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The castle town sure was lively tonight.
A festival in full swing to celebrate a bountiful harvest for the season. Lanterns and bonfires lit the streets with warmth as the stars glimmered overhead. People were dressed in costumes and their finest clothes, dancing in the streets, making merry with one another. Children were playing games and rushing about with laughter. Music blanketed the entire city with drums and bagpipes, piccolo’s, and flutes. There was a rhythmic chanting of the harvest song as the people all cheered in time with the music. It was the sight of a flourishing town and its people. War that used the blanket the land was a bygone era as peace has been the age old state of things for a few decades now.
But like any peace…if not maintained then it could be shattered.
A young man bites into a crisp apple as he opted to stay inside as the festivities were underway. He’s busy reading over old reports of war by candlelight in the library. Soft brown curls blanket his face as his eyes crinkle with interest, holding a parchment closer to read it better. He chews languidly as he tosses it aside and picks up another. He can hear the sound of stomping footsteps and he leans back in his chair to look at the door. He’s propped it up on its hind legs as the door slams open, revealing an angry looking young man.
His blonde hair is pulled up as he stomps over to his brother and grabs his shirt in both hands, yanking him out of his chair with a growl.
“You’re not attending the Harvest Festival!? What compels you to stay inside and shirk your duties as Father’s named heir, Tommy!” The blonde yells, lightly shaking his brother in his frustration. Tommy seemed used to this as he just ragdolls in his brother’s arms, green eyes staring boredly at the angry blue. He smiles and brings his free hand up to hold his brother by the forearm, taking another bite from the apple and holding a finger up at him.
His brother’s eyebrow twitches as Tommy chews slowly. As if to purposefully spite him as he mulls over the accusations, head lulling side to side before he swallowed.
“First of all, I am not shirking my duties as Father’s named heir, I am merely… delegating my energies to things I can better attend to,” he starts. Tommy waves the apple in no particular direction as he says this before patting his brother’s arms to be set down. “Second of all, I am not staying inside. I will be out! …Eeeventually…” The defense is weak and the blonde just squints angrily at him. Tommy rolls his eyes and gently shoves his brother’s shoulder. “Oh come off it, Caden! Shouldn’t you be out and about patrolling the city for any threats or bar fights? Why are you here trying to collect me from my research!?”
“Because it is not research!” Caden finally shoves his brother back into his library chair, not caring as Tommy careens over and onto the floor. His hands settle on his hips as he shakes his head in frustration. “You are reading tales for children and nothing more, Tommy! You’ve told me true yourself!”
“Ahhh-ah-ah-ah-ah! That’s a lie!” Tommy points at Caden accusatory from the floor, stumbling to his feet as he slaps his hand against his study table.
He grabs some marked pieces of parchment and holds the apple in his mouth, turning to show them to Caden. He starts to talk around the apple as he’s trying to explain what he’s found. Caden clears his throat loudly and Tommy stops, blinking at him. He gives a pointed look to the apple and Tommy rolls his whole body with his eyes, shaking the parchment in frustration. He turns to spit the apple onto the floor, ignoring his brother’s growl, as he holds the parchments up again.
“Right, so if you look here-”
“Seriously, Tommy?! Your manners!”
“SCREW the manners, for god’s sake, it’s MY library! THIS-” Tommy shakes the parchments angrily for emphasis. “-is more important!”
Caden covers his mouth with his hands to take a deep breath, clenching them into fists before calmly crossing his arms. He might as well hear his brother’s excuses for not being out talking to the townsfolk and nobles.
“I was going through Father’s old reports, from The Age of Flame.”
Tommy is immediately forgiven for not being out talking to the townsfolk and nobles. Caden leans forward with a surprised look and takes this a bit more seriously. His brother might play the part of the fool but he was incredibly diligent in his studies. The Age of Flame was one of the most horrifying era’s of their world's history. So for Tommy to be looking into it so seriously…he surely found something worthy of concern.
“Obviously there are things here that were never mentioned to the public,” Tommy goes on, setting the parchments on the table to lay them out. Caden leans over the table with him, scooting a candle over to see them better. “One of those things being the crusade against the Cinder Knights. Those corrupted with the power of dark fire which were laying waste to the kingdoms around them. Trying to ‘burn the world’ to make way for a new ‘era of darkness.’ Now HERE is where it comes up about a decade after the supposed defeat-”
“Supposed?” Caden cuts his brother off with clear worry on his face. “What does that mean?”
“I was getting to that. So impatient.” Tommy flicks his brother’s forehead, ignoring his soft ‘ow,’ as he pointed to one of the captain’s reports. “A decade after the supposed defeat of the Cinder Knights, we have this report. This part right here: “The passage to the undercity is starting to show signs of tampering. Soot is seen streaking down the top of the chamber like water. The men clear it only for it to reappear a few days later. As if something is trying to leak from the undercity back into the world. I fear that if we do not come up with a solution then peace as we have defined it will become ruined.”
Caden swallows nervously as those words sink in. Oh. So that’s what ‘supposed defeat’ meant. Tommy just claps him awkwardly on the shoulder with a few pats and reaches for another piece of parchment.
“Right, keep up, freak out later,” he says. He shakes the paper before moving Caden to the side. He shushes him with a finger before holding the parchment in front of the candle. The light shines through it and causes a smoky seal to reveal itself onto the page. Caden stares at the seal with a hand on his sword handle, as if something would escape the parchment that would need slaying. But nothing does. The intricate seal just…smolders as the fire brought it to light.
“What am I looking at, Tommy?” Caden asks warily and shock slaps him in the face at his brother’s shrug. “Are you ser- you don’t KNOW? And you illuminate it anyways!?”
“How else can I learn what it is if I don’t see it? Plus you would not have believed me if I didn’t show it to you!” Tommy sets the paper down and picks up his carefully traced drawing of the seal. “You would have thought this as idle doodling and nothing more!”
“That-! …That isn’t the point.” Caden clears his throat, unable to refute his brother’s claim. Tommy waves him off and picks his chair back up, gathering all the materials up into a haphazard pile. “So that’s what you're looking into then? That’s why you’re… in here, cooping yourself up for the festival?”
“No, I’m hiding from all the noise and people,” Tommy admits brazenly. Caden’s head and shoulders drop with a frustrated sigh. Of course. He should have known better than to think his brother had good intentions at heart. Well, he did but not for today.
“Tommy…”
“Yes yes yes, quit with the whining! Always whining with you.” Tommy grabs Caden by the arm to start dragging him out of the library. He pushes his hair out of his face and looks over his shoulder at his work table. Everything would still be here when he got back. Yet even as he closes the library door, ignoring his brother’s lecture on public manners and expectations, he can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.
The smoking seal on the parchment slowly dissolves off the paper to curl around the candlelight. The candles flame hisses and flickers violently before turning silver and black, a dark hissing sound coming from the wick before it extinguishes itself.
A rhythmic groan echoes in the library from the stone floors, a singular streak of soot leaking from the floor up the back of the door.
We still…remember…the promise made…of Blackened Flame.