Seduction of a Princess

Chapter Forty-One: The Tale of Terrance Longeway

There it is: The Tale of Terrance. My story, all about me. With love and betrayal, birth and death, friend as foe--yes, you have a very boring life compared to mine.

Enjoy

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          “I come from a city in the Seaside Province; Threeboats was my home from the day I was born. My father was an alchemist, highly revered in our town. He was a good man, and his wife, my mother, was a good woman.

          “As I grew up, sure there were things I did not like, but overall, I was happy. I loved my parents, and I wanted to be just like my father. So from the age of fourteen, I was taught alchemy—it did not take long for me to discover my passion for the subject, and to find the art in good alchemy. There is nothing as beautiful like a fitting equation, a perfect reaction. That’s what my father taught me, and I still stand by it.

          “You may have guessed, but even then I showed talent for alchemy. I was a smart lad, eager to learn and not afraid to try new things. A lot of my reactions blew up in my face, but the ones that didn’t, my father called brilliant. And others of his guild, the House of Wolves, too. They were impressed by how quickly I learned what they knew.

          “I spend my days in the laboratory, mixing up potions and reading through books my elders recommended me, and it wasn’t before long that I surpassed my father and, with him, most of the alchemists in my hometown.

          “But… but the thing is, in Threeboats there is only one alchemist’s guild and that is the House of Wolves. Other guilds, like the House of Practitioners, are repelled from the city. The Wolves do not want to have anything to do with other guilds, for they are different. They aren’t like other alchemists—they are highly regarded in the community. To them, it was a good thing that there were no other alchemists in our town. To me it was not.

          “I wanted to learn more, because there was so much more about alchemy I did not know. But I was stuck. Stuck in the guild, in Threeboats. I couldn’t get out, and I felt… I felt constricted. That is why eventually, I struck a deal with the Devil. I feared that I would forever be stuck in that town and rot away there, so I bought my freedom. It only cost me my soul—and be honest, what is a soul worth to a child?

          “Mr. Evangely, the man with whom I had made the contract, he agreed and left. I did not know exactly how he would help me, but Devil’s Legates always find a way. It took a while though, and he did not tell me anything, as is common with such contracts.

          “Then, on my eighteenth birthday, the day that I was no longer a child, but an adult, the Grandmaster of the House of Wolves wanted to talk to me. I thought, this is it. This would be the way out that I had bought from the Devil. After a year of waiting, it would finally come… but I was wrong; the Grandmaster told me how proud he was of me, that he and everybody else recognized my unmatched talent for our profession, and that he wanted me to become the new Grandmaster of the House of Wolves. I was eighteen, only eighteen, and already offered leadership of an alchemist’s guild…”

          He paused for a second and June asked, “What did you say?”