Chương 33: Scars Don’t Fade

Sevran dove into the river, his arms slicing through the cold water. A knife clenched between his teeth, his eyes scanning for inattentive fish. In an instant, he spotted a pair feasting on moss plastered to a river wall. He opened his mouth, letting the knife drop into his palm. Thrusting it forward, he cut through the current like an arrow through the air and pinned both fish against the wall. Their tails flicked weakly as a faint mist of blood tinted the water red.

He surfaced a moment later with a gasp, grimacing as his feet gripped the wet soil. He squinted as the twin suns hit him, lips quivering from the cold water. The water felt freezing. Even though it was Goldturn, the twin suns burned against his skin like glaring eyes. Getting a Blessing was supposed to make him stronger. And it did, but the price was that he now got sunburned faster than a snowflake in summer.

Drops of water streamed off his ashen-gray hair, trailing down his gray-tinged skin that was almost translucent under the twin suns. With one hand, he wiped the dirt from a log and sat down. He placed both fish on a flat stone and made quick work of gutting them. From a small pouch, he produced some salt and seasoned the insides. To his right stood a makeshift cooking station he had fashioned from stones and wood, arranged in a circle around a vivid fire.

A triangle of steady branches held an iron chain, from which a pan hung, already sizzling with oil. As he dropped the fish in, smoke curled upward, and oil popped, spitting onto his chest. He didn't flinch. A small chuckle escaped him as the aroma hit his nostrils and his stomach growled loudly. He glanced around. Great, he's not here. I'm starving, he thought, salivating. He would eat two fish today, a rarity he couldn't wait for. Until— A sharp yip came from the side.

Out of the corner of his eye, by his leg, sat the familiar apricot-furred fox. Its ears twitched, tail beating lightly against the ground.

"You again…" Sevran groaned and rolled his eyes.

"You always seem to appear whenever I have food." The fox batted at the dirt with its haunches and lolled out its bright blue tongue. This only earned it a deeper scowl from Sevran. A whine from the opportunistic fox made him glance over again. Its expression had fallen, its ears flattened, tail stilled. Sevran exhaled sharply and massaged his temples.

"I guess I do owe you." He cleared his throat, pointedly looked anywhere but at the creature, and tossed the fish head in its general direction. The fox caught the flying fish's head gracefully, eyes glinting with satisfaction as it devoured it.

"There. Happy now?" Sevran's eyes stayed half-closed, as though he were doing the fox a favor he'd never admit to. After finishing his portion, the boy slouched back against the log. He and his father had sat on this same log years ago every time they went fishing. It was wide enough for two people, maybe more if they ignored personal space. Sevran didn't have anyone to sit with, though. Not for years he hadn't. Not that he truly minded the solitude. He had grown accustomed to his own company long ago.

Most of his conversations nowadays were transactional anyway, exchanged for supplies in town. He kept to himself. The world had made it clear long ago that alone was all he would ever be. That was fine. He had never really liked people either. Relying on others was a luxury he couldn't afford. He muttered a curse under his breath, his mouth twitching, not quite a smile, but a grimace masquerading as one. His mind drifted back five years.

He had been ten then, just a boy, bleeding and exhausted, stumbling out of the woods with nothing but desperation. He had gone straight to the Blessen Division. He had begged them. Pleaded. Please, come with me. Please help my dad. The words still rang in the back of his mind. They had looked at him like he was dirt beneath their boots and turned their backs, leaving him standing there alone. He had never forgotten that. May the gods damn them all.

Then he thought of the last words his father had left him: "A hero must become a new path." His old man had always liked to repeat that line from a stupid fairy tale book called The Lost Song of the Fire Hero. Just some idealistic nonsense for dreamers. His father had always been the romantic type, always dreaming about being a Blessen, about what he could have achieved. Well, look at me now, Dad. I'm a Blessen. Sevran scowled, then his fingers grazed the deep, jagged scar carved into his chest.

It still throbbed whenever he thought about what had left it there, a permanent brand that refused to let him forget. This had become his daily life: hunting in the woods, flaying the skin off any game he captured, and selling it for mere Auri in the market. The wilderness had become more of a home than the empty shell of his house. Sevran was always in solitude. Well… mostly in solitude. Gusty would always find him somehow. Gusty was the fox, a name he had stupidly given him years ago.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Could've named you Rotten Meat. You better be grateful. A smug grin spread across his face as Gusty growled. Sevran took that as gratitude. Even though he had tried to keep his distance from Gusty, the fox always knew how to find him, appearing when he least expected it. Eventually, Sevran gave up trying to run from the persistent creature and slowly got used to having it around.

Gusty had seen more than his fair share of encounters with Grulls. Sevran didn't need to witness them to know it. Why? Because the little vermin had saved him years ago. With a hop, Sevran sprang to his feet and packed up his things, stamping out the campfire as he walked toward the gate that was the last wall between him and the nightmare he needed to slay. The guards at the gate blocked his path, hands resting on their swords.

But as soon as he showed his Blessen insignia—an archer's glove embedded with some kind of star-shaped gem—one of them looked him up and down slowly and deliberately, then shook his head and said, "Go ahead, kid." Sevran stepped through the gate into the other side of the forest. For as long as he had known the forest, he had only ever known the safer side before the gate. The one time he had gone deeper had been enough to change the course of his entire life. His eyes darted toward the grove.

The sky had turned cloudy, a clear sign of incoming rain. The only movement was the wind rustling the leaves and bushes, accompanied by the faint creak of branches.

"It's unnervingly quiet," he murmured to himself. There weren't that many Grulls in Aura Cay's forest, but he had heard there were enough for the hundred or so Blessens on the island to kill without ever running out. A high-pitched growl came from his side. His heart lurched, and then he glared at the intrepid little fox, ready to scream at him. He was a him—Sevran was almost sure of that. He had tried to check once, but Gusty bit him so hard the little vermin drew blood.

Gusty's ears swiveled sharply in one direction, his stance stiffened, and his fangs were bared.

"What's happening, Gusty?" he asked. Something rustled in the underbrush. Sevran cocked an arrow and aimed at where the movement was, only lowering it when another fox popped out in front of them. It was the same color as Gusty, but something about it looked off.

"What in Elandris is that?" Gusty approached and sniffed it, tail swishing. Sevran couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. It was clearly a fox, but it looked strangely unnatural. It was as if a drawing had been vivified. Was that even the right word? Then giggles came from behind the weird fox, and a girl with long straight blonde hair, striking grey eyes, and skin radiant as the twin suns stepped out from behind a tree, her peach-colored cheeks lifted with her giggles.

"Did you appreciate my drawing?" she said.

"You?!" he exclaimed, pressing his palms to his eyes.

"Why are you here?"

"I decided I wanted to take a walk through the forest today," Aelia, the girl who hadn't stopped pestering him for the past couple of weeks, declared.

"In a Grull-infested one?" he asked incredulously as he tucked the arrow back into his quiver.

"Why not stay behind the gate where it's safe?" He couldn't believe it. This girl was so strange. When he first met her, he had thought she was just like the rest, blinded by the shine of everything handed to her. But she was the complete opposite. She was… alright, he supposed, but still, why was she here?

"How did you even get past the guards?" She gave him a look that was hard to describe. Was she pouting?

"I'm a Blessen as well." She flashed her necklace insignia.

"Oh, that's right," he muttered with a bit of mockery in his voice.

"It's just that you don't look like one at all, so I keep forgetting."

"Pardon me?" He waved a hand.

"You're not going back, are you?" A few loose strands of blonde hair slipped across her shoulder as she shook her head.

"I have every right to be here. Whether it's wise to exercise that right is a different matter entirely." His inaugural hunt as a Blessen, which he had tried not to think about as possibly being his last, had now become their inaugural hunt.

"Listen, if you're going to follow me, don't get in my way. And if we do find a Grull, I won't try to save you. You defend yourself."

"Of course, I have no intention of fighting any Grulls. I simply wish to ensure your desire for revenge doesn't carry you somewhere from which you cannot return."

"Argh," he grunted.

"Stop trying to sound pretentious." Knowing there was no convincing the girl to turn back, Sevran spun and walked, and of course she followed suit, staying uncomfortably close to him. As they walked they made conversation, all of it started by her. She was so pushy, always asking him about personal stuff he didn't really want to disclose, but there was something that always made him talk. This girl was so unlike any other he'd met before.

They always avoided him like the plague, but she wouldn't leave him alone—to the point she even came to this dangerous forest to hang with him. He thought that made her slightly admirable in his book. Or just plain stupid. They walked for over an hour without finding anything worth killing, or that could kill them. Then the rain hit hard. They stopped under the shade of a large tree and sat to wait it out. He didn't speak, and Aelia hadn't complained once, which he found more irritating than if she had.

At least complaining would have given him something to push back against. Why was this girl so interested in his personal business? Was she really that glad he had saved her back during the Blessed Trial? Maybe I shouldn't have. How many bridges he had burned, he couldn't say. It was a knack of his, as easy as breathing. No matter how hard he tried, that big mouth of his always did him dirty.

He'd been booted out of the Learning Hall for an entire semester after telling a gold-class noble to eat it and then breaking his nose. That was the reason that even though he was fifteen, he still hadn't graduated. Still, he got off easy, and he knew. People didn't just hurt a gold-class noble, especially not a bronze-class kid like him. He understood how society pushed and prodded, bending everyone to fit. He would not fit in, no matter how much they forced him.

One thing that mattered, one thing he clung to even in his darkest days, was his pride. He was who he was, and he would not change that for anyone but himself. If that alienated people from him, so be it. But she hadn't run from him, even after he called her homely and talentless. Sevran had meant those words, at least back during the trial he had. Still, everyone had their own agenda, their own motives. He just needed to learn what hers was.

The rain slowed to a light trickle, and he was about to push forward again when Gusty suddenly froze at his side, hunch hairs standing on end. Sevran frowned at the fox's sudden reaction, and then he understood. A loud, thunderous roar reverberated through the woods, sending a shiver down Sevran's spine. His blood surged cold and sharp with adrenaline.

"I know that roar."