Do you remember the moment your life changed forever?

  I do not mean the decisions that forged your path, or the choices that each of us make; who to love, how to earn our living, where to settle, what to do. I am talking about a single moment that forever alters the path of your life, and one that you witness as it is happening.

  Of course, I should not forget who I am asking. Yes, sorry my friend, of course you understand.

  Well, I too remember that moment. I wish I could say it was the day that I left, but I was a coward back then. Perhaps I still am? I, as you are no doubt aware, have a tendency to intellectualise everything. I wonder if perhaps had I more of your rashness – oh decisiveness, is it now? Well, had I more of your decisiveness then I might have left the moment my life changed, and been all the better for it.

  Of course, had I done so I would not have known to the depths my family would sink for their ‘honour’, nor would I have known truly what had happened the day I left. She would have died unwitnessed, had I had more courage…

  No, I stayed for a few more days after my life changed, and I promise you; the next time I recognise such a moment again, I will not hesitate to listen.

  Yes, I am rambling, aren’t I? I suppose I have taken a leaf from your book. Let me begin then.

  The day my life changed forever was completely uneventful, until it was not. I was on the cusp of making my first great academic discovery, and I was even then preparing my opening arguments to present to the Scholar’s Round in Ship’s Rest a few days hence. It is an intensely competitive environment, and because of my birth and position, I was in a difficult position.

  As not just a Wavebreaker, but the only of my generation to show such promise in free-form ward-craft, I was granted privileged access to the Scholar’s Round far before I should have ever gained it otherwise.

  My academic credentials were impressive for my age, but you must understand that the Scholar’s Round was the battleground of academics from all across Western Tsanderos. It is the Leviathan Coast’s answer to the White Tower Consortium in the East, and while it cannot rival the breadth or history of such an organisation, it is an impressive enough institution regardless. In fact, I am fairly sure I would have achieved a feat from the system had I managed to successfully defend my thesis before the Round, but that is beside the point.

  My parents were understandably nervous and excited both. I was a quiet child, and yes, I see your smirk. It is no surprise, I suppose, given that you see me now. Anyway, my parents were constantly inquiring after my progress, and the night before I had eventually given in and discussed my thesis with them.

  Excellent liars, my parents. I never had a hint of suspicion while I presented my life’s work before them. Yes, it was a relatively short life by that point, but I had still put a tremendous amount of work into it, and I was sure it would change the foundations of the Leviathan Coast forever after. As it turns out, I was more correct than I realised.

  So, it was an uneventful morning as I left the palace and journeyed through the streets to my friend’s house. What’s that? Oh yes, the streets are quite safe in Ship’s Rest. I have since become aware of much of my understanding being naive and overly influenced by propaganda, but that is one truth amid all the lies. Ship’s Rest is safe, and the citizens mostly respect and admire the Wavebreakers. As a young adult, and the only one below 40 winters to manipulate the magical weave before my class manifested, I was as safe within the inner city as I could be even in the palace.

  But where was I? Yes…I journeyed to my friend’s house, as I had done every morning for almost a year by that point. I had been teaching him ward-craft, and he was a quick study – it was why we had bonded so closely. We shared many of the same ‘behavioural problems’ that my parents so hated in me, and it brought us close because of it. His love for knowledge was unlike any I have since experienced, my friend, and yes, I understand what it sounds like when coming from my own lips.

  He had an exceptional mind with none of the lazy arrogance and cautious humility that is bred into one through academia. His intellectual ambition was unmatched. I remember many times where he would demand – demand! – answers from me for things that had not yet been answered, and would huff and sulk when I could not oblige him. He would then add it to a list he kept in a book beneath his pillow. All the questions that we would answer in our future careers as rival academics in the Scholar’s Round – that is what he had decided of our future.

  Ahem! Please, give me a moment, this is harder than I thought…

  When I arrived at my friend’s home, it was to a burnt-out husk. His three younger sisters were burned alive beside him, and his parents cut down and left to burn with their children. None of them made it out.

  …

  That was the day my life changed, and I remember every moment of it. I remember the sun on my face, and the noises from the nearby bakery that I always despised – the raucous shouting always hurt, for I had not yet learned to wear ear-plugs in crowds. I remember smelling the burning remains and thinking about how strange it was to have a fire in a port city. I remember smiling at the thought, thinking it funny – clearly a small cooking fire swiftly to be put out somewhere.

  My friend’s corpse had not yet cooled, and I was laughing inside my own head at an errant thought.

  I know, I know. I could not have known. But I still delivered his sentence the night I told my parents. It was my arrogance to think I was discovering something new that burned him, as sure as the fire. He was assassinated because he was a threat to the great House Wavebreaker, and I was the one who built him into that threat.

  He would have changed the world, my friend, of that I am now sure. He would have travelled far beyond the Leviathan Coast, have settled perhaps in the White Tower Consortium, perhaps travelled further North to The Bone Tower - I suspect that with time he could have been a threat to Althus and his intellectual dominance in the modern era as well.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  Nathlan The Ancient, Althus Bonesinger, and my friend; a triumvirate of knowledge seekers. He would have added me to the list, before even himself. He respected me, was always in awe of my knowledge, but how could I not know more than him? I had had tutors and books, I had watched the great debates in the Scholar’s Round since I was twelve years old, and yet this boy who had never seen a book beyond ‘the very hungry Rakshasa’ could take a thought and twist it up until it resembled something never before seen.

  Oh, surprised to hear it? They are known throughout most of the continent and have epithets to match. Wyrmsbane is one, is it not? Yes, I believe it is exactly for that reason that they are admired in the Leviathan Coast. Small creatures stalking the night that leave even titanic monsters quaking inside their nests…Yes, the Rakshasa are a popular creature in the harbour-cities.

  It helps that nobody has met one. I think I saw a cuddly toy of one, even – there was a little girl swaddled in blankets carrying one made of an old mop and some horse-hair. Although saying that; she would not have been much younger than me when I left. Strange how your memories never seem to age with you, is it not? Ah – sorry, my friend. Let me return to my story.

  Where was I? right, my friend. Yes, he was the most intellectually dextrous person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. He would have changed the world.

  Instead, because of my own arrogance and the greed and pettiness of my family, he died at the age of 15. His death changed my life, of course; I knew instantly why he had been targeted. The timing was too perfect, and you must understand that I had spent months shaping the arguments I would present to the Round. There was little else I would think about other than how the Wavebreakers were not the only ones that could repair and construct the storm-wards.

  There was always the question of why nobody else had tried this before though. I had tried new methods, and there are many ways to learn ward-craft as well, so it was technically possible that it had never been tried my way before. But that is a tenuous possibility, and again, it was my arrogance to think I was the first to stumble upon a way to teach such magic. A recurring theme in my life, is it not? The pride wrapped and gifted to me by my family and position biting me at the most crucial time.

  Hmm? Yes, it is I believe – ‘posture is given in childhood’ as my weapons-master used to say. Far too deeply rooted now to be corrected though – I shall be stooped forever, I suspect. You thought it was due to sitting at a desk all through the night? I fear I may never understand your idiocy, my friend.

  Anyway, I was told my entire life, ever since I had shown such promise with wards, that I was the greatest mind of my generation. The one to save the ailing decline of the greatest dynasty to grace the Leviathan Coast in a thousand years.

  It casts a long shadow, and that shadow wraps up many lives even still. I had been arrogant and naive, but the moment I saw the bodies and knew that a crime had occurred, both arrogance and naiveté were shattered to pieces.

  I fled before the fires had died down. Back to the palace, which may sound foolish, but I longed for the one person that I could still trust. I decided, in my own foolish way, that I would spite my families’ desires and present before the Scholar’s Round anyway. My evidence may be gone now, but I could propose a new study, bring the topic to the light of day and there my family and the whole House Wavebreaker would be unable to act.

  I marshalled my arguments, worked on my thesis, and lied to my parents. I told them I had to change my thesis to something more mundane – advanced ward dynamics in flexible systems – that the scholars could argue about. It was not hard to act depressed by my friend’s death, but it was the hardest thing I have ever done to not spit in their faces as my parents consoled me. I knew who was responsible, after all.

  I have never been a great student of deception; you know this better than most. But I did observe the strange ways people behaved in high society. All society, really, if I had to be extremely honest, which I do not like to do. Putting on a performance from a young age had given me the skills needed to deceive my parents. In some ways it is ironic, that their own lessons in etiquette had helped me to deceive them, but I feel little satisfaction at the thought.

  I journeyed to the Scholar’s Round a week later, under the protection of the only true person of honour in that entire house. Hardenia Starkel, the Trident-Holder, First Sword of House Wavebreaker. She was my weapons-master, and I trusted her with the knowledge of my upcoming thesis.

  The relief I felt when she reacted not with a thin smile and happy demeanour but with dark fury to my revelation was palpable. I had not even told her of my friend’s assassination, but by the time I had finished detailing my findings she was already pacing back and forth.

  That was a humbling experience for me, I must say. I had regarded her as a brute and a warrior, and little else. She was no scholar, no politician or lawgiver, and yet she put the pieces together quicker that I could ever hope. She knew instantly that there must have been a cover-up to supress such information – there is no way that it had not been discovered before.

  She shadowed my every step after that, not letting me out of sight, and it was cool comfort to know that at least there was one person of integrity left in the family. It hurt even more, in some ways, to see an example of what my parents could have been, had they honour or any sense of morality at all.

  Yes, I am getting rather introspective, aren’t I? It is hard to avoid – you are the first I am telling this to, and while Jorge and Vera know the outline, I have never recounted the tale out loud to another person before. It is strange, and I do not like it. Nevertheless…

  I presented my thesis and there was an uproar. Before the night was done, every member of the Scholar’s Round in attendance that day was dead – food-poisoning they claimed, shellfish with red-tide that had been served with lunch. It was a feeble excuse to me of course, since I had seen the assassins in person. They’d not made it past Hardenia, though.

  Evidently, I had caused too much of a fuss and had shown my bellicose nature too early. It was intolerable for me to live, despite my utility as a tool. I must confess to still being somewhat surprised that my family would seek to have me killed. My naiveté clearly had not been fully shattered, despite my earlier words.

  Not Hardenia though. No, she was not surprised. If I had described her fury as dark before, at that moment it was sable and burning. She painted the streets red with their blood as we fled, but while my naivete had finally been crushed, hers had apparently been rejuvenated. She ran not away from the palace but towards it, and burst into the seat of our house during High Court.

  She demanded answers right there on the floor of our sacred chamber, before the lawgivers of the greatest harbour city on the entire coast. And she received them too. I think in that moment, all she wanted was confirmation. The knife in the back was evidence enough for her, and I remember her face as she apologised to me before she died.

  She had brought me enough time to escape with her blade in hand, and so I had left. I believe she did in fact take a few heads that day before she went down. One does not become the Trident-Holder without cause, after all. Perhaps that is the one position on the entire coast that is not founded on a lie. The First Sword lived up to her name that day.

  The day my life changed was when my best friend was assassinated by my parents, and the day I left was the day my parents were killed before my very eyes by the woman who raised me. It is a tragic tale, and one I will not speak of again, but you are right; it helps to unburden myself.

  Now you know. Please leave me to my grief.