—

Dear god, I wish that I’d never picked up those rings, now that I really think about what happened. It wasn’t worth the pain, to see as the world began to crumble around me. Mentally, I wasn’t there. Lessons bled together and tests became pieces of drawing paper.

—

The next few months went by quickly. I got a month's break, where I lounged around, did fencing lessons with the servants, and ate to my heart's content. Even when every day was packed with a new adventure, from wandering the gardens to climbing the castle’s towers, I couldn’t help but feel solitary, as if I was the only person in the world who could feel it. Where were my parents now? I couldn’t tell you then or now. They never told me if mom and dad died well or in the streets, or where the house was located. The only thing they wanted was for me to be happy and somewhat successful. I’d reached the top, it felt like.

The rings started to become boring to me, more like a danger than a wonder in the world. Magic came at a cost, I realized. Every time I used them, my mind would be drained of energy, always making me pass out immediately. That wouldn’t work in a fight. The investigation wasn’t going well either. With only a knife as a clue and suspicions, there was nowhere to base anything off of. Naturally, people thought it was me, but the king had dismissed it. I never got why Elrod took me in. He glared at my father like a drunkard, but to me as a god.

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There were many realizations as I grew up at the court; that everyone was insecure and did not care about others. The world needed to change, but how? I was a pitiful orc taken in probably as a publicity stunt or out of pity. My head kept on telling me this as if it was going to help me. However, I didn’t give up. Over time, I got better at the rings, most of the time at midnight.

After my 16th birthday, there was change happening around the castle. Economically and politically, the country was changing. Sumariya had become torn in two. One side wanted to gain more land, colonizing the nearby small country of Garsiona. King Elrod disagreed with the war, aiming for a peace treaty instead so more riches would be pumped into Sumariya. It was a stupid disagreement, I realize now.

With the chance of war, I started to learn magic from an official mage. It came to me naturally. The king’s mage would sit me down in the castle basement, by the dungeons, and make me repeat after him. Personality-wise, he was a recluse. His name was Jurin, born in the Fenarino Isle. Oftentimes, he would wear a purple shawl over a pristine white tunic and gray pants. Jurin wore no shoes but washed regularly, he’d told me. There’s nothing much to say about the lessons themselves. It was a lot of reading and barely any magic itself. When we did do actual magic, however, I felt like a god. The channeling fire was my expertise. This only furthered my practice on the rings. I never had felt so powerful. Everyone could do magic, though people rarely activated it. I had activated it with the rings, though even now I don’t know what had sparked inside me. I now think it was fate that activated the magic, that I was supposed to become the powerful person I was then. War had arrived then, and I was ready.