Young Writers Society

Prince of War:

prologue- Betrayal

My name is Kel, I'm nineteen years old, and live in the city of Traieth. I wasn't born there, I was born in a tiny, out of the way forest town, so small it isn't on any maps. Born the youngest of a large family, with two older brothers and three older sisters. I never saw a life for me in that village, neither did anyone else. I was a scapegrace, a wild child, the town trouble maker, the town screw up if you ask anyone else.

I didn't even look the same as the other villagers, or even my own family. They all had hair and eyes in varying shades of brown, with pale skin, from living in the forest all their lives. I had light hair, almost silvery, and shining blue-violet eyes. As for my skin, it was tanned, with an almost golden overtone. Growing up, my mother often joked that I must be a changeling.

Everyone half expected me to just, walk off into the woods one day and never come back. Nobody else ever left that place, nobody else ever even thought of leaving. The rest of my family was happy with their lot in life, my brothers to follow my father in hunting and fishing, my sisters to marry another person in the village. Not me, I was the moody one, the strange one. The one who just didn't fit in, and probably never would.

That all changed in the spring of my sixteenth year. I came home from having spent a week in the woods, and found Lyra sitting on the back stoop, crying. She was just a year older then me, and that winter there had been talk of her wedding Jorne, the river man. Our cottage was in a shady grove of trees next to a stream, there were blueberries growing wild all around our house.

We hadn't always lived, my brothers were always moaning about how hard things used to be. How we'd half starve in winter, if we didn't nearly freeze. Things got better right around the time I was born. The family came into some money and we moved to one of the better cottages, we never went hungry, never lacked for anything.

This just made my family more baffled by my strange ways. When I was younger my father said it was a phase, and that I'd grow out of it. He was wrong, as I got older, I only got worse. I started spending more and more time out in the forest, or with the traders that came to our village.

I stopped and crouched down in front of Lyra, leaning my bow against the wall. Gently, I lifted her hands from in front of her face and she looked at me. Her light brown hair was in tangles, her hazel eyes, normally bright with curiosity, were red and puffy from crying. Worry clenched my throat, had something happened to my brothers, or Da? Or maybe it was Ma, or Bron and Seri?

Swallowing the sudden lump in my throat, I asked her. "What's wrong Lyra? What happened?"

She sniffed and then threw her arms around my neck. "Oh Kel, it's Uncle Venher, he's sick. They think he's dying."

You can believe me cold hearted if you wish, but I promised that this story would be the complete truth. And the truth, is that the first thought that came to my mind was. 'Good riddance.' Vanher was the village mage, and sort of an honorary uncle to our family. He'd found Bron and Seri good husbands, and given my brothers magical aids for their hunting. Protected our home from fire and the like, and a whole bunch of other things.

My brothers and sisters adored him, my parents doted on him. But Vanher had always rubbed me the wrong way, maybe it was the way he was always watching. Or maybe it was something else entirely, but something about him just made my skin crawl. So when Lyra told me he was dying, some small part of me was happy.

I'm not sure what happened in the next few hours, I was probably in shock. I vaguely recall comforting Lyra before bringing her inside. She cleaned up and then went with Ma and Seri, over to Vanher's house. My father and brothers were already there, Bron couldn't go because she was pregnant, and didn't want ot lose the baby. So pretty soon it was just the two of us in the house.

I remember those hours had a sort of dream like quality, recalling specific details is difficult. That night, my family slept at Vanher's, keeping a death watch. After yet another argument with my parents, I stayed home. Standing my bedroom, I watched my family through the loft window. My hands were clenched in fists and I gritted my teeth, I needed space. Lately my temper had become uncontrollable, I spent almost all my time alone in the woods. I had only been home for a few hours and already I was seething, needing the solace of the woods to calm my raging temper.

Glancing up, I caught a glimpse of the moon through the forest's leafy canopy, it hunge large in the sky and would be full in just a few days. Down the village road, lights blazed from the mage's house. It seemed my family wasn't the only one worried about the village mage. Scowling, I averted my gaze and took a deep breath.

Sighing, I sprawled on my bed and gazed moodily up at the ceiling. What was wrong with me? Everyone else was content with their lives in the village, it was the same in all the deep forest towns. Nothing ever changed, and if people left, it was only to move to the next town over. No one ever thought about the world outside these woods, although ostensibly the province was part of the Ilusyan kingdom. If everyone else was content with their lives, why couldn't I be?

My thoughts buzzing with questions and no answers, I drifted into a restless sleep. Shivering, I glanced around the foreign landscape, dunes of white sand stretched as far as the eye could see. Spangle of colored light danced across the sky. The lights were beautiful, mesmerizing, I had never seen anything like them. I felt warm just looking at them. Turning in a slow circle, I saw not a single tree or blade of grass. My mind put a name to the place, desert, a place I had heard of only in traveler tales, and fairy stories.

I stopped and squinted, in the distance a lone mountain loomed, where once there had been flat unbroken horizon. The light was being pulled towards the jagged peak, drawn to it. The ground thifted beneath me and I blinked, suddenly I was standing at the base of the mountain. Looking up, I studied the mountain face, cliffs carved from jagged black stone rose high above my head.

"It's a wrong thing." I thought, in my head I understood that this was a dream, but some part of realized it was no ordinary dream. That same part of me knew that the mountain didn't belong, wasn't supposed to be there. The ground beneath my feet was cracked and broken, malice seemed to radiate from the mountain.

Looking behind me, I saw the desert stretch endlessly into the distance, the mountain was the sole landmark. Above the lights flickered and dimmed as they drew closer to the mountain, supressed by some unseen shadow. Determined, I squared shoulders, and started climbing the mountain.

I nearly went mad climbing that mountain, at the beginning it was easy. But soon I began seeing things, glimpses of a little boy at play with his friends. As he grew older he realised he was different, he had magic. As I climbed, I watched him grow to manhood, dreaming of attending the Sorcerer's Academy in Traieth, and becoming a great mage. Watched him drift apart from his boyhood friends as he became consume with chasing his dream.

The higher I climbed the more vivid the visions became, and the harder it was to keep going. Until I was living them right alongside the boy. I was with him when his love married another, when his friends turned their backs on him. And when he suffered the bitterest dissapointment of all. The realisation that he did not have the power, the magic, to follow his ambitions. And then one day...

The vision cut off abruptly as I scrambled over the ledge of yet another cliff, and stood on the mountain summit. Disoriented, I stumbled, and almost fell over the edge. But the sight before me was enough to freeze me in place. The mountain was hollow, below me stood a vast seeminly bottomless chasm. And the entire thing was filled with rainbows of light. The lights in the sky were being pulled through the mountain top, trapped within.

Caged by the mountain of black stone, the light was trying to escape. Fractures ran all over the mountain peak, here the walls were thin, so thin you could see right through to the cage within. As I watched, another crack etched across the mountain face, and then another, another. Then, a tendril of pale rose light slipped through, and like a dam bursting, the entire mountain shattered benearth me.

The black stone vanished as if it had never been, and I fell through space. Above, the light spread out in a radiant sunburst, a thousand different colors leaping forth. A red that flames could only envy, a blue more brilliant then the sky, a golden orange that would put to shame the most beautiful senset. And below me the landscape was transformed, from a flat lifeless desert, to a verdant, rolling, plain.

I woke with a jolt just before I hit the ground, outside birdsong rang through the air, along with the familiar rustle of leaves in the wind. Groaning, I rolled over and stood with a stretch, I felt like I had slept for twenty hours or more.

After a change of clothes, I ran downstairs, to find the whole family gathered in the common room. Bron was there with her husband, Seri with her's and their children, my niece and nephew. Lyra was sitting on the couch with Ma and Da. My brothers, Jem and Alex were leaning against the wall.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when I came downstairs, my siblings came over to hug me. The warm welcome was explained when Jem told me I'd been asleep for almost two day, since the night Vanher died. They couldn't wake me at all, and apperantly I had run a raging fever.

In contrast to my siblings relief that I was alive, my parents were another matter entirely. My mother was white faced, my father grim and tight lipped. When he spoke, his words were a surprise to us all. "Children, could you please go outside. We need to speak to Kel alone, and this is certainly not something Marie and Lyon should overhear." He nodded towards the little ones.

Confusion flashed across my siblings faces, but they swallowed their questions and filed out into the warm afternoon sunlight. Jem shot me a questioning look over his shoulder, but I could only shrug in reply.

I watched them leave with a slightly baffled air, before turning to look at my parents. My mom was crying, I watched Da put a comforting arm around her shaking shoulders, before taking a deep breath. "Kellaris, son. There's something important your mother and I have to tell you."

***

"How could you do this to me!?" Shock tore through me as I stared at my parents.

Ma was crying in earnest now, and Da just stood there like a stone. "It was for your own good Kel." His tone made it clear he thought I was overreacting.

The shock was receding now, the realization that they believed their actions were justified stirred my temper. For the first time in months, I didn't reign the anger in, instead I shouted. "My own good!? You ruined my life!"

"Don't you take that tone with me young man!" My father was beginning to get angry too. "You have no right to talk to your mother and me like that."

"No right!? I have every right. You took my magic, the power I was born with, an irreplacable part of me! And sold it to that mage like a toy!" I was shaking now, "I always knew that bastard Vanher was scum. Now I know why."

In my chest I felt a light pressure, and warmth uncurling. Da took a step back and stumbled next to Ma, when I turned and looked in the mirror, my eyes widened in shock. My white-gold hair was banded in silver light, blue-violet eyes glowed with their own inner flame. The warmth spread throughout my body, and even beneath the rage, I felt joy. This was my magic, who I was, who I was supposed to be all along.

"You don't speak ill of the dead like that. Now calm down Kel, we can talk this out." I whirled around glaring at him, he swallowed audibly but stood his ground, and I paused with the sudden knowledge that my father was afraid of me.

When I spoke my voice came out in a low, deadly, hiss. "Why? So you can sell my power to the next mage who comes along?" Accusation, and betrayal hung thick in my tone. "You did this. You sold my power when I was a baby. In return Vanher got you this beautiful home, plenty of money, a perfect life."

"It wasn't like that." My mother gasped, the tears flowing freely now. But I couldn't feel remorse, I was too angry. At the same time I realised that if I didn't get a grip I could easily lose control of that newly regained magic.

"Wasn't it?" I choked, agony in my voice. "You got the perfect, worry free life. A dream come true, and all it cost you, was your son's happiness."

Turning away from them, I started mounting the stairs back to my room. Da shouted up the stairs after me. "Where are you going? We're not finished here, Kel!"

I stepped into my room and snatched up my pack. Grabbing my bow, I buckled on the sword as I came back down the stairs. "The thing is Da, we are. I can see I'm no longer wanted here. But you needn't worry, I won't come back, I won't ever set foot in your precious forests again."

"No one leaves the woods. You can't do that!"

I strode over to the door and yanked it open. My siblings and their families were sitting in the yard, the looks on their faces made it plain that they had heard every word. I shouted the parting comment over my shoulder as I stepped outside and set off down the path. "Yeah? Watch me."