Dawn of Fate

13. The 12 Brothers

The gray waves rocked the raft back and forth. Vainglorious' droopy gray eyes gazed up at the sleepy clouded sky. A hand stroked through his white hair.

"Shh." The hooded stranger whose lap he laid his head on whispered. "It's okay boy witch, you can dream here."

"No, can't. Have to move." Vainglorious tried to move his lips to speak.

But no matter how hard he tried his limbs couldn't move. He couldn't even pick up his head. The hooded stranger giggled as he ran his index finger over the boy's lips.

"Now, now."

The hooded stranger leaned closer to his face. Gray eyes peered back into his own, white hair fell from the black hood. The stranger's snow-white face began to look like Vainglorious if he were a teenager, or maybe an adult?

"Frozen internally, judged for what you are from when you were young. Melting heart, fall in love and you will be undone. Searching for power but from the crown's power, you run. Little Icarus flew too close to the sun."

Suddenly Vainglorious felt something hot streaked across his face.

"Ahh!"

His gray eyes snapped open when he heard an inhuman scream, his head hitting the hardwood raft with a thunk.

Sitting up Vainglorious looked wide-eyed over to the hooded stranger whose black robes were now on fire.

"For folklore sake!" Yelled the stranger. "Do you know how long it took for me to get these robes? I had to practically wait until this style had died to get my hands on these. You're so dead Relic!"

"Relic? From Zealous' book? Here?" Thought Vainglorious.

He turned around to see a rather muscular man whose straight white hair covered his naked back down to his ankles. His chestnut brown eyes dark as he stared at the hooded man. A miniature fire crackled in his hand.

"You should know absorbing the life force from another living being for yourself is forbidden."

"What? Are you going to tattle on me? Besides, what's it to me if another one of you witches get stuck down here?"

"I'm warning you, ferryman." Relic glared, the fire jumping in his hand to lick something out of reach.

"Fine, have it your way. It's not like he'll last much longer in this condition. He would have to be some sort of demotic monstrosity to survive this."

The ferryman was behind Vainglorious before he even noticed his movement. His foot on the boy's back kicking him off the raft onto the white sand below.

"Oww!" Vainglorious' face hit the ground, sand going into his eyes and mouth. "That's it! I'll kill you!"

But by the time Vainglorious turned around the stranger and his raft had vanished into the mist like they were never there, to begin with.

"So you came here alone?" Asked Relic.

Vainglorious' attention immediately snapped back to the older naked man on the beach in front of him. He immediately folded his knees to his chest to cover his own nudity, but Relic wasn't really paying attention. His brown eyes were scanning the landscape for other people that weren't there.

"You really did the under realm ritual by yourself?" Relic asked.

"I did, what of it?" Vainglorious scowled at him.

"It, just...It takes a lot of magic energy from a lot of powerful mages and witches and you're so young."

"So? I'm a wizard. I could do it. What does my age have to do with anything!?"