Chapter 2-The Boy Who Lived

The first sounds the boy heard were the sounds of birds chirping and trees swaying in the wind. The sound was peaceful and tranquil. The boy could fall asleep to these sounds any day.

‘Wait. There aren’t any trees near the castle!’ the boy thought, and his eyes immediately flew open. The environment he was in was nothing he had ever been in before. The boy had only been out of the castle a few times in his life and the outside world was terrifying for him.

He urged his body to get off the ground, but it didn’t come without a price. The moment he got up from the ground severe pain came from his back. “AH!” the boy shouted in pain; he was not used to this kind of pain. It was incomparable to the scraped knees and cuts he got from falling on the castle floors. The boy was surprised not only was he injured but it seemed he was not at the castle anymore. The last thing he remembered was the bright light from the sky and then darkness.

‘Whatever that light was might have made me go unconscious.’ With the light as a beacon of memory the boy started to remember everything that had happened before then. The running through the scorched castle, seeing his father valiantly fighting away the invaders, Adam and the other man showing up and killing the castle guards, and then his father running away towards them to fight. “no” the boy kept on repeating as he remembered all the events, especially being told about the death of his mother. The probability of his father being killed also was very high. Raven was a strong warrior, and the boy knew that, but he also knew that Raven wasn’t that strong. A force of over 100 men was nothing to his father, all he would need was time but the two men at the front were no regular soldiers. The boy knew from the presence they gave off that they were very different from the soldiers, they had the same presence as his father.

Tears were falling from the boy’s eyes. He had never dealt with loss before, so this was a very different feeling from what he was used too. The boy sat there for over 10 minutes, kneeling on the ground crying and weeping into his hands. Eventually though his eyes ran dry, and his voice grew hoarse, he could not make a sound. He stopped and looked up, a memory resurfacing in his head about something his father had said. The memory that resurfaced was not one that gave him hope or assurance, but it showed him what he should do, “There is nothing we can do now”, that was what he remembered. Though his parents may be dead, and his legacy destroyed, there is nothing he can do to save them and change what has happened.

And so, he pushed down the emotions that wanted to find their way out, he closed himself off and tried to forget what had happened. He eventually stood up and looked around. The forest he was in did not look familiar at all. The country that the boy and his family were from was called Salir and there were many forests around the land it contained. Many of them were dangerous unless they were small and close to a city or sometimes a town.

This one though looked huge, any direction he looked were trees tens of feet tall and some of them reached the triple digits. It was also very hard to see through the immense flora the forest contained. It was safe to say that the boy was lost in the forest. Another thing that made the boy’s stomach drop was that Jameson was nowhere to be seen. It seemed like the light did not take them to the same spots. This was not a good situation because Jameson had a sword to protect them both and the boy did not possess a weapon because of his status as a young master. Why would he need to carry around a sword in his own home?

“Well, I can’t just stand here. Ill starve” the boy said and seemingly picked a random direction. He walked towards that direction and kept on walking. The boy might have picked it randomly but subconsciously a pattern immerged. The way he picked was the one that had the least amount of noise coming from it. He walked away from the chirping birds and the sound of the trees swaying and walked deeper into the forest. This wasn’t a conscious decision but an instinctual one.

As he walked into the forest, he started to pick up on the pattern that led him here. “This cant be good” the boy said as he started to notice the forest getting darker and quieter. That’s then he heard a loud growl that shook his whole body. It wasn’t the kind of growl that a wolf or small and medium sized beast would make, it was the kind of sound that shook a whole forest. All of the trees started to shake, and all kinds of small nocturnal animals started to hide wherever they could. When they couldn’t find a spot in a tree they would start to dig into the ground, some of the animals’ paws and fingers started to bleed but they kept on digging worrying for their lives.

This sounded an alarm in the boy’s head as it meant that a predator was approaching. The boy might have stayed in the castle most of his life, but his parents still gave him an education from some of the best teachers in Salir. He wasn’t stupid and was a fast learner, but the best teacher was experience. So, when he until he experienced this, he would not know what to do but now since he did, he knew he had to hide. Fast.

The boy looked around for a tree with a big enough hole in it to hide in, but there was not tree big enough near him. So instead of waiting there for his impending death he ran deeper into the forest. The forest was getting darker and darker, and it was getting harder to see. He was still running getting farther away from the continuous growl coming from the opposite directions until he couldn’t hear it anymore. Then he went head on with a tree. The boy could not see and in a forest with trees the size of redwoods, running blind was a terrible idea.

The hit knocked the boy unconscious and he started to dream about his life, mostly about his time with his father and their guards visiting other cities for diplomatic relations. One memory stood out though. The memory that resurfaced was from the time he visited the capital of Salir with his father a few years earlier.

“Father, when are we going to be done with all these meetings. I hate talking to the other children, they make fun of me.” The boy said starting to cry.

“Don’t worry my son” Raven said “They are just jealous that you are an Odysseus, our family has been around longer than theirs by hundreds of years. They are just mad that you are true nobility.” This made the young boy feel better but not much better, he was still sad he couldn’t make friends his age.

Raven and the young boy were walking the town square with a few guards behind them. All of them were users of this strange power Raven wielded. The young boy had been interested in what it was but whenever he asked his father what it was, he told him not to worry and he would always say “You’ll find out when your older”. He eventually lost interest in this, typical for a kid that just entered double digits.

Raven and the boy were walking when a young girl ran into the boy. The force from her running knocked over the young boy and made him tumble for a little bit, in the process the boy had broken his wrist.

When he got up, he could see the girl get back up also, she had ragged clothes on and looked very malnourished she also looked like she was around the boys age. She was bleeding from her elbow and her left eyebrow had split open due to another injury she received earlier. The boy saw her condition while he was keeping from yelling due to his, he felt bad for her. She looked like she has had a hard life.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

All of this had happened in a second and after the second had passed the guards that were a part of the Odysseus family yelled and ran to grab her. That was when Raven stuck out his hand and let some of his golden aura out towards the guards.

“Don’t Touch her” Raven said in a stern voice. He then moved towards the stunned girl, she knew she had messed up and ran into the wrong person. She was just trying to escape but it seems like luck wasn’t on her side today. She looked at the man’s armor and saw the insignias on the man’s armor. She knew the man was from a noble family in an instant. She lowered her head, waiting for the punishment she would receive, and the punishment nobles give was usually harsh because of their arrogance. The punishment she thought she would receive would be nothing less than a horrible death. So, she lowered and accepted her death.

But the unexpected happened next, Raven came over and laid his hand on her head and said with a smile “Are you okay? That cut on your eyebrow might get infected if it isn’t properly inspected and treated. If you come with us, we can give your wounds the help they need to be healed.”

The girl looked at Raven and started crying, she kept on repeating that she was sorry for running into the boy. Raven told her that it was alright and that no one died so it wasn’t serious enough to cause anger. The boy watched this from the side and felt jealous himself about his father taking care of the girl when he broke his wrist and was bruised and bleeding from some scrapes also.

After Raven stopped talking to the little girl, he noticed something, she had pointy ears. They were small points, but it couldn’t deny the fact. “You’re an elf? Oh, I understand.” Said Raven, his expression falling as he got to the end of the sentence. There were no native elves in Salir, it was a human dominated country. Salir was also very racist when it came to anyone besides humans, it also supported slavery and it is one of the most profitable sources of business for Salir’s economy. So, the only solution for her being in Salir and looking so ragged is that she was brought here as a slave.

Just after Raven connected all the dots, someone came yelling through the crowd. The man that was yelling came to the scene of the hurt noble boy and the noble man in front of the slave girl. He was surprised that there were nobles walking through the street but more surprised his slave was involved in what happened. From what he was seeing he guess that his slave girl caused the incident and went over to her and the noble man.

He grabbed the girl’s head and lowered it forcefully and said “I am so sorry sir; I should not have given this girl the amount of freedom she had. If you let me, I will punish her severely for whatever she did.” The man said this with his head lowered also, but while his head was lowered, he looked onto the noble man’s armor. He was interested on why the noble man was wearing armor but didn’t ask because the insignia on it drew his attention. The insignia on the man’s armor was a of a Lion. The Lion was inside of 3 swords crossing each other and on top of all of that was a crown. The crown itself was enough to show that this man was close to the king, but the Lion drew most of the attention from the slaver. The only noble known for a Lion was Raven Odysseus, one of the kingdoms top powers and the advisor of the king.

After the slaver saw this, he immediately said aloud “I will kill her immediately Sir Minister, but please spare me and my families’ lives!” he said while getting on his knees. When the boy saw this, he was surprised because he didn’t know what his father did for the kingdom.

Raven looked down at him and said “Get up. No one will be dying today; it was just an accident. But I do think you should get this girl cleaned up. Its already cruel enough that we support slavery so the least you can do is to feed and clean them.”

“Of course, I would sir, but I do not have the money for it, since the tensions between the Salir kingdom and the Alfnor kingdom are lessening the demand for slaves is non-existent in the capital. I also don’t have enough money to transport all my slaves to places where they could be sold. So, I am stuck sir” said the slaver being as genuine as possible.

“Ok I see, take this then. I will take the girl and you can use this money to feed and dress your other slaves.” Said Raven as he handed the slaver a bag full of gold. “But if I see that you did not feed your slaves and only spent this money on yourself, then I will have you hung in the middle of the square.” He said this last part with a little hostility. The slaver understood and left. After that Raven told the guards to take the girl to the nearest orphanage and to get her new clothes and food.

In the end it was only the boy and Raven. They kept on walking towards the small shops and markets at the square before the boy asked Raven “Father, why did you go to her before me. I was much more hurt than her. Did I do something, was it punishment?” the boy looked up at his father with a questioning look. He was still hurt, and his father hadn’t said anything about him getting medical attention.

“Son, us nobles don’t have the same mindset we had at the beginning of the kingdom. We used to be righteous, we honored legacy but did not discriminate, we cared for the people we ruled and knew that they would be the future of the kingdom. We were a better people. Somewhere in history we lost that. Now I try to bring it back every now and then, it is hard, but it isn’t impossible.” Raven said this while looking forward. He then looked down at the boy and said, “I did not go to you immediately because naturally you being my son means that you have a stronger body than normal people but also because even if we are hurt, it is our responsibility as the protectors of this kingdom to help our citizens before we help ourselves.”

The boy then awoke.

There was a small animal nibling at his leg, ripping pieces of his skin off. When the boy saw this, he immediately hit the animal making it scurry away. The boy then got up and examined himself and his surroundings. His leg wasn’t bad but was bleeding. He took of a piece of his shirt and rapped it around the wound. It took a pretty big piece of his shirt since all he was wearing was an undershirt and a pair of cotton pants. He had been sleeping before all of this.

He then looked around and nothing had changed.

‘This damned Forrest never ends, huh?’ the boy had just noticed that the growling had stopped. ‘Must have happened while I was asleep. Ow, my head hurts so bad’ he said while rubbing his head. The tree had not been so soft. He eventually stopped rubbing his head and walked through the pain. He walked and walked. His legs were sore and were slowly getting sorer every step he took. The boy stopped to sit and rest for a while. He did not know how long he was in the forest, but he knew he had been walking for a good 4 hours. He felt like he was going insane.

The boy then stumbled upon a wall of trees. The wall of trees was so large that head to crane his neck all the way up to try to see the top and even when he did, nothing changed. He then looked left and right, and it looked like the wall curved but it still went on for at least a kilometer each way. This surprised the boy because he had never seen something like it. The boy weighed his options and after a little bit of contemplating later, he decided to walk through the wall of trees. He would rather see what’s on the other side then die of dehydration.

The boy walked forward and kept on walking through the wall of trees. He would go around one and then meet another. He would then go around that one and then, guess what, there was another. This went on for 20 minutes.

‘I might kill myself before I reach the end’ the boy thought, laughing a little but deep down he knew if he couldn’t get out then he might actually die. This sobered him up and made him serious, he could not die of dehydration in the middle of a forest. How would his father look at him if he did. ‘Not proud, to say the least.’

After this thought, a light broke through the leaves of one tree. The boy started to run towards it an when he reached it, he looked out from the tree. What he saw surprised him though. There was land with trees but less than the wall, it looked just like the forest before the wall but what was surprising was that the wall actually surrounded the land inside. The boy could see the wall surround the big area. The inside of the wall was at least 4 kilometers wide and 4 kilometers tall, but that was just from what he could see.

But one thing that made the boy’s heart sink was that there were rope bridges and houses made on and between the trees.

He had found a hidden Elf village.