Chapter 1

“Mama. Wh–” Kerrigan sobbed. Her small little limbs wriggled before her eyes, rinsing off tears.

Verika stopped twirling the little girl’s hair, letting her gauntlet hand rested lightly on her step-daughter’s shoulder. “This is us, child. The world isn’t kind to the weak. You, a princess, are not allowed to be weak. Look at it!”

Kerrigan shrieked, tugging her face on Verika’s thigh. Her hands reached for the Mistress of king Dryst the Second.

Verika caressed the princess’ head. Too harsh, too soon. She squatted, leveling her amber eyes with Kerrigan’s green. “You will lead Caerleon in my absence, I need you to face the nature of our power. Look.” She turned Kerrigan around, facing the aftermath of Caerleon’s newest conquest.

The sky sent its first wrath in the far horizon, right beneath the dark cloud of a raging thunderstorm. Even from miles away, cold gusts already reached the graveyard of the battle of Sorestan Stance. “Lightning bolts are our magic. Thunder is our wardrum. Death to the enemy is our melody,” Verika whispered.

She guided Kerrigan’s hand, pointing at the thousand corpses wearing all kinds of armor and clothes, all kinds of weapons from rakes, to spears, to swords, to shields. “We’ve waged three campaigns to claim this hill in the last ten years. I was a girl not much older than you now when I first joined.”

“But why? Couldn’t we be living in peace?”

“Esgard used this hill to raid our people for the last century, forty four times.” Verika couldn’t but remember the raid that made her an orphan. They spared her, letting her spread the terror; but they cut her brother’s throat when he refused to join them. “They cut your father’s tongue when he tried to reason with them, then they burned him along with your brother.”

Kerrigan’s body shifted, tensing and shaking at the same time. Her legs though, stood straight and strong. “I’ll hold the court, mama.”

Verika breathed in deep, nose stinging. She didn’t want this life for Kerrigan, but a country at war left no space for innocent breath. “Good. Your dad will be proud of you.” She stood up, letting Kerrigan’s stare linger at the desolation for a moment.

Then she signaled the escort party to take the princess back to the palace. The lesson would haunt her with nightmares for her entire life—Verika knew it, for everynight, she dreamt of her lost twins.

“My queen,” the royal guard said as he approached. He was Sothe the thief before, but now Sothe the Quicksilver, her retainer. She’d seen him grow from a self-served savage to an honorable man, unbound by a big family name and its ambition. “Are you going back with us?”

“I’m no queen,” Verika said. She turned around with her blade slightly twitched. “Kerrigan E’basa is Caerleon’s rightful queen.” She handed him a sealed scroll. “Take it to Duke Wulfgar. The content inside could only be read by his eyes.”

He nodded, sliding the scroll under his armband. The scars on his strong jaw had led him to more ladies in the court than his liking. Verika often reminded him that he should be brave in seeking the warmth of a woman rather than the cold of iron. He never listened. “My liege, I should stay by your side, always,” he said.

“The princess needs your protection more than me.” Verika tapped his shoulder. ‘Wulfgar needs an experienced man by his side. Go, I’ll be fine.” As she said that, the gust stopped completely.

As the royal convoy left the field of Sorestan Stance, Verika sheathed her blade and turned toward the storm. The nobles will try to marry their blood into the royal, good, let them compete with themselves. Wulfgar would make sure it happened within his control while sending coins for her war effort. The thought of his face brought a rare smirk on her ever frowning bronze face. She couldn’t marry him before, even harder now with Dryst’s gone, for their combined influence would make the entire aristocracy turn against them.

She walked the aftermath, her troops in black cloak were busy cleaning. Spears up, spears down, they spared no survivors. Her golden cloak healers were busy retrieving Caerleon’s bravest. Their groans mixed with the dying moans from the enemy—she ignored them all. Her heart and mind narrowed to strategies that would minimize casualty in the incoming war. Rain started falling, furiously, accompanied by flashes of silver and red behind the grey sky.

Esgard crossbow cavalry had been the terror of every skirmish. She had studied the design for years, but still couldn’t find the secret of the mechanism. Three consecutive shots before reload, and reload only took them two breaths. They shot into the sky or right to your eyes, all the same effect, death. The magic imbued in the arrow dispersed on impact, leaving no trace of its spell formation. She only won this battle by the sacrifice of a decoy force to lure them into the muddy terrain. For the invasion to succeed, she had to recreate these magical arrows.

There, at a hole she dug before the battle, hoping that softer impact wouldn’t trigger the magic, laid hundreds of Esgard’s nightmares. A few were still glowing teal. A lighting bolt tore the sky above, so close that the earth shook on impact. Verika jumped into the hole, her eyes couldn’t keep away from the teal glow. This would show Esgard they messed with the wrong mother. This would avenge her twin. This would complete her.

Regboren, a name but not a name, an identification for my existence. I was here and I was there, then I wasn’t. How was I born? I already forgot. Enmavi, an echo rang deep beneath my emptiness, anchoring my loneliness.

Travelling through glinting dust, I found a bigger dirt. Light receded, I flew into something white, soft and kind. They took shape, then they didn’t, much like my existence. I showered with them, bathing in their embrace, feeling their grace. Then I saw their rage.

Under the flow, the dirt reflected its own echo. Heat, something I’d forgotten for a long time, raised beneath. Gentle at first, but stuck under the dome of gravity fusion within the core of this dirt. The white blackened, condensed, then as nature progressed self cleansing, droplets of water fell.

I fell with them, letting myself be carried by the cycle of this world. I remembered my mission now as I was dispersed and reformed. The Enmavi didn’t say it in words out loud, but an urging, a reflection to everything. It wanted me to learn about the worlds beyond its own. It was my mother and my father, my brother and my sister, it was me. I was part of it and now I learnt.

Dropping on the leaves, I was absorbed by the roots. When the tree fell, I left the dirt and back to be myself with the cloud.

Dropping on the ocean, I saw creatures so big, then bigger, meaner, then biggest, but in slumber. I left the salt water and back to be myself with the cloud.

Dropping on a mountain creek, my descent flashes with animals eating other animals, animals eating leaves, and an animal walking on two legs eating everything else. These animals, these beasts, didn’t have claws nor fangs, no strength nor speed, but they had speech. They formed together, sharing stories and experiences, and they became masters of this world.

I watched them closer now, lingering in the stream to look at their faces. These creatures brought so much destruction but felt the most grievance. This contrast became my addiction, I could tell they would be the completion of my mission.

I returned to the sky once again, and when I fell, something happened. Lightning bolt struck me once, it struck me twice, thrice. Then I was trapped in a muddy pond. I couldn’t hear Enmavi’s calling amidst the cries of people dying. Their red water filled me up with emotions I couldn’t name. Then I felt her, a woman dressed in leather. Her ambition, her hatred, her determination, all of her being focused on me.

No, it wasn’t me. It was the energy imbued on the arrow’s tip next to me. Was it envy that drove me up to meet her, I didn’t know. I remembered taking her shape. But she didn’t flee, she stood there, measuring me. In her eyes, I saw me. Then the Enmavi urged me to be with her.

Verika stared at the shape of herself, rising slowly from the muddy pond of blood, and piss and shit. Was it the magic within the arrows? No. It was something else, something divine. “What are you?”

“Regboren of Enmavi,” it said, sounded like a gurgle learning to speak human.

“Verika of Ula’ao.” She pointed at her chest. Her hand already slid to the hilt of the Hooker, her blade. “What. Are. You.”

As the water took the shape of Verika herself. It tilted its head toward the blade. “No need. Nothing can kill me.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to use your eyes to–”

Verika dashed forward. Hooker flashed an arc and the neck of the bruised water. Imbued by meteorite ore, it could cut through everything she had ever encountered. The head parted from the body, but it didn’t fall. Glinting in between, something held them together. Then it pulled the head back. Verika rolled backward, then dashed away. Water seeped into her boots.

“You misunderstand. I want to see the world through your eyes,” Regboren said. Its voice was clearer now, almost identical to Verika.

She spat. “Possess me, you mean.”

“No. More like… a parasite. I’m there to experience what you experience.” Regboren started walking towards Verika.

“No thanks.”

“You have no choice. Enmavi has chosen you.”

Before Verika could react, the mud water reflection of her engulfed her into a suffocating bubble.

My ongoing series:

Mark of a Herald

The Long Siege

Oops! Some writer note:

Original premise:

On the blood-soaked fields of a dying world, Verika E’sasa killed the survivors to find peace. Then, she found a mirror.

Merged with a rain spirit that now bleeds when she bleeds, Verika navigates a journey through the wreckage of her own past. With Morph acting as her conscience, her weapon, and her ghost, she seeks a lost child in a world that no longer remembers her name.

Idk how it turns out to be this chapter. There’s some rough edges I already see I could do better, maybe later.

This story will be stuffed into the corner till I finished editing Mark of a Herald.

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