The Aeterna Empire

Book 2.25 - Sparks of War

Fereren and I reminisced about old times and the adventures we had as children. Our journeys never took us further than the palace grounds, but in the minds of children a cell can be a world. This one particular memory we, mostly Fereren, laughed about was one where the three of us, Caius, Fereren, and myself, climbed a tree. We were all on one branch. I felt something push me, but I landed on Fereren, and we fell together-

"And after you had once again fallen on your butt-" Fereren grinned. I rolled my eyes. "I put you into the dirt. You were crying so much like a girl."

"Of course, I was crying. I broke a bone."

"I can't help that you break like a woman."

"Maybe there was a reason you were assigned as our bodyguard."

"Yeah, because you fight and cry like a girl." He continued to grin, driving it further.

"Fighting is not my battlefield. Never was. Words is our weapon. It took words to save you when father heard. If Caius hadn't taken all the blame, your training wouldn't have amounted to anything."

"Fair, fair." Fereren admitted, while retaining his teasing grin. But a thought came to me that drew my smile away in melancholy. Fereren noticed and lost his smile. "What Night-Blood snatched your light away?"

I sighed, and asked, "What happened to him? Caius, I mean. My brother and I were becoming distant towards the end, what with our assigned duties going far and wide apart, but what I found on my return was... something else. He changed."

The subject mattered drew shadows over us and we were in silence for a moment.

Fereren answered, "That's just it: Nothing. Nothing happened, nothing changed. You changed, but he didn't. He had no reason to."

I looked at what remained of our wine glass. Fereren picked it up and poured me some. He said, "When we are done with this, it'll be about long enough. I'm sure the kids are off having one hell of an adventure, but eventually you have to stand before your father and explain why you're all covered in mud."

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"Run!"

Caius stopped and looked up at the sound. Who was it speaking on the roof? Who were they talking to? Why was the person to run? He had many questions, but a light outside a distant window drew his attention. A brief flicker of flame from the grass rose above the window frame.

Oh.

Caius made it out the door when the first explosion came, and he managed to make another three steps before the cascade started one after another. The explosions started on the otherside of the building and by the end of it ripped through the rest, filling the air with smoke. The final series of explosions tore the building apart and he fell to the ground feeling something hit him across the face. 

When he came to, he was surrounded in men. His employed men, he realized after a moment, and he was dragged away from the warehouse. A pillar of fire rose high into the sky and waved around in the wind.

The men were yelling. Some of it was directed towards himself and some towards each other, but he paid them no mind. His eyes were drawn towards the light. In the distance loomed the white tower of the Ne's god emperor reaching to the sun proudly, and in front of him was a tower of fire looming just as high from his standpoint overtaking it and beautiful.

An omen.

His vision turned red and he blinked. Blood fell down his face. Reaching up, Caius found tiny fragments of metal coming out of his face at certain places, cutting his nose and lips and eyebrows, and the right side of his face was crusty and painfully sensitive.