"Riven, that cursed runt? Figures his sister's the only one desperate enough to marry today." a voice said, intentionally louder than a whisper, her tone dripping with mockery and revulsion.
"That's him aright. I would have ditch him long ago if I was his sister. No one wanted her with a cursed like him around her. Who knows what their bloodline will turn into?" another voice answered, displeasure thick in it.
"But now that our two villages are joining together, she has been pitifully taken. I pity the poor man," a new voice added with a snort.
Riven, a lanky seventeen-year-old, stiffened from his place at the front of the hall. He heard their whispers, and it wasn't as if they were trying to hide them. He resisted the urge to look across the hall towards the Stonequa villagers.
Everyone in the hall heard it. After all, everyone in attendance was an Aura practitioner, with inhuman senses and strength.
Unlike Riven, who was truly useless, who could not even activate his Sigil. It only made their mockery more painful, a bite that stung deep into his heart.
But he narrowed his purple eyes as the familiar bitterness swirled and thought. "I will not let them get to me, not today when my sister is finally getting married."
He felt bittersweet emotions as he thought about it. On one hand, he was glad that his sister, Ysmera, was finally getting married, but on the other, he felt the same helplessness and hopelessness he'd been feeling since he was smart enough to know he was different.
Different in a very wrong way. Cursed. "If I'm not cursed, then I'm the most unlucky, can absorb Aura but can't use it." he thought bitterly.
Suddenly, a voice boomed, "We are here today to celebrate the alliance between our two villages!"
Riven snapped out of his thoughts and looked up.
At the front of the hall, in front of the two couples, stood a tall, heavily muscled man with a black beard. His eyes were sharp, and his teeth glistened. He was Village Head Vorin, the leader of Stonequa.
The thin woman beside him nodded. Unlike Vorin, her hair was white with gray, and her face was wrinkled. But her black eyes were as sharp as a knife. She was the Village Head of Timberhold, Orianne. She said, "This will ensure the continued survival of our villages."
Riven almost snorted out loud at the performance the two village heads were putting on. But he knew better. Across from where he was sitting were villagers from Stonequa, and they continued to glare at those from Timberhold.
If not for the village heads, blood would have started flowing already, Riven thought with a sneer. And with good reason, too. The two villages had been spilling each other's blood for hundreds of years. They shared boundaries and fought for resources all the time.
Riven and his sister came from Timberhold, while the other villagers were from Stonequa.
The two villages weren't fully in agreement—not the Aura practitioners who had bled for their sides—but the village heads didn't seem to care. And as both of them were at a higher rank than everyone here, there wasn't much anyone could do.
Orianne nodded and smiled. "That's why we are joining our villages together—to preserve them and grow them into something more."
And what better way than to use the girl that no one wanted to marry?
The idea had made Riven angry when he first heard it, and he wanted to disagree, to be against it. But then he remembered that the reason she was unmarried at twenty-four was because of him.
And he owed her whatever happiness she might be able to carve. She had taken care of him since their parents died and did not look at him with the same disgust as the others.
Ysmera was looking forward to this, and Riven was determined to let her have her happiness. He did some investigation on the man she was to marry—a Rank 1 Aura practitioner who was also good at hunting, just like her.
As if to confirm it he glanced at her at the front and she gave him a small smile, it was filled with more joy than usual but her eyes still held the same warmth she reserved only for him, he could almost hear her say. "You worry too much, Riven. Everything will be alright, we'll make it so."
He gave her a firm nod in reply.
Orianne continued, "For years, all the villages in Tholm have been fighting each other. But from today, we will be the first to unite, and soon, we will defeat all the other villages together!"
A harsh but low mumbling spread through the room, and the tension intensified. Aura pressure filled the hall, a crushing weight that Riven straightened against.
This was what it meant to be a normal person—a failure among Aura practitioners.
The two village heads continued as if they didn't see the reaction, and Vorin added, "We will make Tholm ours."
Tholm referred to their part of the Shadowwood, far removed from civilization. There were eight villages there, and none of them saw eye to eye.
Riven looked towards the Stonequa villagers again and couldn't help the bubble of hope that swelled in his heart. Maybe this time I will be accepted among them. They can't be like my village, right? Maybe they won't shun me.
But what he saw in their eyes wasn't friendliness. Hostility brimmed from them, their faces carved into grim lines. The little hope he held faded away, only to be replaced by determination. I guess I will finally do what I've been thinking about for so long.
Time to run away.
He did not listen to Vorin and Orianne drone on about the ceremony and the benefits of the new union.
Riven was only half-listening. His eyes were narrowed as he thought about his next plan. I will run away. There has to be something beyond this Shadowwood... I will make it. I might not be able to kill monsters, but I can handle normal animals easily enough. I have a small sword, and I can—
"Hey, old man! I'm tired of this. You've just been rambling on and on. And can that old crone beside you shut up?"
Riven was jarred out of his thoughts by the voice that cut through the village heads' speech like a cold wind. The voice carried a cruel twist to it, and Riven, along with everyone else, turned towards the open door in surprise.
Two men stood there, in their twenties. They had the youthful and near-blemishless appearance of those who cultivated Aura. They wore dark green, loose long-sleeve robes with red sashes, their long hair coiled atop their heads.
The first thing Riven thought was, They are strong!
The strongest Aura practitioner Riven had ever met was at Low Auracrest—and that was both village heads. But these strangers gave off a steady pressure that told him they were stronger than that.
"What's happening? Who are they?"
What surprised Riven most was that they were strangers! He'd never seen a stranger before. Their village was too inconsequential to matter, too insignificant to draw outsiders—especially ones as powerful as these.
But Riven couldn't help the excitement that ran through him. His heart began to beat fast. This is the image of Aura practitioners I always had in mind—elegant and near flawless.
He turned his head to see how the two village heads would react.
Orianne looked so shocked her eyes nearly popped out of her face, but Vorin was only mildly surprised.
The village head of Stonequa cleared his throat, his face expressionless. "You came faster than I expected," he said.
One of the strangers sneered. "That's because we didn't find what you promised. There's no catacomb at Timberhold. We dug up the whole village—there's nothing."
"But at least the villagers make good dead bodies," the other one said.
There was silence as they tried to process and make sense of what they just said. Dead bodies? Catacombs? What is going on? But then the hall suddenly erupted. Auras flared, and the villagers shouted, those from Timberhold demanding to know what was going on.
Riven stood there in shock, but even then, he was already moving. His intuition, honed through countless times he had tried to avoid trouble, told him the biggest trouble he had ever seen was standing at the door.
Riven crouched and began to make his way to the front, his right hand falling to the side where a small sword hung. "Whatever is going on, we have to get out of here. Me and Ysmera," he thought.
One of the green-robed strangers sneered. "Do you see that? The disgusting villagers from this blackwater place are demanding to know what is going on."
His companion yawned. "Just kill them. And the one that lied too. They are all better as dead bodies anyway."
"Huh, I wonder how useful their dead bodies will be though. They are not as strong as they should be in their ranks. They lack foundation."
Orianne turned to Vorin, her eyes widening in shock. "You bastard! You are already betraying us!"
Vorin sneered, his face now twisting in disgust. "As if I will join my village with you lots. I thought there was a catacomb with all the bragging you have been doing!"
"Then why did you propose it?" Orianne began to edge away from him, red-tainted aura beginning to cover her like smoke.
"Because I have sold your village, and I wanted to get all the Aura practitioners out of it for a while for a proper search. Who would have thought you were a lying rat!" Vorin bellowed, the ground underneath him shifting and shuddering.
The tension that had been mounting since the beginning finally snapped. One of the villagers from Stonequa gestured with her hand, yanking it backward and jerking a man from the Timberhold side toward her with a blast of wind.
The man was so surprised he failed to react in time, and he collided with the blade the woman was holding headfirst, a stab that went straight through his eye to the other side.
Everything seemed to slow down. Blood splattered in bright red, causing a ripple effect as that shocked all the aura practitioners. The air in the room whined and vibrated, turning chaotic as everyone drew on their Sigil.
Riven cursed. He had reached the front now and was looking at the shocked face of his sister, who had her hand grabbed tightly by her soon-to-be husband.
Riven heard the so-called soon-to-be husband say, "Finally, we are done with the show. I will just have you for a chained mistress. It is all you are worth, after all. I do not want my bloodline tainted by your blood."
Riven stiffened. The hand holding the sword trembled and then firmed. Behind him, he heard the villagers starting their attacks. The ground shook, and the cracking sound of unleashed Sigil techniques filled the air.
But Riven was not concerned with all that. His vision had shrunk to a circle that only contained the crumbling face of his sister. Her happiness turned to ashes, just like it.
His gut twisted. It was simply too much. His anger swelled, and his purple eyes flashed. Without thinking, he flung himself at the back of the man, a rank-one Aura practitioner, but to Riven, he was simply the most hated man who had hurt his sister.
At that moment, nothing else mattered except getting blood on his sword.