“It’s...it’s bad,” Arawn said.
He was still the larger twin, a head taller and far broader. He was only twelve, and already, he could heft a true warrior’s sword. Not the wooden training ones, like many other younglings still had to use.
Soon, Arawn would pass through the Snow Gates and march into battle with thenomageground forces. He’d witness true death up close...and earn his own sword if he survived.
Then he’d be off to his true dream: the test of strength and will to see if he could become a Rider. Soraya claimed she’d become one, too. And Kinlear would again be left behind.
“It’s...bad?” Kinlear asked. “Orbad-bad?”
Arawn didn’t answer.
“Spit it out, then!”
A sigh. Arawn met his gaze and said, almost in a whisper, “Mother is taking you to Touvre.”
“Touvre?!” Kinlear blurted. Arawn flinched. “Gods, no.”
Touvre was the summer palace, in southern Lordach. A place covered in the reek of his mother’s flowers, grown with her cadre of Realmists and their delicate earth magic. It housed musicians and artists and seamstresses and every passive person in the kingdomhe could possibly think of.
As a twelve-year-old boy, going to Touvre with his mother sounded like a death sentence.
And he wasn’t ready for deathquiteyet.
Arawn nodded again. “I heard Mother and Father arguing about it with the other Masters. You’ll go south...and train there as a Scribe.”
“But I’m already doing that here!” Kinlear said. He spent every second he could, when he wasn’t ill, poring over books of runes with the others who hadn’t Settled yet, but still showed promise of magic.
After that...they’d be relegated to being servants.
Those poor, unfortunate Sacred souls who hadnomagic within.
Arawn’s voice was emotionless. Factual, as it always was. “They hope getting you away from the north, away from the cold and the war and the darkness, will helpcleanse your mind.And... they think it will help with the illness.”
Kinlear winced.
The godsdamned illness.
It was the worst thing about himself, beyond the monster in his mind.
As he grew, the coughing fits had worsened. Sacred magic had little effect on it. Whatever the healers tried to do didn’t last long, because even with magic...if the Five didn’t deem it worthy, then it wouldn’t be done.
To his surprise, his mother had even sought out the famed mages of the Southern Continent to help him. Their magic was different, for they weren’t Sacred. They were strange,otherbeings: not fully human, though Kinlear had never met a person alive who’d seen one.
They certainly lived far longer than Sacred or thenomages,the tales told...and though they couldn’t invocate, they’d found a way perform magic through works of sacrifice.
For whatever reason...
The southern mages had denied helping him, and Kinlear truly believed, as the years went on:
He was born to die, while his brother was born to wear their father’s crown.
He almost laughed at the sheer madness of it.
“When do I leave?” Kinlear asked.
Arawn shifted in his chair. “Tomorrow. First light, after the war.”
So, they’d give him no chance for a true goodbye, then. They’d ship him off to the south, where he’d be out of the Citadel’s way. Where people wouldn’t have to pity him for his lack of magic or strength.
