Breaking the ice

"Nice to meet you. Though he is not my son, this is Frey, he will represent Aventia in the competition." Cykrus introduced him.

"Nice to meet you." Frey answered, but the pleasant ambiance that the hall had returned to did not last for long, the double doors opened, the servant at the lead, once again drawing the attention towards himself, "Dear guests, our final family has just arrived... I am hereby announcing the Baron of fire, final bastion before the Land of Fog, Baron Ironhoof!"

The hall once again erupted in heated conversations.

"Fashionably late... as always. Ah! Lord Aventia..." the newly arrived Baron emphasized as he stepped closer, his head was balding, the hair partly black partly grey.

"I honestly did not expect to see you here." if his face of mockery didn't betray him, one might even think the two were on good terms.

"Baron Simon Ironhoof... that surprise you sent us was truly heartwarming." Cykrus laced his words with the same amount of sarcasm.

His words however, caused the Baron to frown, his palm forming into a fist, "I am glad you enjoyed it-"

Before he could continue a female voice interrupted him from behind, "Brother, I think you should turn your attention to the banquet for now."

Simon glanced at Cykrus one last time, then harrumphed and walked towards the grand display of food.

"Do excuse him, that airhead lacks the manner of an actual Baron." the black-haired woman continued, though she called the man 'brother' her face made her seem much younger than him.

"Indeed, you are one of the more annoying snakes from among your family members, Silvana." Cykrus agreed, while she curiously eyed Frey.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce him?" she asked.

"I don't think there is any need for that, am I wrong?" Cykrus attempted to probe the amount of information they had on Frey, but her answer left him unsatisfied, "I wonder..."

"Where is your participant?" Agnes raised her eyebrow, as Silvana was standing alone.

Silvana looked to her left, then her right, then turned around, "That cheeky-! Running off the first chance she gets!" she cursed.

The hall once again calmed down after some time, until on one end of the hall, at an elevated stage, several people gathered, their auras were more than enough to draw anyone's attention towards them, each of them was a rank three mage!

Among the four was a woman with long blond hair tied up into a bun, she wore a dazzling off-white gown, and Cykrus' heart skipped a beat as he recognised her.

"That's master... why is she-" Daren noted in confusion, but his thoughts got overshadowed by the booming voice of another of the four upon the stage, "Attention! Now entering! His Royal Majesty! King Lysander Van Tale!"

Loud gasps spread through the venue, but silence quickly ensued, everyone lowered their head as an old, and slightly chubby man with a robe of red and blue silk, with a golden crown atop his head, entered the stage.

He exuded a royal grandeur and carried himself gracefully, but nothing about him would scream 'mage'.

Not a whiff of his aura was revealed to those present, leaving all with no choice but to guess what rank he might currently be at.

Fully armoured guards escorted him, walking both on his left and right, they too appeared like regular humans.

Agnes and Frey looked around themselves, and quickly followed suit in lowering their heads, as to avoid sticking out.

The rank three mage that announced the king waited for His Majesty to stand still, and nod at him, before continuing, "You may lift your heads!"

King Lysander cleared his throat, then spoke with a deep and slow voice, "I welcome you all to my home, to Astafor. Honoured families and subjects, our gathering, sadly, is not one of celebration, but as you know, the final stop before the competition."

"I can tell from your burning gazes, that now is the right time to unveil the premise, as well as the details regarding it."

"Tomorrow, each family's chosen competitor will enter the planar portal that leads to the Sunless Mire, the swamp plane that my forces, in cooperation with the church's elites, have uncovered and begun expanding towards."

"The competition itself is kept rather simple... do everything in your power to speed up the expansion! Be that through disposition of the local monsters, building outposts, gathering valuable resources or information... Each competitor will be assigned a rank three observer, not to ensure your safety, but to keep track of your achievements."

"You are responsible for your own life! If you overestimate your abilities and endanger yourself, you cannot count on the observers to extend a helping hand, they are impartial, simply a set of watchful eyes." His Majesty took a short moment to breath, and to allow the information to imprint itself onto his subjects.

"As for rules... the only thing that I forbid you from doing is taking another young mage's life."

The dramatic lack of rules caused an uproar, people turned towards one another, exchanging their disbelief and surprise, "SILENCE!" the same rank three mage on the stage shouted.

"You all are aware of the wager, of what a good, or a bad ranking will result in, but allow me to make it fully clear to everyone present, why I have decided on this..." Kind Lysander continued.

"Humanity is stagnating! We have not had any breakthroughs in recent years, everything has balanced itself out, which should be a good thing, but conflict gives birth to innovation!"

"There are some families, that will greatly benefit from this competition, they will grow in size, expand, and continue producing valuable mages."

"Others, however, will be destroyed, and become unrecognisable compared to how they are right now. They will disappear from the face of the world, perhaps swallowed up by another family."

"The world needs young and powerful mages to succeed their forefathers, those that are unable to meet the criteria are simply sorted out... such is the way of life, where your rank determines your value."

"I look forward to hearing of your attainments and contributions. May the gods favour you." and with those words His Majesty turned around and slowly walked off the stage.

"Long live His Majesty! Long live the spirit of humanity!" the rank three atop the stage spoke, and the entire hall repeated his words, all except Agnes and Frey, who felt completely out of place.

Once King Lysander had been escorted out of the room by his knights, the same man spoke once more, "The assignment between competitor and rank three observers will be revealed tomorrow. Do not arrive any later than today!" he glared at a certain 'fashionably late' Baron.

"You are excused." he added, then turned around to leave, just as His Majesty did.

The remaining rank threes upon the stage did the same, only Duchess Debora Vivienne glanced through the crowd once more, her gaze falling on her disciple, then onto the man next to him.

Her eyes opened wide, a slight smile creeped onto her face, but she suppressed it and left with the other Dukes.

With all of them gone, the families were left on their own, heated debates ensued...

"No rules except for killing other participants?!"

"What is this Sunless Mire His Majesty spoke of?"

"You don't know? Don't you have any connections to the church?"

"It's exactly what the name suggests, a swamp without a sun."

"A haven for any water mage... they have an incredible advantage."

Baron Beckett turned to Cykrus, "Heh, say, I have a proposal."

Cykrus met his gaze, "Oh?"

"What do you think... should my son, and your competitor... Frey, team up?" Stephan Beckett continued.

"Wha-? Team up? Isn't that..." Cykrus was tongue-tied.

"It's not against the rules." the Baron smiled, "And since we cannot rely on these observers, why not have an ally to watch our back?"

Cykrus mulled the offer over for a second, accepting this would likely reduce the amount of achievements Frey could gather, as Marv was of a higher rank, and would more than likely tend to steal away points.

But on the other hand, the proposal would aid Frey in surviving the yet unfamiliar environment the swamp plane would pose.

Cykrus looked at Frey, then at Stephan, "Sounds good to me."

While they were conversing, a tall but extremely pale-skinned man with white hair stepped closer towards them, towards Agnes, "Excuse me Miss... you don't happen to kno-" he spoke, but the remainder of the sentence got stuck in his throat as Agnes turned to face him with her usual annoyed look.

The two locked eyes, and the frost mage's icy expression melted in moments, "A-... Agnes?" the man forced out a word through his bewilderment.

Memories spun inside of Agnes' mind, the pale man's trembling hands slowly reached out to her, but before he got to touch a single strand of her hair, she had started to run.

Running away... an action that was so unlike her, but in the heat of the moment nothing else made sense to her.

Cykrus was flabbergasted, he had only seen the last part, where the stranger reached his hands out to her, "What do you think you are doing?!" he reached for the man's collar and pulled him down to his own height, "Frey go after her."

"What am I doing?!" the man retorted loudly, pulling Cykrus' hand away.

"I am talking to my sister!" he said while correcting his collar, "What exactly are you doing?"

Cykrus stopped, his anger was gone with a poof, "...Sister... but? You died?"

"Well, it would appear that I didn't, now, get out of my way!" the man slightly pushed Cykrus aside, "Wait!" he called out from behind.

The white-haired man turned his head, "What exactly are you to her, that you are so annoyingly persistent on getting in my way?"

"I am..." Cykrus took a moment to consider.

Truly, what was their relationship?

"I am her Lord! And she is my follower!" Cykrus answered firmly, both of their outbursts had become the centre of attention for many people around them.

"Pah! Lord!" the man almost spat, "She is your follower for now, maybe, but now that she knows that her brother is alive, she will be coming back home with me!"

... ...

"Where did she go?" Frey mumbled out loud as he looked around himself.

He followed her out of the castle's grounds but lost her somewhere among the crowd.

"Where would I go if I was her...? Maybe..." Frey considered the few things he knew about Agnes.

She rarely talked about herself, except for that one time all those years ago.

He had an inkling where he could find her, but the problem was how to get there...

Frey began to roam the giant city like the young and unsupervised child he was.

Although he felt great discomfort, but for Agnes he managed to bring himself to stop some people that passed by him every now and then, asking them whether they had seen a white-haired woman.

Luckily for him, the colour of her hair was quite rare, and easily drew people's attention.

"Young man, care to buy some artefacts? Grand mages used to own them! Now they are for sale here!" someone called out to him as he was passing through the market.

Frey was concerned about Agnes, but at the same time an artefact could save his own life... he wavered but decided to at least take a quick look at the wares.

"You made the right choice! Come closer, come closer!" a middle-aged man with an unkempt beard gestured to him.

"These are my finest wares! This piece of leather has a rune carved into it; it is a rank one artefact that allows its user to commune with animals for some time!" the man explained, but as Frey looked at it, neither did he recognise the rune, nor did he get the feeling of any kind of authenticity, be it this object or any of the others.

There even was an entirely normal tree-branch on display...

"These... don't have an aura." Frey said with disappointment.

The middle-aged man's eyes glinted, he had found a suitable target!

"Of course they don't! All of them have an obfuscation aspect in their rune design! They were owned by the most supreme of mages after all, but I understand your concern, only a trained eye could see that."

The man looked around himself, like he was making sure that nobody was watching, before pulling out a small red coin-shaped object, from which Frey actually managed to feel a reaction, "I usually reserve these for high-end customers, but I will make an exception for you... Here, take a look." he held the coin towards Frey.

Frey's hand reached out towards it, but the man quickly retracted his own, "No touching! Well? What do you think? It's the real deal! And it could be yours for just thirty- no, twenty-five gold coins!" the man offered.

"Twenty-five gold coins...? But I don't have any..." Frey mumbled, only now realising that he had never once had to pay for anything, he had no idea how much this coin, or everything else was worth.

"Why didn't you start with that?! Tch, rotten kid! Making me waste my time!" the man cursed and shooed Frey off.

Frey walked away with quick steps, and continued looking for any sightings of Agnes.

... ...

The sun was setting, as Frey, completely out of breath, while huffing and puffing, reached the rooftop of one of the open and towering constructs, "That was... a lot of stairs..." he said, but smiled at the sight of Agnes.

Frey walked closer to her and heard a sound he had almost forgotten existed... she was sobbing.

Agnes was sitting on the roof, hugging her knees as she cried into them.

He tried to step as quietly as he could, but by the time he sat down next to her, he was sure that she had heard him coming, she just didn't do anything to stop him from seeing her in this state.

Frey looked off into the horizon, it was pretty much the same exact scene as when Agnes came to comfort him through his roughest time.

Her sobs became quieter, until there was only breathing, "I am a horrible human..."

"I... I don't know whether I should be happy... or sad... that my brother survived..."

"I thought I killed them; no, I was sure that I did. I suffered through nightmares almost every day, reliving that event where I... lost control."

"No, that is also not right... I was in control... a big part of me wanted things to go the way they did... Only through this could I rid myself of the expectations, of what my family tried to push onto me... I didn't see another choice."

"I got used to the feeling, that of dread, whenever I looked at water, whenever I used my magic... but now?!"

"He's alive... I should be happy; I should beg him for forgiveness... but instead I am afraid. I was constantly reminded of my actions, but now it just seems that much more real."

Frey remained silent, he listened attentively, trying to find the right words, the same way she managed to cheer him up...

"I cannot say that I know how you feel. I also cannot say whether what you did was your choice or not... but what I can say, is that you are not a horrible person..."

"People that don't know you might say that you are cold, heartless, arrogant, spiteful, angry all the time-"

"Ouch, I get it!" Agnes yelped, a small smile shortly replacing the tears.

"Sorry, uhm, but they only say that because they haven't seen the real you... like I have, like Lord Cykrus has. You are a wonderful and caring person, a good teacher and even greater mage!"

"I am not happy about the way my childhood went; I do miss my parents greatly... but from all the fates that I could have suffered through... I think I got the best one... I am glad that I met you, Agnes."

Agnes looked at Frey for some time, then sighed and laughed, "I don't know whether you are trying to cheer me up or make me cry even harder!"

"Wha-?! Why?" Frey got scared that she somehow had taken his words the wrong way.

She finally showed a full-blown smile and punched his shoulder playfully, "You know, I'm glad you decided to come with me to learn magic back then. Would have been a real shame to kill you."

Agnes breathed in deeply once more, then stood up, she wiped away her tears and looked at the horizon, "But if you ever let anyone know that I cried, then the competition is going to be the least of your worries!" she threatened with a voice that sounded full of joy.

It sounded like an empty threat, considering her sudden good mood, but Frey knew better than to put that to the test.

She turned 180 degrees to face Frey again, "Come! We have some ships to go look at!"

"Huh? What about Lord Cykrus? And your brother?" Frey almost choked on his spit.

"Whatever, they can wait. So, do I have to repeat myself?"

Frey stood up and smiled at her, his words usually were a weapon, a curse he avoided using, even feared secretly, but for once, he felt like they achieved something awesome.