Ivor’s journey to Forgehold had been as uneventful as one could have imagined. Like any travelling merchant or citizen of the mountain cities, he had pulled his cart over the bridge that connected Desa to ForgeHold. After selling his iron to the smiths, Ivor had visited a friend. He had come back with a favour repaid in knowledge and tools.

  Ivor had a simple wrapped package filled with books and simple enchanting items in the back of his empty cart. With how much potential the boy had shown for the arcane gift, Ivor was sure Marcus could become a talented, if not a capable, enchanter in his own right. Like any warrior’s tool, he would be giving the boy the little knowledge or glimpses of enchanting scripts from Forgehold that would be useful for his new Apprentice.

  After all, Arcane Aether relied on the magical weave of reality.

  Ivor was broken from his musings when he felt a slight tag on his senses. On the oath the boy had made. ‘Something is happening,’ he said. He looked in the direction of Srok past the fourth wall and at the broken city beyond it. He frowned and moved his strides faster as he pulled the cart along.

  When Ivor got to his cabin, someone was waiting. Someone gabbed in the black leather of the Veystrix.

  “Levin. What are you doing here?”

  “Old man, thought you would be around,” Levin said, pushing off the cabin wall, “just come to tell you about your new student .”

  Ivor looked in the distance, where the wall stood. “Let’s go inside. there’s no point talking out here.” he said with a somber tone. if he was lucky the boy would still be alive.

  Ivor grabbed the wrapped bundle with the enchanting kit, opened his door, and made his way into his cabin. “So what do you have to say?” he asked as he sat.

  “It’s Clara and her group, they beat up one of Thornan’s Filthyings and he wants blood.”

  Ivor raised an eyebrow. “How long?”

  “Yesterday. Thornan went to their new place yesterday.” Levin chuckled and shook his head,” Can you imagine they got enough gold to get the broken manor by the stream.”

  “Hmm.” Ivor huffed,” And why tell me this? “

  “Just thought you wanted to know,” Levin said as the door swung open.

  Ivor was not expecting visitors, or it was better to say Ivor got no visitors out in the Ashfields next to the forgotten forest. However, standing between the doors, Clara was not happy or expecting to see another Veystrix. Her face went from surprise to confusion to anger. She stepped towards Levin, her hands glowing and fury written all over her face. But his focus was on the boy rushing in behind her.

  “You fucker, are you threatening Ivor as well,” she asked, rushing towards Levin, Her dense white hair in a tangled mess.

  Levin, on seeing the fury in the girl’s eyes, rose from the chair, a blade appearing in his hand, but before he could act and bare his blade at the girl, Clara did not even make it halfway, Marcus pulled her back and held her hand, causing her to Glare back at the boy holding her elbow and back up at the Veystrix.

  “Slow down, Clara, calm down,” Marcus said, holding onto her.

  If Levin was a veystrix, he thought it wasn’t wise to approach him, especially when the other boy held a dagger in his hand.

  “Calm down, Clara and Levin. Put the dagger away. There will be no blood in my house,” Ivor warned, causing the teenagers to rethink their actions.

  “Ivor, Thornan-- ,” Clara turned to the old man to begin her arguing and was cut off before she continued.

  “I heard, and I can’t help you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know the rules.” He looked at Clara and shook his head. “Victor is not a kind man.”

  “But—” Clara began again, but Ivor ignored her and turned to Marcus, his eye fixed on the boy with knitted brows.

  “Boy, will you stay with them?” He looked at Marcus with an assessing look.

  “Yes, I will. I owe them.”

  Marcus owed them; he owed them his life. They had saved him from the Ashfields that day, and with what he knew now, people-- in this case, the scavengers did not go that deep into the Ashfields. he could have starved trapped there in the cold. Clara had paid for his treatment not once but twice. She and the rest of them surely did not need another mouth to feed, but they accepted him into their group. He could have been left to starve on the streets, but he didn’t. he could have found himself with a dagger in his back, but they watched out for him. It wasn’t grand, but it was something. The thing that made all of them into a small family.

  Ivor shook his head and sadly looked back at Clara. “Fine, I will see what I can do ,” he said.

  Clara looked at the old man, wondering if asking for his help was a good idea. She looked at Levin, who stood to the side, and she walked out of the room without turning back.

  The next day, Marcus was surprised to find Levin around Ivor’s cabin, the two half-Goliaths standing around, digging and sorting iron in the shallow earth.

  Ivor gestured to him to follow him to his cabin, where he gestured again for the boy to sit.

  “So what happened? Did you talk to him?” Marcus asked after he was told to take a seat.

  “No, I won’t be doing that,”

  “What?

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  “Here,” Ivor continued, placing books and other items, including chisels, on the table and ignoring the questions. “This will be your new training, two new arcane spell forms to learn, a basic enchanting book, and some items to use. a spell of mage hand--”

  “What?” Marcus interrupted Ivor.

  Ivor knew that the boy would stick with the group no matter what. Deep down, he knew that the oath of protection he had witnessed the boy take had been tested. When they walked into his cabin, he had hoped to change the boy’s mind and drive him on another path, but Marcus was to set in his ways a good thing that loyalty, but most die for it.

  Ivor looked up at the boy and sighed. “It’s a sacrifice. You must let them go You must accept it. You are not strong enough, and with your gift in time, I can make you into someone who will protect those around you.”

  “No, you promised us. You told us you would do something.”

  “I gave my word to think about , and I have decided not to involve myself. I dare not involve Victor in the squabble of children, and getting you killed along with your friends is not my plan.”

  “So you’re going to do nothing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is your fucken honour? I thought your oath was to protect,” Marcus slammed his fists on the table and glared at the large half-Goliath, and a moment after that, he felt the table beneath his hands fly to the side and a hand on his neck. Marcus felt his back against the wooden cabin wall, and the air left his lungs. His legs were no longer on solid ground, lifted as he was as the man held him in place.

  “Do not talk to me about honour, boy. you are weak. My oath is to protect, but not if I am dead.”

  “Coward,” Marcus mocked, inhaling heavily.

  Ivor growled and let Marcus fall to the ground. Just as the half-Aasimar got his breath, he felt a hand grab him and lag him towards the door.

  “Come, I will show you how weak you are,” Ivor said, reaching for the door and throwing him outside into the shallow ditch in the Ashfields.

  “You want to protect them, show me,” Ivor said, crossing his arms and nodding towards Levin. “Show me why i should train you , if it would not be simply sending you to your death at the worst.”

  ----

  Levin was a Veystrix but he had a niche, a code, a truth he lived his life by or so he liked to tell himself. Given a choice between stealing and taking a life. He often chose the former and not because he was bad at putting a dagger between a man’s ribs, no, because old man Ivor always knew when his daggers touched blood. After the man had taken his oath and trained him Ivor knew whenever Levin killed.

  Levin owed the golden eye goliath man, he owed his master, and sometimes being around Ivor reminded him of his humanity, especially after a job gone wrong.

  Levin was surprised, to say the least, as he watched his old mentor throwing his new student into the hollow divet of the ground. He looked at Ivor with a questioning face, only for the man to nod at him.

  A Veystrix against a Filthying-- what was the old man thinking.

  “Are you sure, old man,” he asked, only to be met with a sharp gaze.

  “Levin, show Marcus what he’s up against if he wants to fight a Veystrix.”

  Marcus looked up at Ivor, but Ivor was not paying him any attention. He glared and turned to whatever the half Goliath was looking at.

  Marcus looked at Levin standing at one end of the ditch- he frowned and cocked his head in confusion as the other tall teenage boy looked at him and threw the shovel to the side with a mocking smile.

  One moment, Marcus was looking at him. The next, he felt the air leave his lungs as a blow landed in his gut, and his eyes went wide as he realized that Levin had just been ordered to attack him. At that moment, Marcus was captured between pain and momentary suffocation. Marcus came to one damning observation. This was a place where meight makes right.

  He stumbled back, coughing, trying to inhale, but thanks to his unsteady breathing, he let out a fitting cough as his diaphragm spasmed. He was aware of this fact because, as a failed martial artist, he had taken many a blow similar to the one Levin had just landed. Marcus clenched his fists and swung his arm towards the boy. Only the boy had stepped back, and casually, Levin pushed him to the side, tripping him to the Ashfields’ grounds.

  “Ivor, are you sure about this? He is too weak.” Levin assessed, looking between Marcus and Ivor.

  Ivor grumbled and shrugged his crossed arms,” hold back, Levin. I want him to be able to walk.”

  Levin scoffed, dodging another blow. He watched Marcus get into a boxing stance, Levin stepped back briefly and raised a questioning eyebrows towards Ivor. the old man just shrugged clearly intrigued as well. he hadn’t taught the boy how to fight yet.

  He dodged the first blow and watched the boy move his feet. He realized that the boy was moving in a pattern. His arms were up in a clear guard stance, and his legs moved with a practised pattern. Levin realized that this boy had some training in unarmed fighting, and curious to thirst his budding doubt, he let the boy gain momentum.

  Marcus, remembering the teachings of his coach from the martial arts gym, moved with a practised ease through punches, straights, and overhead hits. In torn and worn shoes, he didn’t even think of using his legs to strike-- a tendency his coach had warned him against, pointing it out as a weakness ever since his transition from mere boxing to kickboxing. Saying his legs were a part of the fight and were to be used.

  Watching the two half-aasimar fight, Ivor was surprised, to say nothing else. He didn’t remember teaching the boy to fight like that or any house that fought in such a manner, so he watched. Perhaps there was something here-- perhaps this was something he could work with.

  All that changed when his blows didn’t land. The boy was simply slow, with no spell forms or bloodline magic to augment his body. Levin dodged a fist that would have landed on his face and struck Marcus in the face. The reaction was slow as Marcus stumbled back with his hand holding his nose.

  Marcus looked down at the blood on his fingers. He sniffed and felt the blood go down his throat. Anger.

  Marcus was frustrated and angry. He was frustrated from being so helpless, lost in this unknown, backward world, treated like a nuisance by the people who wanted him to lose an eye, begging, playing for coppers, and being used as a punching bag for their entertainment just so they could get their hands on stale bread or strips of bacon. And Just when they thought they were begging to do well, a veystrix showed up and not just any run-in-the-mill wet boy assassin. No. It was Thornan the Giant whose attention they had garnered. Marcus looked furious. The anger in that moment took hold, and everything but the figure in front of him took up his focused gaze.

  It was Murphy's law at its finest. All that could go wrong was going wrong, and he could only hope and fight.

  Levin suddenly took a step back as he felt a pull on his shadows. The same shadow aether he had control over through his spells and magic.

  Ivor, on the other hand, was not affected by the pull. With no shadow magic in his soul or spells, he felt nothing as the shadow aether moved under Marcus’s control. However, looking around at the shadows gave him a different picture, and they pulled towards Marcus, gathering around his body.

  The shadow of Ivor’s cabin cast by the rising sun shifted unnaturally and wrongly towards the late morning light and towards the furious Marcus, as though late morning had become early evening. The Shadow of the young man became the nova of shadows, an imitation of the sun of shadows. Ivor took a moment and stepped back, then realizing what he was doing, he stopped. Ivor took a step forward towards Marcus. He needed to stop the boy from whatever he was doing, he was clearly losing control.

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