Chapter 18: Shroud of Fear

Strands of pink sunlight began to appear on the Training Grounds. Alfred, Freya, and Clove all moaned as they nursed their wounds independently.

Black Essence filled the progress bar beneath Ronan’s Mark of the Butterfly, and it filled almost to completion, as his Serpent marking had while slashing the dummies. With a little more experience, he would be a Rank 2 Serpent and Butterfly in no time, unlocking more fire and speed and weight manipulation magic.

“What in The Heavens is happening out here?” asked Angelina, the hospital ward nurse who had once tended to Ronan. She raced out into the Training Grounds with her curly blonde hair tied neatly behind her head. She was wearing a pink silk night dress that fell right above her knees, along with white linen shoes and a warm, sage green robe.

Unlike the other Butterfly Nightblades Ronan had seen, Angelina had no problem dirtying her clothes. She knelt in the dirt by the wounded Trainees, and gave them all medical aid. Angelina ripped off fabric from the sleeve of Clove’s shirt, then formed a tourniquet around Clove’s bleeding shin. Angelina helped Alfred and Freya with the same kind of healing.

“Ow!” Alfred yelped as Angelina secured a makeshift bandage around his cut shoulder.

“Oh quiet, you troublemaker,” Angelina said dismissively. She looked at Ronan. “I was making breakfast in the dining hall and heard the clash of swords. What happened here?”

“I was attacked,” Ronan said. Blood dripped from the tip of his sword, and he realized how monstrous he looked. “I defended myself.”

“It’s a lie!” Freya hollered, pointing to Alfred's lifeless white eye. “Look at Alfred’s face! He’s blinded the greatest Butterfly Trainee with his evil magic!”

Angelina glanced at the four Trainees, searching for a sense of honesty among them.

“You really have no honor,” Ronan said flatly to Freya. “I told you three I didn’t want to fight you yet you attacked me anyway.”

“It’s true!” Ike shouted, hobbling into the Training Grounds on a single crutch. He tripped over a tree root and fell face-first to the soft grass. He raised a finger and his long muttonchop sideburns flailed as he shouted, “I saw the whole thing! Ronan was attacked by these scoundrels just as they’ve ganged up on me before.”

Angelina had heard enough. She helped Alfred up by the shoulder, and assisted the injured man in walking. Between his shoulder wound and his scarred face, he was in no position to deny the assistance, though it made him feel even smaller than he already did.

“Freya, Clove,” Freya said, “You two are in fine enough shape to get yourself to my hospital ward. I will guide Alfred there and tend to him first. But the right people will hear about these actions tonight, believe me you.”

Angelina leered at the black veins on Ronan’s arm. She spoke softly to Ronan though she didn’t smile.

“Take care of yourself, Ronan.”

“You too, Angelina.”

Clove and Freya stumbled out after Alfred and Angelina. Ronan grabbed Ike’s crutch and helped the clumsy noble back up.

“You were incredible in that battle,” Ike said. “I’ve never seen such prowess! Such heroism! Such blatantly profound use of a Nightblade marking!”

Sharp leather heels trudged onto the dirt of the Training Grounds.

“Ike,” Maritza said sharply, her blonde bangs in front of her piercing green eyes. Her drop-dead gorgeous face was riddled with concern. “Return to the dining hall to help prepare breakfast. You are dismissed.”

Ike gulped, wobbled on his crutch, and nodded. “Yes ma’am. Of course, Lady Maritza.”

Soon he too was gone, and it was only Maritza, Ronan, and the rising orange sun.

A chill blew through the air and bobbed Maritza’s curly ponytail. She set her hands behind her leather cuirass, and her white battledress swayed as she began walking a circle around Ronan.

“When you first came to our temple, you were hardly able to summon magic or fight,” she said.

Ronan tried not to let his eyes wander to the woman’s long, toned legs. With her, he felt a powerful connection. He assumed that The Shroud somehow connected them both, but suspected that his intense feelings were more than sharing the bond of being cursed.

Maritza stopped in front of him. “But since you have received that sword made from the Hellsworn metal, your abilities have drastically increased. Explain this.”

A throbbing sensation and a burning filled Ronan’s forearm, and his markings glowed with a faint light.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “It just feels like everything has been unlocked. All that I’ve struggled with suddenly makes sense.”

“That’s my concern,” Maritza snapped. “As is the concern of the Elders. Since you’ve started using a Hellsworn weapon, you’ve been able to communicate effectively with The Shroud and use its powers.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Ronan inquired. The blade vibrated his palms, as if it were upset that the two were speaking about it.

“It depends, Ronan. My infliction with The Shroud seems to work differently. I have worked tirelessly to attune my abilities. Yours have unlocked overnight with a weapon that belongs to the enemy.”

Ronan dry-swallowed and his heart stopped. “Are you saying I might only be getting stronger because of this sword? And it’s connection to the Hellsworn?”

“I’m saying that this is what the Elders fear. That you’ve brought a dangerous weapon of the Hellsworn to our temple.”

“But Farrier crafted the sword! I thought he knew about The Shroud.”

“Farrier and I are about the only people who do,” Maritza said. “But what we know is limited.”

Ronan cocked an eyebrow and asked, “And only from your own experience?”

Maritza looked at her feet for a second then answered, “Yes.”

Ronan's shoulders fell, and the tip of his sword bounced on the toe of his boot.

“You’re saying I may be getting my powers from the enemy,” Ronan said, crestfallen.

Maritza rushed forward a few steps with her hand out, but then regained her composure.

She still needed to remain somewhat neutral since she couldn’t be sure if Ronan was chosen by the prophecy she had previously thought she would fulfill. All her life, she had carried herself believing that only she and her father could communicate with The Shroud, and that it was she who would be called upon to wield Hellsworn magic to defeat the ultimate evil. Of course, such a prophecy was the ramblings of her drunken father. He would be up late at night, swigging away at his second or third bottle of cheap vodka, and he would tell her, with a drunken coating on his eyes and a sloppy finger raised in her direction: “The Hellsworn are real, Maritza, and only you and The Shroud can defeat them.”

It was the only positive thing that her father had ever left her with, and maybe because it wasn’t the welts left from his knuckles that she clung to the idea that she was gifted, special, or capable of greatness.

Or maybe no matter how wicked a man her father was, she still wanted to be seen as something more than a punching bag for him, even after his passing and false legacy.

Her father may have been a mean, terrible drunk, but he had at least given her hope that she might do something outstanding with the family curse.

Then, Ronan came along, with a vastly more powerful bond with The Shroud than she had. If Ronan was the chosen one, or if the prophecy was the sick joke from a twisted man, what would Maritza have left to live for?

And on top of that question, she knew the exact position The Shroud put Ronan in, and how hard it made life as a Nightblade. She saw in him an opportunity to avoid the same pains she grew up with, hiding herself and her abilities from all. Never being who she really was, and suppressing The Shroud’s magic. Maritza wanted to be the one destined for incredible things, but she also had an inherent feeling that if anybody should be chosen for greatness, it should be Ronan.

On the other hand, a drunkard’s prophetic woes were hardly words to live by. But between Ronan’s sudden appearance, the Hellblade, and the Slaug infected with Hellsworn magic, Maritza had a feeling that her father’s words held a kernel of truth to them.

She glanced quickly to Ronan, who stood nervously, yet tall and rugged. She simply had an incredible feeling about the man and his future.

And maybe, the more time she spent in the company of the handsome man, the more other feelings developed as well.

But for the moment, there was no time for such considerations.

Maritza snapped herself away from her ponderings and told Ronan, “This is all to say that me and Master Farrier will be watching you.”

She added, her voice stern, “Closely.”

“Even if the Hellsworn are lending me power,” Ronan said, his breaths hard and nervous, “I’ll use that strength to destroy them!”

Maritza shook her head.

“Although I may believe you,” she said, walking up to Ronan and examining the Hellblade, “It will be difficult to convince the Elders now that Freya is disfigured, and two other Trainees are being tended to by Angelina.”

Maritza sighed.

All of Ronan’s instincts told him to hold her hand. He somehow felt as though she was experiencing the same thoughts of darkness and confusion that he had been so often plagued by.

But the time ultimately didn’t feel right, so he simply said, “Thank you for believing in me. I promise I’m telling you the truth.”

“Well,” she said, “Just get yourself to breakfast. My suggestion to you is to conceal The Shroud abilities as much as possible until we learn more about that sword, which I’ll be confiscating for the time being.”

Ronan handed it over without hesitation. He needed to earn as much trust as possible, and if the sword was his only source of power, he knew he would find another source deep inside himself.

When Maritza grabbed the hilt, wind whipped around her, and black Runes scattered along her face.

After a few deep breaths with her eyes closed, the Runes faded away.

“It seems only fair to say, Ronan, that these upcoming days will not be easy for you.”

Automatically, Ronan replied, “Nothing ever has been.”

He set off for breakfast, though he’d lost his appetite.

He wondered about Alfred’s condition, and if the very monsters that had killed his people were the things lending him power.

He wondered if it was really the Hellsworn giving him strength, if he could learn to control it.

He wondered if that was what Maritza and the Elders truly feared.