Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Lucan slid his plate forward after inhaling the last of his breakfast. As always, he was the first to finish. His father, Sir Golan Zesh, who was glaring at him, was still in the middle of his meal.

Thomas, their steward, had even eaten less. The older man had lost the last bit of color in his hair, and what remained of its gray, balding form was combed back immaculately. He’d been his father’s attendant before he had been landed by the King and had continued to serve the family afterwards.

His father’s men-at-arms were seated around the rest of the long table. Lucan himself was seated on his father’s right, and Thomas was on the knight’s left.

The men-at-arms lined the rest of the table, and they were close to finishing their meals. Good, that meant he didn’t look entirely like a savage. But he had a library to get to, and a rare book to read for the hundredth time.

Father had called the wandering collector who’d sold him the book a charlatan, but Lucan might as well have been born with a book in his hand. He couldn’t have been fooled so easily, or so at least he hoped. He made to get up from his chair but a voice stopped him in his tracks.

His father cleared his throat, his eyes still fixed on him. The King’s knight was closing in on his fortieth winter, and his hair and thick mustache were dark, unlike Lucan who’d gotten his mother’s chestnut hair. “Where are you going?” he said. “Have you forgotten what today is?”

Lucan swallowed the last of his food. “I have not. But there’s still time. I will spend it in the library.” It wasn’t much of a library in truth. He’d taken a small chamber, turned it into a study, and stacked all his books on shelves inside.

“There’s none,” his father said, his countenance oddly severe. He wasn’t a cruel man, but he could be frightening when he thought Lucan was being frivolous, and he often did. “I have brought a ritualist.”

Lucan’s jaw slacked. A ritual...for him?

How much coin had his father prepared for this?

Lucan himself had been anxious about his Elder Blessing for months, even if he’d acted otherwise unconcerned while hiding his nose in one book or another. How many skill slots would his Blessing allow him? His father had been a prodigy, blessed with four skill slots without any assistance, but his passed mother had been a commoner with only one.

He banished the memories that came when he thought of her. They would only pain him. But the banishment didn’t work. He still remembered her handing him his first book, her warm smile urging him to embrace that which she hadn’t had the luxury to enjoy at his age.

Lucan shut his eyes and focused on the present.

He’d been hoping to be like his father, or at least to get three slots. The latter was what was expected among nobles. But hope was something and what the Elder Roots decided for you was something else. If his father had prepared a ritual for him, then Lucan could–if he was fortunate–be allowed one more skill slot than what he would have gotten otherwise. He daydreamed of what it would be like if he inherited his father’s talent and received the benefits of the ritual above it. Five skill slots. He would be the talk of the kingdom. But the costs...

“Father, truly?” he said. “How?”

“That is to be discussed later,” his father said with finality. “Now you only need to think of your Blessing.”

Lucan nodded with vigor. He glanced at his empty plate and then at all the other plates on the table which were still not empty. Impatience was eating at him already.

His father sighed, noting his excitement. “I suppose there’s cause for haste.” He stopped eating and stood up. Everyone at the table dropped what they had in hand and got to their feet as well. “The ritualist should be waiting at the sapling. Shall we go?” He allowed a bit of mirth to seep through his features.

Lucan repaid it with a wide smile. “Yes, father.”

Soon, his father was leading their party out of their small stone keep. He’d told Lucan that it had cost their family a small fortune just to build one as small as this. The keep was surrounded by a wooden palisade to protect it, not that anyone could easily climb up the man-made hill it was built on without coming through the walkway that connected their keep to the bailey. Their keep was built on the packed dirt at the highest point in the motte-and-bailey.

His father led them through the wooden gate of the palisade and down onto the walkway made of rough planks that eased the steep descent of the hill. They soon reached the small moat that surrounded it, and the walkway morphed into a wooden structure that was made to support the hardwood drawbridge that covered the gap. It was already lowered and they promptly passed over it. The rest of the walkway opened up into the bailey, which mostly housed their craftsmen and most prominently contained a stable, a smithy, a small barrack, an even smaller inn, and a large cattleshed.

Most of the bailey’s inhabitants were up early as was expected, and they greeted him and his father as they passed, promptly joining their procession at the tail. He received a lot of ‘Good fortune’ and ‘May the Roots bless you’ as he walked through the empty flat strip that counted as a street between the man-made hill and the bailey’s wooden gatehouse. The bailey itself was surrounded by a high and thick wooden palisade, and its gatehouse supported another hardwood drawbridge that crossed the bailey’s moat.

Lucan opened his eyes. The circle that had been drawn with beast blood was gone and so were the Orbs that had been placed on it. He realized that a weight had also disappeared from his hands, and he looked down, seeing that his own Twice-souled Orb was gone as well without him noticing. Something else immediately caught his eye. His skin was glowing with lines of red. His breath caught and he stared at the lines. They were an unintelligible mix of circles and runes, all linked together and extended all over his body, their shine apparent even from below his clothes.

“Move,” the ritualist commanded, bringing him out of his trance. The cowled man was standing over him and pointing towards the gray tree.

Lucan hopped onto his feet, nodding and stumbling towards the Elder Sapling. The tree was left out in the open, but it was still surrounded by a small wooden fence engraved with a simple bronze enchantment to prevent children from ruining their future.

He stepped past the open gate and walked under the bare gray arms of the sapling, reaching its trunk and laying a hand on the rough bark.

It was as if every muscle in his body seized up. He convulsed for a moment, his vision going white, and then he came back to himself panting with his back bent over and his hands on his knees.

He heard someone come up behind him and turned to see his father flanked by the ritualist. “Well?” his father asked.

Lucan gulped and called it from within him. The Elder Blessing.

Race: Human

Level: 1

Vital Orbs: 1

Mind and Body

Physique: Basic 0/1

Spirit: Basic 0/1

Skills (3) 0/100

He eyed his level first, which didn’t seem askew, thankfully. It happened from time to time, specially if a child touched the sapling too early in their life. They would have no levels and no slots. A premature Blessing could ruin one’s life. Next was the Vital Orbs. They were the true power that would fuel his advancement, and he would gain more and more as he leveled up. If he were to gain his second level soon, he would earn two more Vital Orbs, and three on his third level. The only other common source of them were the ruinously expensive God’s Orbs he’d just burned through in the ritual, though that wasn’t their most important use.

Lucan pressed his lips as he came upon his skill slots. Three. Just three. If this was a successful ritual, then he’d originally had two slots, and the ritual had supplemented that with one more. If it hadn’t, which was difficult to prove, then he’d had three anyway. But he’d expected more. Unfortunately, if he ever wanted to increase his number of slots to four, he’d have to expend one hundred Vital Orbs to fuel it.

Now he didn’t know whether to deal with his disappointment or brace for his father’s.

He dismissed the manifestation of his Blessing and looked towards his father, avoiding the knight’s eyes. “Three.”

His father tried not to look disappointed but Lucan caught the telltale signs coming over his face before he got it under control and nodded with a set jaw. “Good.”

“Thank you, father.”

His father still didn’t favor him with a smile. “Come with me. It is customary for you to be introduced to your duties after your Blessing.” He turned around and walked back towards the bailey, naturally expecting Lucan to follow.

He did.