Chapter 43

  The birthday celebration saw quite a big crowd, consisting mostly of Mother’s close council and the house—no, I should say palace, now—staff. They had decorated the circular table in the main hall with an ungodly amount of treats, snacks, drinks, and alien-looking food that was supposed to belong to a grand culinary tradition.

  Having just completed a morning session with Belfray, the topic being how to dissect a Demonling in case it carried a Chaos Seed planted in its scrotum, I was a touch blank-minded and tired as I dragged myself, wincing, straight into the main hall.

  “Look alive, kid,” Radek, who stood by the entrance, said as I looked up at him. “This will be your final gathering. You won’t be seeing our old faces for quite a while. That should be a relief, eh?”

  “Not sure yet,” I answered with a shrug.

  We’d talked about this during this past year, and more than once I told him I was conflicted about this whole business. I didn’t say anything about my former school lives, of course, but that I had trouble making peace with my inevitable send-off to the Creator’s Academy was no mystery to anyone in this palace.

  Granted, they thought this was just a young man’s confusion, maybe mixed with a sprinkle of expectation and fear. I doubted they knew I was dreading the very fact that I would be surrounded by a bunch of freaks in that place. I mean, who would want to re-experience their middle school and high school years, right? Not me, I had to say. I’d been a magnet for bullies all my life.

  As I was about to spiral into an anxiety attack, I heard a murmur of protest rising from within my heart, telling me to stop. I did that. I took in a breath and closed my eyes. I counted the seconds until the beatings of my heart settled into a calm rhythm. Within moments, I was back at the present, managing a steady expression and walking into the hall with my chin held high.

  “Blink them one more time,” Radek muttered silently as he accompanied me into the hall. “You’re not supposed to make a show out of it.”

  I felt the warmth radiating from my eyes at Radek’s remark, after which I quickly blinked and waited for the sensation to pass. The Song of the Paragon rose a lot lately, and without permission. That was apparently dangerous, as these sorts of gifts should be kept as trumps, not to be displayed openly to the public. Mine was the Golden Song, unlike the Crimson Song of my long-lost Father, hence why my eyes glowed golden whenever the inner voice spoke. What it did mean or entailed, though, was a mystery to everyone in this place.

  Inside the hall, Mother stood at the head of the circular table, her blond hair tied neatly into a bun, her eyes glowing like sapphires in the din. She was the epitome of a royal queen in every shape or form, even though her smile was restrained and kept limited to her lips. It’d been this way since we took over Palark, then the whole world. I didn’t know what to make of it.

  “Long live the King!” Payem rose with flowers clasped in her arms and scattered them across the table with the enthusiasm of a ten-year-old. She then paused, taking in the lack of reaction from everyone at the table, me included. Her grimace was deep when she pouted. “Wake up, people. We have a birthday to celebrate! I said long live the King!”

  “Long live the King!” the palace staff echoed somewhat mutedly.

  I wasn’t bothered by their lack of reaction as I found my place beside Mother and settled on a hardwood chair while trying to manage a smile. There, in front of me, was a humongous cake adorned with candles and miniature wooden carvings of beasts of all kinds.

  “Did you do this?” I asked Belfray, gesturing at the little creatures.

  He shook his head, and his eyes swiveled toward Mother.

  Really?

  Mother did this?

  How… charming.

  “A toast for our very own child King and monstrous prodigy!” Radek raised the glass in his hand before winking at me. “It has been a smooth journey without any bumps, and I have to admit this little world has been growing on me ever since our Young Master stepped foot in it. As they say, eh? It’s the people around you who make it worth living, not the place itself. Here’s to hoping the Young Master will tame the Creator’s Academy and make it his own little backyard!”

  I cringed as all the eyes turned toward me yet again, my fingers shaking slightly around the glass cup, the dampened auras from all the Celestials bearing down on me like invisible currents of strangling air. I managed to work my way up to my feet through all of it and gulped the cherry juice in one go.

  It helped only a little.

  “Now for the gifts,” Radek continued, always the host of our rather asocial group. Not waiting for others, he flashed a small sack from his ring, metal shingling from inside it, then threw it to me.

  I caught it mid-air and blinked down at it, not really sure what I should expect. Mother’s urging gaze, though, proved enough motivation, so I took a look inside it.

  There was a ring gleaming golden inside the sack.

  My own ring of holding.

  Finally.

  “I’ve been waiting for this day…” I muttered as I felt the smooth surface of the ring with my right index finger. It was cold to the touch, meaning that it hadn’t been bonded to anyone yet. I hastily clasped a knife from the table and opened a small cut on my finger, dripping exactly three drops of blood onto it. The ring absorbed the drops quickly as I felt a connection form inside my mind.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Now, usually, you’d tap into your own bonded ring to actually reach the space inside. For Runemasters, though, a strand of soul was more than enough. Knowing Radek, I was perfectly sure this ring had some goods in it. Soon, my soul energy proved me right.

  Inside the ring was a violet amulet. It wasn’t overly fancy, as it only had a single jewel gleaming in the dark space, bound by chains looking fairly normal and… boring. The violet hues radiating from the jewel, however, carried with them a swirling energy of pure strength.

  “Is this—”

  “A Celestial treasure, indeed,” Radek nodded right away. “We wouldn’t want that head of yours to be muddled and played about by pretty girls, eh?”

  “Really?” My eyes widened. “But isn’t this cheating?”

  “Everyone’s due some degree of cheating in the Creator’s Academy,” Radek said with a shrug. “You didn’t think we’d be sending our one and only Young Master into that place like a poor kid, did you? Belfray, your turn.”

  “These are the first pair of daggers I earned with my blood and sweat, Young Master,” Belfray said as he reached out and placed two sheathed daggers on the table. “Compared to your sword, they’re not much to look at, but I believe these two will serve you well.”

  “You’re being too modest,” Payem interfered from the side. I turned to her with questions in my eyes. She smiled. “Young Master, don’t believe this old goat. These daggers are full of dimensional charms. Grade 8 Blink Charms, to be exact. He paid a fortune to a Celestial Dimensional Mage for them. The range is somewhere around twenty to thirty feet. You’d have ten uses of blink for each dagger, so best be careful with them.”

  “A fortune?” I looked up at Belfray. “You didn’t have to—”

  “Nonsense,” Belfray said, his face so rigid and tense that even I flinched a little at him. “This is nothing.”

  “Belfray…” I said, shaking my head. Of all the people, Belfray was the one who cared for me the most. He was like an uncle I’d never had, who was always there for me in case I needed anything. “But wait, when did you get them charmed? You were with me all the time, so you couldn’t have possibly—”

  “Okay, it was me.” Payem raised her arms like a criminal caught by a group of policemen. “I did it. I charmed the daggers, and I charmed them well.”

  “You?” I raised an eyebrow.

  Payem nodded eagerly.

  “You asked money from Belfray… for this? Isn’t it a bit shameless?”

  “Surely not.” Payem looked not in the least bothered by the fact that she’d exploited Belfray’s emotions for her own gain. “I gave him a good discount. He’d have paid twice the amount if he knocked on another Dimensional Mage’s door.”

  That still didn’t quite sit well with me, but then again, these were not your average people. Even with all the time I spent with them, there were times I couldn’t understand how their brains worked. Something about being alive for centuries, I supposed. Live long enough, and you’re bound to get messed up in some way.

  Next, I got a joint present from all the palace staff, a wooden box with three containers inside it. One container was full of hair products like soap and wax, another one had more than a dozen cotton underwear—boxers, to be exact, since it took me a good while to convince them boxers are viable as underwear—and the last one was full of red pills.

  “Are these?” I asked no one in particular.

  “Internal energy pills,” Belfray answered from the side. “I’d told you I’d have the staff make Silver Grade ones for you. They’ll be helpful, especially when you find yourself short on food supplies.”

  “A single pill would be enough to fuel you up like a generous dinner,” Paul, our physician and also the gardener, commented. “There are exactly a thousand of them in that container. Never put them all into one ring, but always carry a good supply with you, Young Master.”

  “I’ll do that.” I nodded. “Thanks.”

  Finally, it was Mother’s turn. A sudden silence filled the hall as she regarded me deeply. For all the years we’d spent together, I still felt like I didn’t know this woman. She was, frankly, more of a commander to me than a true mother. I didn’t feel a strong motherly bond from her. I didn’t get the tenderness, except for the first few years, a mother should show to her only son.

  I did get good training, I guessed, which was her way of showing how much she really cared for me. In a place where dangers were aplenty and strange creatures were out to get your scalp, being prepared was pretty much all you could ask for from your family. Now, I wouldn’t have minded if she showed her soft side more often, but still, I’d much prefer her approach than my former parents’, whose faces were growing blurry in my memories.

  “My love,” she started after what felt like minutes of silence, placing one hand on my left shoulder. “I don’t expect you to forgive your mother for her weakness and selfishness, for lacking the means to provide you a life of peace and quiet, for burdening a child with such weight from birth.”

  I froze in surprise and nearly averted my eyes. She spoke with such intensity that it made me think we were separating for good. And yet, the more I studied her expression, the more I came to realize that this was just her way of… apologizing to me.

  Why?

  The answers were there, honestly. I’d been kept under a tight leash for the better part of my second life. I’d been trained, fed poison, beaten, and sent to alien forests against creatures who yearned for my blood. I’d been forced to be the subject of a plot that had nothing to do with me, and had me kill people in cold blood in the process. I’d been jerked around like a puppet whose strings changed hands every so often, on the expectation that I’d become a Master of my own.

  You could see the contrast, right? The hypocrisy of it?

  Why, then, couldn’t I get angry at this woman? Why did I feel so empty now that I was about to bid my farewells to these people? Was this how normal people reacted in situations like these? No matter the past difficulties, was this how they felt when they were about to leave their friends and family?

  I could’ve done without this feeling. But then, I’d been that way my whole first life, and I hated every second of it. Now that I had people around me, I didn’t want to leave. There was one thing, though. An alien thing, making my heart race.

  I knew with certainty that I now had people behind me. I knew that Belfray, Radek, or even Mother would come running to my side if I was ever in need. That somehow made me feel at ease, and it was with that relief that I smiled up at Mother, who had tears in her eyes.

  “I know you did your best,” I said, reaching up and touching her cheek. “And I know you’ll be there for me no matter the circumstances. That’s all I need. Thank you.”

  Belfray turned so quickly that I couldn’t even see his face. Payem went to his side and patted him on the back. Radek was looking at me with approval in his eyes. Everyone else went quiet until someone gasped when Mother pulled out a shirt of gleaming silver.

  “This is Maradon’s Chest Piece,” Mother said, as the shirt in her hands shrank to a size that fit my current body. “It once belonged to your father. It still has his scent on it. It will keep you safe from any blade or any spell that comes your way. There are melodies of his song hidden inside it. Heed them well, and you’ll never be in harm’s way. I love you, my Leo, and you’re right. I’ll always be there for you, no matter where you are.”

  …..