Valka Fors
I once had a strange dream.
A woman appeared before me.
She sparkled from head to toe, glowing like some walking star. Her voice carried that lofty tone that certain powerful beings seem to love so much.
She said a lot of things.
Most of it went straight over my head.
Something about you have power of blah blah blah, foundational principles need to be blah blah, I am giving you a chance blah blah blah blah.
In the end she looked down at me and said one final thing.
"Accept the Divine Throne of Force."
Her tone was unbearably haughty. Annoying, really.
So I simply ignored her and went back to sleep, even though I was already in a dream.
Later, I told a few people about it, some said I might be losing my marbles. Others thought it could actually be the Goddess of Light herself offering me a job. I didn't care much for either theory.
Yeah right.
As if I would ever sit on some divine throne listening to prayers all day.
Life moved on after that.
When I was preparing to leave for the expedition to the west, Lady Seer came to see me and she dropped the news that shifted my entire world.
She did not waste time with pleasantries.
"You are pregnant."
Those were her first words.
For a moment the meaning refused to settle in my head.
Pregnant?
That made no sense. It was so hard to accept because we had been using contraceptive magic for years. But after a proper check up, well damn, I was really pregnant.
Lady Seer explained many things that day, about fate, about threads that stretch far into the future, about the burden my unborn child would carry, and about the road waiting for him long before he even drew his first breath.
I listened to everything carefully for once.
Then I rejected it all.
The idea of someone deciding the fate of a child… MY child, before he was even born, was repulsive. My child would walk his own path. I refused to go along with whatever that bloody tree had decided, and everyone around me agreed.
Then, as if waiting for the exact moment of our defiance, the Fairy Queen appeared. As the Herald of that tree, she stood in front of us and dropped that cursed prophecy.
"On the tenth year of his life, the child shall rise.
He will prevail against doom itself.
The world shall come to know him.
And thus the Journey of Salvation shall begin."
And so, the battle to go against the prophecy started. I was sent to the west as previously decided, but from there, the plan was for me to leave for the Fors barony. The official statement was that I had been injured and would be put on indefinite medical leave.
A convenient excuse.
Returning home after so many years felt strange, I had not spoken with Ma or Pa since Erik died, as too many things had broken between us back then. Years passed without a single conversation, and though Siggy had sent a letter ahead explaining everything, the atmosphere remained awkward when I arrived. Yet, when I stepped through those gates, Ma and Pa still welcomed me.
Family really is a troublesome thing.
Time passed quietly.
Days slipped into weeks.
Weeks slowly turned into months.
Ma did not allow me to train, not even a little. Every time I tried to sneak away, she somehow appeared behind me like a vengeful spirit.
Alcohol was banned as well.
Apparently that was unacceptable now, to support me, Pa also stopped drinking and Ma got rid of every bottle in the house. She even went as far as asking all the taverns in town not to let me have a single sip. Instead, she kept handing me strange herbs, soups, teas, and all sorts of things she insisted were good for the baby.
It was a weird feeling, being cared for like this by her after so much time.
I was not used to it. Peace was even harder to accept. Doing nothing, just resting, for most people that might sound pleasant. For me it felt like a cage.
I had been fighting for most of my life.
Even back in the university there was always some trouble waiting around the corner. Competitions, rivalries, Weird exams on islands, incidents that demanded someone strong enough to handle them.
After that, I became an adventurer and traveled from one end of the world to the other, sometimes other worlds. There was always another battlefield waiting. Eventually, my mentor dragged me into the army, after her death, the title of General fell onto my shoulders.
Then, the Beasts of Cataclysm arrived.
After that it was war after war after war.
There was never any real rest.
Only the next fight.
And the next.
And then the next until the news of the pregnancy arrived.
I enjoyed the thrill of a battle. I loved the way blood roared through the body when blades clashed and that moment where the world narrows to a single heartbeat. It is intoxicating and irresistible. The only other thing that could produce a similar rush was good sex. Clashing blows and living without caring for anything else…
Care...
My gaze drifted downward to my swollen stomach. My hand slowly moved across it, and as I did, I noticed that my fingers were trembling.
What?
Why?
Why are my hands shaking?
Am I scared?
That thought almost made me laugh.
Even the Beasts of Cataclysm could not put fear into my bones.
So what was this feeling?
Am I worried… for the child? Am I scared for him, knowing everything that is waiting? The moment the world finds out who he is, they will come for him, even I have enemies who would seek any way to hurt me. What if someone dares to come after me through this child? What if that tree decided my child was nothing more than a stepping stone in its grand design? Is it even right for me to bring him into this world, only to subjugate him to this fate?
Without realizing, I had wrapped my arms around my belly, curling inward as if to hold myself together.
If someone dares to touch my child… a part of me… If I lost it… I do not know what I will do. Ah, wait, it doesn't need to be complicated, it's actually quite simple... I will just destroy everything.
If my child cannot live freely… then this world does not deserve to exist either.
The very same day, the Fairy Queen appeared in my room, hiding behind a white cloak. Her platinum hair, streaked with hints of luminous teal, fell from her hood as she looked at me with those fake kind eyes.
"The world itself shall guard your child until the destined day of prophecy… provided you cease your futile defiance of the inevitable."
I listened and considered her words carefully.
Then gave the only answer that felt appropriate.
"Fuck off."
The big day finally arrived.
Ma had been making a huge fuss about it for weeks, offering constant warnings about the pain and endless instructions. She told all kinds of grim stories about what childbirth supposedly felt like, but honestly, I did not understand the fuss. All I had to do was push.
After a while the doctor's voice finally broke through the noise in the room.
"It's a boy."
So small.
That was my first thought. He looked so fragile, so little. It felt as if even a slight touch from my calloused hands could break him apart. Strangely, that thought did not fill me with fear as I had expected. This realization should have increased my worries tenfold, but as I slowly placed my finger into his tiny, searching hand, my heart felt at ease in a way it hadn't in months. The constant, gnawing tension simply evaporated.
"So he couldn't make it after all," Ma said, her voice sounding a little salty despite the occasion.
I giggled weakly as I tried to poke the puffy cheeks of the baby, watching his tiny face scrunch up. "It is fine, Ma. It would have been far too suspicious if he vanished from his position on the very day this child is born."
Ma gave a quiet snort.
"You two at least decided on a name?"
"Yes." I slowly pulled the baby closer, feeling the warmth of his new life against my skin. "The one who shall bring peace to all who walk beside him… who will carve a future where hope stands victorious over despair… Siegfried. Siegfried Fors."
I slowly whispered the name into his ear, gently placing my forehead against the side of his head. I closed my eyes, letting the quiet of the room wash over us both.
Everything will turn out fine
What a strange eye.
As Siegfried slowly opened them for the first time, we all noticed his right was a completely different color than the left. The right eye was a much deeper, different shade of green. At its center, the iris was not round, but a pointed white iris that looked like it belonged to a snake rather than a human infant.
According to Doctor Ridge, it was not simple heterochromia. It was a manifestation of Mysteral Eyes.
I was thinking along the same lines. Still, something about it did not sit right. Mysteral Eyes are supposed to manifest in both eyes simultaneously. I wrote letters to some big brains to ask their opinion, and according to them, the right eye must be partially active while the left remains dormant for now. Siggy mentioned this eye has appeared in his bloodline from time to time, but it has never manifested in a baby so young. Rowan suggested that both parents being Paradeus could have resulted in a genetic abnormality… A Mutation.
Luckily, Rowan, with the help of Uncle Sage, was able to create an eyepatch infused with powerful sealing magic. It was designed to keep the eye under control until Siegfried is strong enough to master it on his own.
Uncle Sage delivered it personally to me in secret, deep within the forest, not even setting foot in the town. He handed it over, offered a few simple words of greeting and congratulations and immediately prepared to leave. He said he was going into exile, to some quiet corner of the world where he could finally rest. I wasn't surprised, it sounded exactly like him. He was a simple, humble man who was polite to everyone, no matter who stood before him. He did not linger for long; he only asked me to apologize to Ma and Pa for not greeting them properly before he simply left, disappearing like a passing breeze.
Sieg did not like the eyepatch at first. He would pull at it constantly with those tiny hands, sometimes managing to tug it off entirely. Other times, he would simply scratch at the fabric in quiet frustration, his little face scrunched up in protest. The patch is made of a rare, strong material that will grow along with him, so there was no worry of him breaking it or outgrowing it as the years passed.
On Ma's suggestion, we also removed all the mirrors from the mansion. We wanted to ensure Sieg doesn't find out about his eye once he grows and starts realizing things. We also gave strict orders to the servants and spread a word through the people of the barony to keep their mouths shut.
He does not need to know—Not yet. Let him grow, laugh, and live like a normal child.
For as long as that remains possible.
Before I left the capital, Lady Seer told me fate has marked my child with two roads—One of long life, and one of everlasting fame.
Those words made me, made all of us, curious. They made me wonder just how far we could go in defying fate. We tried everything to break the script. We raised him in the barony, tucked away from anything that mattered, a place where fame should have never been able to reach him. We… I even pushed him into controlled dangerous situations, testing the boundaries to see how far the world was truly willing to go to protect its chosen savior.
Though, I once ended up hurting him too badly. After that, he was never the same as before. That expressionless, stoic mask he always wore was gone. Instead, he looked at the world with such curious eyes and a forced smile that no child should ever have to wear. I consulted Doctor Ridge about the change. He claimed Sieg had suffered from a variant of a mental disorder called 'Schizophrenia'—an old term left behind by a Hero of the Empyrean Sovereignty—and that my blow had somehow fixed his loose screws.
That alone wasn't enough to convince me. I checked his soul myself, searching for any sign that he had been possessed or, worse, replaced by something else. But the soul was naturally anchored to the body. There was nothing wrong. In the end, I had to accept that this was the true Sieg, the boy he was always supposed to be. Since that day, everything I did to fight his fate failed.
I was told that to defy a fate granted by the heavens, one must bear an Ego far greater than the gods themselves.
My own Ego may not be mighty enough, but my son... hah.
Let the gods try everything they can because at the end even they cannot unweave what the Fates have spun.
They wanted a hero of destiny, I gave them a monster of my own making.