The Path of Ruin

--Volume I: The Birth of a False King--

The sky was a light shade of gray, as usual... flat and hopeless. It looked like it was going to rain, but... it was fooling those underneath. It was always like this, after all, gray and... endless.

And then there was the sun, faintly visible behind the grayness of the sky. It cast only as much light as it was allowed to, and with it, heat. It was as hopeless as the sky itself. And just as... lonely.

One of the places where it managed to get its light and heat despite all this was a rather large palace with a large garden in a kingdom west of the largest continent on the planet.

It was not in the middle of any city, there were no buildings or living people around it. It was built as if the king wanted to stay away from everyone else.

And in one spot in the garden of this palace was a skinny, rather thin-looking young man, but as thin as he was, his eyes were sharp. His black hair fluttered a little as he walked, with the light breeze blowing across his face, adding a pleasant air to his appearance. But... that was it. He had no other distinguishing features. Even the simple white one-piece outfit he was wearing was of poor quality.

The young man paused for a moment when the wheelbarrow he was pushing caught on something. Sighing, he turned his brown eyes skyward, towards the pale sun. Finally, he lowered them and looked at the palace next to him.

He had dreamed of it for many years. Just to force himself to live, maybe, yes... But now... he was really here.

'I really did it, huh... Who would have guessed?'

That was the only thing going through his mind.

He was fifteen now. Three years of hard work were paying off. He had managed to leave the filthy mansion where he had spent almost all his life and stepped into the palace.

After years of living in such an environment, the palace environment was... so new. There was no smell of feces, his clothes were spotlessly clean, not even dust in his hair. It was certainly going to be hard to get used to, and it was.

But... there were a few things that had not changed.

"Hey, slave! What are you standing there for? Why did you stop?!"

A smile appeared on the young man's face. If there was one thing that hadn't changed... it was certainly people's behavior.

He lifted the wheelbarrow again, in which he had carefully sorted the herbs from the garden, and gently pulled it aside. His voice, like his body, was weak as he answered the man.

"Something got caught in the wheels of the wheelbarrow. I apologize!"

He looked at the man speaking to him. He was bald, but also well-built and slightly older. He was a servant, in charge of supervising the slaves, at least those who worked in the garden.

At the young man's words, his eyes dropped to the wheels of the wheelbarrow, and when he saw the relatively large stone nearby, he sighed.

"Go on, be quick!"

He said nothing more. The young man lifted the wheelbarrow and walked on without another glance at the bald servant. Breathing in the autumn air, he made his way through the huge gardens of the huge palace and reached his destination. But, before he entered the greenhouse reserved for botany, he paused again at the sound of a voice.

It sounded like a... collision. And it was.

It was the sound of the palace knights.

The barracks were not far from the greenhouse. So when they were training, if something serious was going on, some of the sounds could reach the greenhouse.

The young man sighed lightly and turned back to the front again.

He had dreamed of becoming a knight as a child, like so many other. But... dreams were different from reality. He needed a strong body to be a knight, something he didn't have as a slave... And even if he had a strong body, he could never rise because he didn't have a blessing. Knighthood aside, he would most likely be one of those soldiers who would be sent to die in regional battles.

For these and other reasons, he had long ago given up the dream of becoming a knight. As a slave, he had no right to dream anyway. At least... not according to others. He did more than dream, after all.

When he entered the greenhouse, the first thing he did was to remove the plants from the wheelbarrow and set them aside. He sorted them one by one, removing the seeds from those with any.

His skills in botany had gotten him here, and that was exactly his job. He was in charge of collecting, growing, and sorting the special herbs in the palace garden. He knew what each plant was and what it could do with others, and if he encountered something that he didn't know, he learned it.

As he was separating a few plants from each other, his steady hands slowed down a little, and he paused as he squinted his eyes. He thought about what he had been through and what he had done to get to this point. But then he shook his head from side to side with a determined look on his face and went on with his work.

He had a goal, a goal he wanted to fulfill, no matter what. He would most likely die trying to fulfill it, the probability of survival was... low. Even less likely to succeed. But no matter what, even if he had to devote his whole life to it, he would try... he would succeed. At least... he was convincing himself that he would succeed, fooling even.

Because that was his reason for living. That's why he gritted his teeth instead of committing suicide a long time ago.

Revenge.

No, rather than something grandiose like revenge... an excuse to keep on living.

~crack!

He stopped what he was doing and quickly turned his head at the sudden sound behind him. And what he saw in front of him... he could only sigh inwardly. Yes, inwardly. If he had done it from the outside...

"Brat, what are you doing? Move aside!"

He said nothing to the woman who suddenly entered the greenhouse. He stepped aside meekly and did as he was told.

The woman quickly glanced at the plants lying on the table. Then, without turning to the young man, she asked in a bored tone.

"You have collected plants to make narcotics. How much demand is there?"

He bowed his head and answered in a submissive voice.

"About three bowls. But they asked for five, just in case."

The woman frowned for a brief moment when she heard what he said. She looked at what plants he had collected to make the medicine once again. And... she saw that he had collected some very potent herbs.

"Five? With five bowls of these, they can put almost a hundred and fifty soldiers to sleep..."

She thought for a while longer, as if... something was wrong. But then, suddenly, she yawned, as if tired. But she still didn't look at the young man.

"Whatever. Do you know how to do it?"

"Yes. I crush the lorasa, mix it with water, then-"

"Okay, okay. It was enough to say that you know. Don't talk too much and keep doing what you're doing."

The woman moved away from the table, went to the plants on the other side and started checking them, ignoring the young man completely.

He looked at her back for a while. He was not even a fly in her eyes, but he could understand. It annoyed him, maybe, but he could understand. And he was also aware that he had to be obedient. That's how he had gotten to where he was.

No matter what, don't make a sound, don't disobey, don't smile in silly ways or show emotions... The list went on, but these were the principles he followed for his purpose.

After looking at her back for a while, he went back to work, doing what he had to do.

But... just then, someone else entered the greenhouse and his work was interrupted again.

When he saw the person entering... all he could do was bow his head.

After all, there was one of the palace knights in front of him. As a slave, he was too lowly to look at him directly.

"Elsin, are the requested narcotics ready?"

Elsin, the head botanist of the greenhouse, the woman who had just spoken to the youth, turned to the knight.

"I have just entered the greenhouse, Manar."

Then her eyes shifted to the youth, who still kept his head bowed, and she pointed at him with her eyebrows. The knight named Manar also turned to the young man.

"Oh, I see. You can raise your head."

The youth slowly raised his bowed head.

The knight was not wearing a helmet, his face was exposed. He had blondish curly hair and brown eyes. He was almost two meters tall and had a well-built body, although it was not obvious from the armor he was wearing. Other than being a little taller than normal, he was not much different from a normal knight.

The youth did not look the knight directly in the eyes, even though he studied him briefly. He wasted no more time and quickly explained the situation.

"It will be ready in two minutes, sir."

The knight nodded his head in understanding, which the youth did not expect.

"Go on with your work, I will wait."

Normally, the answers he would have received would have been... 'hurry the fuck up', 'I have more work to do!', 'don't keep me waiting!', or something like that.

Nevertheless, he quickly returned to the table in front of him and continued to prepare the narcotics. Even though the knight in front of him seemed to be understanding, he was not going to waste his time.

So, Knight Manar and Botanist Elsin began to talk amongst themselves as the youth prepared the requested narcotics. They did not care much about the young man's presence.

"What were the narcotics requested for?"

The ease in the tone of the woman's voice, even though she was facing a knight, caught the young man's attention. He thought they might be close to each other, so he listened to the conversation while doing his job.

"All I know is that the palace healers want it, and they'll want more. War is coming, Elsin. The empire is practically on the kingdom's doorstep. Probably some of the scouts have been wounded, and they'll be making things up for them. In short... your workload will increase considerably."

The woman's expression fell even lower. She was definitely not happy with the situation.

"If we had more botanists, it wouldn't be much of a problem. But..."

She looked out of the corner of her eye at the young man preparing the last bowl of narcotics.

"Not many people know about plants, and it's a pain to train someone from scratch. I don't even understand how this slave knows almost as much as I do."

Following her, the knight turned toward the young man.

"He knows almost as much as you, huh?"

At that moment, the youth finished preparing all the bowls and placed them in a bag, sealing it so that it would not open by itself. Then, without looking anyone in the eye again, he turned around.

"I've prepared the narcotics, sir."

From the corner of his eye, he saw the knight smiling slightly.

"Good, then follow me. Let's deliver these."

He turned quickly towards the exit of the greenhouse, then just as quickly paused. He turned slowly towards the young man.

"Do you have a name?"

The woman jumped at the knight's question before the young man, though.

"You ask a slave if he has a name? Of course not. Don't waste time with idle talk, Manar, get the narcotics away quickly. If what you say is true, we will have way too more work to do here."

The knight sighed slightly. Without another word to the woman, he walked out of the greenhouse. The young man followed behind him.

As they walked through the palace garden, the knight kept opening and closing his mouth. He was trying to say something and then giving up continuously.

The young man... looked at him in surprise every time.

'Most people are not so... kind.'

Even though he could only see his back, he understood what the knight was trying to do and that he was actually a good person. It was not easy to meet good people, especially as a slave.

He let out a deep sigh that no one could hear. His eyes shifted to the sky, and in his mind... Elsin's words echoed.

Most things didn't bother him, and even if they did, he kept it to himself and kept quiet. Because the moment he did otherwise, he could lose everything. But... this one in particular was hard to hold back.

The reason slaves didn't have names was often because they didn't have families. Even if they did, they were separated from them at a young age and trained to be obedient. So they didn't need a name.

But... he was different. He had a family, at least back then... And his late mother had given him a name, even though she knew it meant nothing.

A name that no one else needed to know, a name that his mother had decided on without much thought, but a name that reminded him of who he was and what he was for. A name that he liked.

'Kael. My name is... Kael.'

He looked up at the pale sun that would soon set and squinted. As he reminded himself of his name, he repeated his purpose, which seemed even more impossible than a dream in a world where it was forbidden to even imagine things.

'My goal is... to kill the king's brother.'