—✦—

Before Kiur could react, Gitlam yelled so loudly that he could wake up an entire country. “Hazir! Get yar arse off your bed and get down here, DINNER!”

His husband gave him a look. “Very gentle.” 

“Thanks,” winked Gitlam. “I was practising as you told me to.” 

“My ears are ringing.” Kiur never heard such a loud yell in his life. It was like the vibrations were stuck in his bones, shaking him thoroughly. 

“I warned you,” said Ninda matter-of-factly and took a seat. “You should hear my other father. He’s way louder.” 

Kiur’s ears were still ringing. “I take your word for it.”

Putting his accessories back on, Kiur saw a small child enter the room. 

A dwarven boy not older than six or seven years old. He had a pillow in his hands as he dragged himself to sit at the dinner table. 

“Meet Hazir. He’s a bit sick, though. Sumer Fever, don’t mind it,” explained Agarin, helping the small dwarf sit down. His face was flushed red; his black hair was slick with sweat. 

“Isn’t it too soon for the Sumer Fever?” asked Kiur, knowing that the fever only comes up during the summer seasons after the summer solstice. 

It was still months away. 

“I thought it was suspicious when my girls used it as an excuse not to get to work,” complained Gitlam and chewed loudly on his food. “When Hazir fell ill, too, I knew they were telling the truth. Must be the weather.”

“Weather?” thought Kiur curiously. 

It was plausible. Nature and emotions paired with magic tended to cause sudden illness, but Sumer Fever was a fixed phenomenon. It only happened during Summer and not before.  

It weakened your body and magic. 

Lethargy, fever and glassy bones made you bedridden for days. Everyone was trying to avoid it since it was the cause of a lot of deaths in the region. 

No one liked the summer seasons here. Kiur was hoping his mother and brother would be back before the solstice. 

“Watch out how you eat. You will get everything dirty,” Agarin gently scolded their youngest, who sluggishly ate his food, spilling it all over his clothes. 

“Father, that was mine!” 

“Better luck next time, missy.” ‌Ninda and her not-so-much-taller father were at the beginning of an all-out food fight. 

It was a lively dinner, one that Kiur had missed ever since his brother and mother left for their work. The time alone and withdrawn had made him manic, worsening the delusions.

Fresh bread, spicy and tasty food, and a lively atmosphere with people who didn’t worry about much but enjoyed their lives helped him ease a little. 

However, Kiur couldn’t put off the feeling that something was wrong. 

He enjoyed himself, but the delusion didn’t vanish. Standing right in the corner, she was watching them eat. 

“You should try some,” whispered Kiur to his delusion. 

Her face turned to Kiur’s, and she touched one of the warm loaves of bread, forming a shadowy replica and eventually sitting down on a nearby chair. 

“There you go,” maybe it was a state of mind, mused Kiur. If he could keep himself calm, then his delusion would too? “And maybe disappear from my mind as well.”

“Did you hear what’s currently happening in the northwest?” Agarin asked Kiur, expecting he would know some kind of answer. 

“No, why do you ask?”

“Well, they reassigned more and more soldiers to those areas. Like your brother and some in our families. We thought you might have heard something from your brother or the temple.” 

“Not really,” Kiur shook his head. He hadn’t been in touch in the gossip section lately. “It has been a bit more hectic in the temple, but nothing unusual.” 

“I will tell you what was unusual,” Gitlam started, still chewing loudly on his food. “They caught a Reiszer at the western border.” 

“A Reiszer? What are they doing so far out East?” sputtered Agarin, with a distraught expression. 

The Reiszer were a nation and a group of people born with special abilities. 

There was lots of friction between them and the rest of the world because of their violent tendencies. They had a unique disposition to possess no elemental attributes for magic.

There was only one instance when Kiur met a Reiszer.

 It was during the Desert Peregrination, held every five years in both Idaris, their own country, and Navarre, their sister country. Children between the age of 12 and 17 gathered and underwent a peregrination across the Navarrien Continent, which consisted of several natural wonders, but was mostly a dangerous and ancient desert. 

Kiur was almost 16 when he met a Reiszer in the desert. 

They could disrupt magic abilities and were naturally born fighters. That wasn’t the most frightening part Kiur remembered. 

That man had the eyes of a killer, and when he saw the children during their peregrination, Kiur knew that the man contemplated how to get rid of them. 

Kiur didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if Archil and the other guardians weren’t present. Thankfully, anything else about that event was a blurry memory.

“I wonder what became of him,” wondered Kiur, as he couldn't remember what happened to the man. After all, something way worse happened later.

“A scout who came by earlier told me they caught a Reiszer snooping around near the border,” Gitlam went on with his story. “He had nothing on him except his rags and a rusty axe. No one understood what he was saying, either.” 

“He must have crossed several kilometres travelling to reach one of the border cities. It must have been arduous. Without the help of others or knowing the environment, it should be impossible.” 

“Yet there he was, ragged and as scrawny as a scarecrow, but alive and yapping. If only they had someone who could speak their Western tongue.” Gitlam turned to Kiur, who was more focused on enjoying his meal while it was still warm. “Kiur, your mother speaks the Western language, doesn’t she?” 

“Fluently and much better than I.” A few broken dialects and the standard language from the West were the best Kiur could manage. His mother was adamant about studying languages to keep a fresh mind, regardless of profession. 

Remembering the lessons, he held back a snicker as his brother used to hide from them—hating every minute.

“Too bad she wasn’t there. It would have been useful to know what one of them was doing there. We know they are up to no good. No wonder the past Sovereigns put up a public ban on Reiszer.” 

“Don’t talk like that. You know they were once our people,” reprimanded Agarin.

“I am aware,” yelled Gitlam, a bit too aggressively. “They were once our people until they plotted and managed to kill one of our Sovereigns in Navarre. Whenever a Reiszer is around, it’s always a bad sign-”

Their dinner was cut short by a bang outside of their house. Listening closer, they heard one more and then another much louder bang.

“Is someone drunk? Don’t they know the law for public drinking?” 

“I hate two things, alcoholism and those who interrupt me during dinner. I will take care of it,” Gitlam sat up from his chair, walking disgruntled towards the entrance. 

“Something doesn’t feel right. The air is heavy,” commented Ninda, who appeared shaky and sensible towards their surroundings, like Kiur often did. 

Magic users were born to either feel or sense their environment with much greater awareness. 

Those who were attuned to it could sense a stream of magic attempting to communicate with them or see the disturbances.

Sometimes it just tried to express its cheerfulness, warn of ominous weather or a warning about an imminent danger. Here, the latter was the case. 

Kiur could feel, taste and see the warning signs behind the curtained entrance Gitlam was approaching. 

A warning not to approach it carelessly, but before Kiur could say anything, the young girl to his side shouted out. Warning the father before an axe had split his head in half. 

Seeing how narrowly he escaped the incoming attack, the dwarf flinched back and countered with several small blasts of fire, burning the edges of the entrance and the entire curtain. 

It didn’t take long for his husband to react and shut all the curtained windows and the entrance with thick stone, while Kiur could only watch. 

Trembling as the air tasted and smelled like stale bread. 

Character Profiles

Name: Agarin

Race: Human; Gender: Male; Occupation: Merchant 

Magic: Earth

Likes: Collecting Coins 

Husband of Gitlam and father of Hazir and Ninda. Father of an unborn son, carried by the priestess Tabira.

Works as a merchant on the market to sell fresh bread and other products like grapes. 

Name: Gitlam 

Race: Dwarf; Gender: Male; Occupation: Baker 

Magic: Fire

Likes: Baking 

Dislikes: Alcoholism

Husband of Agarin and father of Ninda and biological father of Hazir. He is a baker who also helps out at the local brewery. Gitlam had a decade-long feud going on with the previous headmistress of the brewery.

Name: Ninda

Race: Human; Gender: Female; Age: 9

Magic: Possibly Wind

Likes: Spicy Food, bickering with her father Gitlam, fresh flowers 

Adopted daughter of Agarin and Gitlam. The older sister of Hazir. She was found by Esha Artor in Kutha where she was presumably born. Esha acts as her godmother.

Name: Hazir

Race: Dwarf; Gender: Male; Age: 6 

Magic:? 

Likes: Sleeping, staying home, eating the coins of his father Agarin

Biological Son of Gitlam and son of Agarin. The younger brother of Ninda. Is currently sick with a fever.