Chapter 1:

Flash back a week.

“I am going to Mersavant’s manor,” Grandmother informed at the doorway of Errien’s room.

Errien gave an affirmative sound, continuing to copy the words of the book in front of him onto his parchment. He heard his grandmother give a pleased sound before closing the door behind her.

The book: The Great Empire, was massive. The tome was becoming tattered despite its excellent make, and so the owner had requisitioned the making of a new one. Keeping damp from such old books was a problem, and the pages were becoming brittle as well. It would take another month to transcribe it all, particularly, the strange and ancient art lining around the edges of the page, some parts worn away or flake or torn. He would not be able to find the exact ink colors, as many of the dyes looked to be made from the South, perhaps in Bandallah. Its contents were well over four hundred years old, if the date markings were right, however it was hard to guess the year of the transcription, as the book had no doubt passed through various owners throughout the years, with varying weathers.  

He knew well the fall of the Great Empire, as it was told in many tavern songs, yet the daily goings of the empire were fairly new to his mind. Many things in the way the subjects lived were truly different, such that he even became grateful for the fall that many tavern songs lamented. Yet such lamenting only ever came from a bard’s tongue, he realized, everyone else were too busy with their own lives to worry for things so far inside the past.

And there was good reason for the common person to not lament: the Great Empire was very stratified, where a person born a thief would die a thief and a person born a farmer would also die a farmer. There was no way to change “Fate”.

His neck was annoying him.

He had been reading and copying the text for a good week, and to say he was riveted would be an understatement. It focused heavily upon the court politics of the time, so much so that a fair chunk surely went over his head. He was sure there was something subtle or unspoken that was assumed for the reader to know, perhaps then it would make more sense, but to him, so many things were incomprehensible to him that the tome deemed natural. Was it truly such a different time then? The culture had altered severely, though there were some few things he recognized as customs practiced in Bandallah, the old seat of the empire. In comparison, Errien’s country, Mervone, truly seemed ‘uncultured’ as the book described all those that did not follow the rules and laws referenced inside its text.

The scratching his quill made on the parchment began to give him a headache. Or was it the light?

But the Great Empire was interesting, just by the strangeness of it. Adoption was not mentioned once throughout the section of birthlines, even among the esteemed tradesmen. Nobles, he could understand, for the prided themselves in their ‘Old Blood’, but even tradesmen?

It was especially strange to him. His own father had been adopted by Grandmother from the streets, and his father took care of multitudes of children, calling them his own, and handing some off to those whose nature he trusted, and thus they were sent off to different professions.

Errien squinted more against the light reflected off the pages. The sun was not at the point in the sky for such intensity, or had he been too enthralled in the book to notice the passage of time?

He stood, picking up the book and handling it with care, to take it to the other desk inside his room, left in a shadowy corner. The book weighed heavily in his arms, and he gratefully set it down and turned to light the candle at the desk, before returning to the window desk to retrieve his quill, inkwell and parchment, stumbling a bit on the turn, his foot catching on a little ridge in the floor, he told himself.

He brought the desk to a suitable arrangement and sat, opening The Great Empire once more. He took his quill in hand and began his careful copying, making sure to write in the style of original transcriber, for in the art of writing, there was also information, particularly in ones of that era, because scribes of different levels held different educators. This particular style came from the Gerund line and held a fine flourish that displayed wealth, for in the flourish there was excess ink used which had been in short supply.

His back was becoming uncomfortable. Was it because of the change in chair? Or was it that the desk was lower? And his neck had also been bothering him for a while.

He had been sick last week. Was it coming about again? But he could not dwell on that, and refocused on the book.

The Versavant family held a social gathering to announce the birth of the first son of the next generation, who was also the son of Princess Atalie. The birth of the first…

The words were blurring. Did he need more light? He stood and lit a candle, knocking his knee against the desk, cursing as the inkwell shook, threatening to fall, yet it stayed.

With the candle lit, Errien returned to his seat and looked at the book, yet could not focus. He head was pounding. A dull throbbing, then a hard pound, then the dull throbbing.

The words became more and more blurry. Errien wiped at  his eyes to no effect. He began to squint against the light that now seemed blinding. He raised his hand and extinguished a candle. His back hurt, his head throbbed.

He dropped his quill and leaned back, his palms covering his eyes.

His joints were all at uncomfortable angles.

Yet his grandmother would have his hide if she caught him lazing. She could just hear her lecture,  Everything can be taken away from you, except for the knowledge you hold. You can lose your family, your money, your prestige, your status, your friends and your foes, yet knowledge will not leave you as long as you keep your grasp on it. You would be a fool to not do so when it is placed on your plate. Imagining her rants left him smiling, even as he continued to lean back, his eyes covered.

Yet she would be angry.

So he moved from his semi-tolerable pose to a semi-bearable one.

Yet he could not think, and the light was piercing.

Was it a migraine he was having?

Yet the light… yet he had to work…

-+-

“Errien, Errien,” he heard his grandmother. She sounded distant.... frantic maybe? He opened his eyes that he had not realised had been closed… he was resting on his desk, she was probably there to scold him. Margaer, the housekeeper, probably told her that he had been sleeping instead of working. This was a very important requisition. The book was worth an uncountable amount of gold, and the sum of money offered…

But Grandmother was not supposed to arrive home until a quarter to dark… he didn’t remember much after she left.

He turned his head, and through blurred vision he saw her there. Her mouth open wide, “Errien, Errien.” It was louder now… was she shouting? It didn’t sound like it.

“Are you alright?” Errien heard her ask. Was his grandmother asking how he was? Had she ever done that? She wasn’t the type who felt the need to ask. “Errien,” she repeated his name again, “come back to me.” Was that a wail? His grandmother wailing? No. A dream, a strange dream, it must be…

-+-

He felt a cloth against his skin, a relieving coolness. He sighed. So nice. Something was ladled into his mouth. Soup? Cold soup? Water?

It didn’t have a taste, yet it had lumps or something inside. It was not all liquid.

Yet he was so hot, he was burning.

He woke up, sweat covering him. He was so hot. Thirsty. There were no blankets covering him. He looked around and spotted a bucket of water. Drinking water. He grabbed it and downed it.

Still hot. Unbearably hot.

He got up, staggering, to the kitchen, a weird sort of double vision before him. All around him. He could sense something, weirdly, yet still his vision remained normal.

Yet so thirsty, no time to focus. Water would be there. Water would be there in the kitchen.

He bumped into the doorframe and then into the wall. He reached the kitchen and grabbed another drinking bucket, left there by Margaer. He held it to his lips, drinking slower than the the first one, careful not to spill a drop.

The front door opened, and his grandmother walked in, stopping to stare at him. Immediately, Erien lowered the drinking bucket guiltily, she would reprimand him severely for drinking straight from it, something about splinters in his lip. She thought it unseemly and for those with too little drinkware.

Yet even as he lowered it to the ground, a little reluctantly, for the thirst and heat still burned him, his grandmother did not resume animation. She stayed there, frozen.

In her hands she clutched with a white grip, a white death flower.

Erien’s eyes became riveted on it, panic rising in him. Grandmother, did she feel her time coming soon? Yet just that morning she seemed completely healthy… it had been that morning, right? Yet… when had he fallen asleep?

“Evasha,” Grandmother invoked in a breath, her face tightening in horror.

“Grandmother?” he asked, stepping forward.

Hurriedly, she closed the door behind her, yet once the door was closed, she pressed her back against the wood, her hands still tightly gripping the death flower, holding it forward, her eyes trained on her grandson. “Demon in my house, walking in the son of my son’s body. A demon in my home: I shall not have thee take him as your vessel,” she shrieked, a wild panicked fury taking her.

Errien stepped forward again, incomprehension making his mind numb. As he stepped forward, she cringed back into the door, still holding the death flower as a ward.

“Grandmother, what are you saying?” Errien asked, frustration and incomprehension mounting. Never before had his grandmother exhibited such superstition, never before had she invoked Evasha to protect her from spirits. And now… she to him. The death flower in her hands…

She did not have it for herself, she had it for…  him.

Suddenly, the heat, the burning heat, washed away from him-- like a cold bucket of water poured atop him, a numbing shock that refused to even let him shake.

“Grandmother, I’m not dead,” his voice broke. Yet his grandmother, so often a woman of great steel, now looked in terror as he reached out towards her-- so close.

Her eyes flared, the terror turning to anger. So pitiful it was to be relieved by it, even as the words cut him like endless daggers, “Demons lie, and so do you now. My grandson-- may his soul rest with a thousand more dead-- contracted the White Plague. Never more could he have lived!”

Something inside him broke. The White Plague. If it was so… was he undead? Was he? “Grandmother,” he pleaded, grabbing her arm to affirm that indeed he was real.

Yet she shrieked.

Not in any terror or horror or anger or fear. In pain.

His grandmother shrieked in pain.

Quickly, he took his arm away, and there on her arm, in the shape of his hand, the was a spot of red, raising into a blister, so fast that he was sure that if he stared at it longer, it would become black.

He had caused it. Somehow. Someway. He caused his grandmother injury.

By the heat he no longer felt, he realized, he gave it to her. Something that no human could do, he did. His grandmother had seen the white plague before, she knew, many of her family had died by its claws. She would not be mstaken. Everyone died from the white plague. He burned her just from his touch. His mind raced, trying to find some logic in what was happening, but he couldn’t.

She was still shieking, holding her arm. She had shuffled away. Away from him, away from the thing that gave her terror and burns. Her expectant teaching and her rare approving gaze that meant more than six thousand barrels of gold was  never again going to be turned to him. For he was not him. He must not be Errien. Errien was human. He was not.

He had caused her pain and injury.

Her words were true.

He was a demon.

She still kept the death flower in her hands, its five white, pointed betals facing him, as though seeking to spurn him.

Yet he couldn’t accept it, tears were threatening to fall from his face-- he who did not deserve sorrow-- he who had no right to sorrow.  

The heat was supposed to be his punishment, he suddenly saw. He had rejected that punishment and his grandmother had been burned.

His grandmother collapsed, becoming a little crumpled thing on the floor, the stem of the flower cracking in her grip. All he could think to do was get away. Get away from the house. Get away from the room. Get away from the memory. Get away from she who he had harmed and would only do so again.

Get away.

He did not think as he ran, not in the sun’s rays. Not in the streets that steadily became more crowded. Not in the alleys he cut through as the guards called for him to halt. Not at the city gates . Not on the road or before the coming trees.

He did not stop until he collapsed, he did not stop until he could not run or jog or walk or stumble more.

In the dust of the road, off to the side, he was grabbed by unconsciousness, taken to what he hoped would be his rightful death.

Yet he did not die.

He woke once more. The day was dimming in red as the sun set. It felt horrid to move, yet he did, striking a path on the road he did not know. The life of the person named Errien was behind him, did not belong to him. He had no right to it.

Errien would never cause such harm. Errien would never think of doing so. Errien had no ability to do so. Errien was dead, killed by the White Plague. No one survived the White Plague. He was not meant to be.

He was not Errien. He must be a demon with Errien’s memories, a demon whose possession had gone awry. He was not Errien.

Errien was dead.

Author's Note

Same as before.