For the first three years, Igris suffered loss after loss against the forces of the invading kingdoms. By the fourth year, however, it had managed to turn the tide. Not only did Igris manage to push the enemy alliance back, it also made strides in reclaiming western Goldchester. By the fifth year, the enemies had been completely driven out of the region.
One young girl and her father had just happened to be in Goldchester at the time of Igris’s counter-invasion to reclaim the land that had been annexed. Her father died in the battle, but she was not particularly sad to lose him. He had been a compulsive gambler, a thief, a drunk, and a con artist, one who bragged about once killing a man in a drunken brawl.
He’d dragged her to Goldchester as a tool, not as his child. He forced her to steal for him, and if he still needed more money to fund his vices, he would pay with his daughter’s body instead. So when the young girl saw her father slain before her very eyes, she was relieved. It meant her suffering would finally be over—or so she believed.
Igris’s soldiers were even worse. They dragged her to a nobleman’s villa, where they housed other children they’d kidnapped from the areas around the battlefields. There, they were stripped of their names, and referred to only by the color of their hair—Reddish, Blonde, Ash, Grey, Brunette... Dark. When the children were all used up, or when the kidnappers simply grew tired of them, they were disposed of. Over time, the girl helped bury Reddish, Grey and two different Brunettes. If there was one benefit to her upbringing, it was that her father’s harsh treatment had equipped her mentally to survive this hellish life. But the soldiers constantly brought in new captives; she suspected they would grow tired of her before long.
It was then that he arrived. It seemed that someone had been hunting for the soldiers who were in charge of securing new “merchandise.” Though he bore the same crest as the other soldiers, he burst through the front doors of the villa and turned his sword on the aristocrat’s men, killing over half of them himself.
The sight of him was terrifying. His wicked face was drenched in blood, teeth bared like a wild animal as he hacked through them with a frightening fury. More disturbingly, there were tears streaming down his face even as he slaughtered them. He cried at the sight of those children, their haunted faces, and the corpses of the ones he’d failed to save.
He must be crying for me, too, thought the girl. She was amazed. No one had ever shed tears for her in her whole life. That show of compassion alone made her feel like the man was an angel come to save her.
It was decided that the children would be sent to an orphanage in the capital. The girl kicked, cried, and screamed as the knights tried to take her. She did not want to leave him. She latched onto his arm and did not let go even once, begging them to let her stay with him. Eventually, he relented, and promised her that he would not leave her.
＊
“You can’t be serious!”
Later that night, the girl awoke at the sound of an outburst in the next tent over. Under the darkness of the new moon, she crawled outside of her own tent and toward the neighboring one, to hear the rest of their conversation.
“Billy’s right. Someone in your position, taking in a kid like that? Come on, now.”
“But sir, I made a promise to her...”
She leaned in closer; inside, the scary man was discussing her situation with his senior knights and his commander.
“This isn’t just about you,” said one of them. “This is about all the people you represent. The commander and House Raftia of Lucastle defended you, and of course, there’s His Majesty, the former queen and king...”
“That’s right,” one of the senior knights chimed in. “They all put their necks on the line to save you from that scumbag, Lord Bigberg. He wanted your head for what you did to his men.”
Among those Gaius had slain was a relative of Earl Egbert Bigberg, the man who would go on to become the prime minister; Darke did not learn this until much later.
“Besides, you know what those kids were being made to do—think of how it would look if you took one in. That’ll make everyone supporting you look bad, too. Do you want people saying you killed your allies and stole a little girl for your own? You know what, it doesn’t matter if you mind it or not. Like we said, it’s more than just your reputation on the line. Try using your head instead of your sword for once!”
The commander’s lecture was followed by a long silence. Eventually, the girl heard the scary man’s reply.
“...So as long as it’s clear there’s no possibility of impropriety, I can take her in?”
“Have you been listening?! There’s no way it won’t look bad, you damn fool!”
The girl decided she had heard enough. She crawled back to her tent with a vague sense of guilt. As she pulled the covers over her head, she decided that tomorrow she would go to the man and take back what she’d said.
＊
“What the hell did you do?!”
Once again, the young girl awoke to the sound of one of the senior knights screaming his head off. She rubbed her eyes at the brightness of the morning sun as she sat up, then poked her head out of the tent. Yet again, the scary man was being scolded.
“I went into town last night and had a seal of castration placed on me, sir! Don’t I look like a wise monk now? They have these placed on them all the time—did you know that?”
“You’re a real piece of work, always doing the craziest things without a second thought... And just look at this hack job! Who’d you ask to do that mark, a blind man?”
“He claimed to be a wandering sorcerer, but he didn’t say much else...”