To me, the moon is my sun. Once the fangs of the great light retracted themselves, I prepared for my sacred ritual to… live, perhaps?

I listened as the sounds of life died down in the town of Stormvale before I stood at the front of an old tavern where I settled in. A few men had joined me in this twilight, drifting into intoxication with the help of the alcohol they downed hours ago. Their raucous revelry filled those narrow streets, intruding on the silence I carried within.

Ah, if only I had the willpower to abandon myself to indulgence like they did openly. However, it was unbefitting of me, and it was certainly unbefitting of my noble house.

Alexander Stormbourne, that was what my father called me sixteen years ago. He referred to me by my full name at every opportunity. A man of tradition and proper values, a perfectionist in his own way, he always preached to me how names carried weight and meaning, heritage that shouldn’t be truncated or abbreviated in any manner. Well, that was his view. Others probably found ‘Alex’ more convenient or simply lazy. But, yes, with time names do evolve, after all, and practicality often won over tradition.

But honestly, I don’t really care. It was all about what people thought of me. Some opinions were favorable, while the rest either didn’t think I was worth their time or kept their distance to avoid getting too near. And it wasn’t because I had some disease or anything like that. It was just about the timing of my birth.

So here is my story.

Born when the moon eclipsed the sun, most of my father’s inner circle believed my birth was a bad omen. They even suggested, with barely concealed fear, that I might one day bring about the downfall of my father’s rule. Seriously, can you imagine that? What a wild superstition they came up with to pin on a newborn. It feels like they were scrambling for any excuse to project their anxieties onto someone, and unfortunately, I was that someone.

It wasn’t until I was eleven that my brother, Alistair, who was a year older than me, gave me some insight into the whole situation. He sat me down and told me it wasn’t about the moon eclipsing the sun or some fat cow jumping over the moon. It was actually much simpler. It was because I was the fourth child in our family. Can you believe it? All this fuss over being fourth in line. It’s almost laughable to think that something as mundane as birth order could stir up such a storm.

The moment my brother started to explain why I was cursed, his expression changed completely. He resembled a deer caught in the hunter’s sights. Worried about being overheard, he lowered his voice to a whisper. The two of us hunched down, although ironically, we were alone in our huge family library.

According to Alistair, this superstition held true and was rooted deep in our family’s history. It began with our great-great-great-grandmother, who had the curious habit of favoring her fourth son for leadership. Why, you may ask? Alistair speculated it might have been because the fourth son was a handsome dude. But it didn’t take long before he ran the family into the ground. Mismanagement emptied the coffers, and soon smaller territories caught wind. They swallowed up our lands in debts we couldn’t pay. His reign ended quickly. The scandal resulted in the swift execution of my great-great-great-grandmother once her journals were discovered. The eldest son, my great-great-grandfather, was reinstated to restore order. As for the ill-fated fourth son, he was spared from execution but exiled, condemned to live far away from the family’s affairs. I guess my brother’s theory about his looks was right. It seems our gallows always spared the good-looking dudes’ necks.

To be honest, the superstition didn’t bother me even a bit. I mean, who has time to worry about some old curse? What really got on my nerves was my brother’s knack for spinning tales. He had this annoying talent for weaving just enough truth into his stories to make you question everything. But me? I wasn’t buying it for a second. I figured he was just trying to scare me off or keep me from questioning our eldest brother’s right to be the head of the family.

As soon as he finished his story, expecting me to be wide-eyed and spooked, I didn’t even hesitate to let it sink in. I jumped from where I was sitting and knuckled him on the head while he was still bent over. He yelped and rubbed the spot where I’d landed the blow, his face twisting as if he’d just tasted something sour.

I stood there, arms crossed, while he demanded to know why I had done that. It was pretty clear what he was up to. His spectacles slid down his nose as he peeked up at me with that fake innocent look, as if he had no clue what I was talking about. I shot back, telling him I knew exactly what he was trying to pull, and I wasn’t falling for it. Leaning in, I jabbed a finger at him to make sure he got the point. He needed to understand that I had no interest whatsoever in being head of the family. I didn’t give a damn about all that tradition crap. And I sure as hell didn’t want to become a Magic Swordsman, either.

Here’s a Stormbourne family fact. The head of our house wields real, not metaphorical, power. Only those with a mana core may claim this title. Among the children of Marquess Lucian Stormbourne, my eldest brother Aiden and I were born with this exceptional gift. This tiny detail made both of us eligible to succeed our father when he either stepped down or, you know, passed on naturally, provided there was nothing fishy going on.

My brother Alistair, still unhappy about the blow he received on his head, retorted adamantly by pointing to the row of portraits lining the walls of the library, each one a former head of our family. Our father’s portrait was among them, looking down with that ever-present Stormbourne dignity. He drew my attention to an empty space on the wall and explained it was where the ill-fated fourth son Theodore’s portrait used to hang.

With a flourish, he turned toward me, his face lit up, anticipating an apology. But I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction, at least not in the way he wanted. Instead, I humored him in my own way by giving him another knuckle on the head, this time a little harder. I suggested that maybe Great-Great-Granduncle Theodore just wasn’t having a good hair day and they couldn’t get a decent portrait. Or perhaps the painting fell because the wall couldn’t stand how terrible his haircut was.

Before he could shake off the second blow, I had already spun on my heel and darted out of there. His voice trailed after me in a flow of curses, but I wasn’t going to wait around and listen. He’d be waiting for the sun to rise in the west before I let him have the last word.

Anyway, life didn’t get easier as I grew older. It wasn’t because of the whispers behind my back, but because my responsibilities finally caught up with me. Remember when I said that I didn’t want to become a Magic Swordsman? That didn’t mean I could escape my family’s tradition.

I turned twelve that day, and for four darn years, those Stormbourne instructors never let up. They wanted to make me into the next Aiden, or at least their version of him. It was a battle every single day, not against the sword, but against the weight of my brother’s legacy. Oh wow. Thank you, my amazingly gifted brother… Really deserving of your talent. Every time I fell short, I felt that frustration simmer within me before inexorably snapping at the instructor. “Are you blind? I’m not Aiden!”

It bugs me he’s always brought up in comparison, but still, I can’t bring myself to hate Aiden for being talented. He’s an okay dude, really. I appreciate his philosophy when it comes to me. “You do your thing, and I’ll do mine.” It worked out well enough for both of us.

Before Aiden stepped into Silverdome Academy, he was already a third-level swordsman, known as an Adept Magic Swordsman. By the time he graduated, he had advanced to fifth mastery, earning the title of Expert Magic Swordsman. Just a few months ago, after turning twenty-one, he pushed himself even further to achieve the rank of Master Magic Swordsman. While he didn’t surpass our father, who reached that level at nineteen, hey, who’s complaining? I still hadn’t even made it past the Novice stage.

Aiden was our people’s darling, our father’s and everybody else’s. He was the complete opposite of me. Swordsmanship and magic ran through his veins, and he genuinely cared about the affairs of our region. The folks at Stormbourne Estate and in our town, Stormvale, literally worshipped him. Rumor had it my father might retire sooner rather than later and name Aiden as his successor. I could see why my father never stopped bragging to the house elders. Even the servants weren’t spared from his praise. And me? Let’s just say ale and wine flowed through my veins like a never-ending tide. I was probably the youngest Stormbourne to start drinking at fourteen, no less.

“Hey, Alex! What’s gotten into you? Let’s make a toast!” A voice snapped me back into the present. I turned my head to the guy sitting on my right. He had a face like a sick horse and was raising his tankard of ale to me.

“James is right, Alex! Why did you go so silent all of a sudden?” Dean said, sitting opposite me. His nose always appeared to be running with snot when he got drunk, and tonight was no exception.

“Probably scared he won’t be able to drink when he gets into Silverdome,” grunted Craig with a grin. He was the biggest guy in our circle, with caterpillar eyebrows that made him look hilarious. “You know how those academies are. They’ll have you trading ale and wine for dusty old tomes.”

Dean, snickering at our banter, stopped to snort snot back up into his nostril. I cringed whenever I saw him do that, but it was hard to be mad when he was so unapologetically himself. He went back to laughing, filling the stale air of the crowded tavern as if he were all that and a bag of chips.

These were the three crazy dudes who first introduced me to the so-called wonders of drinking, always insisting that ale and wine could solve all my problems. I wasn’t so sure it did much for my self-doubt, though. My troubles always came rushing back once the buzz wore off, heavier than before, like a former lover who couldn’t seem to move on.

“As if!” I rose from my chair, lifting my tankard high. “Here’s to that future me, the first person ever in Valoria to be awarded the title ‘The Drunken Swordsman!’”

The four of us raised our ales like fools, without shame or sense, charging into war. Laughter joined the chorus, clinking mugs as the brew slid down our throats.

“Here’s to glory!” Craig roared, his caterpillar eyebrows dancing in glee.

“To epic failures!” Dean added, his booming laughter punctuated by the unsettling slurp of his nose.

“To forgetting all our troubles!” James chimed in, a wide grin spreading across his face.

With every swallow, the world blurred. For that brief instant, I felt like I could take on anything, even the weight of my own doubts.

“And this is for calling yourself the Drunken Swordsman!” A wine bottle came hurling through the air from a man sitting alone at the far end of the tavern. It connected with my head with a dull thud, and just like that, everything went black.

So, that’s the gist of my story so far, as best as I can recall it. Little did I know that the next day, I would cross paths with a mysterious old man who would turn everything I thought I knew about myself and the world upside down.