PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
The icy wind whistled as blades circled the air in a tight-grip manoeuvre of a pair in the middle of the deserted ground. Parrying the rapier’s blow mid-air, two blades arched in a sharp ear-piercing shrilled clash of metal against metal slicing through the flesh-biting whiffs of February blizzard flakes. The blades quickly retracted by their wielders, one expertly swerving it overhead for an offensive move while one sidestepped and swivelled his body ducking slightly from the offense and pushed a sole hard against the snow-blanketed training ground for a full stop just exactly making him face the opponent’s left side—a weak spot he had been searching on for the last eight minutes.
“What do you think of Lady Sora, Gavin?”
The lad heaved for a massive exhale, smoke puffing thickly from his flesh-coloured mouth. “She is one to consider a good candidate for your marriage, Your Highness. But I am not really good in terms of betrothal. Forgive me.”
“We think alike, boy. We do,” he replied in a boyish grin and sliced through the air for preparation of an attack. Gavin dodged as expected and distanced a step, his foot pivoting to a full stop as if he was dancing.
Lord Eufrene /euv-vo-ri-ni/ was a year or two older than his opponent yet with the lad’s graceful handiwork with the rapier there was nothing more to do than think of the young lad as a very good future swordsman. At the lad’s age of fourteen, Lord Eufrene was but a subject to learn from a younger orphan who learned fighting from self-defence against his late butcher captors.
“She is no bad, though,” the lad considered.
“But what I really want to marry is a woman who would be as near powerful as me,” the peer replied as he smiled at the incoming blow from the lad. Raising his blade he parried it away and the two stepped back, stepping sideways in opposite direction as if they were dancing a rhythm in a circle.
“Lady Sora was the only daughter of the Archduke of Maginotta. I do not reckon she was none but powerful.”
“I do not mean anything sanguinis, boy. What I mean is I want a girl who can strike like this.” He thrust his dagger straight an inch away from piercing Gavin’s unprotected chest. The lad chuckled back.
“No woman is in record for that, Your Highness,” he said as if he was thinking of the possibility but he shook his head in no time. “Do you mean you do not want a betrothal?”
“Not exactly as I never wanted one but I would more like to say that it is only me who can choose for the right time to get married.”
“I suppose I saw that coming.” The lad grinned. “Being a royal blood is a very difficult task, after all.”
“You reckon so?”
“I see so, Your Highness.”
A flash of regard glinted in the prince’s eyes. “Yes. I know so.”
The brotherly glint, Gavin did not miss, made him grin. “First one disarmed loses?”
“Prepare then.”
“Ditto.”
Proving his point, Gavin struck the dagger into the ground and buried its blade deep into the cold ice. As Lord Eufrene raised his longer blade slicing down to Gavin’s shoulder, the lad unsheathed the blade and lifted his lower extremities off the ground, his right hand planted still as it supported his legs up in the air to exactly meet the peer’s blow, his bare toes catching his attacker’s wrist and managed to disarm him in a single wring. Not giving him a chance to think, Gavin pulled the prince forward by the wrist and watched him stumble shoulder blades down first. As he collided with the snow, he quickly shot up and sprinted for his dagger. Turning his face back to fight, Gavin was nowhere.
He spun round while aiming his dagger forward in a tight shaking grip. His teeth were clattering. He would hear his own pulse inside his head begging for some rest. He can no longer feel his breath as the frozen air he breathed was already paralyzing his throat. Inching backwards, he heard a rustling sound behind him. He spun round and struck blindly. There was no one.
A sudden howl more than familiar to him followed and he stumbled to his knees for dear life. No! The dagger fell from his shaking hands. A sharp sting of pain seared in his nostrils as tears welled up in his eyes. No!
The monstrous howl was a shrill sound waving its way through the thick cold air to his ears. He staggered by his knees and shouted for all his might. “Gavin, where are you? Come back here!”
A series of muffled steps familiar and unfamiliar to him at the same time floated through his senses. His eyes tend to shut their way up completely due to the heavy atmosphere but he must not let it get in his way. He must find Gavin. He fell silent and a distant war cry hollered.
“Gavin! Gavin!”
He picked his already snow-crusted blade and forced his legs up, prepared to fight. His breathing grew heavy but he was never relaxed with every gulp he took. Looking around, he saw nothing. He wove his sight through the snow falling mid-air and squinted.
At far at the distance, he saw the youth running tremulously as he stumbled a lot of times down to the snow. As the boy neared, Lord Eufrene was quick to respond on catching him before crashing carelessly on to the snow again. And then he felt it. Hot and wet. Pulling the young lad off to take a look at his wide eyes, he fired, “Where did you get this?”
Raising a shaking hand, Lord Eufrene showed Gavin the proof. He could not believe his eyes. “I am no wounded, Your Highness. But there’s something over there that you should see.” His finger pointed on to the spot where he had come from.
“Why did you go there?” His superior asked with a hint of uncertainty.
“I didn’t,” the lad quickly defended in a tone that says the answer is obvious. “You, Your Highness, were the one who suddenly disappeared.”
The Marquis seemed to be hit by a cannonball on the head as he stared at the lad still unconvinced but shocked, nonetheless. “But I have my dagger picked up in here. You have suddenly gone afterwards.”
The lad looked uneasy as he stared down at the nobleman’s hands. “Pardon me Your Highness but you hold nothing but a twig.”
With even wider eyes this time, the peer motioned his face to where Gavin had gone. “And that blood,” he mumbled and paused as if he was never prepared to hear the lad’s response. “Whose blood was that?”
An almost obscene glint fired up in Gavin’s eyes and he quickly took a step sideways to show the prince the way to the location. “You would not believe, Your Highness.”
