Rebellion: Prince of Dawn

Chapter 18.1: Goodbye Blue Sky

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ILIAS VAN PAYNE

The bright blue sky that once painted the peaceful landscape fled from the ominous grey clouds. The farmers said it would remain like this for a few days.

I'm not a superstitious person but I've a feeling the weather is trying to warn us of something.

According to legend, when a person died, their souls travelled to the clouds. For a few moments after their deaths, you could see their souls floating towards the sky. The weather was their way of communicating with us.

I don't believe this because it never happened to me when I died as Decan. But I've never doubted that disbelief until now. Maybe this legend is true and my reincarnation turned me into an outlier.

Even to me, whatever happens after death is still the greatest mystery in life.

The village was ready for battle. The wall stood proud; covered with hardened mud to make it more difficult to set on fire. Spikes were lined up within the inside section of the wall. If the bandits scaled it, they'd hesitate for a moment before jumping down—one or two might even impale themselves. Battlements were built at the entrance of the main road so we could throw rocks and get a better view when we began letting them in one by one.

Today marked the last day of the harvest, which meant the day of the battle inched closer. There were only three more fields of wheat to harvest and once that was done, we would be barricading ourselves behind the walls.

The seven of us sentinels had been helping out, making sure every body that could was helping with the harvest. None of us knew how to harvest wheat. Jaime and I watched Gilead farmers tend to the fields back home so we had an understanding, but that wasn't enough to make us experts.

This got to the farmers' heads, bossing us around as we had been doing to them. They went through a lot of labour the past two months, so we allowed them this one-time chance to push us around.

"We're still going to flood the fields, right?" Jaime asked.

"Of course," Askeladd said, organizing baskets. "And we're going to connect the fields to the trench to make a moat."

"What about my sword?"

"I'd suggest picking it up soon. When we diverge the lake to flood everything, your sword might get sucked into the deeper parts."

"That'd be bad." She grabbed my hand. "Come on, let's go and collect my cursed artifact."

She is getting her hopes up.

The two of us took a boat to the middle of the lake, circling around until we found the floating log attached to a rope. Jaime dove into the water, swimming back up with her sword at hand.

"Found it."

She cut the rope with her dagger and attempted to climb back into the boat, almost capsizing it. Before that could happen, I had her stand still so I could levitate her back in.

No way...

That sword. There was mana emitting from it.

"Jaime, could I see that for a second?"

She handed it to me before removing her outer layers of clothing and drying herself with wind jynx.

Now that I was holding it, there was no doubt. "Jaime, I think you just used up all of your luck for the next decade. This thing is a cursed artifact."