Hewelin Guntard loitered in the Mánfeld estate’s entrance hall behind one of the twelve pillars holding up the walkway above his head. A few precious glass windows near the roof admitted a little light and the many brass lamps hanging from beneath the walkway were unlit. The floor was decorated with ivory coloured wood depicting three bushels of wheat and a sickle. Servants scurried between shadows along the outskirts of the room, never daring to dash across the hall’s open centre.

Twenty of Duke Dolwillen Mánfeld’s one-hundred and fifty personal guards, stood around the hall dressed in yellow and silver livery. The guards were encased in mail, as well as a coat-of-plates, gorget, and plate armour on their arms and legs. Each carried a longsword, heater shield, ballock dagger, and a sæx.

Two servants jumped through the wicket gate set into the hall’s twelve-foot oak doors. They called three guards over, who helped them raise the heavy beam securing the entrance, and together, they hauled the massive doors apart.

A ragged menagerie of eight bloodied soldiers shuffled into the hall. Behind them, a half-conscious Cerddin Mánfeld, Duke Mánfeld’s only child, was carried in on a stretcher, his single, visible eye rolling in its socket. The rest of his face was wrapped in red-spotted bandages.

As the soldiers reached the hall’s centre, a pot-bellied Duke Mánfeld rushed in. He stood in the middle of the elevated walkway at the back of the hall and glared down at his prostrate son.

“Get up, you snivelling grub!” said Duke Mánfeld. “You can’t win the throne on your back.”

Cerddin raised his hand a little but it slumped onto his chest.

“What happened?” said Duke Mánfeld.

A soldier with his left arm in a sling stepped forward, “Twelve dead, your Grace, while facing a fifteen-foot lizard in Winterdún three weeks ago. The creature escaped.”

“Why were you there?”

“Lord Cerddin heard the lizard had been sighted by travellers using the Hrycgweg and hoped to kill it before they could be harmed. He believed the beast was responsible for some of the ‘strange happenings’ candidates are required to resolve to meet the King’s request.”

“Bah! I bet you snuck halfway into those sheep-riddled hills on a rumour seeking a cheap screw. Useless bastards.”

“Your Grace, we did no such thing. It was an honourable endeavour!”

“You failed and Cerddin has become a revolting cripple. I will have to win some other way. All survivors and the deceased’s kin will have their land given to more competent and less disfigured individuals.”

The soldier’s face twisted. His good arm hung rigid by his side while his knuckles whitened. After a minute, he snapped a salute and strode across the hall. His crisp steps echoed through the silent hall as he clanked towards the door. The remaining seven dumped Cerddin on the wooden floor and followed.

The young lord groaned.

Duke Mánfeld drew his sword and hacked at the walkway’s wooden railings, yelling. A shower of chips pattered onto the floor below. He paused his assault, “Guntard!”

Hewelin sighed, tugged the gold embroidered sleeves of his knee-length, black bliaut. Abandoning the anonymity of the pillar, Hewelin glided towards Cerddin while observing Duke Mánfeld.

“Your Grace?” said Hewelin.

Duke Mánfeld discarded his embedded sword in the railing. He clutched his head in one hand while the other snaked into his pocket.

Hewelin felt a sticky hand envelop his mind and suppressed a shudder.

Duke Mánfeld squeezed something in his pocket and black squiggles crept up his arm. His breathing slowed and his face relaxed.

Hewelin ground his teeth. If he keeps stealing my power like that, one of us is going to die. I can only hope it’s him.

“Take that thing away,” said Duke Mánfeld, while sweeping his arm to the side. “Then meet me in my suite.” He wrenched the sword from the ruined railing.

Hewelin bowed a precise thirty degrees, “Yes, your Grace.”

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Duke Mánfeld wandered off, waving his sword about as he slaughtered imaginary foes.

“Still with us, my lord?” said Hewelin.

Cerddin’s lone, bloodshot eye swivelled towards Hewelin.

He prodded Cerddin’s prone body and peaked beneath the bandages, “I can’t replace your eye, but I can remove the infection and seal your wounds.”

“Please,” said Cerddin, with a barely audible croak.

Hewelin traced symbols in the air above Cerddin and guided the surrounding magic into the symbols. The air shimmered with heat as the phantasmal patterns glowed yellow.

Cerddin’s body shuddered. Liquid beaded on the bandages and dripped onto the elegant floor. Flesh rippled beneath the wet wrappings. Armour rattled as it loosened. His pudgy face shrank.

“That’ll do,” said Hewelin. He yawned and scattered the bright haze. The hall seemed even dimmer than before, “I usually disassemble things, not squish them back together, so you’ll have a lot of scarring. Maybe you can find someone skilled enough to fix you completely, but I doubt it.”

“Thank you,” said Cerddin, sounding hoarse.

Hewelin chuckled, “I didn’t think the Mánfeld’s knew the word.”

“I remember my friends.”

“But not as well as your enemies, my lord. I am healing you for self-preservation, not gratitude.”

“My father doesn’t care if I live or die, but I do. I can’t make his life difficult if I’m dead.”

“Don’t reach too high, my lord.” Hewelin tapped the engraved wheat bushel with his foot, “The floor has ears.”

Cerddin snorted, “Fetch someone to carry me. We are done.”

Hewelin stared into Cerddin’s remaining eye.

Cerddin peered at the floor.

Hewelin smirked, “As you wish, my lord.” He beckoned three servants over, “I do hope you can see your goal to its end.”

Cerddin’s face reddened, “I will kill you too, Drýmann.”

Hewelin raised a single eyebrow, turned, and left the hall.

He knocked on Duke Mánfeld’s suite door.

“Get in here, Guntard.”

Hewelin entered. The receiving room walls were covered with the banners of the Duke Mánfeld’s sworn families. Duke Mánfeld sat in the corner of the room on a pile of yellow and green cushions, tossing a fist-sized chunk of yellow gemstone between his hands. A large, red lump flickered within the stone.

“Your son will live, your Grace.” Hewelin’s eyes flicked from side to side as he followed the stone. Each facet was patterned with arcane scrawls in his own handwriting.

“He’s not my son. I exchanged him for a shoddy title.”

“So his real parents are?”

“Dead.”

“Does he know?”

Duke Mánfeld shrugged, “You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Why tell me?”

Duke Mánfeld flicked a few of the symbols on the stone. A shower of red sparks sprayed from it and skittered over the floor.

Hewelin staggered. The sparks disintegrated into tiny piles of scarlet dust.

“Because you can’t do anything about it. I burned you at the stake for practicing your unnatural craft within sight of my carriage, yet you reassembled from the ashes, but when I flick this stone you fall to your knees. It’s truly marvellous.”

“I’ll die if you do that too often, your Grace.”

“I know. Perhaps I should have you make more of them and enslave a few others.”

“It took me a lifetime to create that much Feorhhord Gimcynn. Old age would claim you before I could make another. There isn’t enough magic about to condense another stone.”

Duke Mánfeld tucked the stone into the pocket of his light-orange doublet, “A shame, its possible applications are so,” he paused, “flexible. Agree with me Guntard.”

“You are correct, your Grace.”

Duke Mánfeld slipped his hand back into his pocket. Many different coloured strands of magic spiralled towards it as black veins crawled up his arm. “These black marks, what are they?”

“Heorþ aspect, or entropy and decay, your Grace.”

“Heorþ? Isn’t she the goddess of abundance?”

“Every aspect contains both sides of the coin, your Grace. Heorþ is the Mother. She represents Earth and Autumn, hence abundance and decay.”

“I thought your heartstone was made from Feorhlíf aspect though. The Sun God or some such rubbish: worshipped at the summer solstice, representing the apex of life, growth, and immortality.”

“Indeed, your Grace. Drawing magic through the stone should convert it all to Feorhlíf, not Heorþ. Perhaps you are talented, your Grace.”

“Will they harm me?”

“I live in hope, your Grace.”

“So they won’t, excellent.” Duke Mánfeld glared at Hewelin, “Get out.”

Hewelin bowed, and left.