2:

  Monsdan, 15th Novus, 511

  Nineteen Years and Eight Months Prior To The Cyndrian Empire’s Invasion of the Kingdom of Nostura.

  Capital of Velmoria, The City of Lingdon

  Lucan Velmoria awoke from what had been a very, very long dream with a bang, as he slid off his bed and crashed onto the carpeted floor of his personal chambers.

  A moment later, he screamed out loud. It was an ear-piercing, bone chilling scream that echoed past the soundproofing provided by a pair of two heavy-set wooden doors as tears flooded down his cheeks unrelentingly.

  “Make it stop!” He roared, his tone not one of fury, but rather the very depths of anguish themselves. “Silvas Anderle, you— you wretched bastard!”

  Lucan began to hyperventilate as memories too dense for him to unpack in years, let alone a few seconds, flooded through him relentlessly, the key events contained with those memories being seared into his mind even as the less important yet no less shocking ones began to settle into his mind, a reserve of memories that began to intermingle and assimilate into his own at an alarming pace.

  A few minutes later, Lucan’s entire body was being wracked by a seizure as he thrashed across the floor like a fish out of water, his pulse rate skyrocketing as the sheer amount of devastating grief contained within those emotions threatened to swallow him whole.

  He was barely conscious enough to hear his doors being flung open, followed by the shocked cry of a female voice, before she screamed out her next words, “A healer! Bring the young lord needs a healer right now!”

  Then Lucan’s world went black.

  Lucan awoke with a startle, only to find himself back where he’d started. The familiar red and gold wallpaper that lathered the walls, the over-the-top chandelier that was the work of an Artisan Guild and fashioned out of spent Mana Crystals and the grand silver oak study table that was a cluttered mess as always, with three empty bottles of Fire Spirit Wine standing out as the most unbecoming— could only belong to his room.

  More importantly, there was a mana tether digging into his right arm’s veins, supplying his body with a fresh source of mana to aid in his body’s natural healing processes. And of the highest importance was the burning glare that he was being subjected to, from a young woman who was seated next to his bed.

  Eileen Velmoria’s flowing silver hair was far more befitting of her status than Lucan’s common black was, a mess of curls at that. Even as she sat, her back was held straight in a room where the only spectator had been unconscious up until moments ago, her hands resting atop one another on her lap as her gray eyes glowered at him with all their might, making Lucan’s ordinary brown blink away.

  “Brother,” She addressed him in an icy tone, which given her dual Water and Ice Mana affinities, was a phenomenon that could very well be realized. “I have warned you time and time again, yet you continue with your irresponsible actions. Did you know what the healer said? Not only did you drink yourself to a seizure, but your heart rate was also dangerously close to a stroke!”

  Eileen’s familiar form of address sent a chill down Lucan’s spine, as he remembered the phenomenon that had caused him to lose consciousness. A lot of the memories that had flowed through his mind had faded, but Lucan felt like he only needed to strike a light connection for them to resurface. Or perhaps faded was not the correct word, for the memories had settled in, as if he’d had them for years and just like regular memories, he wasn’t capable of drawing upon them with unerring accuracy and precise detail until a resonance was struck.

  Eileen Velmoria was one of those points of resonance.

  “Eileen Velmoria, first Noble Daughter of Duke Velmoria. Date of Death, Thusdan, 22nd Marviere, 514. Suspected cause of death, assassination by the Dark Guild, Weeping Blade, suspected to be commissioned by Marquis Leoric Blackbriar. Results in the declaration of a territory war by Duke Velmoria on Marquis Leoric Blackbriar, one which ends in defeat and leads to ceding the county of Highmere,” A bold, commanding voice made its thoughts known in Lucan’s mind, its boisterous presence making itself known in the privacy of Lucan’s mind.

  “Shut up!” Lucan snapped, which caused Eileen to flinch.

  Lucan’s brown eyes shifted to Eileen, immediately welling up with guilt as he realized his mistake.

  “I-I’m sorry, Eileen. I didn’t mean to say that to you,” Lucas hurriedly added.

  Eileen gave him a curious look, before asking, “That’s how you normally speak to me, though. Are you alright?”

  “I— I’m…,” Lucan trailed off as his voice cracked. His relationship with Eileen could only be described as frosty and the sole reason for that status quo was Lucan himself. Her two brothers, the now deceased first and second young lords of House Velmoria, had not been kind to him given his status as an illegitimate child and he had taken out the years of resentment he’d built up on Eileen. Given that she was ineligible to succeed House Velmoria and was most likely to marry outside the house they had no reason to be enemies, yet not once had Lucan considered that she would truly accept a bastard son to succeed their noble house— so he’d viewed her kindness as a feint, as a ruse to make him lower his guard to some unknown ends. Yet she’s been nothing but kind to me, even after she suffered the loss of her real brothers. If she wanted me to fail in my candidacy for the heir, all she had to do was leave me alone, I've been doing a well enough job at destroying myself on my own. It took her death for me to realize this simple truth, I can’t believe I was so fucking stupid.

  Tears streaked down his cheeks once again, as future Lucan’s own words echoed in his mind, an account that he had given to friend, Silvas Anderle, “You want to know why I dropped out of the Imperial Academy? Have you heard of the Dark Guild, Weeping Blade? Well, they don’t exist anymore. It’s really funny. I’ll wipe out an organization led by a Fourth-Circle Blood Mage for my half-sister, but I couldn’t be kind to her even once while she was alive. Hey, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you laughing, you damn musclehead?”

  His hands moved before his thoughts had caught up and he rose to pull Eileen into an embrace. He was half-sobbing as he spoke, “I’m so sorry… Eileen. I’ve been such an idiot. You’ve been hurting all this while and all I’ve done is been terrible to you despite you having done nothing wrong. I’m really sorry.”

  Eileen went rigid in his arms, her entire body tensing as if she had been confronted by a mana beast instead of her brother. For a moment, neither of them dared to move, perhaps because both of them were too afraid of shattering the tenuous peace that had been attained in the moment.

  “Lucan?” Eileen’s voice was barely above a whisper, her tone warring between confusion and something that might have been approaching hope. “What’s gotten into you?” She asked, still keeping her hands to the side as if she were afraid that some trick was being played upon her instead of meeting the embrace.

  I’m an illegitimate child, my mother was not the Duke’s second wife when I was conceived and she was only raised to that status to protect her. Eileen and I only got to play together for a few short weeks before the Duchess put a stop to it and since then, she’s had over a decade to raise Eileen to hate me. Her brothers certainly did and they would not have taken kindly to Eileen associating herself with me, either. Yet, even after all the tragedies she has seen, Eileen has only been kind to me ever since her brothers passed, Lucan thought as he refused to break the embrace, his body not letting him. I thought it was the duchess’ scheme and in all honesty, I had a valid reason to be wary of her. We were fated to hate each other and we are siblings only in name, yet she genuinely cares for me. Was it the few weeks we spent playing together as kids? No, that’s not nearly enough. Why, then?

  “Eileen,” Lucan addressed her, recovering a little of his composure as he fought the urge to break out into a sob. “Why do you try to look out for me? I’ve never done anything for you. Your mother loathes me and I cannot fault her reasons. No one who meets us for the first time will see us as siblings, we look nothing alike. So why do you care, Eileen?” He asked her, his voice quaking as he tried to process the hurt of a life unlived. Eileen died and he lived the rest of his life in constant regret, wondering why he couldn’t have been atleast a little kind to her.

  He had to know the reason.

  “A reason to loathe you?” Eileen repeated, her tone one of scorn as she met his embrace. Her voice cracked as she continued, “Don’t give me that. You were just a child like me. We lived under the same roof and we even played together, yet our lives were completely different. Everyone in the manor adored me, my brothers pampered me and my mother would shower me with gifts. I had access to the best instructors in any discipline I wished to learn and that included a Fourth-Circle Mage under our father’s command, who built up my foundation. Have you ever wondered why you had none of that?”

  “I…,” Lucan trailed off, his expression turning to one of confusion. Of course he knew, it was the duchess. The reason why he had a Second-Circle Mage with a crippled Mana Heart as a tutor in his formative years, a mage whose knowledge was two if not three decades behind current bleeding edge magical theory. He knew all that and yet… he couldn’t bring himself to be angry at Eileen. “Of course, I know why.”

  “I found out much later,” Eileen revealed in a guilty tone. “But even before that, it wasn’t as if I was oblivious to the circumstances in my own house. The bruises left on you, the ones you tried to conceal by wearing full-sleeve shirts and full length slacks even in the sweltering mid-summer months. How my siblings used to relentlessly pick on you, a child yet to have reached double-digits in age when the oldest was on the verge of reaching adulthood. How they taunted your mother to goad you into attacking them, so they could be justified in their defense. I knew it all… and I tried to stop it. I swear I did. My brothers predictably refused, so I went to mother. She… she…,” Eileen seemed to be on the verge of tears, the way her voice tapered off.

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  “It’s okay, Eileen. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t feel like it,” Lucan softly replied.

  “No,” Eileen said firmly, the composure he was used to kicking back in. “I promised myself that if you ever asked, I would tell you the truth. Mother told me not to concern myself with the child of a… w—whore,” She replied meekly, stuttering as she did so.

  Once, merely hearing those words would be enough for Lucan to swing at anyone who spoke them. Now, he found himself admiring Eileen’s honor, for revealing words that would only make Lucan hate the Duchess more and likely alienate their relationship even further under most circumstances. The courage it took to reveal a truth that would only inspire hatred, to someone she clearly wished to aid instead of being hated by them—- Lucan was in awe of it.

  Mistaking Lucan’s silence for anger, Eileen hurriedly continued, her composure once again failing her for the second time since he’d known her, “S-So I went to father. He didn’t exactly refuse, but he warned me that his stepping in would only cause my two brothers to resent you even more and asked me if I was okay with something even worse happening when he wasn’t around. I didn’t know what to say to that and I didn’t know what else I could do, so I started turning a blind eye to it and I understand if you hate me for it. If you ask me to, I’ll never disturb you again.”

  “What changed?” Lucan asked as he slowly pulled away from the hug so he could meet her eyes.

  Eileen’s eyes were red and tears were pooling in the corners, but she continued upon being asked, “Cedric was raised to be the heir to our House from a young age and with it, he had gained an arrogance to match his status. He was closest to father both in temperament and in strength and thus, the responsibility to defend the Northern Wall would fall upon him in the future. At twenty-four years of age, after graduating from the Imperial Academy of the Combat Arts as a Third-Circle Adept Mage specializing in Ice Element Spells, Cedric Velmoria joined the front lines. Six months later, as you are well aware, he perished.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Lucan earnestly offered.

  A bitter chuckle escaped Eileen at his words, her gaze falling, “He was your brother too, you know.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Eileen sighed, before shaking her head and continuing, “What you don’t know is that Cedric only died because he was too eager to prove himself. He was placed at the rear of the army, well protected by a force of over seven hundred knights and forty other Adept Mages, the assignment carrying no real risk to him. Had he not slipped through the gazes of the other Mages and tried to flank the Runeweaver Shamans in what was no less than a common skirmish initiated to test the defenses of the North and to allow their younger sect members to gain experience in true battle, Cedric would not have died.”

  “I did not know that,” Lucan replied, the surprise in his tone audible. The Cedric he had known was a merciless bully who derived pleasure from his torment, a despicable asshole who Lucan held directly responsible for his mother’s current state. To think that same Cedric would have the courage to try and flank an enemy army that prayed to elements of nature and in return possessed the power to use their odd runes to use a combination of Mana and Aura to create an entirely new energy type that they used to augment their bodies into instruments of war— it made no sense.

  The world was truly not fair, to grant such courage, talent and skill to a man like that.

  “Our second brother, Edrin, had always lived in Cedric’s shadow. To you, it might have seemed like they got along, but the prospects of a second son are incomparable to an heir's. He had to train as a Mage as next in line to Dukedom in the event that Cedric unexpectedly passed away before leaving an heir of his own, but otherwise, he would never hold any true power over the North, no matter what he accomplished or what heights he reached. His fate was that of a sword, one destined to be wielded by the future duke.”

  “But he became a successor instead,” Lucan softly muttered.

  “He wasn’t ready,” Eileen replied in a crestfallen tone. “All his life, he had trained to surpass Cedric, even if he would not merit any rewards for his accomplishments. But after Cedric’s death, he never would. Not one of us had expected the shadow the oldest had cast over Edrin and instead of focusing on his new responsibilities as the heir, he became obsessed with surpassing Cedric. It was out of grief, as the brother whose shadow he had been chasing his entire life had dissolved into the sunlight, never to run again.”

  “He didn’t die of a sudden illness?” Lucan asked, his expression one of surprise. The memories he had inherited from that bastard, Silvas Anderle— a fact that he was still trying to wrap his head around—- were wrong. It wasn’t surprising that the information he had was false if the family of a Duke wished to obfuscate it, but it only made him ask the question— what else was false?

  “No,” Eileen replied, her lips pursed. “He tried to exceed Cedric’s accomplishment by trying to reach Adept mage quicker than he had, trying to ascend his Mana Heart into a Mana Nexus with a manual he stole from the family library. Had he asked for permission before and had father granted it, he would have enlisted aid of a Fourth-Circle Specialist Water Mage to aid in carving the channels, provide recovery and in the worse case scenario, save his life if all went wrong. Instead, his Mana Heart fractured in the privacy of his dorm room and the condensed mana within…,” She winced, unable to continue her explanation.

  “I really knew nothing, huh,” Lucan said, admittedly a bit rattled by the string of revelations. Is the Velmoria Family fucking cursed or something? My idiot oldest brother charges into the enemy lines, the second oldest who’s born with a fricking mana stone spoon decides to forgo his privilege and gets himself exploded. Those two idiots' actions and the duchess’s machinations drive my innocent mother into a cardiac arrest that leaves her in a coma, my sister gets assassinated in the future and I, a serial alcoholic looking for a hill to die on, take a sword for that son of a bitch, Silvas Anderle all while our geezer of a father lives a bachelor’s life on a blasted wall. I need to get the fuck out of here.

  “You should’ve known, these are family affairs,” Eileen replied with a shake of her head. “Do you remember the promise you had me make to you when we were children?”

  The past was not a place Lucan liked to dwell in and the alcohol he drank to keep it that way certainly hadn’t done his memory any favors, “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  A soft chuckle escaped Eileen as she replied, “You told me, no, you promised me that you would become the greatest mage in all of Nostura. And that once you did, you would take me on as an apprentice. You made me promise that I would accept.”

  Lucan choked, giving Eileen an incredulous look before hastily framing a protest, “There’s absolutely no way I made you promise that!”

  “You totally did,” Eileen replied with mirthful laughter.

  “I… well, whatever,” Lucan finally relented with a sigh.

  “So,” Eileen raised her head, her expression gleaming with a silent determination that he had noticed before but never regarded as something he needed to care about. “I still want to hold myself to that promise. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?” She asked, her tone lightly trembling as she awaited judgement.

  “I think I do,” Lucan replied with a firm nod. She doesn’t want to lose another brother, even if it’s a pathetic half-blood brother who’s given in to despair. Not for politics. Not for the pursuit of power. Not for glory. It’s a good thing I don’t care about any of that, an account that Silvas Anderle was correct on for once, but maybe that’s exactly what my problem is.

  Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Lucan asked, “I never thought about it before, but does the Duchess know how frequently you come to meet me? No.. of course she does. But is she really alright with that?”

  Eileen bit her lips until they looked like they were on the verge of opening up, before she reluctantly replied, “I told her that she had gone too far and her treatment of you was unacceptable after what had happened to your mother. And I told her I’d try to help you in any way I could, as the heir apparent to House Velmoria.”

  “What did she say in reply?” Lucan asked, his curiosity admittedly piqued.

  “She told me that any child born to the first wife would have priority in succession over an older child born of a second wife. So she just needed to have another male child before the Duke passes,” Eileen replied. “And that I was free to play around as I like, but you would always hate me and you would suspect any help I tried to offer you, no matter what.”

  Lucan flinched at her words.

  “I don’t know what exactly caused you to change,” Eileen said. “But, answer me truthfully, would you have?”

  “I…,” Lucan tried to say he wouldn’t but his mouth refused to move in the way he wanted it to. All it took was thinking back at how his mother had been treated in the house of horrors that was the Velmoria Estate and the rage he dulled with alcohol started to shift and simmer once more. His mother had been a common-born maid at the Velmoria Estate and it was the Duke who had initiated what had transpired between them. To her, the Duchess’s words might as well have been a divine revelation, so far was the distance between their statuses. If she had ordered the mother to leave with her son, she would have departed on the next day while making haste. Instead, she had used her own sons as a weapon to hurt the hapless maid turned official wife while she used every trick up her sleeve to humiliate and denigrate her while the Duke wasn’t around, which was most of the damn time until she was reduced to a quivering mess that was afraid of her own shadow.

  But even then, she had taken care of him the best she could under the circumstances, until seeing a battered Lucan whose hands and legs were covered in rapidly-forming bruises at the hands of his own half-brothers had been too much for her heart— or so a Fourth-Circle Specialist Light Mage had said. His mother had suffered greatly, that part was true enough, the great Velmoria Estate had indeed broken her— but Lucan had never bought the rest of the explanation. For an otherwise healthy woman in her early forties to simply roll over and collapse without warning? No, Lucan had refused to believe it then and he refused to believe it now— it was too convenient, too clever and most of all, too silently vicious for it to have been anything else but the work of the duchess. He couldn’t prove it, not before a court of judgement and not before the duke, but he was sure of it deep in his bones. “Yes. You have spoken too many truths on this day for me to lie to you.”

  Eileen’s expression was one of understanding, as she nodded, “That is to be expected.”

  “I suppose we were simply fated to hate each other,” Lucan spoke, his tone weary as if he’d lived a far longer life than the one he was living. “Would you have spoken to me with such intimacy if the situation of the House hadn’t played out this way?” He asked in turn.

  Eileen pulled away a stray lock of hair from obscuring her vision before answering him, “It would have been… difficult. Approaching you in their presence would only cause them to antagonize you more and I did not have a way to make them stop. Cedric and Edrin weren’t ever kind to you, but they were still my brothers and I loved them. A part of me also didn’t want to disappoint my older brothers, as ashamed as I now am of that truth now. If I had tried to convince them, perhaps… perhaps things would be different today. Perhaps this estate wouldn’t be so… cold today.”

  Lucan nodded. If she wasn’t that kind of person, there’s no way she’d reach out to me when I’m at my lowest. Beneath that impassive expression that she so often wore, she has a heart warmer than anyone else.

  “It’s okay. I understand, sister,” Lucan replied as if he was used to addressing her with that familial term, when the truth was that despite all the ways in which Eileen was trying to help him, he had not once called her sister and had expected to live an entire life without that changing.

  That night, Eileen cried for the first time since he’d met her before hastily departing his chambers.