Chapter 1

This volume is a narrative constructed upon memoirs unearthed from the desolate expanse of the Gaecrux Wetlands, presenting a faithful translation of the inaugural first edition penned in the Central Standard tongue of Izeland.

Kindly take note that units of measurement, including time and distance, alongside certain idiomatic expressions, have been freely adapted to align with contemporary Earth standards.

***

Being this relentlessly unlucky was a talent in its own right.

A vicious thwack cracked beside Kosha’s ear, setting his cheek ablaze. His eyelids had barely fluttered open when icy water struck him full in the face, shocking every hair on his body upright.

Kosha gasped. The breath caught painfully in his throat as he dragged the oppressively thick air into his lungs. He wanted desperately to rub his blurred eyes and wipe away the cold rivulets streaming from his matted hair, but his arms refused to move.

Blinking frantically against the gloom, he struggled to bring the windowless stone chamber into focus. A murky red glow spilled from two flickering braziers, revealing an oppressive room in which Kosha sat securely bound to a heavy chair bolted to the center of the floor.

Two men loomed over him. One had uneven, dirty-blond hair, while his companion’s locks were as black as a raven’s wing. Everything about them radiated a rough, unmistakably dangerous edge.

The blond man leaned closer, his voice low and gravelly. “Awake yet?”

Still struggling to comprehend the gravity of his situation, Kosha shook his head frantically.

As his vision adjusted, his gaze drifted past his captors and settled on a collection of strange, sharpened instruments hanging from the stone wall. Their presence made the chamber’s gruesome purpose terrifyingly clear.

How, in the name of all that was holy, had he ended up in a torture chamber?

He was nothing more than an insignificant gooseherd who lived as quietly as the dead. Desperate for answers, he tried to piece together the miserable, wretched day that had led him into this nightmare.

Five of his geese had escaped into the forest that morning, indulging in the tormenting habit that always left him exhausted by the time he tracked them down. Since no one else could manage the stubborn flock, he had spent hours combing the woods and had finally gathered all five just as the sun began sinking below the horizon. Despite the crisp autumn wind, sweat had drenched his clothes, and dirt had caked his skin.

The geese had greeted him with indignant flaps of their wings, behaving as though they had not been the ones to flee in the first place. Dumbfounded, Kosha had watched their plump rumps sway rhythmically as he herded them home and sworn that he would finally sell the lead bird to the butcher.

Hunger had gnawed at his stomach until his vision blurred. He had longed to fry goose eggs with dried meat and watercress, but those were goods meant for sale, so he had been forced to settle for a thin stew of water, beans, and turnips. He was sick to death of turnips, yet they remained the cheapest ingredient available in the region.

Beneath a bruised twilight sky, he had placed one on the cutting board and reached for his knife.

He remembered reaching for that blade with perfect clarity.

Then, without warning, his world had gone pitch-black.

An unseen assailant had ambushed him, forcing a coarse sack over his head while wrenching his wrists viciously behind his back. His kitchen knife struck the floor with a sharp clang, narrowly missing his feet.

Before Kosha could scream, something thick was thrust into his mouth, and the sack tightened around his neck. The pungent, stinging reek of a powerful paralytic flooded his nostrils, searing the delicate tissue around his eyes and turning his thoughts into a murky swamp.

Resistance became impossible almost at once. Tears and mucus streamed down his face as consciousness quietly dissolved into darkness, only for him to awaken bolted to this chair.

The blond man studied his captive’s vacant expression, a cold, sinister smile curving across his face. “Still not awake? Should I help you along?”

Kosha thrashed his head from side to side.

Folding his arms, the blond interrogator glared down at him. “You know better than anyone what you’ve done. Who’s behind you?”

What in the world had he supposedly done?

Kosha stared back in utter bewilderment, struggling to force his voice through his constricted throat. “M-my lords, I believe there’s been some misunderstanding.” Speaking to strangers made his stomach convulse, but he forced himself to continue. “Who could possibly be behind me? I haven’t done anything. I’m only a gooseherd.”

The two men exchanged confused looks. The atmosphere shifted, as though they had encountered a situation entirely contrary to their expectations.

The blond man exhaled sharply through his nose. “Fine. I didn’t expect you to confess everything so easily anyway.”

His black-haired companion stepped out of the shadows, his expression unreadable. Reaching toward the wall, he selected a small, vicious-looking instrument. “Let’s have a calm and deliberate conversation, shall we?”

Kosha followed his approach with terrified eyes. He had never seen such a tool before, yet somehow, he knew exactly which part of the human body it had been designed for and understood in agonizing detail how it would be used.

“P-please have mercy!” Kosha babbled, thrashing wildly against his restraints. The heavy chair did not shift a single inch beneath his pathetic struggles. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Neither captor responded.

Unable to meet their eyes, Kosha stared at the stone floor and continued pleading. “I’m only a gooseherd. My name is Ko-Kosha. I live in Osterbeek. I keep nine geese. I’m from Allohen, but I moved when I was fourteen. I’ll answer anything! I’m not hiding anything, so please!”

The men exchanged another pointed glance.

The blond interrogator narrowed his eyes. “Just a gooseherd? You’re not hiding anything?”

“Y-yes. Yes, that’s right, sir.”

“You still haven’t come to your senses.”

Click. Clack.

The small, tong-shaped blades opened and closed with a menacing metallic snap. An eerily cold touch grazed Kosha’s fingertips, prompting him to strain against the tight lashings securing his arms to the armrests. The tendons along the backs of his hands pulled taut, outlining the bones beneath his pale skin.

As the blades merely brushed him, Kosha tried desperately to curl his fingers inward, his nails scraping a frantic rhythm against the wood.

The black-haired man lowered his voice to a lethal whisper. “Are you going to answer properly?”

The blades drifted from Kosha’s fingertips, crossed the back of his hand, and crept slowly toward his wrist. Though not a single drop of blood had been spilled, Kosha shuddered as if his flesh were already being severed.

“I really don’t know! I swear I don’t! Please, there has to be some misunderstanding. I’m only a gooseherd!”

Without warning, the dark-haired man moved and pressed the blade’s edge directly against the nape of Kosha’s neck.

Huk.

A sound that was neither a sob nor a groan tore involuntarily from Kosha’s throat. At that precise instant, the heavy chair began to shake violently.

Clatter.

Clatter.

Clatter, clatter, clatter.

Both captors snapped their attention toward the thick iron bolts anchoring the chair to the stone floor, fully aware of the monstrous strength required to tear such a fixture loose. The five heavy ropes binding Kosha’s body stretched taut and groaned beneath the immense pressure until they seemed ready to snap.

Breaking those restraints through brute force alone would have challenged even their strongest warriors, let alone a scrawny young man who had been dragged in without putting up a fight.

“H-huk…”

As the blade pressed more firmly against his pale neck, Kosha convulsed like a man seized by a violent fit. The blond man hurriedly reinforced the restraints with thick leather straps only seconds before all five ropes snapped apart like useless threads.

The surge of unnatural power left Kosha completely drained. His head sagged limply, and he gasped for air, looking as though he might vomit at any moment. A drop of liquid fell onto his slender thigh. It might have been water, saliva, or mucus.

“You’ll pass out at this rate.” The blond man gave his partner a curt nod.

The black-haired torturer pulled the blade away, then seized Kosha’s matted brown hair in a rough, powerful grip and yanked his head upright, revealing a deathly pale face smeared with filth.

The blond man regarded his prisoner with open disbelief. “A gooseherd? Gooseherds must be incredibly strong these days. You should’ve taken the knight’s examination instead.”

“N-no,” Kosha wheezed.

“A passing dog would laugh at that excuse.” The interrogator slapped Kosha’s cheek with insulting casualness and leaned closer. “Hey, Mage.”

It took several moments for the word to penetrate Kosha’s dazed mind.

Mage.

Despite his wretched condition, his large green eyes remained unnaturally clear and bright. The violent trembling of his irises, followed by their gradual return to sharp focus, was impossible to miss.

Do all mages have eyes like that? the blond man wondered. He clicked his tongue inwardly and forced himself to look away from that piercing gaze.

“Mage?” Kosha stammered. “I don’t even know what that is. I think you’ve misunderstood something, sir.”

“A misunderstanding, you say?”

The man lifted the tattered remains of the snapped ropes and waved them through the dim light as indisputable evidence.

With the blade no longer pressed against his throat, Kosha began to regain a measure of awareness. He swallowed hard and averted his gaze.

“I didn’t expect a mage to be such a coward,” the blond man mocked.

“I really don’t know anything.”

The interrogator abruptly thrust an object in front of Kosha’s face. “You made this, didn’t you?”

Convinced that he was about to be struck, Kosha flinched and squeezed his eyes shut. Only after several tense seconds did he dare open them again. Peering through narrowed slits, he found a small, filthy vial hovering before him.

The cloudy glass bore traces of an oil-soaked cloth seal and looked exactly like the cheap containers sold by the dozen at any Osterbeek blacksmith.

A strange, faintly sweet scent drifted from the open mouth of the vial, making Kosha’s hollow cheek twitch.

He knew that smell intimately.

Anyone leaning close enough would discover that the same odor clung to his skin. Yet it was not merely a scent. These mundane men were unlikely to sense the lingering trace of magic woven deeply through its sweetness.

Kosha’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I… I have no idea what you mean, sir.”

The denial had barely left his mouth when something heavy snapped shut around his right arm with a sharp click. A terrifying chill raced down his spine before a second click secured his left.

The new restraints resembled thick metal bracelets. The instant they touched his bare skin, a maddening, burning sting spread through his flesh like hundreds of biting ants.

“We aren’t asking questions anymore.” The blond man leaned close enough for Kosha to see the raw contempt burning in his eyes. “Those are forged from Idelma gold, strong enough to restrain even a fairly powerful mage. Forget about trying any tricks.”

A crooked smirk twisted his lips. “Though you don’t look particularly powerful.”

Kosha knew exactly what Idelma gold was.

No mage, however weak, could remain ignorant of the cursed mineral that disrupted the body’s natural flow and rendered all innate power useless. His face twisted in agony as the sensation of biting insects crawled rapidly from his wrists toward his shoulders.

The blond man glanced back at the cloudy vial, apparently dismissing his earlier line of questioning. “Who’s behind you? Well, that doesn’t matter right now.”

Twisting desperately against the agonizing metal, Kosha barely managed to shake his head.

There could not possibly be anyone behind him. The substance in that vial was entirely his own creation.

“Make the antidote,” the man ordered. “They say it’s a drug you created, which means you’re the only one who can neutralize it.”

A profound change overtook Kosha’s expression, momentarily eclipsing even the burning agony in his arms.

Watching his captive’s face, the blond man narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going to tell me you can’t, are you?”

Kosha’s pale lips trembled, but no answer emerged.

The interrogator set the vial down with a sharp clack and walked slowly toward the chamber wall. An assortment of serrated blades hung there, instruments so wicked that merely looking at them was painful.

The last traces of color drained from Kosha’s face.

“If that’s how you want to play, I have no choice.” The blond man sighed and reached up to select another tool. “You’ll remain bolted to this chair until you change your mind.”

“I’ll make it! I’ll make it!” Kosha screamed, his panic swallowing the man’s low threat. “I’ll make anything! The antidote, I’ll make it! Please, if you let me go, I’ll brew it immediately. Right away! I promise. I swear I will!”

So please…

His fingernails scraped frantically across the chair’s armrest once more.

Scratch. Scratch.

The ragged gouges in the wood deepened beneath his desperate clawing.