Legacy of the Destroyer: Ragnarök

Chapter IX: An Excursion

CHAPTER IX: AN EXCURSION

THE DAYS PASSED SLUGGISHLY. Every night Demetri went to sleep more tired than before, staying two or three hours to train after Dyreth had left. After he had been satisfied Demetri could get into the proper position in a manner of seconds, he told him to practice aiming at the target. He finally had graduated into using arrows but wasn’t yet allowed to shoot them. To increase his strength, he was made to use weights around his legs and arms. It would not only increase his strength but also his stamina and agility. Once he got used to them, theoretically he would be much stronger, agiler, and have higher stamina in his regular state.

That was the theory anyway.

He spent days just trying to walk around in the weights without falling over, taking over a week to run in them without passing out with exhaustion. In the mornings he had to listen to lectures about war tactics and strategies, and then back to training in the afternoon to nightfall. He wasn’t sure which one he dreaded more.

It was now three weeks since he had arrived at the house. Three weeks since he had met Amoris. Three weeks since he had witnessed his mother die in front of him. Three weeks. Such a long, lonely that it had been.

Still, he had brief respites with Deiri when they snuck away to just sit under the shade of trees contentedly. Of course, he would get into trouble with his instructors, but it was almost worth the trouble. Deiri told him old tales about the past, which interested him far more than war strategy. He was most interested in the tale of Ragnarök, a man who had destroyed the entire world before rebuilding it from the ashes.

He wondered if it was similar to what he was to go through.

“Deiri?” he asked one afternoon while they ate apples, leaning against their tree. She looked at him, having been interrupted in the story. “I want to go outside of the manor. Just for a little while.” He was thinking of the things he had left in the hollow under the tree where he had hid the night he had been kicked out of the Micah manor.

She swallowed her bite of apple. “Master Amoris says—“

“I know what he says,” he said impatiently. “I just—it’s so suffocating in here.” He tried to say this in the most piteous way he could. “I… never mind.” He tossed the apple core away, discouraged.

“Well,” Deiri said slowly. “I don’t see why not…”

He brightened. “We can go?”

“Pick up your apple core first,” she reprimanded gently with a smile. “A brief walk in the Capitol can’t do much harm.”

He complied, a skip in his step.

An hour later, they were huddled beside a gate, Deiri fumbling with the keys she’d nicked. “Hurry!” he urged her. “I think I see some guards coming this way.”

“Don’t rush me. They’re making their rounds, but they won’t be here for a little—“ The lock clicked. “There.”

The keys were replaced in a pocket and Deiri motioned for him to go out. He quickly slipped through the opening, the older girl following suit. She closed the gate behind her and breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re going to be the death of me, Demetri Amoris,” she murmured, a hand at her chest.

He grinned. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

With Demetri leading, the pair started on a brisk walk. He dimly recalled the long walk back to town he had first journeyed to Amoris’ manor. It was a painful memory; he remembered how he had been, half-naked, huddled under Amoris’ cloak. He now knew why Amoris had taken him in but then he had struggled to figure out why.