Sonnet: The Broken Cities of Steam, Brass, and Aether

Chapter Fourteen

The dark, green woods weren't as foreboding as they were a couple of years ago; a fourteen year old Vilgis thought to himself.

But still his younger brother sat beside him, crying in fear of those long grasping tendrils that were the tree branches; to Desmond, who was seeing the Vernelli forest for the first time, they must have looked like the clawing shadows of some heinous monster.

"Dezzy, I know it can look pretty daunting, but honestly the woods are a lot of fun! There is absolutely nothing like the thrill of the hunt either!" The young Vilgis beamed towards his nervous younger brother, truthfully he was nervous still too.

But he wanted to put on a good face, in order to help Desmond overcome his fear.

"It will be over before you know it! Plus you will feel victorious after your first kill!" Vilgis threw his arms into the air and began to flex his muscles with his hands held high.

It was the dance they had made together as children, they had named it the victory dance of champions.

"Come on! Grr! Do it with me Dezzy, I won't stop until you do!" Before long, the timid Desmond began to break into a large, innocent smile that could only be found upon a child's face.

Vilgis returned the boisterous smile and began laughing, "there it is! I knew you had it in ya."

"Plus, once you are done with your kill, you get to take it to dad's lab! Although I am not really sure what he does with them after that, I was in there once and saw a bunch of jars labelled with different races of faye."

The two boys were now hysterical in their fit of giggles, for each time one boy looked at the other, they broke into an even harder laughter.

"What is that I hear? Laughter, today of all days? Silence boy." Their father had suddenly appeared before the both of them, he was looking Vilgis directly in the eyes when he spoke.

He then turned his attention to Desmond before saying, "do you know what today marks the start of my child?"

"Ye... no... not really, only that it is some sort of trial."

"That is correct, Desmond. It is to be known as the trials of the gods, or Kimas, which soon begin to fall at the end of the Amzia festival every year."

Vilgis heard a strange thumping sound, like that of a beating drum that was beginning to speed up its tempo. What was that? He looked to his brother, noticing that his forehead was sleek with perspiration. Oh, was he hearing his brother's heartbeat? Could his father also hear it?

"This will mark the first year of Kimas, and with it the gods will bestow upon us the blessings of magic; if the two of you prove your worth that is. In the following years, the trial will include children all over the country, the two of you are to participate in Kimas every year until your twentieth."

"Vilgis. Are you listening?" Those cold, calculating eyes turned towards him once more.

"Yes, of course I was, father." He wasn't, but there was no way he would ever admit that to his father.

"Very well then. Aside from the two of you, citizens will undergo Kimas only once in their lifetime, which will be in their twelfth year." He was planning on sending in children?! It was what he had been doing with them, but Vilgis never thought his father would make it a religious decree...

"You shall head into the forest first, after one hour elapses I will send your brother in from a different location."

So that's what was causing his heart to beat so fast, their father was changing the rules on them. Or maybe he always intended to make them go separately, he had never actually said how this was gonna go down. Still it's not like it could possibly be all that bad, it was just one kill.