Volume 1 - CH 1.4

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Summoned so by the priest, I made my way to the front. Receiving the quartz crystal, I knelt and closed my eyes. Once more, his psalm resounded through the church.

“O Yoná, Deiva Suprēma, Aegis of Man from the Empyrean on high. Here, we adjureth Thee, Most Divine, of Thy Grace, that we may stayeth the march of the Wicked, and answereth the entreaty of sons and daughters of Man set adrift.”

Silence.

Nothing.

There manifested nothing at all within my bosom.

The quartz, too, remained wholly unchanged.

“…O Yoná, Deiva Suprēma, Aegis of Man from the Empyrean on high. Here, we adjureth Thee, Most Divine, of Thy Grace, that we may stayeth the march of the Wicked, and answereth the entreaty of sons and daughters of Man set adrift,” the priest repeated diligently. Try as he might, no change came about the crystal.

“Reverend… What’s this…?” whispered one of the knights.

“I… I know not. This should not be possible,” returned the priest. “…O-oh Yoná, Deiva Suprēma, Aegis of Man from the Empyrean on high! Here, we adjureth Thee, Most Divine, of Thy Grace, that we may stayeth the march of the Wicked! And answereth the entreaty of sons and daughters of Man set adrift!”

A third attempt. A third failure.

“…What preposterousness…!” our Reverend relented. “Young man. I fear Yoná, the Deiva Suprēma, has graced you not of Her gift of odyl.”

Upon hearing the priest’s words, the knights were seized by a surprise of a different sort.

“Has there ever been such a thing, Reverend? To be given naught?”

“…Writ in our history, it is not, I’m afraid. Though Her grace of odyl varies in scope, it is heretofore a gift always given.”

“Then what explains this, Reverend?”

A shake of the head. “I… I have not the answer. Were it merely that the light was unthinkably faint… but this too, I fear, was not the case. While truly incredulous, I can only surmise…” the priest reasoned, his brows furrowing at me as if he was beholding something most alien, “…that this young man has been denied Her blessing.”

Immediately, I took in the weight of those words, and so rose up and turned back. There, I was met with Emilie and Felicia, struck and silent beyond measure.

♰

“…Rolf Buckmann… the man ungraced…”

I was back home in my room, letting free such utterances from my lips. A look through the window revealed evening skies more drab and dreary than those of days past.

Not a single word was spoken between Emilie, Felicia, and I in the carriage during our trip home from the church. I normally pay no mind to such airs of silence, but abiding the two’s reticence today required some tangible effort. From time to time, the girls looked my way, their eyes darkened with both worry and sorrow. It seemed they could not find the right words to console me with.

To be bereft of odyl is clearly an aberration. Its absence brands one as being nigh powerless in battle. A stigma, no doubt, for we kin of men have long been—and still are, to this very day—at war with the Nafilim.

Though they be our enemy of many centuries, they are unlike us humans in scant ways. Indeed, aside from the tawny colour of their skin, they possess the same manner of appearance as we do. They have a culture of their own, and even share our language.

However, the most striking difference is found in our disparate strengths: odyl is instilled within them from the moment of conception, whereas we humans must attain it through divine ritual. With such odyl, they arm themselves with frightful magicks, earning their place as, to us, a most terrible enemy.

Fighting fire with fire was the chosen path for men—we, too, came to wield the same odyl against the Nafilim. A magicked defence is required to ward off a magicked offence. Similarly, only a magicked offence can break through a magicked defence. Without such magicks, men are as lambs left to the slaughter.

The Chivalric Orders themselves are founded upon this very basis. Those who lack odyl lack the means to fight the Nafilim. It follows, then, that such impotence would be most unwelcome in the Orders. Of course, for a man to be ‘odylless’ was heretofore an unthinkable occurrence, but there was no doubt in my mind that such a man, powerless as he is, would find any comfort wherever he may wander.

Always have I longed to become a knight. But the grace of odyl has spurned me. I am that ‘odylless’ man, lacking that which the knights held to be most precious: the power to fight.

What was I to do, then?

“…Rather vain, I admit, to ponder on like this,” I muttered again.

Right.

I would join the Order, just as planned.

Knighthood forever eludes me otherwise. No matter how meagre my chances, so long as the light of luck itself is not snuffed out, so long as I yet had the will to keep pursuing my knightly dreams, I can do little else but cast the dice. Besides, there are other avenues to apply my mettle in battle, even without odyl, such as the extermination of the behemót vermin.

What is more, the Order is hardly the only place in these lands that measures the worth of men by their odyl. Thus the barony itself affords no safe haven for an aberration like me, who has no odyl to begin with. And with things as they are, inheriting the estate is out of the question. Here on the barony, or there in the Order—what my future lacks in choices, it brims with blame and censure.

“…Such friction might be the least of my worries, I fear….”

Of course, to be denied odyl is to be denied by the divine. Yoná’s forsaken child, as it were, for whom awaits nothing better than despisal, derision, and discrimination. What foul a turn my life has taken…

Only—

“I yet have my sword.”

I held up the blade, my one companion through all of my training. Used through and through, its iron was riddled with scuffs and scratches, yet by my unfailing care, the weapon was kept most serviceable.

Yes. The sword may yet avail me. I can still wield it, ungraced as I am. I would further ply my technique in the Order, and fight by the sword. And then, I would become a knight.

This I swore upon my very heart.

♰

The hour for supper struck.

My chair was nowhere to be seen in the dining hall. My parents, meanwhile, spared me not even a single glance. Felicia had, for her part, but just once, and only before immediately turning her gaze downward.

One of our servants approached me. “This way,” he said tersely. I obeyed, and was led to the kitchen. There, laid unceremoniously on the counter was a meal of black bread and a bowl of soup conjured from vegetable scraps. The servant then pointed to the food and went about his way without a word.

Before the counter was a wooden box—in lieu of a chair, it seemed.

“A meal with all the trimmings. Fancy that. More than I could have hoped for, if I’m honest,” I muttered to no one in particular. Sat upon the box, I grabbed the stiff black bread and tore off a morsel. Into the soup it went before I endeavoured a bite of it. Not too terrible. Who could’ve imagined that the combination of cold, hard bread and nigh-flavourless soup was a match made in heaven?

This sort of treatment was to be my reality from now on. That’s to say nothing of the Order; I would sooner rouse some magicks of my own than be treated better than a cur there.

A man unloved by the Deiva. An intruder upon Her cherished land. An alien ailing Her flesh. A mistake within Her machinations. A good-for-nothing to be disdained—that was I, Rolf, the ungraced.

I resolved to make myself comfortable with such treatment. For meals even, I would partake of aught I can get, no matter how crude the selection. If not, my body would be stunted and surely fail me in the heat of battle.

Silently, I brought another scrap of bread into my mouth.

♰

Supper was done. I remained seated there, wordless, arms folded, gaze turned up to the ceiling. My thoughts went to my family, now fractured by the day’s happenings.

That I would be treated this way fell well within my expectations, but one small matter had not: I sensed little in the way of anger or sorrow from my parents.

Come to think of it, the depth of our familial bond was, from the start, not exactly that deep at all. That Mother and Father only ever saw me for my potential and not as their son was an epiphany that came murkily, yet inevitably. Of course, it is most natural and expected for any parent to consider their child with at least an eye trained upon their future promise. Only, the eyes of my own parents were bespectacled by the lens of ‘self-interest’, as it were.

Who they needed was not Rolf, but an able heir to House Buckmann—a cold conclusion, to be sure, but one I somehow arrived upon regardless.

“No… Perhaps I read too deeply.”

Or perhaps this situation had taken its toll, and my thoughts couldn’t help but turn to negativity, turbid as they were with cowardice, self-resentment, and resignation.

Living through discrimination would likely rob me of chances to nurture my own character. To foster self-growth, one can hardly avoid the all-encompassing influence of one’s environs.

This country holds the age of fifteen to be the dawn of one’s adulthood, and it is at this same age that one can enlist in the Order at the earliest. But let there be no doubt that one’s heart is yet immature, having lived only fifteen years. Thus, even upon reaching adulthood, the heart must be allowed to mature further yet. The Order, too, exists for that purpose.

Let there also be no doubt, then, that to live in such a place, where one is so harried by malice from others, one would be impaired by no small degree. Those who are hurt time after time eventually come to fear all too much the thought of being hurt yet again, and so does the integrity of their character begin to shrivel. They fret over the words and conduct of others, cannot take action as their hearts so desire, and cannot bear to look others in the eyes.

All too often, I’ve witnessed this for myself in others. And now, the fates deigned to count me amongst such poor souls by throwing me into the same misery that produced them. This, I cannot stand for. To that end, I would have to keep as much of myself together as possible.

“Through discipline, temper thyself,’ was it now?” I said to myself. My lips bent into an exasperated simper. I realised then that fifteen year-olds are of the sort to feign wisdom.

Shaking my head, I rose up to make my way back to my chambers, only to find a figure standing at the kitchen doorway.

“Dear Brother…” came the quiet, quivering words.