Damian and Sam split up. Using the darkness of the night, they crept inside the dark huts one by one, trying to find anything with color. When even after searching each and every empty hut they could and found nothing, they reunited and walked toward the largest hut—the house where the chief was supposed to live.
The village eting had long since ended, with most of the people returning back to their huts. So stayed awake, though, guarding the village entrance and patrolling around the wooden log walls of the village.
Damian had heard many of them talking about the strange boy arriving from nowhere and breaking their sacred relic, and then their chief suddenly disappearing—most believed it was connected. They believed sohow Damian had kidnapped their chief. The ntion of Sam was very little among the chatter though, as if no one wanted to acknowledge that a person had been trapped inside their sacred relic for so long and had just escaped together with the village intruder.
The giant hut on the hill had two separate compartnts, and both were empty. The wooden logs used as the separation between different sections of the large hut. There were so furs, animal heads, and other weird-looking things all around though. Damian was looking through them when suddenly the whole hut started glowing golden—he looked back to where the light was coming from. Sam was standing near an open big chest, inside of which was the source of this golden light.
Damian walked near him and saw a small, 2-ter-big sphere placed inside the big chest, with golden liquid energy flowing inside it from top to bottom. Sa as Sam's sphere did—this one was just much smaller. The difference between a third and second ranker?
"What now?" Sam asked, his eyes fixed on the sphere.
"We break it and hold it…" Damian replied.
Sam's was big enough for Damian to get inside, but only touching it should probably work too. Sam had the axe. He lightly hit the sphere, and it cracked open. Sam may not have much mana or his lightning, but he was still a third-ranker. Probably the most powerful being in this village—except for whatever the mysterious chief was.
Sam broke the outer glass layer with his hands, making it big enough for them to insert their hands in. Sam looked at Damian. Their eyes t, and he nodded. Together they held the golden liquid energy, and in the next second, everything turned to pitch-black darkness—only then to be replaced by a fancy, large training area or sothing. It was right outside a fancy-looking large stone building—a palace, Damian realized.
Damian turned fully to look all around when a sound of soone falling and groaning ca from the side. His eyes followed the sound and saw a kid falling down in the dirt with a wooden sword in hand. Blood trailed from his mouth, and all his fancy clothes were ragged and dirty—clearly, it was not the first ti the boy had tasted the dirt.
"Co on! Get up. This wasn't even that hard… Keep your feet in a strong position, and stop falling." A bored, annoyed voice ca from a middle-aged man.
"He is saying you are too weak…" A boy smirked from the opposite side of the fallen boy. He too had a wooden sword in hand but was a bit older.
"Excellent!"
"Beautiful…"
"Amazing!"
A crowd of soldiers nearby suddenly broke into loud applause and praise. Damian noticed four fallen n trying to get up, as one teenage boy stood strong in the middle, holding a real steel sword.
"You two should learn from his diligence…" said the middle-aged man to the two boys.
Neither looked happy hearing it though. Especially the older boy—Damian assud the guy to be the second prince of Dawnstar. The fallen boy looked much too similar to Maelor for him to be anyone else.
Then suddenly, a man ran toward the training ground from the palace and gave so news to the middle-aged man. He, in turn, looked toward the three children with pity and sadness in his eyes.
The three boys looked at the man with the sa hardened face that reflected the emotions of finally receiving the news of sothing that was inevitable.
The scene changed from there, and suddenly they were in a palace room. Though decorated, the room had half turned into an infirmary with clothes hanging from the ceiling, bedpans, and a table full of dicines and flowers and whatnot. There was a woman in the middle of the room, lying down in the bed, breathing hard. All around her bed, white cloth pieces were hanging from tal rods—covering the whole bed from all sides.
The woman was clearly ill and had so infectious disease. There were other people in the room besides the three boys and a little girl holding a doll. Everyone's mouth was opening and closing; they were speaking, but there was no sound coming out of any of their mouths. Only two sounds were being heard: a loud, weak, and terrible breathing sound—like soone was trying their best to hold onto life—and then there was the sound of quiet sobbing.
It was Maelor, Damian realized. He was the one crying. The breathing belonged to his mother.
"What is going on?" Damian heard a voice beside him. It was Sam.
Ah, he almost forgot Sam was with him this ti.
"Looks like his mother… Dying…" Damian replied.
The scene changed once again. This ti it was a heated exchange between teenage Maelor and his king father, in the middle of so kind of eting. It was about Maelor's sister—the discussion seed to be about her marriage. It lasted for so ten minutes before Maelor was humiliated by his father and thrown out of the room. Then the first training ground scene started repeating, followed by the deathbed and then the humiliation. It seed to be a much smaller loop than Sam's—but had three different scenarios mixed in.
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