The Rebel's Crown - Chapter 41 - Prelude

Just like the night before, the copy of me appeared in my dreams. It still called itself Emora. I acknowledged its presence, but continued to refuse as it tried to convince me to use its power. It all seemed too convenient. First Miss Calli teaches about the Nasii, putting emphasis on this being of great power, then someone appears in my dream and just happens to share a name with this great being and is actively trying to convince me to use its power. I didn't trust this series of events. It couldn't be coincidence.

Thankfully, the copy didn't stay very long, leaving after asking just once. Back to myself, I still couldn't focus. Another distraction had reared its head immediately after it disappeared. No matter what I did or how hard I tried to focus, Hazel's image tore through every other thought I had. The memory of last night, when I first saw her, dressed in something beautifully simple.

For the rest of the night, I couldn't get her out of my head and, after waking up, she continued to occupy my mind. I wanted to focus, to think of other things, but I just couldn't. It was exhausting.

Eating across the table from Avery, I stewed, trying hard to think of something other than Hazel.

"Is something wrong?" Avery spoke, pulling my attention right to him. "Nervous about today?"

Taking a shallow breath, I realized that I had been pulling crumbs off of the roll in my hand, slowly gutting it. "Can I ask for some advice?" I asked, setting the roll onto my plate.

"I've already taught you everything you need to know." He took a sip of his herbal tea.

"It's not that." I started. Avery paused mid sip and met my eyes, hopefully not seeing that I was fidgeting with the roll again. "It's… about a girl."

Spraying his tea back into the cup, Avery started coughing and choking. I was about to get up to help him, but he held up a hand in protest and set the cup back on the table.

"I'm not the one to ask for advice on girls." He spoke in a shaky voice. I couldn't see his face, but I could swear I heard him laugh.

"But you're always surrounded by them." I explained. "I thought…"

"Those girls are always swarming around me because I'm an opportunity for them." He leaned back in his chair, an odd smile on his face. "I am the oldest child in my family, so I stand to inherit the role of family head. My mother refused any marriage offers from other families, so every girl around sees me as a free ride to nobility."

"I'm sure it's not every girl." I tried to help him feel better, though he didn't look to upset in the first place.

"I know that, but that's not the real problem here." He explained, sitting stiff in his chair. "Girls terrify me." He deadpanned.

"What?" I blurted out immediately.

"Ever since I was little, girls have terrified me." He started, his eyes serious. "It started because of my mother and her sisters. Mother wanted a daughter so badly. Until my sister was born, she raised me as a girl. But that didn't stop it. In fact, it got worse after my sister was born. My father died when I was very young, and I was forbidden from leaving the house until I came here, so I only knew girls. Every one of them harassed and bullied me until I started locking myself in my room. The first boy I ever met was my roommate here."

"Wow." I wanted to say so much more, but I couldn't get another word out.

"It was far worse back then. I would pass out whenever one touched me. I can be around them now, though touching is still a little hard for me to do." He raised his hands to his face and shuddered.

"I don't know what to say. I'm grateful that you would share something like this with me."

"Oh, a ton of people know." He blurted out. "I've told all my roommates about it. And they spread the word far and wide."

Hearing this, I thought back and realized what I had missed. Avery was often running around campus and would occasionally get stopped by a girl. I'd seen it more than once. However, nearly every time someone came up to Avery and said something before pulling him away. It always looked so natural, so I thought nothing of it. My roommate had wingmen all over campus to help him get away from women.

Laughing, I shook my head and took a bite of the roll that was still in my hand. I had picked away about a quarter of it by this point.

"So," Avery spoke up, turning serious, "tell me about this girl."

Pausing and more nervous than before, I stuttered. "M-My sister… introduced me to her."

"What's her name?" He asked, placing both elbows on the table, propping up his head as he stared at me.

"Uh… Faria." I lied.

"And what is it about this… Faria that you wanted advice on?"

"I… I just can't stop thinking about her. Every time I close my eyes she's there." I explained.

Sitting straight in his chair, Avery dropped his hands to his lap, raised his eyebrows and started slowly nodding his head.

"What?" I asked, become even more nervous.

"Someone's in love." He spoke simply.

"I… no… uh…" I stammered.

"Don't try to deny it. It's bad for your health." He stood up and grabbed his plate. "And so is missing breakfast."

He walked his dishes over to the sink and set them inside, leaving me to sit alone with my thoughts. Checking the time, I saw that we had spent far too long talking. Eating as fast as I could, I set my dishes in the sink and ran to my room to finish getting ready.

Barely finishing in time, I stepped out of our dorm to find Avery waiting for me with a wide smile.

"You left early last night and missed the tourney arrangement." He handed me a paper about the size of my hand.

On the paper, in the tiniest writing I've ever seen, was a list of names with numbers beside them. In total, there were 256 names written down, though most of them were extremely hard to read in such small writing.

"They did a raffle to pick out the students who didn't have to take part in the tourney. You're number 84." He said, pointing to one point on the paper.

I focused hard on where he had pointed and could make out "Malcolm Claude" next to the number 84. Any normal person would have needed a magnifying glass to read it.

"Your sister is there too. She's number 98." He explained, pointing further down the list.

Sure enough, her name was there too.

Flipping the paper over, I blinked and furrowed my brow, trying to read what was on this page. It was a collection of sixteen brackets, with numbers filling every spot aside from the continuing sections.

"You and your sister are both in section twelve. Though you'd both have to win your first two fights to see each other." My roommate explained.

The sheer amount of information that Avery was able to put onto such a small piece of paper was very impressive.

Turning, Avery started walking away, though I noticed that he didn't have his usual workout stuff.

"Are we not training?" I asked, running to catch up to him.

Pausing for a moment, Avery quickened his step, speaking back to me as he left me behind. "Those notes should be enough for you. And you're gonna need all the mana you can spare for tonight."

Slowing to a stop, I watched Avery disappear into a building nearby. Without our morning training, I had a lot of free time, so I turned and started towards the library. If I couldn't train my body, I could try to learn where I needed to improve and try to implement it mentally.

The library was completely devoid of any people aside from the couple of caretakers that wandered the shelves, making sure that no one abused the tomes stored there. Finding a quiet corner out of sight, I sat down and stared down at my storage ring. Focusing, I could see all of the contents of the ring, floating unorganized in my mind. It didn't take long for me to find the notes. Before I took them out, though, I looked around at everything else inside of the ring. I had taken so much from my grandfathers study, but I haven't touched any of it since taking it all. A part of me was afraid of what I might find, ruining the image of one of the very few good people in our messed-up family.

Shaking my head, I pulled the notes out of the ring and laid them out on the table. There were several bullet points, most of them centering on how I wrote my spells and how I could improve them. Some were general, like good spells to use for certain situations that I had used other spells for, while others explicitly criticized which spells that I had thought up myself. The notes were incredibly helpful, so much so that I felt a little bad for how I had treated her last night, but then I stopped and kept practicing mentally, committing the ideas and corrections to memory.

After going through the notes for the sixth time, I glanced at a nearby clock and found that I still had quite a bit of time left before I needed to be anywhere. I'd done as much as I could at this point, so I stored the notes back inside my storage ring and paused, staring at its contents again. Ignoring the plain looking books, my attention centered on the weathered journal that my grandfather had hidden in his desk, as well as the scraps of paper that had accompanied it.

In the time that has passed since I came to the library, a few other students had found a place to study. Looking around to make sure that nobody was watching, I pulled out the journal and papers and laid them out in front of me. Immediately I noticed that the papers were written in the common language, though they were unintelligible. It was definitely written in some kind of code.

Setting the paper scraps aside, I unbound the journal and slowly opened it to the first page. The writing was old and faded and pages were yellowing, but it was all still legible.

I, Malik Oren Camparn Kiech, 49th king of our great country, write this confession in the hopes that another will find it and correct the mistakes that I was too cowardly to mend myself. Many referred to me as the greatest king, but what would they call me if they knew the truth? I named myself 'Camparn' in my youth, meaning 'vengeance'' in the Oulde Language. I had felt wronged by my younger siblings and committed unspeakable evils against them, banishing those that survived to the North. I was governed by emotion. Driven by anger. I was cruel in private and benevolent in public.

I was a fraud of a man. Perhaps that was why I gave up the crown so willingly to my firstborn. He, however, was more alike to me than I had thought possible. I had two other sons, the youngest being the cause of my beloved's demise. Too foolish to recognize the darkness in my son, I turned away while he slaughtered both of his siblings, blaming the actions on my brothers and sisters to the North. In my weakness, I had allowed the disagreement between siblings to grow to involve the innocent.

Worst of all was Regna's descent into madness, obsessed with the prophecies given to him by his first wife. The woman was a Seer and told him of how he could gain power beyond his wildest dreams. He was to devour one of his children at their coming of age. Only, it had to be a son that closely resembled him, physically. When his wife had died, leaving him with only a daughter, he began to employ the worst of tactics. I would hear him and his closest aides speak of tricking, drugging and assaulting women in the hopes that one of them would bear him the son he desired. It took ten years for me to confront him on his actions, reprimanding him of the horrors he had committed, but my words fell on deaf ears. But, in my weakness, I stayed silent and allowed him to continue.

Then, some years later, a boy was brought to the castle. His mother was terrified, no doubt because of the cause of the boy's conception. I did my best to welcome the two of them. I wanted desperately to warm them of Regna's evil, but I couldn't. Then the woman fell ill, no doubt due to my son's second wife. She was a jealous woman, filled with ambition. She had born him sons, but none of them fit the prophecy he clung to so desperately. This new addition to the castle, however, looked exactly like he did when he was just a boy.

Malcolm, I haven't done everything I could have. I was too much of a coward to tell you and your mother to run. To leave this place and find safety. I hope you can forgive me. I am locking this away, hoping that you will find it and that it will help you in your future. Faria came to me this morning. She told me that I was going to die today. She told me that I could rest easy. That she would do what I could never do. Please trust in her. She is special. She may seem mad at times, but there is something behind that madness that has never ceased to amaze me.

In these last moments of my life, I will write down everything I can think of that could be of use to you, be it techniques or advice. Please live, Mal. Live so that your selfish grandpa can leave this world free of guilt.

A tear dropped down from my face, landing on the last note my grandpa had left me. Choking back a sob, I nodded to myself.

"I'm going to live." I quietly promised.

Wiping away the tears, I turned the page and skimmed over everything written inside. There were pages dedicated to spellcasting and the best wording to use in certain situations, there were others dedicated to some kind of fighting technique describing points of the body to strike to disable a fighter. Then there was some life advice near the end; things that he would have told me personally, watching me grow up. Some of these pages left me reeling as I quickly flipped past them, most of them explaining things that I was far too young to read. Then, at the very end of the journal was a page with what looked like a puzzle drawn on it.

Staring at this puzzle for a time, I recognized that there was a kind of pattern to it that I recognized, though I couldn't remember where I recognized it from.

Seeing that I had run out of time, I told myself that I could have Hazel look at it later. She was much better at these kinds of things. Making sure that nobody was watching, I stuffed the items away in my storage ring and left the library.

The rest of the day went by both slowly and quickly. It was an odd feeling, like something was dragging on then suddenly ended. None of the classes I attended were notable. Most of the students were probably as distracted as I was. The tourney was an event that centered around the Battle Magic students, but it was something that the whole school looked forward to.

Standing outside of the coliseum, I watched hundreds of students rush into the spectators entrance. It was more than had attended the ceremony last night, including several teachers along with the flood of students.

Spotting Hazel standing a short distance away, I felt my heart skip a beat. She spotted me and waved, smiling. I returned the wave just before she turned and entered the changing room with all the other women taking part in the tourney. There were fewer girls in the tourney than boys, so their line was moving much more quickly.

After waiting a bit longer I was able to enter the changing room. The humid room, lit by light crystals stuck into the ceiling, was filled with boys of varying age, all changing into the same outfit. It was all black except for a red stripe running from the right shoulder all the way down to the bottom of the pant leg. The line seemed to be glowing with some kind of magic, though I couldn't tell what exactly.

Changing quickly, I left through the exit to find myself in the presence of more than a thousand excitedly cheering spectators.

Just in front of the growing crowd of Battle Magic students were eight large, stone platforms.

With my heartbeat growing louder and louder in my ears, drowning out the commotion of the crowd, I quietly spoke to myself. "I'm not just gonna live, grandpa. I'm going to thrive."