Chapter 1

As Caelan reached back without looking he said "tongs."

One would have been surprised to see what looked to be a six season old reaching a pair of blacksmith tongs out to him. But Aric was a young boy that was always curious.

After his brother Jaden and his wife Rayne were killed last season, Caelan took the boy in and tried to raise him as his own.

Caelan's older brother was semi famous as a guard. While he was proficient with a sword, he was an unequaled master of unarmed combat. He met his wife Rayne while visiting the southern end of the continent in a city called "Mariners Deep".

At first Jaden couldn't get Rayne to give him the time of day, but something happened that Caelan never fully understood, and then Rayne fell in love with him. They married and decided to keep doing guard work as a way of life. It was on one of those trips, that they conceived a son and named him Aric.

Aric was the contrast of his parents.

His father had the fair skin of the northerners and had curly blonde hair and blue eyes. Rayne his mother had the darker skin of the southerners that looked like a deep persistent tan and had deep brown hair and brown eyes.

Aric was darker than his father, but lighter than his mother, with very curly brown hair and deep brown eyes.

After they had Aric, they would still work as guards, but since Rayne's parents died when she was a teenager, they would often take assignments up north where they could leave Aric with his uncle and his family from time to time.

But it was a trip guarding a small caravan, which should have been routine, that disaster struck.

No one knows exactly what happened, but everyone, including the bandits was killed.

It appears that Jaden may have been killed first, because while there were five mages who surround the caravan, it looks like a few of them were dedicated just to killing him, while armed men killed the others in the caravan.

But it also looked like Rayne made them pay dearly for his death.

She was an exceptionally powerful mage, and she managed to kill all five other mages by herself. But it looked like to observers that she may have fallen to the armed men after she used up most of her magical power.

But it seemed that she had just enough power left to detonate herself and take them with her.

In one fell swoop Aric was an orphan and would now be living permanently with his uncle and aunt Mavis.

During the season that they died he started living in his uncle's home. His uncle noticed that he would often stand and watch him work in the blacksmith shop near the house.

It never bothered him much because the boy never came in. He would just stand and watched from the doorway for hours. His own children weren't interested in being blacksmiths, so they left their younger cousin to stand and watch him work. It was easier that way for them because then they didn't have to watch him either.

But one day some large steel bars shifted, fell, and pinned Caelan to the floor.

While in great pain he screamed out, and little Aric raced in the shop, and without a sound started moving the heavy bars that pinned him to the ground. He moved one at a time until he moved enough to free his uncle.

His uncle stared at him as he did this stunned. The boy shouldn't be this strong as a five season old, he thought. Those bars had to be 50-60 pounds each easy. His father was always uncommonly strong, but nothing to the likes of this as a boy.

The bars only bruised him and pinned him, and after a few days he was back in the shop, but after that day he allowed Aric in the shop to help by passing him items.

The boy seemed to be very adapt at it, and eventually started passing him items before he asked for them. He was a quick study. Caelan often wondered if he would want to join the blacksmiths guild by the time he was of age.

But today as he worked early in the morning the boy was six seasons old.

Aric's aunt Mavis argued that he should be taking some schooling. Uncle Caelan argued against it because neither his father nor he had ever taken any, but she pointed out that making sure he was well rounded only made sense and would help him in the future.

They lived in the kingdom of Northfields in the capital city.

The city was divided into two parts by a great wall: The Intercity and the Outercity.

The Intercity was where the nobility and the everyday well to do merchants lived. It was also where the castle was and where the king resided. The wall went all the way around and was used to separate those homes. If you had the money, all the best items were found in the shops and markets of the Intercity.

The Outercity is where everyone else lived.

All the middle to lower working classes citizens could be found here. If you really didn't have much money, or means, this is where you lived.

This also was where most of the crime took place. Because the guards rarely traveled much beyond the Intercity if they didn't have to.

While nobles often had tutors who taught them in the Intercity, the less affluent didn't have that luxury.

But one of the former tutors that had fallen on hard times, and eventually married someone from the Outercity at some point, and she decided to open a school for the children of her area. She would teach any child from six to twelve all the basics if they or their parents desired.

Most families were only concentrating on making a living and not learning more than they needed to, so the classes were small. But aunt Mavis felt that Aric should get a good education.

Caelan eventually gave in and allowed the boy to go, but as always he felt he was wasting his time allowing him to go there.

"Hey slowpoke, wha 'cha doin," said a tiny voice from the door.

Aric and Caelan both turned to see a slim figure by the door. It was little Andrea Stockton.

Andrea was the same age as Aric.

But where Andrea was slim, Aric was pudgy and looked to be carrying around more than a little baby weight. She had light blonde hair that reached her shoulders versus his dark and unruly curly hair.

Andrea hated to wear dresses, favoring pants like boys. It made it easier to climb trees and run around playing, but her mother insisted that she wear them to the school. So this morning she was in a homespun shift with a short sleeve shirt under it.

"You going today?" she asked.

"Yep, let me get my things Andy," said Aric.

This was something else between only them.

When Aric met Andrea he couldn't her name right and it kept coming out garbled. And it frustrated Andrea to no end because most other people, meaning adults, could say her name with no problem.