There are moments in your life that act as a paradox of memory. It is a moment in which your mind believes you’re about to die when nothing is happening. The moment feels perpetual, the decisions you make feel life-changing, no matter how minute. Speaking the right words, looking at the person in front of you properly, even the consideration of how your past actions affect the impression of the people before you all cast a weight on whether you will expire in the next moment. Your muscles wind up with anticipation, and ache for a release that never comes, leaving you in throbbing pain all over. Your breath is short in your chest, caught in your throat. Your eyes water from the sheer amount of pressure welling within you. Thoughts cross your mind on whether you were right to take this path, whether you deserve this it. How lucky you are to have found it, and yet how unfortunate you feel in having stumbled across it. That perhaps this path is an illusion, and it is actually a punishment. Perhaps you are being fooled, and you are worse off than you were before.

This feeling lasts for days. Months. Years, even.

Then, the moment is gone. The memories of the cause, the fear, the thoughts, all get locked away deep within your body, so that your mind may no longer know it. And so you carry phantom glimpses fleeting in moments of the night, or in the midst of the marketplace, and you feel it like a stab wound to your chest that bleeds for days on end, and then it leaves you again.

This is anxiety.

This was Abel’s experience from the fateful day he lost someone he desperately tried to save. The moment he was placed in the carriage under Altiman Glass and lock and key, his mind churned. He could not speak, he could hardly eat, and his eyes were puffy with the grief he could not share nor relieve.

Dmitri attempted to continue instruction on the eventual interrogation awaiting Abel in the capital. It was uncertain how effective such demonstration proved, for his student remained completely mute and distant, retreating to the rhythm they held when they first set off on their journey.

The first time Abel could remember seeing the capital city was not until after he was released from interrogation. He had kept his head low throughout their entrance through the main streets, and counted the patterns of the tiled streets in front of him as he was escorted out of his enclosed carriage to a nondescript stone building that blended into the residential tenements surrounding it.

He could not recall the length at which he had remained in that building, only that he was met with no more than a few blank walls and a window into a hallway.

He was questioned by an officer with sharp features and a gentle voice who promised him safety and sanctuary and compromise as long as he cooperated.

Though, Abel noticed, this officer refused to smile. Her voice was the only consolation. It was lulling, but unnerving.

“Did I hear that right? Do you mean to tell us you lived in the Citadel?”

Shit. He didn’t mean to let that slip. But the insinuation stuck, no matter how he tried to deflect confirmation. The barrage of questions came after, and Abel could not answer a single one— not because he didn’t have the answers, but rather he couldn’t bring them to the forefront of his mind.

Perhaps his body refused him. After all, it could still feel the firm hands of his tribesmen on his shoulders as they consoled him adjusting to the first grueling months of their duties within the Citadel. He could hear the songs around battalion campfires to mourn for their dead, to celebrate their survival. In the midst of these questions, Abel thumbed his forehead, but no hints of pinching nerves or pain came from a circlet that was no longer there. He was free, for now.

And so “I don’t know” became his catchphrase.

“All I remember is the fields. They chain me with glass like you do. They… they mess with our heads.”

“Try to remember life within the walls.”

“I can’t!”

Abel couldn’t help it, the twist in his chest was too tight, and the thoughts swirling in his mind were too loud. He began to doubt if he had truly experienced battle before arriving here, in these four walls, or if those were all illusions his body built up within him.

“I must’ve seen mountains before, but I can’t seem to recall how. I can picture blue stone, with dark wood trees—“

“Those are the Setia Mountains. You saw them when you were coming into the city.” His officer muttered with frustration, her gentle tone falling away to a growl. “This is getting us nowhere. You told us what they did to you. You know the Caldon Kingdom.”

“I’m sorry. I just want sanctuary.” Abel’s tone took on a genuine plea for just a flash in that moment. It registered in the officer’s eyes for just a moment.

But it wasn’t enough.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

His wide-eyed restlessness made him look suspicious, like he had something to hide. Like he had a reason to still fear being released upon him. The suspicion was only amplified when reports of his little “incident” on the road from the battlefield to the Capital made their way to his interrogation officer’s desk.

So they began to turn to threats, fear, and violence.

He learned then that his interrogation officer refused to smile not because of circumstance, but rather she disliked the concept altogether, which only made him inclined to attempt smiling more. Which only gave him more bruises.

Abel was not smart.

He was merely stubborn, and loathed feeling trapped.

“The longer you prolong this, the longer this war drags on.”

“I was given sanctuary.” He repeated with a smile for the hundredth time after days of beating, starvation, and being kept within that simple, blank room, “Am I being lied to? I was a slave to them. What more could I know?”

And this hundredth time was different. He had expected Officer Rorin to act, to yell, or storm off. And while the growl in her voice in response was almost animal, she reigned the beast back in.

“You’re right to question us.”

Abel nearly dropped his smile out of surprise.

“You came all this way to be a civilian.” Her voice rumbled, low and gentle.

“You will see what our sanctuary provides. Perhaps then you’ll have reason to cherish it.”

And then he was returned to his room and left in a lull. A period of just blank walls. His hair had grown longer, falling in curled tufts across his brow and leaving a perpetual heat along the nape of his neck. His right arm ached deep into the bone, so much so that he stopped using it altogether. He could feel a click in his jaw whenever he attempted to smile. When did that start happening?

And during this time, he turmoiled. His mind turned over the fears for his flesh and blood, far from his reach. He played over his own words in his mind, assessing for any possibility that a slip could’ve caused bloodshed against his own kin.

And then Dmitri appeared again, almost like a dream.

“You’re being released.” Dmitri spoke into the blank room, and made Abel cry all over again. “We’re going home.”

Guilt crystalized in him, that he was to experience the promise of sanctuary and rest, as was promised to him, albeit for unscrupulous intentions.

It was in those words, of home that he finally concluded if he were to be so destined to be chosen, to carry the burden of this guilt, that he may damn well make the best of his newfound freedoms.

He was going to enjoy peace to the fullest, no matter what.

——

The first thing Abel thought when he exited the building…

What a mapmaker’s nightmare.

Setia, the City of Labyrinths, was a city raised by mages designed specifically to be maze-like to discourage invaders. Spires and gabled roofs of metal and clay dotted the landscape. Winding roads of cobble or river water snaked towards a grand lake the city rested on. Stairs led up and down the various levels of the city, and roads would often cross over each other in the form of bridges and tunnels, adding to the confusion. Each pathway was used to its fullest, with the bustle of working folk transporting goods, well-dressed passersby, and curious peeping children mimicking elderly people-watchers sitting along the benches squished in between. There seemed to be the general demeanor of intense focus typically endemic of big cities.

“You’ll get used to the layout.”

Dmitri and Abel tore through the river road through a small riverboat with a mage’s insignia printed on a panel attatched to the rear paddle, which, when pressed, propelled them forward at a lurching speed.

“Lieutenant…”

“You can call me Dmitri now.”

“It was horrible in there.”

Whether Abel was speaking of the warfront or the interrogation room, Dmitri did not know. He did not want to look at the bruise blossoming on Abel’s cheek, the hollow of his eyes.

He focused on steering instead.

“I’m sorry you were subjected to that. You deserve better.” Dmitri’s voice carried above the steady rumble of churning water around them.

“How do you know that?” Abel’s voice cracked, the weight within his chest strangling his words.

“You’ll find the answer to that yourself, Abel. I promise you.”

“You make a lot of promises.”

“You’re an honorary Fenharrow now. It comes with the territory.” Dmitri laughed.

“An honorary Fenharrow?” The river breeze tousled Abel’s hair across his cheek.

“Nobody in the empire remains without family. We have a robust system for adoption, integration, whatnot.” Dmitri gave Abel a gentle smile. “I offer you my guardianship, my name, and my status for you to start your new life in this city, if you have it.”

Abel should have been more aloof. He should have known Dmitri would be the one to present him the silver platter Officer Rorin promised.

And yet he could not deny Dmitri’s kindness.

“My new life…”

A silence passed between them. Abel’s mind couldn’t help but travel back to his kin, who died in his arms.

“Thank you, for trying, back then. Even when I threatened you—“

“Hah! That also comes with the territory.” Dmitri mused.

He then paused and gave Abel a once-over before continuing.

“You’ll be meeting another honorary Fenharrow soon. He’s a good kid. Around your age.”

Abel’s head perked to attention, a strange mix of hopeful and apprehensive. A new face. A potential first friend in this new life. A potential source of scrutiny.

“He’s also coming from a tricky situation. Not as tricky as a war, of course. He just got caught stealing from the inn, that’s all. But…”

Dmitri shrugged and wriggled in his seat, as if internally debating whether he should finish his sentence.

“… Let’s just say Neymar is quick to anger. Don’t take it personally.”

Abel struggled to piece together all the words that fell out if Dmitri’s mouth, his mind far too muddy to make any sense of it.

“This person stole from you…”

“Yep.”

“…And you welcomed him in?”

“Then it’s no longer stealing. It’s sharing.” Dmitri nodded.

Well.

An interesting addition to the silver platter.