Prologue

  "The insolence!" Jacob shouted. "You spit upon our family's legacy with your petulant request! Who do you think you are!?"

  Lord Jacob Wardenfel sat straight-backed, eyes wide in open disgust at his eldest son, David, who was bracing for his father's outpouring anger. Jacob's first wife, Theresa, sat beside her husband, her face a mask of control.

  "Father, I-" David began.

  His father's fiery words cut him off. "Not a word! The time and money our family has invested in you as its heir will NOT be thrown away on fleeting weakness! You have a duty to our house, and, by the founding gods, you will see to them as your lineage has always done!"

  They both stared at each other. Jacob's muscles twitched with restrained violence, while David squared his young shoulders in open rebellion.

  “Well?! Have you nothing to say? Have your senses come back? Whatever ephemeral madness crawled into your immature brain has run its course? Apologize earnestly, and I might be lenient in punishment!”

  David, with all the confidence he could muster into his 14-year-old voice, braved the storm. “Father, I would never bring dishonour to my family! Please understand, this is not my path! I cannot be the heir!”

  He took a deep, calming breath before continuing, “I haven't the heart for it. I swear on my life that I will support my younger brother Isaac with all my might and abilities, but please assent to my request. Make him the heir. He longs for it.” He couldn't maintain his father's gaze anymore, his eyes lowering to the floor. “Unlike me.” He ended on a whisper.

  He waited for his father's retort, but none came. He heard him get up, walk to his study's door, open it, and slam it shut. The hardwood reverberated in the hall, and through it, the muffled sound of something brittle shattering reached his ears.

  And then, suffocating silence.

  David fought back his tears. He so wished he could be the man his father expected him to be. He had tried so hard, sought to listen and retain his lessons, but... as he'd said, he hadn't the heart for it.

  His mind fell into the past, where, for the past four years, he had been made to attend the rulings in the main hall, and the hard decisions he had seen his father make for the sake of the kingdom and his family had made his heart wrench, giving him nightmares that had him waking in sweat in the middle of the night.

  But he had still tried. Figuring it would get easier with time, he had kept a lid on his roiling heart until he couldn't anymore.

  He had woken up shaking, his nerves on fire, and the mere thought of going to the great hall made him retch. That day, he claimed a passing weakness and excused himself from the rulings, shutting himself indoors. The walls had begun crawling inward, trapping him, crushing the breath out of him. He'd broken and fled, jumping out of his bedchamber's window and disappearing into the estate's woods.

  He ran until his breath hitched, and his legs fumbled, then he walked until his feet hurt, and finally he sat down. As the sun slowly drifted away from the sky, he did nothing but exist.

  And as he lay there, everything about his life ebbing out of his mind, replaced with the vibrant symphony of nature, he realized that a suffocating pressure had receded from his soul.

  He breathed in the night's cool air, filling his lungs until it hurt, then allowed everything to flow out of him.

  In that moment, he understood that he could never become the man his father wished him to be. To do so, he would have to stop being himself, to cut out what made him, him.

  And yet, at the same time, he couldn't simply run away, leave everything behind. The burden of rule had been borne by his father and his ancestors, a mantle as heavy for them as it would have been for him. To shy away from the duty was hypocrisy that he would not bear.

  A plan had wormed its way into his brain: He would ask his father to renege on his status as heir, yet remain as a faithful and dedicated member of his family. If he could pass the crushing weight to his younger brother, but helped him carry as much as he could, that would be enough, surely?

  He snapped back from his memories, eyes moist but tears held in check through the obstinacy of youth, and dared to look up at his mother.

  She faintly smiled, a shadow of compassion fluttered over her features, before her mask stilled once again. She gracefully stood and proceeded to his father's study. As she opened the door, David glimpsed his father, motionless, his hands white as he gripped the edge of his desk. The heavy wooden door closed on him with a certain finality.

  He remained in the hall for an entire bell, alone, hoping for something that never came.

  The next morning, he was woken by grim-faced guards who marshalled him outside the estate grounds, throwing a burlap bag containing bare necessities at his feet, before wordlessly closing the groaning iron gates.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  He stood there for several bells.

  No one came for him.

  Chapter 1

  - Several years later -

  The magitech auto-carriage trundled along the packed dirt road, its rudimentary suspension gently rocking its dozen occupants as they approached the frontier town of Riverwall. It was an unremarkable settlement of a few thousand souls that mainly subsisted by catering to the endless trickle of desperate souls seeking fame and fortune in the numerous ruins of the northern wilds.

  David wasn't here for either of those things, but he was desperate. Looking out the window, eyes wandering, he thought back on the events in his life that had led him here.

  Eight years ago, a man had found a shivering boy hunkering beneath an upturned wagon in late Autumn. Taking him in for the night, the boy had asked to repay the favour. He had then, over the following days and weeks, shown himself to be a hard-working and honest young man.

  That man, Francis Wayman, had eventually adopted the boy, who then began working at his adoptive father's Free Courier waystation. David had naturally fallen into the role of a Free Courier; men and women who were part messenger, part investigator, and part bloodhound, who travelled the kingdom to fulfill the many job postings offered to them.

  His life became simple. He chose a posting, fulfilled it, and was then on his way. The occupation was, as its name implied, Freeing. He was free to take the postings he wanted. He was free from lasting duties. He was free from consequences. He was free to breathe.

  He loved it, thrived in it. He quickly rose through the ranks thanks to a diligent work ethic and his natural resourcefulness, soon becoming one of the best, according to Francis.

  And yet, his best was failing him.

  Just over a week ago, David had been visiting his adoptive brother Luke in the port town of Bellharbour. They and his nephew, Samuel, had been perusing the dock market looking for interesting new arrivals for Luke's modest import and export business. Their meandering had brought them close to a merchant ship in the process of unloading cages containing live beasts from across the continent and further.

  Samuel, with the curiosity that all 10-year-olds had, sprinted forward to gawk at the interesting beasts, ignoring his father's halfhearted protest. Just then, they heard a rip and snap, and had just enough time to look up at a cage falling from its broken crane harness, crashing into a stack of other cages in a thunderous cacophony of panicked roars and shattering wood and metal.

  From the broken heap jumped out frenzied and injured beasts of all kinds, some fleeing, some attacking the nearest thing. For one of them, a dreadfully venomous Kwiller, the nearest thing was young, frozen Samuel.

  Luke screamed for his son to run away, while David picked up the nearest piece of debris and threw it at the beast, hoping to grab its attention. All it did was make it hiss in anger, fan out its quilled tail, and lash out at Samuel, who screamed as he was knocked off his feet and tumbled backward, a deadly quill stuck to his arm, pumping its venom into the young boy.

  As if satisfied with his feat, the Kwiller scampered away, soon followed by yelling crewmen with ropes and poles hoping to recapture the rare and dangerous creature.

  Luke stumbled forward to his son, panic in his eyes, grabbing at the quill and pulling it out as quick as he could. Samuel cried out in pain as sickly, purplish blood oozed out of the wound.

  Within seconds, David was at his side, unpacking one of his magical cargo cloths and injecting a small amount of mana into it, activating its imbuements, making its contents emerge from within. He quickly retrieved a small ampule, cracking it open and emptying its contents on the wound, throwing away the remains before picking out another bottle and jamming it in Samuel's mouth, forcing him to drink it entirely.

  Luke looked to David, wide-eyed. “Wh... what did you give him?”

  “A neutralizer and a detoxifier, but nothing I have is strong enough to stop a Kwiller's venom, and I don't think anyone in town will have an antivenom for something that comes from so far away,” David replied, his mind going a thousand miles per bell as he observed the darkening wound on Samuel's arm.

  “What can we do?” Luke asked with a desperate, trembling voice.

  David locked gaze with his brother, offering him something solid for his mind to grab onto. “Go to the healer, have them dress the wound and drain as much venom as possible. I'll run down the merchant captain. Maybe he'll have thought to bring at least one dose of antivenom.”

  Luke, nodding while trying to comfort his sobbing son, picked him up and ran towards the nearest healer.

  David stood, stilled his heart and his breathing, and tracked down the merchant captain. He found him at the centre of a mass of men, attempting to control the unfurling disaster while shouting expletives and blame at the dock authorities.

  A rather tall and well-muscled man, David had no trouble marching through the merchant's entourage, approaching the man and gripping him by the shoulders, grabbing his attention and levelling a steely stare at him.

  “No questions, no time to waste. Do you have a Kwiller antivenom? Yes or no?” His voice was solid granite.

  “Wh.. I... Kwiller antivenom?” The merchant stammered.

  “Do you have one, yes or no?”

  “N.... no, I don't! Let me go, you lout!” The merchant replied, trying to shake David's hands off.

  David let go with a frustrated shove. The merchant stumbled a few steps backward. When he looked up to his assailant, all he saw was a retreating back, David already planning his next steps.

  We'll need the best antivenoms we can find, and even then, it's only going to slow down the Kwiller's. Samuel is too young to fight it back without the actual antivenom.

  Gain some time first, and then scour the town for the antivenom. If nobody has it, then find the recipe and have someone brew it. Founding gods, I hope it won't be too hard to find.

  To his greatest curses, he found none in town. With Samuel being drip-fed generic antivenoms and fortifying brews to buy them time, David had scoured the alchemists, apothecaries, brewers, healers, herbalists, and libraries. After 30 long sleepless bells, he somehow managed to find an old and almost illegible formula in a dusty and cracked tome in the personal library of a retired merchant, which he then had transcribed onto a fresh bit of parchment.

  Yet his hope for a quick resolution to the crisis died quickly. Finding the more exotic ingredients of the formula was going to be incredibly difficult, and the whole brewing process, according to the alchemists he consulted, was an extremely exacting and finicky one, prone to failure.

  He had then spent several near-sleepless days tracking down all of the required ingredients, followed by a mad dash through the region to visit all the alchemists he could find.

  And now, 7 days later, 3 towns scoured for ingredients, 14 different alchemists who had all failed or refused to even attempt the brew, with Samuel barely able to breathe the last time he saw him, David was here, in a town at the edge of the world, hoping against hope that he would find someone able to brew the antivenom, with only two sets of ingredients left and no time to find more.

  This was his last chance, but he refused to let the flame of hope sputter out.

  The auto-carriage slowed down and stopped in front of the town's gate. David paid the driver and stepped out wearily, eyes sunken from a lack of sleep.

  Saint Calimir, please let my search be fruitful. He sent a quick prayer to the patron saint of Free Couriers. He needed all the help he could get at this point.

  With nothing else to do, he did as his job usually called for; He took a step forward, towards the solution, no matter how far it may lie.

  Autocar / Autocarriage