Premonition (1)

“Arrogant pack of bastards.” The words escaped like a muffled thunder from beneath Leifred Magnum’s thick beard as his entourage descended the winding trail toward the heart of an aging barony.

With the Chamber of Crowns adjourned, Leifred was finally returning to the Principality of Magnum, not for rest, but to resume the ritual that had long defined him: ruthless inspections of the frontier lands under his charge.

The years had taken their toll, his once-sculpted frame now buried under a generous layer of war-earned fat, but Leifred still cut an imposing figure. Broad shoulders, a chest like a drawn bow, and eyes as sharp as a smith’s best axe.

His conviction remained unshakable: he could not afford leniency. His borders, though guarded by mountains, were not impervious to danger, wandering exiles, bitter nobles, agitators disguised as peasants.

As he reached the village square, his eyes narrowed. The people looked… worn. Thin. Their faces dulled like stones weathered by wind. The nearby fields were pale, not just from winter, but from neglect.

What angered him most: not a trace of the winter farming technology Snaken had shared with neighboring provinces years ago. He had personally ordered its implementation, within five years, no less, back when his son Lucian was still a baby in his mother’s arms.

“Hmph.” Leifred huffed, his open palm brushing his belly as if swatting away a growing unease. “Taxes this high… and this is what you give me?”

Before him stood a line of soldiers, armor ill-fitted, boots worn thin, swords more rust than steel. One of them was trembling, from cold or fear, he couldn't tell.

“One breath from me and half of these twigs would fall to their knees.” Leifred’s tone wasn’t mere mockery, it was heavy with disdain. His gaze scanned the soldiers like a butcher evaluating livestock too lean for slaughter.

There was disgust, yes, but the kind that comes from expectation unmet. From a man who knew the hidden strength of these lands, and saw with bitterness how far it had fallen. The stench of wet straw and sweat did nothing to improve his mood.

“As if the extremists from that damned Silvermoon weren’t enough,” he growled, spitting on the frozen ground. “Now I have to put up with this band of incompetents.”

A knight approached at a slow trot, but Leifred didn’t spare him a glance. His eyes stayed fixed ahead, scanning the weathered homes and crumbling rooftops like a predator that already knew where the prey was weakest.

“This is why your lands are rotting,” he said, his voice cold as steel at a throat. There was no rage in it, just contempt. Dry. Merciless. Precise.

“Your Highness, forgive me,” stammered the baron, barely lifting his eyes. “As you well know, these are hard times, and the quotas you demand… they’re steep. W-we just… if we could be granted exemption for a year or two, perhaps three,”

He trailed off. Something in Leifred’s silence forced him to look up.
No, he was made to look.

Leifred already had him by the head, lifting him like a fat hog about to be hurled into the fire.

“You useless rat,” he growled, voice deep and rumbling like buried thunder. “Not only are you the cause of this land’s misery, but you dare to bargain with me?”

His aura, until then contained, surged out like thick poison. The air grew heavy. The few civilians watching from afar backed away. The soldiers stood frozen, too stunned to intervene, too afraid to oppose.

“AHHRGH!” the baron screamed, legs thrashing like branches in a storm.

“Your Highness, perhaps it would be wis—” began Johan, Leifred’s steward, approaching cautiously on horseback.

“Do not interrupt me,” Leifred snapped, eyes like blades. “I’m in the middle of an execution.”

With a sharp turn, he pointed at a young man, thin, unlike the rest of his kin. No jewelry, no bloated face of greed.

“You,” he barked, still holding the old man aloft. “You’re the new baron. From this moment on, your house will rise or rot by your hand.”

The boy dropped to his knees, fist to chest, without hesitation. Behind him, his mother and siblings wept, pleading for the condemned’s life. Leifred didn’t hear them.

“And you,” he growled, turning back to the former baron, whose head still shook between his fingers, “say your last words to your ancestors.”

The pressure increased. The baron screamed, his eyes rolling back.

But then, heavy hoofbeats echoed, fast, out of sync. An unusual sound for those dry fields.

“MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY!” a deep voice thundered between the cottages. A flag rose against the wind, bearing the crest of House Magnum, embroidered in gold and black threads over a dark red background.

Leifred turned, his brow furrowed.

An imposing mount approached, a massive six-legged beast, its coat dark as coal, muscles taut like stone. The rider dismounted with precision, landing on one knee and striking his chest in salute.

“Your Highness,” he said, voice steady despite the urgency. “Forgive the intrusion. I’m Jarek, from the scouting platoon. I bring dire news from the Gjalvarun mountain range.”

Leifred narrowed his eyes. Slowly, he released the baron, who dropped to the ground gasping, writhing in pain.

“Go on.”

“The main mine has collapsed, sir. There are reports of unusual underground activity… something resembling the wyrmroots the old miners used to describe.”

Leifred didn’t respond right away. That name, the worms, was ancient, forgotten by most. But not by him. Since his father’s father's times, and the ones before them, the stories about those beings have been passed down.

“Anything else?” he murmured, eyes fixed on the messenger.

Jarek swallowed hard. “Unfortunately… yes. The collapse occurred during a work shift. Many were inside... including the young prince Lucian.”

CRACK.

The sound was sharp and visceral. A jet of blood spattered across the ground like a brutal brushstroke, bits of skull flying in all directions. The baron’s head was no longer recognizable.

The man who thought he’d escaped death had already joined it.

Leifred didn’t hesitate. He leapt onto his horse with a desperate force that shattered any illusion of noble composure. His eyes, once lined with severity, now burned with a raw, primal fear.

He was a first-time father, and that name, Lucian, was all that remained of his bloodline.

✦ ✦ ✦

“By Velmior’s beard, Alexander…” Damian panted, clutching his chest as if he could steady the wild drumbeat of his heart. “Warn me next time you try to kill me, for the love of the stars…”

Just two meters from him, a massive spike of earth had erupted from the ground, twisted like a spear. Its tip still trembled faintly, echoing the raw power that had shaped it seconds earlier.

“It works…” I murmured, more to myself than to him. My eyes scanned the spike, but my mind was far elsewhere. Excitement blended with fascination, every thought igniting another.

“I’ve got three perfect affinities… maybe, no, there’s a high probability I can replicate the same effe—”

“Argh!”

A jolt surged through my skull, like invisible claws digging in and trying to rip something out, along with my soul. Pain exploded like a wave of white fire, pulsing until my vision trembled.

I doubled over instinctively, pressing my hands to my head in a useless attempt to hold back the crushing pressure.

Damian, still breathless from the earlier shock, raised his eyebrows and stepped closer, his concern laced with dry sarcasm:
“That’s why you should listen when people are talking.”

He turned away, walking toward a nearby shelf. Among books, scrolls, and vials filled with strange-colored liquids sat a row of tiny pots, each holding a small, distinct plant or tree. His fingers selected a particular pot with the ease of someone who’d done it dozens of times.

From the soil, he plucked a deep green leaf, its edges slightly serrated, its surface almost velvety. “This will help.”

I took it without hesitation. The fresh, damp scent of narlith filled my nostrils as I brought the leaf to my face, and with it came immediate relief. The throbbing subsided like a tide retreating from the shore. My body eased.

“Thanks…” I murmured, closing my eyes for a few seconds to savor the reprieve.

Five minutes later, the pain was no more than a fading echo.

“Is this side effect permanent?” I asked as soon as I felt clear-headed again.

Damian blinked, surprised by my bluntness. His silence said more than words.

“I’m pretty resistant to pain… especially when it comes to my head.” A soft chuckle escaped me. Compared to everything I’d been through in the past year and a half, this was barely more than a dull annoyance, nowhere near unbearable.

“Heh, you never stop surprising me,” Damian said with a tired half-smile. Sweat still trickled down his temple, a remnant of the earlier scare. “But back to the point… yes and no. The side effect will always be there, but it should lessen over time. Maybe… once the restriction is lifted.”

‘As Expected…’ Damian wasn’t some all-knowing oracle. That realization brought an odd kind of relief. It was easy to forget sometimes. He spoke with such confidence, as if he always had the answers. But in the end… he was just a boy. A little older than me, but still a boy.

And the same could be said about me, even with scrambled memories from two lifetimes, even with all the knowledge an obsessive reader could gather. The truth is, memory’s a fickle thing. Useless, most of the time, without the right trigger.

You could’ve read a thousand books, studied a thousand techniques, but… if you haven’t lived it, haven’t practiced, haven’t made it part of your body and mind… then it fades.

‘You can’t remember everything… not unless you use it daily.’

Damian continued his explanation, in that patient tone I’d come to recognize as his teaching voice.

“But one thing’s for sure: even though this alternative method is more draining than the traditional one, it works. No sane person would expect a level-one mage to cast level-two or three spells… That’s a huge advantage, even if temporary.”

I nodded, absorbing his words while still feeling the echo of the pain that had flared through my head. A clear reminder that too much power, too early, always comes at a price.

We resumed training. Under Damian’s guidance, I managed to successfully cast a simple level-one spell from each of my three perfect affinities, earth, wind, and lightning. Visually, nothing impressive. But the feeling… ah, the feeling was something else. Like unlocking doors without needing the key.

When the clock began ticking toward late afternoon, Damian wiped his forehead with his sleeve and let out a relieved sigh. “That’s enough for today. I don’t want Sir Isack yelling at us again tomorrow.”

“True,” I muttered, letting myself fall onto one of the benches. “Hell starts again in the morning…”

We sat in silence for a few seconds. Outside, the muffled sounds of other Order members began to seep through the cracks in the walls and around the doorframes. The scent of narlith still lingered in the air, sweet, fresh, comforting.

As I watched Damian watering each of the little pots in the room, I felt something settle inside me. Subtle, but real. Like, piece by piece, something within me was beginning to align. It was still early, I had barely scratched the surface of what I might become, but for the first time in a long while… I was genuinely excited for tomorrow.

But not everything was perfect. The deeper I ventured into this exhausting but relaxing new reality, full of challenges and wonders waiting to be discovered, the more I felt something was… off.

‘Is it wrong to think that… this feels too much like the calm before the storm?’