Growing up in a rural village predominantly relying on farming for money wasn’t fun, but I still loved it.

My family was big. We were twelve including my parents. My siblings and I mostly spent our time helping on the farm, but in our free time, we used to join the other kids in the village and play. When I got older, maybe around eight years old my father sent me to the local reading teacher. She was an old woman who knew most of my older siblings as she had taught them before me. I had it hard with her, as I didn’t like studying, but she was patient with me. Eventually, I learned how to read and write, even if it took me more than the usual kid, approximately three years.

Seeing I had no talent for learning, my father didn’t push me to go to the nearby town with the only close school, but he wasn’t mad at me, as I wasn’t his only son who didn’t have a bright academic future. After that, I spent most days on the farm helping around so that I didn’t become a liability.

When I reached puberty at thirteen and saw that my body had surpassed my father's height, he decided I should become a soldier. Being the young kid I was, I didn’t put much thought into it. From my early days as a kid, I had a stronger body than usual, paired up with puberty and I looked older than my age. Also, having many siblings meant that my heritage of the farmland would probably not allow me to live off it, so yeah, it was a good idea, as guard jobs often got paid well.

After Father made up his mind, he did not take my opinion into account, he went to ask his brother, my uncle, if he could teach me how to fight. My Uncle Ghandour was a retired officer. He had been an officer in the army, and he knew how to use different weapons. His preferred weapon was the Bow. Uncle liked using Bows. He made me practice on a smaller bow, the one I used for practice didn’t need that much pulling force, but for me, it was still tough to draw. Most days I train for two hours. My Uncle made me start by doing bodyweight exercises for about an hour, and then he would ask me to try shooting immobile objects from different distances, this routine lasted for about a month.

After spending the month training with my small Bow, Uncle decided to step up my training, he added training me on how to use a Spear to our schedule. He made me perform simple thrusts, pulls, and slashes to get me familiarized with using Spears. Like this, the months passed.

Waking up one day. I sneaked across the room to the door, as I didn’t want to wake up my siblings because it was early dawn. Snatching my out-door clothes which consisted of a simple worn-out-dark-green tunic and black pants, I opened the door, but before I could step out.

“Where are you going this early?” my younger sister said. I replied in jest, “Why the need to ask if you already know?" She looked annoyed but still went back to sleep.

Closing the door behind me quietly. I went to the bathroom to relieve my bowls and change my clothes.

Exiting the Bathroom, I stepped on the staircase carefully, as I didn’t want to wake my father with the sound of craning wood. Father usually got up at dawn, but with these long summer days, the sun was setting early, so he got himself an hour or two of extra-needed sleep.

Finally reaching the ground floor of our two-story house, I exited through the front door.

“Ah, early dawn fresh air. I swear it is so refreshing I wouldn’t trade it for all the sleep in the world.”

My uncle advised me to build my endurance, and seeing that I had my arms full with the farm in the morning and parts of the afternoon and the evening full due to training with my uncle, I decided to invest in my early morning hours to build endurance.

I stretched a bit, then I started with a slow jog to warm up. I gradually increased my pace. Usually, I try to make about twenty loops around the farm, but this time I made only ten as I heard Father calling out to me.

“Haitham where are you? Go to the coop and let the chickens out, they need to eat.”

“Yes, Dad.” It seems he decided to start his day earlier than usual. I might have to start cutting my sleep hours more.

……….

After finishing my work at the farm, I took the road to my uncle’s house. Seeing the neighboring farmlands the farmers seemed to be hard at work. “Hey, Haitham. How is the old man?” A farmer asked me on my way. “He’s good, he’s good.”

“Are you going to train with Ghandour?”

“Yes, Uncle.” The Farmer wasn’t my actual uncle, but to show respect I called him Uncle, I didn’t even know his name as his farm wasn’t that close to ours. ‘I think I might know his son.’

“Then good luck to ya young lad.”

Nodding to acknowledge the old man, I continued.

It took me about half an hour of traveling through farmlands to reach my uncle. My other uncles had their lands close to ours, but Uncle Ghandour sold his inherited land when he went to join the army. After Uncle came back, he bought his new house close to the village center, where the houses were grouped more tightly, but also with less farmland.

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Walking through his front garden, I reached out to knock on his door when I heard him talking.

“Yes, yes, he should be here anytime now.”

Opening the door, I went in. In the living room, I saw Uncle with a man his age, about fifty-nine years old.

“Hey Uncle, you seem busy. Should I come at another time?”

“No, no, Haitham, come in, have a seat.”

Walking in, I greeted the man sitting with my uncle. The man seemed intimidating. He had wide shoulders and bulging muscles. If this was his build in his old age, I can only imagine how he looked in his heyday.

When I sat, Uncle said excitedly, “Haitham, this is your lucky day! My friend Armoun is an old companion of mine from my military days who was passing by and decided to visit. I was telling him how I have been training you for the last year, and how dedicated you are, so he told me that he had some spare refined Lio, and he would sell it to me if I wanted!”

The confusion on my face must have been evident, as Armoun decided to explain. “You must know about the yearly central square gathering in your village, right?”

I replied, “Yes, I have attended a few times.” I didn’t like this particular gathering as there weren’t any festivities, unlike other holidays. The villagers just gathered in the village’s central square, and then an imperial representative with a dozen guards would take all village boys who reached adulthood, or in other words, sixteen years old to the village hall, where they became official citizens of the empire by having their names written on official documents by an imperial scribe.

The man called Armoun continued. “In the yearly gatherings, the village boys who are brought to the village hall, as you might know, become official citizens.” I just nodded to confirm that I already knew, and he continued. “But what you might not know is that they also get tested to see if they have any innate abilities.”

I was puzzled. What did he mean by innate abilities? I knew that in the Village Hall, other than giving the kids their official identifications, the only notable thing was that the imperial representative would ask the kids to drink a weird liquid, and when I asked my older friends what it did, they shrugged, saying that they didn’t know, but it tasted bitter. After asking my father he told me it was to celebrate them becoming official citizens.

Armoun continued, “You see Haitham, what your uncle wants by buying Lio from me is to see if you have any innate abilities.”

I was confused, “If what you are saying is right Uncle Armoun, then why do you want me to drink this Lio now? I could wait until I reached sixteen then I would be tested to see if I have this innate ability you speak off.”

“The kid is focused.” My Uncle just smiled. Armoun further explained: “Well, you are right to an extent. If the imperial representative finds out you have an innate ability you will be in trouble as he will make you sign a slave contract for the Emporer.”

“What is a slave contract?”

Armoun sighed at my ignorance, but nonetheless continued, “Look kid, a slave contract means that you have to serve the Emporer for decades. It means you have to do his dirty work. It means a lot of shit, but the worst of it all is them restricting you from gaining more strength, from gaining more freedom because of their fear of losing control.”

At that moment my uncle interjected, “Haitham the reason I had to leave the village and sell my land was because I was found out to have an innate ability. I had to leave my family without even giving them a proper reason, as I had no say in the matter.” My Uncle said with sorrow in his voice.

Now I understood why Uncle left the village, he was forced by this slave contract. I was so shocked I didn’t know how to respond.

“Look kid,” Armoun said with all seriousness. I could feel his intense gaze on me, “Your Uncle is taking a huge risk, he is even willing to pay me a huge price for some of the leftover Lio that I have, so you must understand that he is doing you a huge favor. He is doing this so that you don’t end up like him, he’s doing this so you can live your life as you like.” Saying that Armoun got up. He put a glass vial on the table, then went to the door. Before leaving he said, “I hope you are doing the right thing Ghandour, be careful, if anyone finds out your head and mine will go rolling.”

‘I don’t think that this guy was just passing by.’

……….

Staring at the glass vial that must have cost Uncle a lot If what the man said was true, I asked, “But Uncle how do you know that I have an innate ability?”

“I don’t.” Dumbfounded I was left speechless. But Uncle wasn’t done speaking. “I mean I do know, but not in the way you might think. You see, my ability is called Valed intuition, it gives me intuitions about the future.”

“How does that work?” I asked. Uncle frowned unhappy about me prying about his ability.

“Look Haitham, what I’m about to tell you must stay between me and you. The real workings of my ability are known by few, and it should stay that way, am I clear?”

“Yes, Uncle,” I said, a little spooked by the sudden seriousness of his tone.

“You see, my ability only works on living beings, animals included. When I activate it, I need to focus on a target, after choosing the target, if I think something about the target's future it gives me an itch feeling if that future is probable to happen, and if not I get no feeling.”

Fascinated, I said. “This is amazing. Then what did you think about my future?”

Smirking, my uncle explained: “It isn’t as fascinating as you might think. I am only given intuition when I think in broad terms, for example, if I’m in a fight I won’t get an intuition about when or where the enemy will release his bowstring. And for your question, I thought about you having a great future, and my intuition gave me a strong itch feeling.”

I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. It didn’t even occur to me that my uncle was going mad with all this talk about abilities, I knew him well, he was a wise man, and I really trusted him. “What future are we talking about Uncle?” I said excitedly.

“As I told you, I can only think in broad ideas. So who knows, but my ability has rarely failed me before, so you can rest assured that a great future awaits you, but don’t get ahead of yourself as knowing this might change the outcome.”

“So, when can I drink this potion?” I said hurriedly, not paying much attention to his last statement.

A look of amusement appeared on my uncle’s face, “Ha, you seem excited. Very well, you can drink it now if you wish, but be aware it tastes bitter and might have side effe…”

Before my Uncle could finish his sentence, I drank the solution in a single gulp. “…cts.”

He was right it tasted bitter. “Agh. Why didn’t you tell me it was so bitter.”

“You shouldn’t have drunk it so fast, there might be side effects.” Uncle said, with a bit of anxiety leaking in his tone.

“I’m sorry, I was excit…” I didn’t even manage to continue my sentence when my vision went blank.