It was as though every muscle in his body seized up. He convulsed for a moment, his vision going white, and then he came back to himself panting with his back bent over and his hands on his knees.

He heard someone come up behind him and turned to see his father flanked by the ritualist. “Well?” his father asked.

Lucan gulped and called it from within him. The Elder Blessing. A stone tablet faded into sight for his eyes alone. Carved into it were the aspects of his Blessing.

Race: Human

Level: 1

Vital Orbs: 1

Mind and Body

Physique: Basic 0/1

Spirit: Basic 0/1

Skills (3) 0/100

He eyed his level first, which didn’t seem askew, thankfully. It happened from time to time, particularly if a child touched the sapling too early in their life. They would have no levels and no slots. A premature Blessing could ruin one’s life. Next were the Vital Orbs. They were the true power that would fuel his advancement, and he would gain more and more as he leveled up. If he were to gain his second level soon, he would earn two more Vital Orbs, and three on his third level. The only other common source of them was the ruinously expensive God Orbs he’d just burned through in the ritual, though that wasn’t their most important use.

Lucan pressed his lips as he came upon his skill slots. Three. Just three. If this was a successful ritual, then he’d originally had two slots, and the ritual had supplemented that with one more. If it hadn’t, which was difficult to prove, then he’d had three regardless. But he’d expected more. Unfortunately, if he ever wanted to increase his number of slots to four, he’d have to expend one hundred Vital Orbs to do it.

Now, he didn’t know whether to bear with his dismay or brace for his father’s.

He dismissed the manifestation of his Blessing and looked towards his father, avoiding the knight’s eyes. “Three.”

His father tried not to look disappointed but Lucan caught the telltale signs coming over his face before the knight mastered them and nodded with a set jaw. “Good.”

“Thank you, Father.”

His father still didn’t favor him with a smile. “Come with me. It is customary for you to be introduced to your duties after your Blessing.” He turned around and walked back towards the bailey, naturally expecting Lucan to follow.

He did.