Kain woke up alone on the island of flowers. He had grown a head taller and more muscular since the knights had arrived some months before.
Ringing steel echoed across the bog. Ser Finnian and another knight were sparring as they did every morning.
The boy pulled himself up out of the flowers and waded through the water with boots in one hand and sword in the other.
Ser Othrick stood waiting behind his house as he had done every day since they began training. The old knight had shaved his grey hair the night before. Thalen stood still, half asleep, with his wooden sword in hand.
"The knights are leaving tomorrow", the old man wearily lowered onto the stump of what had once been a great tree.
"I have asked them to take you with them to lord Braemoor for some real training" He remained rigid.
"They have agreed to take just one of you; the other will have to stay here", he watches the boys with an awkward smile.
Both of them looked at each other. Hunger burned in Kain's icy eyes as he looked at Thalen, but the boy only smiled at him.
'He always smiles, it's going to drive me to insanity,' Kain thought as he looked at his grin.
"How will it be decided?" Kain turned, his black hair whipping around with his head.
"They want to see you lads spar", the old man sighed as he stood.
Kain turned to Thalen, eyeing him with a furrowed brow. The white-haired boy was taller and stronger than him, but they seemed to be matched when sparring against Ser Othrick. Thalen watched Kain with a bright smile.
The old man pushed both the boys towards the centre of the village. Kain's heart thumped harder and harder as they got closer to the well. With each beat, another person joined the waiting knights.
"Are you ready, lads?" Othrick placed a hand on either of their shoulders.
"Yes, Ser", Kain jumped at the words.
"Yes, Ser" Thalen swallowed and gripped his sword tighter.
They stood a dozen paces apart. Kain's leg jittered as he waited. Thalen looked at him with sad eyes but a smile nonetheless.
"Ready?" Ser Finnian stood in the middle of them.
"Yes, sir," they say in tandem.
The knight steps out of his way, Kain sprang forward and so did his sword, winding upwards and back down, meeting Thalen's with a deafening crack. His icy eyes caught the emerald of Siena's mid swing, and for just a second, he faltered. Thalen grabbed his arm and tossed him toward the well.
Only a hand on the old wood that held the crank saved him from falling in. Thalen swung again but hit the wood that had saved Kain. A shoulder rammed into his chest, sending both the boys back into the centre of the crowd.
"Come on!" Thalen's father screamed from the side.
The smile he had the whole fight faded,and his deep blue eyes narrowed. Kain's sword whipped from his side and slapped him across the face, splitting his lip, cheek and eyebrow. Blood trickled down the boy's pale face and gushed from his nose like a river of red.
"T…Thalen" shock covered Kain's face.
"I'm fine, I'm fine, it's just a scratch", he wipes the blood from his nose and smiles again.
Glee filled the smile of one, and sadness the other. Glacial eyes looked towards the group of knights and back to his friend.
"You deserve it" His hair looked like snow with splatters of red about it.
'The fool did it on purpose', Kain smiled slightly and shook his head.
"We leave tomorrow morning", he gave a nod and left without another word.
Half the village gave Kain a pat on the shoulder. Siena hugged tight, and they smiled at each other. Her hair lingered on his damp shirt when she pulled away.
His father appeared behind Siena. His eyes were narrow, and the corners of his mouth down turned.
"I forbid you from going", he scowled down at the boy.
"B…but father," Kain swallowed.
"I will not have you throw away your life", he turned and gave Kain one last look over his shoulder.
"F…father", Siena laid a hand on his shoulder.
She pulled his arm towards the bog, and the next thing he knew, they were on the island, and silent tears fell from his eyes, rolled down his cheeks, leaving wet trails across his pale skin. Her skin was soft against his.
Soon enough, the lonely little island was swallowed by darkness, and the dim lights of the village were the only oasis in the blackness. Siena had fallen asleep on his chest, but sleep refused to take Kain. The moon crept across the sky in a slow but constant march until it hung in the middle of the sky. Kain could no longer sit in silence and slid from under her long, thin arm.
The cold water enveloped him up to halfway up the shin, his bare toes made divots in the mud underneath them as he went. Countless blue lights flittered about him like little stars.
A walk around the village did nothing to tire him, and neither did the second. His home was silent with only a weak light shining out of the window, smoke drifted into the air and blew away, and for some time, Kain watched it in silence. The village was dead silent, no sound of the women gossiping, no children playing, just complete deafening silence.
The sun had just begun to creep above the horizon when the creak of an old door broke the silence, and from the side of a building a man peered a head around the corner, his face was burnt black with thin strips of hair grey and ashen. The face stared blankly at Kain from just under the eave of the house. The boy let out a shrill scream and fell to the ground, shaking with terror. Before he could stand, Ser Finnian had appeared and stood over the boy.
"What is it?" His sword reflected the light of the rising sun off its blade.
"A… a monster", He whimpered and pointed to the house.
Finnian and his knights surrounded the house and shouted as a woman sleepily opened the door. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and yawned at the men mid-sentence.
"What's the matter?" she squinted at them.
"Let us inside", the young knight pushed past her and returned a few seconds later.
He only shrugged as he squeezed by her again. Ser Finnian sighed loud enough for Kain to hear and returned to his house with the other knights.
Kain looked over his shoulder the whole way to his house. He climbed through his open window and slammed it behind him, checking the lock three times before checking under the bed and in the cupboard with his sword drawn. The entire time, the loose guard of his damaged sword rattled against the blade as his hands shook. He crawled into bed and wrapped himself in the blankets with the sword in hand.
Tap-tap-tap, the window shook with each tap-tap-tap. Kain gasped and rolled off his bed, landing hard on the wooden floor. He stood and approached the window with his sword and a thumping heart only to see nothing at all, yet the window still rattled on. tap-tap-tap
The beating of hooves rumbled by the front of his house as Kain sat with his half destroyed sword in one hand. His ice blue eyes looked to the window then the bed and again. Before another thought could enter his mind a bag was slung over one shoulder and the latch of his window was ripped from the sill and the glass itself clattered back down almost shattering in the impact.
Seven horses ambled up the eastern road carrying seven knights. Kain left small imprints in the dirt as he sprinted towards them, his breath was shallow by the time a knight had turned to see him running towards them with a sword hung loosely from the hip and a bag falling from his shoulder. Ser finnian turned to him with a smile and offered a gauntleted hand, as if he weighed nothing at all that hand threw him into the air and onto the horse's back.
On the white flower island, Siena watched and waved as the boy wrapped his arms around the knight so as not to fall off. He could not see her emerald eyes, her beautiful dark blonde hair or her freckled face. The last sight he saw of her was a featureless girl standing in a field of white flowers and all he could think was 'how beautiful'.