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rainingstorms1220 · 5 months

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Stormbringer: Relic

... Or, at least, the first chapter of it. Relic is a spin-off of my Stormbringer series, and I decided to write the first chapter of the story for one of my uni assignments! I haven't written in a long while, so doing this was really fun and helped me get back into the groove of things.

In terms of genre, Relic is a YA Fantasy story, featuring a 17-year-old protagonist named Dorian Auliffe. This is the story of his journey to uncover the histories of the world, and the role he plays in it all.

『 • • • ✎ • • • 』

The empire of Zephiir never died.

Not with the massacre of her people by the other five kingdoms. Not with the razing of her grand structures by those wicked bearers of magic. And most certainly not with the crimson rain that fell over her ruins in the smoky aftermath.

No, Zephiir never died, for God had looked upon her that night with favour in His eyes, and whisked her aching remnants to the safety of the earth. Its echoing darkness became her new heartbeat. Its abundant presence became her new shield. She would remain within the earth’s gentle embrace, God ordained, until she was ready to forge a new sword—and return the glorious gladiator she once was.

So did Zephiir heed the words of her God; her Father; her Gladiator Spirit, and laid down her vengeance. Under God’s silver gaze, time (Chronos) would guide her shards back together. Be patient. They would return to the light, He promised, when the time was right.

When the time came for fate to pay its price, the whole of Selephia would rue the day they wronged their gladiator empire.

How boring.

Dorian closed the book and slid it back onto the shelves. It wasn’t that the history of his home bothered him—he quite enjoyed it, in fact. Zephiir’s life before the war was one of glory and countless riches, and the trends continued even after the bloodshed. Not to the same extent, but enough for the empire to get back on her feet. And that was only made possible because his predecessors managed to save whatever texts and scraps of parchment they could get their hands on before being forced to flee.

Indeed, while Zephiir never died, it was not because of the power of their God. It was because of the preservation of their history. God was simply another part of it.

Yet, there were only so many stories that his home had built up over the years, and Dorian, in recent days, had come to find himself restless. How many times had he reread the books in his family’s library? How many tours had he taken around the museum they helped manage? While grandiose and fascinating, the human mind had a limit to how much it could tolerate repetitive things, and Dorian’s mind had long since hit that limit.

He needed something… different. Something not Zephiir.

‘Dorian!’ his mother called, her shrill voice muffled by the door. ‘Dorian, are you reading in the library again?’ Then came the sound of three sharp raps on the sole wooden barrier that protected him from her fury.

Dorian toppled off his chair and tried to shove the scrolls he’d unrolled all over the floor back to their original locations. The rows of bookshelves and sparse furniture around him did nothing but judge his struggles. ‘What is it?’ he managed out while flipping papers this way and that. Spirits, did one get stuck under the table? How did that happen?

An impatient rattle. Click. The door flung open, inviting a rush of warm light and an equally warm-faced Hagne into the room. ‘Dorian! Come out!’

Squinting against the sudden brightness, Dorian struggled to his feet. Wonderful, his retinas were suffering. Though apparently, not suffering enough, for the first thing he saw once his eyes readjusted themselves was the disapproving scowl on Hagne’s thick lips. An expression that seemed to etch itself onto her face whenever they were together, despite the friendliness of her features. At least, their neighbours thought of her as such. He often wondered if she saved her dissatisfaction specifically for him. Perhaps it was because they were family.

How pleasant.

‘Look at the mess you’ve made!’ Ah, there we go. Her legendary fussing. ‘We’re going to be late.’

‘Contrary to your beliefs, dearest mother, I was tidying up,’ Dorian grumbled, tugging lamely at the scroll in his hand that had rolled back out to a corner.

‘By keeping the texts under the table?’

Wherever his mother was pointing at (it was the table with that traitorous piece of paper pinned below it), Dorian pretended he couldn’t see anything. He instead fixed her with a deadened stare. ‘It doesn’t matter where I keep them. Anyway, what is it?’

As he expected, she ignored his look, and heaved a sigh as heavy as her braid. ‘Have you forgotten? There’s a tournament today. Everyone’s going to watch it.’

Right, the tournament. That biannual event every Zephiiran adored. While Dorian himself enjoyed those bouts, like with Zephiir’s history, he’d quickly grown rather bored of them. Why wouldn’t he, when the gladiators were always the same type? He could become a gladiator himself. He’d be much more capable. And he was sure his family would wholeheartedly approve, but brawling in a ring while being watched by people he knew wasn’t his calling.

‘I’m not going.’

‘Why not?’

‘See’—a pointed nudge towards the texts littered all over the floor—‘I’m rather busy at the moment, and I’d prefer not to have any more interruptions.’

‘The cheek!’

Dorian rolled his eyes and prepared himself for another scolding. Instead, something inexplicable softened in his mother’s gaze. Hagne’s fingers brushed her braid, brows furrowing, but not in irritation. If anything, she seemed… upset. Which was a strange expression to see on her usually bright and scowling face.

‘… What?’

‘I know you dislike the crowds, but you could still try to join us every once in a while,’ she said with a tilt of her head, and Dorian groaned. Not this spiel again.

‘I already told you—’

‘Especially today! I thought you’d want to come, since the tournament this time is special.’

‘The last time any tournament was “special” was when Her Highness Eucleia took part in it herself.’ An occasion impossible to forget, if he had anything to say about it. Their crown princess was only a little younger than him—freshly fifteen—but she’d stood upon that blistering stage two years ago with the confidence and charisma of a veteran gladiator, and swept the whole coliseum into vicious uproar.

Who knew watching a little girl wrestle with pompous hulks thrice her size—and win—could be so entertaining? He could still hear the crowd’s thrilled screams of bloodlust ringing in his ears. The underground chamber that was the shield of their kingdom had not helped dampen the noise whatsoever. It had instead trembled from the ferocity of the people’s cheers, and Dorian remembered marvelling at how Princess Eucleia seemed entirely unbothered by it, instead choosing to bask in the afterglow of her victories with her arms outstretched and her round, silver eyes curved into an innocent smile. Zephiir’s voice simply became the orchestra accompanying their princess’ glory.

‘So, you didn’t know at all?’ Hagne said, frowning at him.

‘Know what?’

‘One of the competitors today is from the surface.’

Silence. Dorian studied his mother’s face, and found nothing but utmost sincerity. Then again, his mother would never lie about something like this.

‘… You’re joking,’ he said anyway, because the word refused to settle in his head, wavering like a wish uttered a million times to no avail, and Hagne was still waiting for his answer.

Another sigh left those scowling lips. ‘It’s all everyone’s been talking about since last week, you book-brained boy.’

No one ever spoke about the surface. Perhaps it had something to do with the historical trauma and visceral agony that had become associated with the idea of “the light”, but Dorian had long observed the jittery avoidance his fellows had towards the topic of the people living above them. Either that, or outright hostility. Someone he knew had reacted as such—an idiot of a scholar who went by some name or other (Alex? Nico?). Dorian had been as pleasant as possible while talking to him, and at first, their conversation went merrily well… until the subject came up.

He'd never heard such a guttural screech in his life.

But now, because of a sudden arrival from said surface, the whole of Zephiir had been discussing the topic since the week before, and he was the last person to know about it. Which had to be the most ironic thing in the world. Wasn’t their God loving? Why was he the exception?

‘I’m going.’

‘Oh, now you want to go.’ If exasperation had a face, it would be his mother’s. ‘I shouldn’t have come get you.’

‘But you did anyway, so hurry up or we’ll be late,’ Dorian shot back, gathering as many papers as he could in his hands and shoving them… somewhere. He could deal with them after he returned.

It didn’t take long for Dorian to get himself ready. All he needed was to change into a new set of clothes—done so begrudgingly, due to Hagne scoffing at his dishevelled hair and crumpled tunic—and his satchel. He never left home without it, since it contained all his precious materials. Things he would, without a doubt, need, if only to record as many details as possible about the outsider.

How did they look like? Which of the surface kingdoms did they come from? What languages did they speak?

Most of what Dorian knew of the surface came from the history of the greatest and most tragic battle Zephiir had ever faced to date—the War of the Craven. It was this war that forced his ancestors to flee into “the darkness” with their God’s aid, and the last time his kingdom interacted with those who dwelled above. Although the war ended with their evident loss, Dorian always found it intriguing how the books described their enemies.

Cowards.

The word never failed to appear in any of the texts discussing the topic. Regardless of how objectively the scholars of old dissected the events, all of them came to the same conclusion: the five kingdoms of the surface were cowards. None of them exhibited even a smidgen of glory during battle. Only through underhanded tactics and spineless sorcery did they manage to best Zephiir’s glorious gladiators. This unanimous agreement was what gave the war—and, by extension, the surface—its name of the Craven. This fact spread through generations of Zephiirans and was what fostered fear and contempt towards “the light”.

And now, one of the Craven’s people was going to participate in their esteemed tournament.

How did a coward fight? Dorian found the idea amusing. It would certainly be decent entertainment to watch them struggle against whoever or whatever the coliseum’s managers decided to send out.

Though more than anything, he wanted to know. While he didn’t doubt the embittered analyses of his predecessors, there were some things that he wished to learn for himself. A value his father once stressed to him, when he was still young and foolish and didn’t know any better.

If curiosity was the child of history, experience was its mother. That was what made history so fascinating.

Dorian slung his satchel over his shoulder after making sure its contents were untouched (he could never be too careful), and quickly padded out of his home. He had many questions; had kept them burrowed in the back of his mind for years and years, ever since his father told him about the “beauty of the light”. He couldn’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

If only he could speak to the outsider directly. That would be far more insightful…

Oh.

A devious smile spread across Dorian’s face just as someone shouted for him. Hagne, presumably, since he left without her. Not that it mattered.

What did matter was the tournament. The outsider’s match wasn’t the only one happening today, though it would definitely be one of the highlights. He would watch it like everyone else. But afterwards, while the other matches were ongoing…

No one would notice if he went for a walk through the gladiators’ holding area, would they?