THE FORSAKEN LAND OF GENèSE | LOST KINGDOM

  600

  “Sir Saint!”

  Those who fell victim to the covenant, the bloody mound created by a golden temptation, were no longer dormant. And more importantly, no longer connected to the demoness.

  Beauty of the feast cackled. “Bon Appétit!”

  The corpses in the treasury were under its control.

  Solvanel witnessed it through his cursed vision.

  A kingdom of corpses was dragging their feet toward the exit.

  The shadespawn didn’t wait for their arrival, however.

  Perhaps the ordeal it was suffered had driven it to the end of its pickiness. Cedrick Goodhall faced the remaining mercenaries with an expression fitting for a dead man, blank and devoid of all thought.

  Sula and Albus backed away—a silent, utterly pointless retreat.

  Beauty of the Feast pounced on the nearest flame.

  Solvanel averted his gaze.

  It wasn’t the gore that disturbed him—naturally—but the thought that he too may fall victim to the shade in the next few minutes. In response to this thought, the Blue Scarab's Husk released a dim blue light in his palm.

  Saint reached the top of the tower as the barrier turned translucent, scattering the outside view. He staggered in confusion. “How did you-”

  CRUNCH!

  Halfway through his sentence, there was a nasty interruption.

  The instrument shone again.

  A ringing silence took the atmosphere, broken in shallow increments by the dreamer’s shallow breaths and the racing of Saint’s heart.

  “How can you use that?” He finished.

  Solvanel tilted his head. “Am I not supposed to?”

  “Of course not.”

  Outside of backwater villages, every man, woman, and child who understood the world they lived in dreamed of owning an instrument. It was the only way to combat the horrors of the Lands Forsaken.

  Technically, the criteria for what qualified as an instrument were vague.

  It was something that could be used to shape the world around you. Therefore, anything could be classified as an instrument. Be it a pen, a chisel, or any rusty sword left outside in the rain.

  However, not all instruments were equal.

  When people tuck their children in at night, knowing that dawn may bring an empty bed, they don’t dream of the rusty sword. They dream of swords that split mountains. Arrows that seek truth. Weapons and trinkets that turn men into deities and enemies into ash.

  Despite this, nobody ever truly goes looking for them.

  That’s because if you were ‘destined’ to wield that kind of power, then it was more likely to come to you.

  Instruments of a certain rank choose their wielders.

  For some, it was based on material things, like strength, speed, or intelligence. And for others, the requirements were purely abstract, things like hatred or beauty or pureness of heart. And for others, it was none of the above.

  If humans knew how the instruments chose, they wouldn’t try so hard to make them on their own. Hence the saying, ‘An instrument that chooses the wise man today, may choose the fool tomorrow.’

  This kid, Solvanel, was not only chosen by that needle, a weapon that would make waves in the outside world. But now, he seemed to have been chosen by an even more powerful artefact. One that created barriers that lasted aeons without maintenance or upkeep.

  If he were to go out into the open world with this, even knowing that they wouldn’t be able to use it, a thousand different people would kill him outright.

  ‘Instruments and Artefacts.’

  ‘Mountain-splitters and the pure of heart.’

  After ingesting all this new information, Solvanel couldn’t help but look again into the artefact’s composition.

  Blue Scarab's Husk

  There was once a scarab born with brilliant scales etched upon its shell.

  It was targeted by a noblewoman who’d fallen in love with its design.

  The timid scarab escaped into a cellar, where it met a prince chained to the wall, and they quickly became the best of friends.

  Although he claimed not to be interested in the outside world, the little prince spent most of his time positioning a mirror, failing to catch reflections through gaps in the foundation.

  So, one day, the scarab had an idea.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  It asked its friend to shine the patterns off its shell.

  Polishing its back until he could see his reflection for the first time.

  The scarab left, promising to capture a thousand beautiful reflections in its shell.

  And bring them back so the boy could see the outside world.

  However, in spending so much time with its friend, it had forgotten that the world was much bigger than the little boy. And much, much, bigger than a little scarab.

  Over time, its shell captured many reflections, growing heavier with the weight of its experiences, but none of them stayed.

  And none were as beautiful as the scales it had lost along the way.

  Hence, many years passed and many years more.

  But the scarab was too ashamed to return.

  With the silence ringing in their ears, and the thorns burning in his lungs, and the man-eating beast on the other side of a narrow wall, the young shepherd then asked, “Then is it enough to save the world?”

  “Worry about your life for now,” he responded, “Here. Catch.”

  Solvanel flinched.

  Something shattered against the barrier. Glass from the sound of it.

  He deadpanned at the flame. “You forgot. Didn’t you?”

  Saint held the back of his neck. “My bad. Here.”

  Solvanel received the item in his open palm. “What is it?”

  “The antidote. Drink it before you get worse.”

  “Forgive me, Sir Saint,” the shepherd began. “I was listening to your exchange with the red, fat mercenary.”

  “I know.”

  “You said some of them broke whilst you were being chased.”

  “I know.”

  “You told him that those were the last three vials.”

  “I know.”

  “And then you said you didn’t care about me at all.”

  “I did say that.”

  Solvanel paused, retracing his words. Before he went on, he wanted to ensure that he wasn’t missing anything. “So, the first thing was a lie?”

  “Yep.”

  “And the second thing was a lie.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “And the third thing was an even bigger lie?”

  “Nah. I was being honest about that part.”

  “Then why did you go out of your way to help me? I even told you that the Black Hand poison has nothing to do with my illness.”

  Saint groaned, like this was all too much work. “I wasn’t helping you, kid. I was helping a kid.” He took a seat against the wall beside the silver bar. “Or better yet, I was helping myself. We just met, so I can’t say I care too much about you as a person. But it’d be hard to go back to being a wastrel if I knew I didn’t try my hardest.”

  He inspected his flame for any signs of disturbance.

  “Good,” he then responded. “I feel the same way.”

  “Yeah?”

  Saint patted the space beside him.

  Solvanel frowned. His grandmother would pull his ear, asking him just who under the heavens was going to wash these dirty robes. Thinking about it, these robes were little more than bloody rags at this point. And it wasn’t just the robe. The stains of this journey would never leave him.

  He sat beside the older youth. “Yes. There’s no one left in this world to love or care about me, so I don’t love or care about this world at all. But if there is an afterlife, then I want my grandparents to be proud when I’m killed. So, I don’t want to stop being the person they loved.”

  The older youth raised an eyebrow. “And what would happen if you did?”

  He pondered the question briefly. “I think I would cry.”

  Saint shook his head. He would have laughed if it were funny.

  “Just take your damn medicine, kid.”

  “Okay.” Solvanel uncorked the vial and turned it to his head. It wouldn’t help him against his sickness, but he figured he owed some solace for what he went through to get it.

  “Do you feel better?”

  “Thank you, but no.”

  “Not that.” Seeing the symptoms of the kid’s ailment, he’d long accepted that the antidote wasn’t going to work. “Did getting your revenge on the Spineless and the pervert make you feel better about what they did to you?”

  The shepherd shook his head, panting with his head between his knees. “There was a woman who attacked me in the scorch. I had to-” Solvanel paused. “I killed her.”

  Not because he had to. And not because he needed to.

  His destiny was a lie, so he no longer held on to that excuse. Her death wasn’t the work of the divine, nor the work of the profaned. It was the work of Solvanel wrapping a chain around her neck.

  “Neither of us was innocent, but we didn’t know each other,” he continued, his hands burning red as if covered in blood. “And there’s no such thing as prophecy, so our crossing paths was circumstance at best.”

  “I still want to believe that my life may yet give her death meaning, but even if I do achieve my goals, and change this world like I thought I was destined on that night, I know it has nothing to do with her.”

  A steel man took the body away when he killed her.

  She was likely thrown into a bush, buried on the topsoil without ceremony.

  “The people of my village are proud of their names. We were taught that titles are a form of promise—a covenant between oneself and the Heavens. If you live by your name, your life will proceed accordingly. And if you don’t, you will be drawn as but a shadow in the stone tapestries of the Great Muse.

  “I no longer believe in my grandmother’s teachings, but there is none more proud of their name than I, the light that came from the heavens. However, if there are no eyes above us, then circumstance is all that exists.”

  On the other side of this barrier, a great beast from aeons past was eating two ordinary men alive. It could have been any manner of justice, but this is where their sins came to an end. Who knew how many names they’d taken before this?

  “This journey of circumstance has led me to two people who died without a name. In the end, there was nothing I could do but weep for them both.

  “Wilhelm, the Backbreaker and Oedipus, the Peeping Tom—those are the names they chose for themselves. If we must wait for circumstance to bring their end, then we will wait until the end of our lives. Therefore, I will be the circumstance that proceeds accordingly. And I will remember the name of every wolf.”

  “Good. Then-"

  The first strike came without warning.

  A boulder's fist hammered against the invisible wall, and the air shuddered.

  Saint's eyes flicked toward the barrier, then back to Solvanel. “We'll continue this talk later. Any ideas on how to kill this thing?”

  The shepherd shook his head.

  Saint tilted his head back, exhaling sharply as he rose. "Then I guess we'll go with mine. Drop the barrier."