Chapter 3: Answers
Leon's POV
The clouds continued their torrential pour over the mountain as I floated suspended, emotionless. My mind raced through Lord Collins's recent words. Why would a mere title demand my sacrifice?
"Tell me, child. Have you ever been hurt?" Collins asked.
Why does that matter now?
"Hurt?" Still floating before him, I repeated the word, my voice barely a whisper.
"Let me clarify. Have you ever been wounded so deeply, so severely that it left a scar or caused genuine pain—and yet you woke up the next day healed, with no trace of injury?"
"I don't underst—" I interrupted myself, recalling a memory from when I was five.
I had gone out to check the traps I had set the day before. One of them had caught a dire rabbit—a creature with tiny antlers atop its head. As I moved to free it, the rabbit lunged at me with startling speed. Its horns gouged into my arm as it bolted away. I clutch my arm, the pain pulsating through me. Yet, oddly, the wound felt less than it appeared.
After several breaths, I managed to steady myself. Remarkably, I hadn't screamed during the ordeal. With trembling steps, I limped back to the village. All I remembered afterwards was collapsing at the gate, losing consciousness. When I awoke, I was in the healer's house, my wound already closed. The healer insisted she hadn't treated it—that it had been healed before she even saw it.
"I—I don't know. It's only happened a few times," I stammered, curiosity gnawing at me. Basic healing spells could only do so much—a scratch vanished without a trace; a deep cut required stitches and left scars; true healing was a tier-three spell, and no one in our village wielded such power. If they did, they'd be revered as a king.
Gathering my remaining courage, I asked quietly, "What does that have to do with me being sacrificed?"
Collins reached into his coat and produced an ornate gold pocket watch with a detailed design on its back.
"Who are you to question his grace, devil spawn!" Flora shouted, her voice resonating with such intensity that it made my knees weaken, and my ears ring.
Collins tilted his head slightly toward her, seemingly unaffected. "Calm yourself, Flora. The child is near death. At the very least, he should understand why."
"Forgive me, your grace. I overstepped," she bowed her head deeply.
The oppressive grip on me lifted unexpectedly. What was that?! How could a voice do that? For a moment, Flora seemed larger than Collins himself. Larger than anything.
Collins let out a sigh and focused his gaze on me. He stared silently before beginning to speak.
There was an ancient prophecy, long before the world awakened. It spoke of a being called the World Ender, who nearly destroyed everything but was thwarted by the gods. In their victory, the gods cast it out and concealed the world from its influence with a veil.
He paused.
"But it did not go quietly. Before its defeat, it left behind its will, which took form as vessels. These vessels would one day host it and allow its return."
He let the words hang in the air.
"These vessels possessed strength and potential beyond any living being. Some races believed the prophecy. Others dismissed it. Those who ignored it became the catalysts that forever altered the world."
I waited for him to reveal more. He did, but not in the way I expected.
"In our kingdom, we have a way to prevent these vessels from forming. We observed a pattern: roughly every hundred years, a vessel is born." He paused. "So, we kill every newborn on the hundredth day. Your mother kept you alive in a year you shouldn't have been."
He paused, checking if I was still following.
"For twelve years, chaos engulfed the world—plague, famine, death. You didn't cause it, but it followed you."
He looked directly at me, piercing. "You heal, and the world around you decays."
Click.
His pocket watch. He looked down, a change flickering across his face.
"Ah." He snapped it shut. "The story will have to wait."
My stomach dropped. "Wait—"
"The moment is upon us, boy." He motioned, and I felt myself descending toward a stone altar I hadn't noticed before—toward my death.
No. No, this can't be—
"Collins!" I shouted for the first time, abandoning respect. "You can't just—tell me! TELL ME!"
He watched as I fell, his face unreadable—the answer to everything hidden behind his eyes, just out of reach.
Seeing that he wouldn't answer, I directed my anger towards the others—the one who brought me here.
"Aren't you all ashamed? Sacrificing a thirteen-year-old to save yourselves." I cursed them for what they did. But the one I cursed at most, with all my heart, was Geralt. "How could you—my father—do this to me? I put up with all your abuses, hoping that you would change. But I see now that I was mistaken." With red-rimmed eyes, I uttered these words.
"I'm ashamed that I ever called you my father. Mother, too, would be ashamed of the man you've become."
My words snapped Geralt into rage as he lunged at me again, but the others held him down. It did not stop him from cursing me, "You killed her! Your filthy existence drove my wife to end her life." Tears streamed down his face as he spoke.
"S-she killed herself?" I whispered in disbelief. All my life, I was told she died giving birth to me, but Geralt's words revealed she took her own life.
"No, no, no, no! That's not true! You're lying!" I couldn't believe his words. I rejected them with all my heart. Yet deep down, I knew the truth.
I observed the ominous clouds gathering overhead. Suddenly, a faint sound slipped from my lips.
"Hahaha." What began as a mere whisper quickly intensified.
"HAHAHAHAHHAHAH!" The deranged laughter of a shattered soul echoed across the mountain peak.
It persisted for a time before coming to a halt. Whatever had fractured within me had cooled into an something cold and still. Questions still haunted my heart, but I had just lost the strength to voice them.