Chapter I, part 2

Jacob… a mystery even to the elders. Even before his birth, this one was trouble she heard. He stayed unnatural long in his mother’s belly. The mages were forbidden to cast magic to help her since it is usually unpredictable what magic can do to a newborn, the doctors unable to help her… in the end, she gave birth and perished. The elders saw it as a bad omen, like the child was afraid to come out to this world. His father, who everyone doubted that he ever felt something for this boy except silent rage that he has killed his beloved one, soon perished in a battle. Some say that the way he fought was like he craved death…

But the child was born healthy, or so they thought. Jacob was too small; he had the stature of a twelfth year old child, despite him being now nearly sixteen. And his headaches were always there, ready to crash him. This was usually why he never got out of bed. If he was alright he would rise perfectly fine, and try his best, although that wasn’t much, in fighting. But if he stayed curled up like that, it meant that his head was, once again, a mess. But that was not the only problem; random thin scars often appeared on his body sometimes. They were evident in the mornings that he woke up, so they must have been inflicted in the night.

Many thought that the boy was cursed, but no one has yet found any trace of magic at him. That was also another problem. The scholars argued that with the love that this child showed towards books, he could have made an excellent sorcerer. But again he failed them all by his inability to grasp magic. Well, it was not something all could do, but everyone seemed to assume that since he wouldn’t be a soldier, he could at least had the gift of magic… now he was just a wasted mouth. The current theory about young Jacob was that he either had a weird disease, passed to him by his mother or that the boy was a sign that their clan was weakening… neither of those two worked, of course, in favor of him.

Liriel had taken a liking into the boy. Apart from the fact that he was one of the little few that didn’t spend their time praising her for her military prowess but actually spoke to her about interesting things, he liked him because they were the same and opposite simultaneously. She had an excellent body, for a warrior that is, muscled and sturdy. Her blade techniques were perfect, and she had the necessary fury to charge, face first, against her opponents. Twice till now she had been deployed in the battlefield. Twice the older soldiers laced her with honors that she will, sometime, become one of their best female warriors. He, on the other hand, was put to the force out of necessity, because the old law demanded that all young ones were to be trained either in magic or in sword. The looks that they were giving her, prideful stares that seemed to hymn her abilities in warfare were the exact opposite of what Jacob earned when a soldier even thought of looking at him. But in reality, no one expected Jacob to ever wielding a blade. Even Raymond, who in the beginning thought that he could turn Jacob into a man through training, had now lost all hope. The people of Charoden were not usually harsh. But what irritated them in Jacob wasn’t only his physical condition. They despised the way he thought. They hated that, if he was given the option to fight for his freedom, or to cower in the corner, he would choose the second.

And in all those differences, was where they were similar, for if Liriel was ever given a choice, she would have chosen to occupy herself with music. Because if someone asked her what body she would like, she would have chosen a gracious girly form, and not a mass of muscles. She loved her music, her flute. But it was ‘girly’ music. Bards and troubadours were singing about the might of the sword, while she sang the beauty that she craved. But all of this was pointless, her future had been already determined the moment she managed to wield the blade so well. All knew that she would be a soldier… the same way that they knew that Jacob was a born failure. The same way that they knew that their existence was safe…