The gun fires and explodes in my hand as the shot flies over the crowd. The tip of the rusted gun shatters and sends pieces flying as I drop it from shock. I fall back and land with King Suldar Grundarin’s sword jutting in my back. People scream. A few run in terror, but most simply freeze.

I struggle to stand, to move, to feel anything. My vision blurs and I feel consciousness itself slip away. But I manage to will myself to push myself upright and stagger away from the statue, barely able to stay on my feet.

I stumble further away from the statue, picking up the remnants of the gun and taking a breath as I realize the crowd has parted even further from the Monument. I pant at the sight of hundreds of wide-eyed faces waiting to see what caused this thunder on a cloudless day. Only the steady tick-tick-tick of the massive spinning waterwheel prevents absolute silence from dominating the square.

Raising the ruined weapon in the air, I take a deep breath.

“War is wrong!” I shout, this time being heard by all present, including the few guards now running for help. “This is Grundar’s future, a rotting shell of its former power.” I toss the gun to the ground. It breaks in three crumpled pieces, and people jump back in fear it might blast again.

“Prince Millar must stop this war against Nardor for the good of both the Nardorish and the Grundarins. I know you think that war is natural, that it is for the good of a nation. But you have to realize that Nardor, Sever, even the peoples of the other continents, they’re no different than you or I,” I say, sweat beginning to make smears on my greased face.

The people remain frozen and, hopefully, take in my every word.

“They’re people, with wants and hopes not too different from ours. All our wars do is feed our prosperity with their suffering,” I continue.

Mounted officers in dark green, flattened hats gallop from the main street leading to the citadel, the pa-da-dum of their horses’ metal shoes the only sound other than my voice.

“This nation talks of war with Nardor as being good for the people. But what then? You’ll just move on like when Shalem, Gale, and all the other parts of Grundar were taken,” I say.

I lick my lips and fight back my anger, controlling my tone and looking into the eyes of the people who call to me for leadership.

“For the longest time, those places were treated and hated just like Nardor is now,” I say, and make a fist of despair thinking of Len and his elders who might have been mistreated by my conquering fathers. “Only after a new enemy comes do they gain prosperity. Only after Gale and Mylea were taken was Nardor an enemy! What happens when all of Nardor, of Sever, of all the nations come under our control? Does that mean we win something, like a contest?”

The hat-wearing men dismount and push through the crowd. At their head is a man with a dark blue cape.

“Does that mean Grundar will prove something to the world?” I continue. “I know Prince Millar will stop this war. But you have to do something as well. You have to want the wars to end. You have to want to look for another meaning in life than taking wealth and prosperity from others for your benefit. There’s so much more out there that we’re a part of, and only when we realize that a Grundarin, a Nardorish, a Grundlin, a Severine, all of us are no different and need help.”

The men in the flattened hats come closer and push through. The people part and let them pass.

“We need a better life. Humanity’s purpose in this universe is not to make war. We have a better purpose to fulfill,” I say, and pause, waiting for my words to set in.

The people look at each other. I hope my words have an effect. I hope I’ve changed people’s minds. I hope that they can see the world as a whole now.

A woman, maybe a few years older than I, cups her hands and shouts, “What purpose is that?”

I open my mouth to respond. I know what to say, but a sudden thought freezes my tongue. Wide-eyed with this new revelation, I can do nothing but say the words, “I don’t know.”

Shhhhink. A blade is thrust in my direction, held by an unshakable, gauntleted hand. “Come with us,” the man says. He holds the sword steady and firm as his dozen men around him put hands to hilts. He’s wearing the flattened hat of Eldar’s Elites, but with one difference: a dark-blue cape held on with a pin engraved with the symbol of Grundar. It’s Prince Eldar, my one-year-younger brother.

“Eldar, just let me—” I begin.

“You are guilty of public disturbance and attempting to entice rebellion. Lieutenant Zin,” Eldar says, and nods toward one of his men. Zin pulls out shackles and steps up to the Monument. He has to shake his head a moment, unused to the wariness.

“Eldar, wait!” I cry.

“Don’t call me by my first name, traitor,” Eldar bites. At those words, the crowd erupts into a roar of hate. Shouts come at me from all directions, threatening words of anger.

I pick out the voice of the woman as she yells, “Coward!”

A man cries, “Spy! He’s a spy!”

And many, many more shout defiantly, “Victory for Grundar! Victory for Grundar!”

I have no chance of talking my way out of being arrested or mauled by the now wild civilians.

Zin holds out the shackles. “Come on, you Nardor spy,” he says, and puts a hand out to grab me, still shaking from the Monument’s effects. I duck down and push him back, swallowing the draining of the Monument with a reinforced will.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I’m not a spy!” I shout. But there is no talking my way out of this.

I snatch up the handle piece of the gun and run. On the way, I pull Eldar’s cape over his head and knock him over.

I don’t get far as a wall of angry citizens blocks my path. “Move!” I shout, “or I’ll shoot!” I point the gun at the people. It’s nothing more than a rotted handle with a broken tip. They saw it explode, but don’t know it’s broken. The people part.

Constantly shifting and spinning to make sure everyone gets a taste of danger, I make my way to a street. As I do, I stare back and see the angry faces. I’ve questioned their goals; I’ve questioned their very meaning in life. I’ve kicked at the pillar of their lives and they don’t want to see what happens when it falls.

“After him!” Eldar shouts, angrily throwing his cape back off his face.

The crowd parts even further to let Eldar and his men through.

I charge the crowd in front of me with a vicious shout and push and threaten my way to the nearest street. It’s nothing more than a thin alleyway, but I take it and run as fast as I can, quickly rounding a corner.

“Crush my strength!” I shout as I try to figure out a way to get back to the citadel unseen. Eldar’s Elites are too good at tracking to be able to lose on foot. I’ve got to improvise.

I see a drainpipe hanging from the gutters of a nearby stone building. Hearing shouts of pursuit behind and in front of me, I jump and start climbing the pipe. As I near the top, slipping only once, I hear Eldar approach.

“There he is! Bows now!” he shouts as I reach the roof.

“Back away!” I shout, pointing the gun at my brother. “Back away or I’ll…” The men pull their strings back and aim. I dive to the roof as arrows ricochet off the edge and fly into the air where I’d been. Apparently they don’t care about the gun.

I get up and run down the long building, its flat, clay tiles warm from the sun. It ends on the main street leading into the square. It’s a big building, but not standing close enough to be able to jump to another building.

“Son of a Nardorish!” I say. I’ve got to stop using that curse. As I stand on the edge of the building, looking down on the main street empty of the elites, I see one of the men reach the roof. Hanging from the building I’m on and stretched out to the one on the far side of the street is a cloth banner welcoming visitors to the square.

“Son of a Grundarin!” I curse and jump down onto the banner. It breaks the wooden pole holding it in place on one side, but the other holds. I slide down the ruined banner and land hard on the ground below.

“Same curse,” I say, grimacing as I feel pain burn through my leg.

“This way!” I hear two Elites shout from the square, heading my way.

I limp up and ignore the pain, trying to move my leg back into working condition in the few seconds I have.

The men reach me before I have a chance to run and I pick up the wooden pole of the half-hanging banner and run it around them, tripping them up with the banner like a rope. One falls over and the other just gets pushed back and tangled in the banner. As I push at him, he draws his sword and slashes at the cloth, cutting almost all the way through it. Thinking quickly, I hit him on the head with the wooden pole, knocking off his green hat as he falls down.

Dropping the surprisingly usefully banner, I run back down the main street. I keep running and take a quick glance back to see if I’m being followed. There’s nothing but angry and confused citizens as far as I can tell. When I turn forward again, I see an old man standing right in my path.

So surprised by his presence, I can’t run around him and he grabs me by the shoulders. “This way,” he says, and practically throws me into a nearby doorway.

I stumble inside and support myself against the wall as I watch the old man who’d pulled me off the street strap on the many locks on his door.

“Upstairs,” he says, and walks up the steps adjacent to the tiny entryway. These are apartments, with people living in two-to-three-bedroom spaces on every floor of the massive stone building.

The door has a tiny, barred window, and I see Eldar and three Elites run by, swords out. I breathe a sigh of relief.

“You coming or what?” shouts the old man.

“Eelian?” I ask to no one, and go up the stairs. When I reach the top, the man is pouring a dark liquid out of a glass container into a ceramic mug. I stand at the entrance to his small kitchen, a stove in the corner and a round table with two stools the only furniture. He approaches me with the mug.

His walk alone tells me that this old man is not Eelian. It’s smoother, and with a slight limp. He’s not near bony enough, quite the opposite, actually, and his beard is red. “Here,” he says, and hands me the mug, going back to pour himself a drink.

“Thank you,” I say, and put the mug to my lips. Immediately, my tongue is on fire with the harsh liquid. Swallowing roughly, I begin to cough and am barely able to set the mug down on the table. “What is this?”

“A man running from Eldar’s Elites doesn’t need coffee. He needs a stiff drink,” the man says, and takes a swallow from his own mug. He sits down at the table and places the glass bottle beside my mug.

I take two more coughs and swallow again. “I think you’re right,” I say, and gulp down the fiery contents of the drink. I twitch a bit, fighting back more coughs, but find strange comfort in my burning belly as I force myself to sit down.

“It can be difficult to get used to, but after awhile, you’ll find that Nardor Spirit has a flavor beyond any other drink,” the man says, and takes a sip.

“Nardor Spirit?” I look at the glass bottle. It was said that Nardor bandits drank this liquid to get them crazed before a raid. I’d never heard of it being a drink for taste. “Why did you help me?” I look around at his apartment.

It’s full of books. The table has a history book about the last free Gale tribe during the war, an analysis of racial psychology on the stove, and a book about trade routes on the cutting table. In the small living room, adjacent to the kitchen, stacks of books and papers are everywhere. And in the middle of the room is a low stack of paper with many quills and jars of ink.

“I helped you,” he says as he takes another sip, “because you said what needed to be said.”

My mouth drops open. “You… you believe in what I said?” I ask.

“Believe in it?” The old man chuckles. “Let me show you something.” He gets up and walks into his living room. From the stack of papers, he hands me the top one. I read it. Manifest Happiness is the title. There is no accreditation.

“This is my book, about how Grundar’s wars have led to the suffering of the entire world,” the old man says. I gently set the paper back on top. “People must know how their actions are affecting the world around them.”

I nod, suppressing the desire to tear through these pages and read all this man has to say. “Is there, are there more people who believe?” I ask, suddenly excited that maybe reshaping this nation and the peoples’ ideas won’t be that hard after all.

The man pounds a fist on the table, nearly knocking over his papers. “No,” he says. “There’s not a single person that will listen to me.” He looks at me, angry at the world, so angry that he needed to hit the table to get it out, so angry that he needed to write a book to control his ideas, so angry that I see the fiery hate pour from his Grundarin eyes.

And I see it, I see him, standing in a crowd of people with a glinting knife in his hands. I’m on my horse and waving at a happy, smiling crowd. Anger fills this man’s eyes as he hurls the knife at me that day that seems a lifetime ago. It cuts through my clothes and leaves a shallow wound in my side. I look down in shock at my bleeding side as I see the man run away to hide amongst the masses. It’s the assassin!