Lord of the realm

Finally, Aldran chuckled, his voice slurred with haze.

"You've got the eyes of a storm, Jaenor. Trouble clings to you like barnacles."

Jaenor only exhaled another stream of smoke, the faintest smile tugging at his lips.

When the night grew heavy, he rose at last, leaving Aldran sprawled among the mats.

The sea breeze met him at the threshold, sharp and cool after the smoke-filled hut.

With the tide whispering at his feet and the moon high above, Jaenor turned back toward the city—and home.

-

Jaenor staggered as he walked down the stone-paved street, the world swaying faintly around him.

The smoke from the sea-folk's den still clung to his chest, curling in his lungs, making each breath feel both heavy and strangely light at the same time.

His steps were uneven, but he did not care.

He had always returned from that place in this state—hazed, dazed, caught between waking and dream.

That was the danger of the leaves the sea-folk burned; they lulled the mind into a half-trance where time itself seemed to slow.

The den was not a place of violence or lust, but of forgetting—forgetting burdens, forgetting tomorrow.

And Jaenor, for all his pride and fire, had learned to embrace that oblivion when it became too much.

Tonight, the city was still.

A deep silence blanketed the harbor quarter, broken only by the groan of wooden beams and the faint slosh of seawater against the rocks below.

The air smelled of salt, damp stone, and the fading ember scent that clung to his clothes.

Ahead, not far, the small outline of his house waited.

Its silhouette was dim in the lantern glow—a place of familiarity, of rest.

He sighed, already longing for his bed.

There was a grim expression on his face, thinking that he had to sleep alone.

But as he reached the edge of the narrow lane, something shifted.

The air itself grew heavier, as if the night had taken a breath and refused to release it.

From the darkness, they emerged.

Several figures stepped out of the shadows without a sound, their forms wrapped in deep scarlet robes. Hoods covered their faces entirely, leaving them faceless shapes against the night. Their garments were not the worn cloth of common folk but ritual garb—threaded with faint glimmers of stitched runes, the kind that caught the lantern light like veins of fire.

There was no mistaking it: these were no merchants or pilgrims. These were practitioners of Origin.

The witches!

Jaenor froze, his senses tugged sharply awake despite the lingering haze in his mind. His heartbeat quickened, and his hand twitched instinctively toward the hilt of a blade he did not carry tonight.

One of the women stepped forward, slower than the rest.

She moved with poise, her steps deliberate, her presence thick as a drawn sword. She stopped right before Jaenor and looked at him from top to bottom. There was no expression on her face.

When she spoke, her voice was muffled by the hood, but it carried with it the weight of something accustomed to command.

"You are that boy."

Her words slithered through the silence, laced with recognition. "Where is your sugar Mother?"

Jaenor narrowed his eyes, his voice rough but steady.

"I'm not a boy."

He straightened his back despite the daze clinging to him, his pride stoked.

"And who are you calling sugar mother?"

The woman tilted her head.

He could not see her face, but he could feel her gaze, sharp and dissecting. Her answer came with no hesitation.

"Because we are the ones who will decide your fate."

Jaenor's brows knit, a retort already forming, when something struck him from behind.

It came like a whip of fire and lightning combined—a spiral of energy, orange in hue, that dug into his back and exploded outward.

ARRGH!!

His body convulsed, a cry torn from his lips as his knees slammed to the cobblestones.

The spiral of energy tightened, its bands binding him in place like molten chains. His muscles screamed against the weight, and though the smoke in his veins dulled his mind, pain cut through it with cruel clarity.

Jaenor gritted his teeth and forced his body to move.

He twisted, his arms straining, his veins burning as power stirred within him.

And then—it happened.

The air cracked.

From deep within him, an eruption of raw Origin force burst outward.

An invisible wave of Origin energy exploded from his body, scattering the orange mist that had begun to coil around the robed women.

The cobblestones shuddered, the lantern flame snapped, and dust lifted into the air.

The scarlet-robed figures staggered back, their composure briefly broken.

The leading woman did not retreat.

Instead, she froze, her head snapping up with a shock that even her hood could not conceal.

Her voice rang with astonishment.

"A male Origin user. Fascinating."

Jaenor, panting, forced one knee up, his jaw clenched in defiance.

But before he could gather himself, three more spirals of energy lashed out from the other women—one to his chest, one to his side, and one across his legs.

The combined strike ripped through him, and his body collapsed back to the ground with a brutal crack. His arms trembled as he tried to push himself up, his fingers clawing against the stones, but the weight of the spirals was crushing.

They burned with runic power, chains drawn from pure Origin power, and no ordinary human could ever resist them.

The lead woman raised her hand, her own power flowing into the spirals.

They tightened like a vice, rooting him to the earth. Jaenor's body shuddered with effort as he fought against them, every muscle taut, his vision swimming with sparks.

For a heartbeat, it seemed he might break free again. His body trembled, his teeth bared, the ground beneath him cracking—

But the power overwhelmed him.

His breath faltered.

The haze of smoke in his blood combined with the crushing weight of the bindings, drowning him in exhaustion.

His defiance flickered, dimmed, and then slipped away.

Darkness swarmed in, cold and merciless.

His head dropped, his body slackening.

The woman lowered her hand, satisfied.

She did not gloat.

She did not laugh.

She only whispered, almost reverently:

"Perfect."

Without another word, she gestured to the others.

The scarlet-robed women moved as one, surrounding his unconscious form.

A ripple of red mist enveloped them, cloaking their shapes and blotting out their presence from the world.

The silence of the night swallowed them whole.

When the mist faded, there was nothing left.

The street stood empty once more, as though no one had ever been there.

Only the faint echo of that power hung in the air, vanishing like smoke in the wind.

No passerby had seen, and no neighbor had stirred.

To the city, it was as if Jaenor had simply disappeared in the dead of the night.

-

The next morning, Aldran woke upon the sands of the shore.

The sea breeze stung his face, and the sound of waves breaking against the rocks roused him from the drunken stupor of the night.

Blinking against the brightness of dawn, he rubbed his temples and glanced about.

The beach was quiet, save for gulls circling overhead, but Jaenor was nowhere to be seen.

Memory returned in fragments: Jaenor had risen in the middle of the night, slipping away without a word, leaving Aldran sprawled half-conscious upon the shore with nothing but the whisper of the waves for company.

With a groan, Aldran pushed himself up, brushing sand from his half-buttoned shirt.

"Bloody fool," he muttered, half-affection and half-irritation.

"Always wandering off like a shadow."

He knew Jaenor's habits well—first stop would usually be his little shack of a home in the fisherman lane.

But when Aldran went there, the place was empty, the door bolted from the outside.

He checked the fishmonger's stall too, thinking perhaps Jaenor had gone to earn a few coins gutting fish or hauling nets, but the stall was unmanned, nets hanging loose, flies buzzing over last night's catch.

The halfling scratched his jaw, unease prickling his skin.

"Where in all the seas did you vanish, boy?"

For a brief moment, he considered searching further, but a pirate's time was not his own.

His captain would be waiting at the harbor, and tardiness often earned more than words.

With a sigh, Aldran muttered, "He'll turn up… always does," and turned his boots toward the docks.

Yet a stone of worry weighed in his gut, one he could not shake.

-

Meanwhile, far above the waking city, in the cold marble chambers of the castle's upper floors, the atmosphere was altogether different.

The chamber was dimly lit, curtains half-drawn, the sea wind threading through the tall arched windows.

Within, tension coiled like a drawn bow.

Earl sat with his goblet half-raised, fingers tight upon the stem, though he had not drunk in several minutes.

Across from him stood Saphyra, her hair tumbling in long waves, her gaze locked upon him with that knowing sharpness that always set him ill at ease.