Seven Sinful Crowns

Killian

Killian's room was nothing compared to the bedchamber of Castle Pyruh, but it had four walls and a roof, and a small fire by which to read, and that is what he did. He had started with the oldest scrolls he could find and raked through each, devouring them word by word, before moving on to the next.

He should be in the villages preparing for The Reaping, he thought to himself, but he couldn't bring himself to leave his seat by the fire, surrounded by scrolls and leather bound books. There were no gods he wished to pray to anyways. The older he became the less faith he found he could muster. It wasn't that he didn't believe in the gods, Killian believed whole-heartedly that they existed, high above them in Syeyla, the high towers of the sky, or where might the magic come from?

It was just that the more he saw, and the more he read, the more he questioned, and the more he found them to be something sinister and dark. Less of something to be worshiped and praised, and more of something to be feared and begged to - for mercy, not magic.

Some might say Killian was jealous, as the gods shunned his parents when they birthed them a Su - a nonmagical human. While magic isn't necessarily hereditary, it is very rare that when two mages produce a child, the child will be without a gift of the god's favor. It does happen the other way around, though, that two Su's might birth a mage, and while it isn't an expectation, it is indeed more common than the sooner. And Killian's parent's had been favored mages in the kingdom, their gifts strong and rare. His mother was Roana, who could scream destruction, literally. She was an honored magess-soldier who would walk into battle, well ahead of the rest, and part her delicate lips...and scream.

And the world around her would crumble, stone by stone, brick by brick, as she screamed. It wasn't loud. They never heard it coming from the other side, silent as it was. But the silence held an Apocalypse, a tsunami, a perfect storm of fury and rage and love and protection for those who rode behind her...and for her lover, Ismal, who would bring it all back together with his mind when it was over.

Some say it was destiny that they should fall in love. That the gods gifted them one another, bending the world like a giant arc, so that they might fall down its sides and land together in the middle, at exactly the right moment, as they had. And when Roana's belly began to swell, the kingdom celebrated as the world looked on, watching to see what gifts the gods would bless their baby with, sure that it would be something extraordinary.

And when he was brought to The Reaping, bundled in a woven blue blanket to child hid tiny body from the crisp, fall air, the world stood still as his parents knelt on the altar, offering the small child to the Temple Priests, who would perform the right, calling forth the magic from deep within his sleeping mind.

But there was none. They tried and tried, and tried again as his father sat silent, eyes begging, but there was nothing, and when his mother grew silent the temple crumbled. The pillars shook, the ground rumbled beneath their feet, and the people ran...some too late as it crashed down around them. And when it was over, his father held his weeping mother in his arms, white stone like mountains around their shallow valley.

He brought Killian and Roana home, and then he returned to repair the temple. It took only moments, only thoughts, but...thoughts had power. And Ismal's thoughts were powerful, as he closed his eyes and send his mind out into the world, whisps and tentacles and thoughts, and pulled from the rubble stone pieces to fit together like puzzles, smoothing the jagged edges and fusing the fragile fragments back together.

When he returned home, Roana was dead. Her body lay rumpled and broken on the floor of their small home, the one Killian now called his own. Of course, he didn't remember any of this. It had all been told to him, and read from books and files later on. In these words Killian was able to find his mother, but she would always, only be words.

And the world would never know, and never tell him, exactly how she died. Or why. And Killian would never pray to the gods for gifts or favors, as they seemed more to him of secrets and burdens and broken temples, like the broken bones of his mother, Roana, the destroyer. And perhaps, Killian thought, she had destroyed his unquestioning faith as her last god given gift.

How lucky he was.

And how motherless.

And so he plucked from the table beside him the next book, "The War of Seven Kingdoms," and found comfort in its words, small loops and jagged lines, that had existed before him, and would exist well after.

Like secrets and magic and bones.