He left at dawn. That was when heroes left their homes, and now was not the time for missteps. Any earlier would have been suspicious; any later would have been underwhelming. He bid his goodbyes to his parents, and it felt, as it ever did with them, leaden with expectations.
He despised rising so early: his mind felt bruised and sore. As he made his way out of town, he thought, with a smirk at the expense of his lonely childhood, that he would be sad to leave his sibling behind and all the comforts it afforded him, the warm bed and the hot baths and the soft linens. But as he walked further and further away from the town and its waking houses huddled close together, he had the disconcerting feeling that he still wasn't alone. It was not comforting. He had maybe been wrong to think that his constant companion had always been his parents' wealth: it was instead, perhaps, the eager audience his parents' wealth had bought for him. And it stayed with him now, clinging to him despite the early hour and the deserted path.
When he reached the small camp, he heard the subdued bustling of tents being unmade, saddlebags packed, horses readied. The remaining glow of a campfire was melting into the orange and pinks of the warming sky. A little apart from the small retinue, he spotted Evans and Valeria saddling their own horses. It was only when they noticed Percy, and he felt the weight of their stare on him, that he remembered he didn't have a horse. He was a good rider, but ventured out of town so rarely that he had preferred not to keep a horse: the thought of letting an animal languish in stables with little attention made him anxious. He glanced to his left, just to avoid looking at Evans and Valeria, and spotted a small moss-covered mound between the camp and the woods. Here, he determined, was to be his new home. It looked sheltered enough from the elements, and it would be best for everyone if he stayed there forever. There was some notoriety to be gained in being a hermit, if he really put his heart into it. Right now, there was no other calling in life that appealed to him quite as much.
Valeria began to stride towards him, but Evans placed his hand on her shoulder, and stopped her before heading over to Percy himself. Percy stood motionless, longing very hard for his new home under the mound.
"I'm glad you came" the young man smiled when he reached him. He sounded horribly sincere.
"I have no horse" Percy mumbled.
"Oh, we have plenty of horses" Evans reassured him. "Don't worry, we didn't expect you to bring one."
"I do have the means to buy one."
"I know you do. And I suppose you did not buy one so as to not intimidate me with your means."
Evans had spoken with a grin that had nothing but playfulness to it. Now Percy had no horse and no tongue. He had a growing suspicion he would end that journey in little pieces. With some luck, they would be treated as relics, and be traded between fashionable people for great sums. Anything to make him feel special right now.
He followed Evans to the rest of the horses, taking care to clearly imprint his reluctance onto each of his steps. Valeria was already scowling at him. At least, he had been quick to find new familiar things to replace the ones he had lost. Not lost; the ones that had been stolen from him.
He tried not to look at anyone. It didn't take long before everything had been packed, and every horse mounted. The blue-clad dignitaries exchanged a silent nod with Evans. The young man held his horse's reigns with a kind firmness that made Percy envious – though he could not quite tell whether he was envious of the knight's grip, or of the horse held in it. Both were steeped in a self-assurance he would have given much to have.
At that solemn nod, the group's horses turned to the right and started down the road at a canter. Percy kept his attention fixed on Evans, and was glad he did: Evans and Valeria spurred their horses in the opposite direction. Evans turned his head back for a second, no doubt to check that Percy hadn't inadvertently ridden away with the other group. When he saw Percy was behind them, the knight had that same playful grin which Percy was starting to recognise from a distance.
They did nothing but ride the whole morning. He might be all skin and bones, as his mother often reminded him, but his upbringing hadn't neglected physical skills, and he had no difficulties withstanding the long ride. Percy imagined the pair riding in front thought so little of him that they expected him to keel over at the first strenuous task, and he revelled in the pride of proving them wrong. He allowed himself to enjoy that satisfaction for a while before reverting to his sour mood: he strongly suspected enjoyment would need to be rationed in the coming days.
Occasionally, Evans would turn back on his horse to glance at him, though as they rode past the hours, he did it less and less. Valeria did not turn once.
They stopped by a stream to eat and water the horses. Percy stood by the trickling water and took in his surroundings: trees that were taller and paler than the ones in the woods by his town, and rocks that broke into different shapes than those in the quarries back home. An alluring strangeness sang into his ear. He had never been here. The farthest he had been from home was a cliff-nestled village they had ridden past an hour ago. He hadn't even noticed; hadn't even stopped his mare for a second, and marked the occasion with a solemn thought to himself. He had always assumed such a moment would present itself to him naturally, instinctively. He knelt by the stream, hoping to wash away what he felt. Instead, he found a pretty white stone and slid it into his pocket.
He returned to Evans and Valeria, who were filling their water-skins and preparing to leave again. He wondered what exactly personal attendants were expected to do in moments like those – it was a skillset he was wholly, proudly devoid of – but Evans seemed to take care of everything himself. Which was just as well, since Percy wouldn't have performed any of the tasks expected of him, had he known them. Valeria granted him a nod, which was better than a scowl; and Evans gave him the same embarrassed, reassuring, "sorry you're here" smile that he had given Percy every time he'd glanced back from his horse. It was infuriating.
They mounted their horses, and Evans seemed about to speak to him; but after holding his lips half-parted for a silent moment, he simply rode on.
The road they followed crossed beautiful landscapes adorned with silver streams and gentle forests, but Percy was hardly in a mood for admiration. In fact, he was hardly in a mood to consider what stretched before him as a road at all: roads had directions, and he had no idea of where this one was headed. As far as he was concerned, it was just differently textured ground. He glared at Valeria, who rode ahead in her blue tabard, sumptuously unaware of him. He stewed in his mortification. It was out of the question to give them the slightest hint of his complete ignorance of where they were headed. Out of the question, therefore, to ask questions. But perhaps they had already guessed his ignorance; expected it, even – "we didn't expect you to bring a horse", he remembered, fuming. And if that was the case, if he remained quiet, he might give them the impression he was an obedient sheep who allowed others to lead him anywhere blindly.
It seemed that horrible, beautiful road did have a direction after all, and it was ignominy.
"Where are we going?" he was surprised to hear himself ask, out of the blue, between a large fern and a muddy rock.
Both Valeria and Evans turned on their horses to look at him.
"Well, you should know" she started. "Didn't you grow up hearing you were the chosen one all your life?"
He had, but no one had ever quite told him what that meant in practice. He perhaps looked more distraught than he had any intention of looking, because Evans took pity on him, though he spoke with a maddening lightness.
"Valeria, stop it, how could he know where we're headed if no one's told him?"
"I don't know" she shrugged. "I don't ask questions. I'm not privy to these misty things."
"Did you perhaps mean mystical things?" Percy sneered. He knew it was a cheap win, but he was beggared.
"No, darling, I did mean misty. These prophecy things are all a bloody pea-soup fog as far as I'm concerned."
"We're headed to a castle at the far end of the valley" Evans explained.
"Why?"
"It was beset by a terrible curse."
Percy raised his eyebrows.
"Sounds like a good reason to stay well away from it."
Valeria let out a hearty, earth-rocking chortle, which earned her a disapproving glance from Evans.
"We're going there so that we can break the curse" he said, stretching his words out in an exasperating display of patience.
"And what curse is that?"
"A sorceress cursed the entire castle with unending slumber. From all accounts, she was slighted by the family of nobles who live there, and cursed them all."
Percy lowered his head, frowning. He usually did his best to avoid thinking about fae, sorcerers, enchanters – different names for the same disquieting oddness. As far as the people of his hometown were concerned, fae and sorcerers were things that happened, like sea storms and northern lights, rockslides and shooting stars. Some might quietly live out their lives having never encountered one, and others might cross their path more than once. And, just as sea storms and rockslides and northern lights were only ever thought about by those whose life gave them good reason to do so, the same was true of sorcerers and their magic. Most hardly knew what to make of them, and could hardly be blamed for it, too. A milliner was not much versed in the melting points of different alloys; a sailor had little to say about husbandry; a farmer might be awed by lightning or the rippling patterns of frost on his window, yet be at a loss as to the why and how behind them.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
It was the same in every county, every duchy, every principality in the realm: all that was known of magic and fae was that, once, someone's cousin was turned into an otter by a jealous sorceress, and their cousin, in turn, was blessed by a kind mystic who spun their straw into gold, and took away an unwanted child to boot. Some paid greater heed to the tales of curses, and others to the tales of miraculous enchantments. Some scattered salt over their threshold, hoping it would ward off fae, counting, for some reason, on them resembling slugs; others would hang lights from trees, hoping to attract them, counting, for some reason, on them resembling moths. Others still, though they were few, mocked the foolishness of believing in such things in the first place.
Most did believe it. There was magic about, they said, especially when they beheld something wondrous or horrible; but first there was yarn for spinning, grain for threshing, and animals for slaughter. It was only known that some fae were benevolent, others less so; but either way, there was hardly the time to dwell on their nature or that of their magic, when the days were so busy with nearer things.
As for Percy, he had only been told that he might encounter sorcerers in his quests. Some he would have to honour, others he would have to defy, and it was generally assumed he would know which was which. As a rule, he had had the good sense to assume the same; it had brought much peace of mind to all involved, not least him. But not every corner of his mind shared his good sense, and he was at times left with the frankly distasteful thought that, in truth, he had never met a fae, and had little reason to believe he would know which ones to bow to, and which ones to battle.
He went on riding.
"Are we sure they want to be woken up?" he asked out of nowhere.
Evans and Valeria turned again to face him with a quizzical look.
"The people in the cursed castle, I mean. Some herbalists in my town sell sleeping teas for a fortune" he clarified. "There might be a couple of insomniacs there who won't thank us for breaking the curse."
Slowly but surely, he was starting to find his fun. If he was there for no reason – and being someone's attendant was far from a good enough reason – then he would be as absurd as he pleased, and please himself by being absurd.
"I suppose you already know how to break this curse" Percy went on. "Your fancy royal seers must have seen it all."
"Yours were a bit fucking near-sighted, that's for sure" Valeria smirked.
"They don't see how I do it; they just know that I do" Evans replied.
Percy's mind reached, with outstretched eager fingers, for something to prod at in mockery, but Evans' voice had sounded so subdued and sober that there was nothing there for him to poke at.
They rode for the rest of the day with no conversation that might weigh down their horses. Anyone who had ever qualified silence as "heavy" had never had to ride with two strangers and pray that neither would attempt small talk. Percy was thankful for the silence, and savoured it until night fell and forced them to make camp.
He watched wordlessly as Valeria picked a spot with the ease of someone who had done it hundreds of times before. He, of course, had never done it. His solution to his ignorance was, as ever, to hide it, and to stay very still and quiet like a hunted prey. But once they had settled, he rushed to start lighting a fire, wanting desperately to contribute somehow, despite his best efforts to remain aloof. And, if he did it unprompted, he would avoid being ordered to do it in the first place. How stupid and little he felt there as he knelt by his newly-lit fire, with a horror of being used and a horror of being useless.
Evans sat on the ground beside him with a tired sigh. For the first time since he had met him yesterday, Percy took a long look at the young man's face. Even weariness suited him. It softened his features, though not so much that they lost the pinch of a smile to them; and, in each crease of his expression, there was the satisfaction of having tired himself out in the doing of something good.
Evans looked back at him. Right then, the weight of the day fell on Percy. It bruised his body and drained it of any energy to look away from those eyes holding him now.
"Feeling tired from the ride?" Evans asked him.
"No" he lied.
His pride was built on sand; was sand, drifting from him faster than he could hold on to it, but still clinging to his skin and chafing it raw.
"Then you must be a better rider than me. I'm exhausted" Evans chuckled.
Percy narrowed his eyes. He saw now how it was to be. He was to be lured into a false sense of superiority, so that his humiliation might be all the more entertaining.
"Did you learn to ride when you were young?" Evans went on asking, undeterred by Percy's silence.
"I – learned everything when I was young" he murmured.
They'd started to pick at their rations. The bread and dried meats tasted heavy in Percy's tongue, and it was hard to swallow them, despite his hunger. Valeria, who had been rummaging in her saddlebag, joined them by the fire, towering over them as she held a small kettle and a linen pouch.
"Right, what's it gonna be? Chamomile or lemon verbena?" she asked as one might ask, "axe or sword?".
Percy blinked as he stared up at her.
"You packed – tea?"
"Your point being, son? If there's room for you on our journey, there's room for tea. And to be fair, tea was here first."
She bent down with a lumbering sigh and sat cross-legged by the fire, preparing the kettle as Percy burned.
"You say you learned everything – chamomile for me, thank you – but what did they teach you exactly?"
He looked back at Evans, too tired to feel surprised by his genuine interest or to keep to a determined silence.
"I suppose the same thing they taught you" he replied, fully aware he had no idea of what Evans had been taught. "History, geography, fencing – horse riding, yes – some military strategy, some music..."
His voice tiptoed over each word, wondering when they would be met by a mocking laugh or a sneer, but Evans simply nodded at each subject he mentioned.
"Gods, I hated geography" Evans grinned. "My brother used to tease me about how bad I was at it. I suppose he always felt more pressure to get it right, since he's the prince. Although he used to tease me about everything."
"Really? You hated it? It was one of my favourites."
"How?" Evans laughed as he extended his cup towards Valeria who, kettle in hand, stood ready to pour chamomile tea with a solemn countenance. His arm brushed Percy's as he tilted his body with overwhelming grace. "It felt like such a wasted effort to me, to try to fit all those mountains and rivers in a lesson, and to expect me to know them when all I did was read about them. But I loved music. Do you play?"
"Very little" Percy replied, thinking of the few amusements and fewer friends that had graced his childhood. The lute, however, he played superbly. "You?"
"A bit. But I'm told I have a good singing voice."
"Of course you do."
Valeria offered him a steaming cup. The cold of the clear, razor-sharp night was pressing its blade against his skin, and he reached for the cup with more eagerness than he cared to display.
They talked for a while still. Evans gently picked here and there at the slightest thread that Percy left hanging in his short replies and longer silences, tugging at them until they unravelled into something that could, if one was feeling generous, be called a conversation. Percy wondered at how good it felt, to sit there with his body aching and his words spun out of his lips by the expert hands of a weaver, with no effort of his own. And those hands were lovely, with long, thin fingers that wove the firelight through them.
But as they spoke, Percy was caught by a realization that had preyed on him ever since he had left town that dawn. He was beginning to see how foolish everyone back there had been to believe the prophecy around him. His education had all the trappings of grandeur and none of its making. He had studied geography, but never travelled; sword fighting, but never truly fought; courtly etiquette, but never been at court; and this man sitting by his side had done it all.
He finally saw the stupidity of the situation, bowing before it, as so many of his family's illustrious guests had bowed before him. From what he could tell, and he wished he could tell far less, Evans had already travelled and fought and crossed the path of adventures. Percy had rarely left his hometown: his parents had not wished for him to scuff the polish of his upbringing with unworthy experiences until the call came for him to follow his destiny. All he was left with were mountains he had never met, for fear they would not be big enough for him.
Just as his thoughts tangled themselves in that web of his own making, he heard Evans say, with the light, effortless voice of one who had reached an obvious conclusion:
"It's nice to speak to someone who's had the same upbringing. Who understands."
Percy's eyes, which so far had lingered on the fire, snapped back to Evans with the agility of outrage. Everything in that man, at that moment, looked and sounded ease-ridden, his sincere voice, his head hanging back with the weight of a tired smile, his hair tinted copper by the firelight. But ease did not come often to Percy, perhaps because he had never been taught to seek it, and it made him all the more envious of those who had a talent for it.
"We didn't have the same upbringing. We had the same script. But turns out yours was for an epic tale, and mine was a farce. You'll have applause, I'll have laughter. It couldn't be more different."
And then, having exhausted the last of his energy with a little speech that he was rather pleased with, he unfurled his bedroll and slumped down on it, turning his back to them – which sadly meant turning it to the warmth of the fire, too. Sulking was hard work, but he was nothing if not dedicated.
"It's not a lowly achievement in life, to make people laugh" he heard Evans' voice behind him.
"I wasn't raised to be court jester" Percy retorted in a mumble which he hoped would trick them into thinking he was already half-asleep.
"No one is. Takes a true calling. I don't think you could make someone laugh if you juggled your own balls" Valeria said, pausing only for a sip of her chamomile tea.
Percy wrapped himself up warm in his obstinate silence. From under his blanket, he could hear Valeria's steps around the fire, along with the crackling of the flames and the wind-creased leaves in the trees around him. Most of all, he could hear Evans' silence as his fingers stopped moving and no longer wove words. The two of them waited for a while, long enough to safely suppose Percy might be asleep, before they spoke again.
"I told you it wasn't worth it to try and get him to warm up to you" she said.
"That's not what you would tell me when I was little."
"You're not little anymore. Back then I had to make sure you would grow up to be kind. Now I have to make sure you grow old by not being too kind to people who might wish you harm. I'm not your nanny anymore."
"Some of the men back in the garrison seemed to think you still were" Evans said in a sullen tone.
It was the first time Percy heard his voice so faded by uncertainty. For Percy was still awake – kept awake by the effort of feigning sleep.
"The men in the garrison don't think, they bark. Finish your tea."
Percy stayed very still for a long time, sensing the secrets in the exchange he had overheard, and knowing they would scurry away as soon as he moved. Eventually, the night around him shifted and settled. Somehow, he could hear Valeria sleeping nearby, even though she didn't snore: but she had a heaviness of sleep which spread a weighty calm around her.
Soon after, he heard steps.
Peeking from under the blanket, he saw Evans walk beyond the campfire until the outline of his body smoked away into shadows.