Cursed Odyssey

Rayah Vandymion

The weight of the sack dragged at my shoulders, each step up the hill sending tremors of pain through my still-weakened body. I felt naked without my arcane energy, yet I refused to let it show, straightening my spine the way I've always known.

I took a moment to look at myself. My once-pristine hands were now calloused, dirt caked beneath my fingernails. My clothes—rags, really—hung loose on my frame, stained with sweat and grime. How disgraceful to be reduced to such a state—hauling cargo like a common porter, fleeing like a frightened lamb.

At the crest of the hill, I turned, my breath catching despite myself.

From this vantage point, the village of Hano spread before me like a morbid carpet. Flames licked at thatched roofs, black smoke billowing against the morning sky. Tiny figures darted between buildings—humans and those lizardy Zotts. Like uncouth animals, they bit at each other's necks.

Had they possessed any true worth, perhaps I might have felt something akin to pity for them.

It was only a few days ago that this village had a quiet serenity. Such a village most likely stood for hundreds of years, yet here it was in ruins. What changed? The answer was simple. This was all Zephyr's doing...

I was not blind.

Had it been a few months ago, I would have ridiculed such a thought... But after the prison escape, it was obvious...

Three days. It had taken Zephyr only three days to reduce a village that had stood for centuries to ash and blood. This was not the slave boy who had silently obeyed my commands, kissed my feet with pleasure and grovelled without complaint. The same broken boy left at our doorstep... Back at home...

My thoughts suddenly shifted... home...

What was home?

The place where you were born and raised?

No, it's the place where you belong, are recognized, and can flourish.

The Vandymion estate, with its towering spires of crystalline ice that caught the morning light and fractured it into a thousand rainbow shards. The endless corridors where my footsteps echoed in perfect rhythm—never running, never stumbling. Father would notice. Father always noticed.

I remembered the bite of winter air in my lungs during training, the sting of my mother's gaze as she watched me form my first ice blade at age six.

"Again," she would say, voice crisp as fresh snow. "Your edge is dull. A dull blade reflects a dull mind."

My fingers had been blue with cold, but I never complained, at least not in front of her... Never in front of her. I tried again. And again. Until blood from my cracked skin stained the ice pink.

Only then did Mother nod—a single, precise movement of her chin. Not a smile. Never a smile. Almost never a smile... But I had earned her acknowledgment, and that was worth more than any peasant's coddling.

The world is harsh, and nothing comes easy in life, yet these peasants look upon us with ignorance and jealousy when they could never survive a day in our shoes.

To be cold as ice... devoid of warmth... That is what a true frost bird was... The source of our true power...

Unlike Anne, with her constant fussing and meaningless endearments. "Dearest Rayah" this and "dearest Rayah" that. As if words alone could shield one from the world's cruelties. Where had her softness gotten her? No wonder her family was dead.

Mother had understood this. The first time I complained about our slave boy Zephyr's incompetence, she had fixed me with that glacial stare.

"If your servants fail you, it is because you have failed to command properly," she had said. "A Vandymion does not blame tools for the craftsman's error."

Suddenly, my eyes caught something in the distance. A figure weaving through the chaos—blonde hair matted with soot, emerald eyes wild with panic. Her dress was torn, revealing a bleeding gash on her arm. Her mouth opened and closed in desperate cries I couldn't hear.

In that moment, I truly froze.

Anne. That woman with her stories and her hot towels and her incessant, suffocating care.

I could still feel the warmth of those hot towels upon my cold forehead.

She ran through rubble, blood tricking down her face, skirting flames that licked at her burning heels. Several times she stumbled, her hands bloodied as they broke her fall against shattered glass and splintered wood. Yet she continued…

My eyes dilated, then squinted... Even from such a distance I could just make out her face. Yet still, I avoided her eyes...

"Dearest Rayah!! Little Zephyr!! WHERE ARE YOU!! COME BACK TO ME!! ARE YOU SAFE!?"

Was that what she screamed?

She was making herself the center of attention... Soon she would die... Even in death? Was this what mattered most? Still searching, still calling out for children who weren't hers—would never be hers.

I took a moment of pause... My breath came out frosty, cold as ice...

I looked into her eyes... The eyes I was too proud to look upon...

And...

As expected...

All I saw was madness... Utter hysteria… Her pupils so dilated they nearly swallowed the green of her irises, tears carving clean tracks through the soot on her cheeks as she shrieked with no regard for the world around here.

Were these the same eyes that gazed upon me? The same eyes that tended to my wounds? Spent nights in the cold garden without complaint?

Was I truely loved by such a woman?

No. She had looked at the ghost of her dead daughter, not at me. She never saw me at all. No one ever truly did.

And then—

"RAYAH!!"

I jolted.

The shout jarred me from my thoughts. My gaze snapped downward to find Zephyr halfway up the hillside, a sack similar to mine strapped across his back. His white hair stood out starkly against the backdrop of green forest and black smoke, his crimson eyes piercing through its canopy.

"LET'S MOVE BEFORE THEY CATCH UP! QUICKLY!!" His voice carried an urgency I had rarely heard from him before. Something must have been coming. My face lighted.

"TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!!" I shouted back— the sound of my voice oddly comforting.

He ran towards the backside of the hill.

I turned to follow him down the other side of the hill, away from the burning village. My steps were deliberate, measured despite the weakness still lingering in my limbs.

But something made me stop. A pull, like an invisible thread tugging at my chest. Before I could stop myself, I glanced back toward the village—toward Anne.

She was surrounded now. Three Zotts with bloodied weapons circled her like predators, her final moments drawing near. She seemed oblivious to the danger, her gaze still searching frantically, her lips still forming our names.

Would my mother and father sacrifice themselves for me in such a way?

"LET'S GO, RAYAH!! TO THE NEAREST CITY!!" Zephyr's voice cracked with impatience.

I couldn't tear my eyes away. One of the Zotts lunged forward, blade glinting in the firelight. It caught Anne in the back, the tip bursting through her chest in a spray of crimson. Her body lurched forward, then slowly crumpled to her knees.

Yet even as life drained from her, her arms stretched outward, reaching toward the hillside—toward us. Her lips moved one final time, and though I couldn't possibly have heard her from this distance, I somehow knew exactly what she said.

"Dearest Rayah... Little Zephyr... My last shred of happiness..."

Truly... That woman was mad... I could feel it... See it in her eyes... We barely even knew each other.

My mind wandered... My family was certainly still out there looking for me with even more fervor. Contingents of frost knights combing the countryside, rewards posted in every port city, my father's cold fury driving them onwards without rest.

I sighed, taking a deep breath... Such was my existence...

Home is a place where others want and do the best for you.

Acceptance is earned, never expected.

Unconditional love was a fantasy! My love was never here! My love was earned!

"Rise, Rayah," It was as if I could hear my father's voice like distant thunder. "Or forfeit your name."

This village was never home, could never be home.

There was never love in those eyes, and even if there was, why should I even care? Why should I lower myself? How laughable this all is!

I turned around, my icy gaze meeting Zephyr's unusually warm crimson...

"I'm coming..." I said.

And this time, I did not turn back...

But even as we descended the hill, slipping into the shelter of the forest, I couldn't banish the image of Anne's eyes from my mind. Not the madness in them—though that was certainly there—but something else. Something that made my chest tighten in a way I couldn't quite understand.

Her eyes were muddy, common, unworthy of a second glance—

Yet there was this feeling—

No. I crushed it ruthlessly. A Vandymion does not settle for mediocrity. A Vandymion does not tolerate weakness.

A frost bird does not weep for withered flowers.

___________

"Faith is a curious thing, isn't it? It doesn't die—it just changes its shape, latching onto whatever offers comfort. Yesterday, it was your ancestors, their whispers wrapped in tradition. Today, it's me, a stranger you barely know. You believe because you must, because without something to cling to, the cracks in your world become unbearable. But faith, blind and unquestioned, is the sharpest blade. It cuts deeper than any weapon, because it asks nothing of you but trust—and with trust, you'll leap into ruin, thinking you've found salvation."

~End of volume 1~