Chapter 1 || The Calm

Damian sat silently as he watched Lord Windsor and his son, Lawson, practice their swordsmanship and magic in the castle courtyard. He had been a servant for the Windsor family for nearly his entire life and so he had fallen into a routine. Every day he'd wake up, check on the Lord and Lady of the house, and then stand outside of Lawson's room to await further instruction.

Damian served Lawson directly and anything that the Young Lord spoke was to be treated as if it were an order from the King himself. He didn't mind this arrangement though, Lawson had saved him from a life of struggle and self-destruction when they were children, and for that, Damian was eternally grateful.

"You're getting sloppy!" Lord Windsor said with a childlike glee as he parried another of Lawson's blows. Although he had the duty of overseeing roughly 3000 citizens within his lands, he still found a way to maintain his inner child and be a genuine family man. He was a tall white man with gray hair that had streaks of white sprinkled throughout it. He maintained a rather lean figure and although he wasn't muscular enough to strike fear into those who saw him, the muscle he did have was well defined and toned from many years of intense training. Lawson took after his father and looked as if he could be his identical twin brother.

"YOU'RE GETTING SLOPPY!" Lawson shouted as he hastily charged in for another strike. It had been a while since Lawson had sparred with his father and it was clear that he still had a long way to go before he would be able to land his first clean blow.

Damian yawned and laid down on the bench. He was a young black man with dreads that he kept in a ponytail at the back of his head. He had built up a good bit of muscle from his days as a servant, but nothing worth noting due to the fact that his workload was rather light.

Damian looked on in contempt as Lawson screamed and charged wildly at his father, trying desperately to land a blow with every swing. He had seen this song and dance a million times before, and every time it ended the same way...

Lord Windsor yawned as he parried strike after strike of Lawson's blade. Eventually he created space between them and held out his hand, which began to glow a bright lime green as a magic circle appeared in front of him. With a simple gesture Lord Windsor unleashed a gust of wind that sent Lawson flying into the wall next to Damian.

"LAWSONNNN!" Damian shouted as he ran over to where Lawson had fallen.

Lawson held out his arm, attempting to return his father's blast with one of his own. However the strain of trying to use mana nearly rendered him unconscious.

"Perhaps I put a bit too much force on that one." Lord Windsor said as he chuckled nervously. "I'll be heading off, take care of my boy will you Damian?" Lord Windsor took a few steps away before looking back over his shoulder upon his child in a pitiful, almost sympathetic way.

"Take care of him? The kid is damn near unconscious! What am I supposed to do?" Damian thought to himself, quite frustrated.

"Damian..." Lawson said weakly.

"Yes?" Damian said attentively, ready to tend to whatever Lawson may need.

"Back up..."

"Do what?"

"BACK UP!" Lawson shouted. "You're taking all the fresh air!" Lawson said as he pushed Damian away and rose to his feet. Lawson began to dust himself off and he quickly regained his noble look as if he wasn't just sent flying into a wall mere moments ago.

"You fought well Lawson, for a moment there you almost-" Damian said before being silenced by Lawson putting a hand in his face.

"Save your flattery Damian, we both know that my father wasn't trying. This was nothing but a waste of time and an inconvenience to him." Lawson slumped over a bit before taking a seat on the ground next to Damian.

"I wouldn't say that, he seemed to be enjoying himself nonetheless." Damian said as he tried to comfort and console Lawson.

"The man humiliated his son in combat before sending him flying into the nearest wall, CLEARLY something is wrong with him if he found that enjoyable." Lawson said sarcastically.

"Sigh.. I just don't get it, how could the gap between us be THIS large, it's like all the training I do amounts to nothing when put in front of him. There HAS to be a way that I can get strong enough to at least compete with him." Lawson continued, this wasn't the first time he had felt like this. At least twice a year he would challenge his father to a duel to see how he measured up, and every time the outcome was the same. It was a frustrating experience to say the least, Lawson never had much self worth or pride due to the sheer grandness of his father and over the past few years he had slowly developed an inferiority complex of sorts.

Damian looked at Lawson silently, pondering his next words carefully. After a few moments of silence Damian finally spoke up.

"I know a way..."

"You do?" Lawson asked as he looked up and turned to face Damian.

"Yeah... there's a special book in the library I read once."

Lawson eyed Damian suspiciously. "Special book?"

"Dark magic."

When Damian spoke those words, it was as if all the color faded from the courtyard. Time felt like it was standing still, and neither of them spoke for a while. Dark magic is the term used to describe the most powerful spells in existence, spells strong enough to bring someone back to life or strong enough to end a life instantly. However, using this magic came at a steep price. Typically, casting a spell drains the caster of their mana and then uses that energy to perform whatever it is that the caster wanted, whether that be something like moving an object or creating a fireball. The issue with dark magic is that it costs such an unrealistic amount of mana to use, that the user typically dies in the process.

Lawson got quiet and looked down at the ground again. He sat there in silence with a contemplative look in his eyes. It felt as if hours passed before either of them dared to speak again, until Lawson decided to break the silence.

"Where's the book?"

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As they walked from the courtyard to the library, Lawson was silent. He hadn't spoke a word since they left and he had a serious, almost dark expression on his face the entire time. Damian took notice of this and decided to say something.

"So, what do you plan to do with the book?" Damian asked casually, trying not to annoy his master or do anything to irritate him further.

"Destroy it." Lawson said sharply.

Damian froze for a moment, shocked by the answer Lawson had given him.

"Destroy it?" Damian asked nervously.

"Yes." Lawson replied in the same sharp tone as before. He still had a sort of grim expression on his face and Damian couldn't help but notice that something was off. However, he decided not to question Lawson any further as they continued walking in silence.

Damian led Lawson to the castle library and showed him a vault kept deep within the library behind a bookshelf. He had seen the vault opened once before by Lord Windsor a few weeks ago and initially wracked his brain trying to figure out how to unlock it.

"A mana lock." Lawson grumbled as he looked at the vault. Mana locks required the user to carefully alternate between sending and receiving a mana current in a fashion similar to how binary works.

"That's what it is?" Damian asked inquisitively as he casually placed his hand before the lock and opened it.

Lawson looked at him in disbelief. "How did you-" He stumbled as he tried to get the words out, unable to believe what he had just seen. Ignorant of this, Damian carefully reached inside and pulled out a mysterious looking book with a black cover and strange greenish yellow text. Damian held the book and looked at the cover in silence, hesitating before handing it off to Lawson. Damian had read a bit of the book himself, he only got 5 or so pages in and the limited knowledge of what was inside was all he needed to lock it away.

"Don't worry." Lawson said, startling Damian out of his thoughts. "I don't plan to surpass my father by using cheap tricks or gimmicks, I want to do it the right way: through hard work and determination."

Damian turned and looked up at Lawson in shock. The darkness from his face had faded and his friend seemed to return to his senses. Damian breathed a sigh of relief before handing the book over to Lawson.

Lawson looked at the book in silence for a moment and skimmed through a few pages, his eyes widening with every turn of the parchment.

"Something like this shouldn't be here, I'll see to it personally that it gets properly discarded." Lawson spoke with an authoritative tone, as if he had regained some lost part of himself by resolving to destroy it.

Damian nodded in agreeance.

"I want you to spend the rest of the day searching the library for more hidden books like this, if someone less trustworthy were to get their hands on this, there's no telling what may happen." Lawson paused for a moment. "I'm honestly not quite sure why it's here in the first place." He looked up at one of his father's nearby portraits, as if he was seeking some sort of answer or validation. His look quickly turned from that of an innocent child to a deadly glare and he turned his gaze onto the book.

Damian sat and watched as Lawson glared at the book for a moment, as if pieces of a greater puzzle were starting to fit together within his mind. He looked at it in silence for a while before finally turning away from Damian and leaving the library. As the door shut, Damian breathed a sigh of relief.

"The ENTIRE library?" Damian said to himself as he looked around at the thousands of books housed within the library's walls. After letting out another sigh, Damian began to work his way from front to back, searching thoroughly for any books that may reference dark magic. He had already read many of the books in the library with another servant, Fergus, during their free time and was certain that no such book existed.

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