CHAPTER
ONE
A long red cape hung from Damian’s shoulders and dragged behind him as he walked out of his bedroom door and down the hallway, looking as if he had some sort of a lingering sorrow that infested him. With his head down he slowly descended the red-carpeted spiral stairs, he ran his fingers along the smooth green wallpaper. He was alone in the castle everyone including his father, the Governor, the leader of the city, had already gone out of the door and to the town square to attend the ceremony. The word ceremony was source of the sorrow.
At the bottom of the stairs there was a giant castle door that a dragon could easily crawl into, gigantic iron locks supported the giant wooden door. In the bottom middle of the gigantic door was a smaller door, more human sized it was meticulously camouflaged into the larger door. Damian walked toward the door hearing his boots click-clack against the laminated green tiles. He reached the smaller door before looking over his shoulder, the sight of two thrones bothered and depressed.
Damian opened the door and a the brightness of the afternoon sun blinded Damian momentarily and the smell of flowers that smelled like honey and the pungent smell of meats and fruits from a distant market. The event was taking place in the castles courtyard, so that’s where Damian headed.
The courtyard was on the western part of the castle marked by an arch that was just a bunch of rounded rocks stacked on top of each other in the shape of a small arch. It’s said that despite it’s simple and what logically would be weak structure, the arch has stood there for thousands of years.
Damian saw the arch across a large field of Honeydew flowers that smelled like sweet honey and tall apple trees. Damian knew that once he went through that arch he wouldn’t come out so innocent, he took a deep breath and slowly exhaled while staring at the arch which is obscured by tall grass and low hanging branches.
Damian walked through the tall poorly gardened tall grasses and towards the arch; the sounds of angry shouting grew stronger and the dusty smell of rocks accompanied by a strong smell of sea salt set my nostrils ablaze. He walked into the arch to see a small field where a crowd of dozens gathered around a towering and thin stick.
Damian pushed his little body through the tightly packed crowd until he ducked his head under a man’s arm and stood in front of his mother, the empress. Her hands were tied in thick rope around the wooden pole; she switched out her royal garb into what looked like a dress made of a used burlap sack and rope to keep it together. She is raised up high with her grimy bare feet at least a meter off the ground. Her mascara was now dried up in streams under her vibrant pink eyes and her blonde hair was colored with black splotches of dirt and dried and crusty mud leaving very little blonde hair visible. She looked too weak to talk, but she whispered to Damian gently.
“I-“ she coughed up blood on the boy’s blue shirt, but he didn’t mind “I’m so… sorry darling… be a good little boy, be strong… listen to your pop.”
“Boy!” a strong and harsh voice yelled from the other side of the field standing next to a black booth with a glass viewing area.
“He’s got a name you bloody Git-“ she coughed and gagged, Damian urged her to let it go and calm down but she refused and spat out “It’s Damian you pathetic sod!” she yelled with all her strength. “Go to your father.” She whispered lovingly like it was the last thing she would ever say to her son.
Tears welled up in eleven-year-old Damian’s eyes, as even he knew full well what was about to take place. He walked over to meet with his father in the glass-encased booth, his father was a grizzly man with a neat comb over haircut, that was black with hints of gray and his dark jade green eyes never seemed welcoming at all and gave a whole new meaning to the term ‘Green eyed monster’. He had a pretty flat face and a beard that connected with his sideburns was unkempt and scruffy.
“Take a seat boy.” He spat as he barked the command at the little boy; Damian took a seat in a red leather chair that was stiff and not very cushioned at all. With a wave of a hand the Governor ordered the priest to start. The priest nodded, he was in a dark green cloak with golden embroidery on the edges.
“Adriana Fitz, you have been found guilty of grand treason against your Governor’s city, the city you have sworn love and allegiance to. You have been found guilty of Grand Perjury for claiming that you have not been conspiring against Grand Avalon and her capital city, our city, Rodda. You have been found guilty of attempting to start an uprising to overthrow the Governor of Rodda and claim Grand Avalon for your own…”
Damian’s mother was a siren. A subset of humanity that stemmed from the spawn of humans who practiced the magical arts so obsessively it literally ran through their veins and genetically passed down to their children which soon became a whole new type of human. Sirens are one of the dozens of rumored ‘spell spawn’ each breed of spell spawn is said to have one natural ability.
The siren’s ability was speech craft not just persuasion but powerful spells and release massive amounts of energy just by willingly opening their mouth to say something, but the Empress didn’t bother she already knew that it she was giving her life to protect the sirens, who were now sneaking out of this city and hopefully Grand Avalon.
His Mother hung her head down, with her stringy hair hanging over her face in silence, and the priest went on to read the rest of her accusations from a papyrus paper scroll, the rest of the accusations that included plotting and theft. “ Do you deny these charges, Adriana?” the priest spat her name in a sarcastic tone.
The fallen Empress said nothing as if she was dead, but everyone knew she was very well alive. Queued by her silence the priest said, “Right then… I almost forget spell spawn.” He said the term with a scoff, he reached into a fold in his cloak, clutched in his hand was a dagger with a curvy and down facing blade, he donned his hood over his head and without a single movement of his head, he stepped on top of a blood splattered apple crate set to the right of the wooden pole. With as much force and his head still facing downwards he thrust his blade blindly and swiftly into her mouth, the crowd watched as blood poured from her moth and staining her clothes.
Poor Damian averted his eyes from the mess of red as his father watched intently with a satisfied yet slight grin. Damian clapped his hands around his ears trying not to hear the quiet gurgling of her blood. She was still alive and her eyes were fluttering with tears welling up in her eyes.
“Your Punishment will be death, by stoning.” Said the priest solemnly signaling towards several heaps of jagged and rounded rocks alike spread across the fields randomly, to be picked up and hurled at her.
Denizens began to mercilessly throw the rocks at her, scraping her skin and opening wounds that bleed gushingly. Even inside the booth Damian could hear the rocks colliding against her body with a loud THUMP! He heard it over and over again and watched as his father watched blood spurt out on impact.
After a while of endless pummeling, the Governor arose from his seat and walked out of the booth waving his hands above his head to signal the people to stop. The crowd quickly ceased and the grizzly Governor turned around and after a gaze into her pink eyes, she met his gaze, staring into his contrasting jade eyes. Without a word he drove his palm across her face in a brutal slap leaving blood trickling from her cut lip. She was within an inch of her life.
The Governor was satisfied, he waved his hand and walked into the booth and took a seat. The citizens had gathered a volley of rocks and contorted a plan to release them all at the same time. Damian watched through the glass wall, sunken deep into the recesses of his soft velveteen chair. A volley of rocks soared high through the air and began to descend down towards her like a rainstorm. And with countless thumps, like a flurry of punches and jabs at a stiff punching bag, she was pummeled to death her body looked like a bag of meat in human shape.
Damian and his father walked out of the booth one had a wide and slight grin while the other hung his head in mournfulness. They both stood in front of the mangled corpse, limp and hanging on the pole. Lifeless.
“Father, will we not preserve mothers body?” asked Damian wide eyed and still wiping tears from his eyes.
“Damian don’t be so nonsensical, your mother was a traitor to Rodda, and don’t you love this city Damian?” he paused as if to evoke a response. “We will cremate her tonight after supper and we will donate the ashes to the church.”
Damian was concocting a plan of righteousness and justice. “Yes father.”
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The sweet smell of pineapple ham lingered in the dining hall, and the gas lit lamps that hung on the walls shed light on multiple important figures from the nation of Grand Avalon
Rodda city and other cities in Grand Avalon, the important gentlemen and eccentric women were dressed in tight knit corsets and airy dresses and blooming skirts or generals in their general’s jackets available in many different colors, all of the jackets had one thing in common, they were highly decorated, exhibiting shiny medals.
The important figures swished around red wine in crystal glasses and indulged on ham as they discussed politics, Damian had virtually zero interest and much less competent when subjects like raising taxes on bread and wine.
Damian sat somewhere in the middle section of the table slowly shoveling rice pudding in his mouth stopping momentarily to admire the ornate silver swirly designs at the end of his spoon out of pure boredom. He looked at his wristwatch and read the roman numerals as it being about seven in the evening, he had been sitting at this dinner for an hour all while having his mind numbed by the lameness of the dinner chat.
Then out of nowhere the ambassador of Egon city who sat directly across from Damian mentioned something Damian hadn’t heard at any of the dozens of other supper parties he was forced to sit through, because of his father claiming that this would be very important to know when Damian took his throne. Damian wanted nothing to do with this putrid "nation".
The ambassador of Egon cleared his throat, silencing the entire table. ”James,” he turned to the Governor “the mining colony in the siren capital city, Aerith, is failing and quite sadly so too.” The Governor looked at him with contempt and seemed to warn the ambassador from Iceland to choose his next words wisely. “Revolts are becoming commonplace and more and more miners are being killed in the process.”
“If I may sir,” a sharply dressed man at the end of the table directly across from Governor Fitz, spoke in a gentle voice with a heavy Serbian accent.
“What is it Mr. Tesla? Choose our words wisely we have guests.”
“About the Siren workforce, sir, I believe it is an opportune moment to showcase the world the Tesla is not dead.” He scooted his chair backwards and got up, he ran down the halls that lead to the main entrance. He came back rolling a giant cart covered in a white sheet.
With great pride he pulled off the sheet to reveal a bronze mechanical giant in a crouched position, with its arms wrapped around its knees. Before Tesla could say anything else Fitz commented, “Isn’t that one of our sentry bots? Why did you remove this one from his post?!” protested Fitz loudly, now standing.
In response Tesla petted his thin pencil mustache in a gesture of impatience and annoyance, “Anyway as I was about to say ambassador. I do not design weapons. Period. You gave me a home here and I’m thankful sir I really am, but when I see my creations shooting down petty thieves as they run down the street. It makes feel as if they died by my hand not the robots’. We could modify this machine to help the mining colony. Completely eliminating the need of a slave workforce. We could help, I mean what did these men and women ever do to have to mine for our own purposes and quarter our soldiers. The only thing they’ve ever done is be themselves, so if you continue to force me into making weapons, consider me resigned.”
“Tesla don’t be foolish, you have nowhere to go.” Fitz ended the sentence with a mock chuckle.
"That may be
A highly decorated commander stood up with a start while slamming his beer mug on the table, the beer splashed out of the mug and onto the grey tablecloth. “Have you gone mental Tesla?! You have created perhaps the greatest advancement in military equipment since the Flintlock rifle. Keep your mind in the right place Niko or I will not hesitate to hunt you down.” The gruff, aging man with a long beard that resembled black and grey iron wool was commander Hiram Maxim, leader of the Rodda City Militia. His voice was strong and smooth for an old man of the ripe age of forty-six; he never hesitated to quickly get to the point.
“Bite me then Hiram.” Tesla responded in a sudden outburst of volume in his voice unlike his usual pacifistic manner. “You’re nothing short of James’ guard dog, you wouldn’t understand the value of being in accord, not even in your weight in gold!” Tesla was now shouting with rage and righteousness of his decision.
“Enough!” The Governor’s word echoed through the dining hall. “Tesla, please meet in the garden for a talk afterwards.” His next words were calm and spoken directly to Tesla.
The subject slowly once again transcended back into politics that were rather indifferent to Damian. So he slipped back and sunk back into his chair in complete boredom.
All Damian could think of his master plan.
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