Arcane

Kaen

Kaen-

As a child I was taught that the king's word is the law and there is no one who can oppose it.

      My hands tingled under the Seraphin gloves I wore. They fit my hands perfectly and made a squeaky sound when I rubbed them together. Like what was under them they were black and trailed all the way up my forearm. For eighteen years I had worn the gloves my matron had made for me. And for eighteen years I had to live with the guilt of why.

     Akane had touched me and I didn't feel repulsed by her touch. I was surprised but it didn't feel wrong. I had touched her and she had seen my hands. In my bed, I rolled on my side. My gloves rested on the nightstand beside me and they gave a comfort that I had been with for as long as I could remember. I gazed at my outstretched hand in front of me.

      Just like Akane had said last night in front of the princess's room it was pitch black. The mark of flame had burnt me as a child and I lived with the scar to this day. It was hideous and even my parents had been repulsed by me when it happened.

       In Front of me I could see every mark and scar that lay on my hands. The scar swept up the end of my forearm and had resembled smoke at the ends. A fitting mark of the chosen one. Since I was a young boy I could remember hearing my matron tell me I was the chosen one of the fire gods and that I would be the greatest Seraphim to ever live. I thought that was a bunch of bullshit. I had never been chosen. I had just been lucky.

     Unlike the other generals the fire matron was not my mother or grandmother. I had been taken in by the matron as a child eighteen years ago. Now I'm twenty-two and I love my matron as my own mother.

      I couldn't sleep. She had seen my blackened hands and looked at them with curiosity instead of disgust. Her touch was soft and she looked at me without the repulsion that the people of the clan looked at me with.

        I could hear the morning birds outside of the window chirping their morning songs. I stayed awake for the entire night. Although I had missed an entire night of sleep, I felt as though I had been sleeping. Without a wink of tiredness in my mind I leapt from the bed and slipped on my gloves.

      The feeling of having them on was enough to get me through the day. In the afternoon the king would host a ball to find a suitor for the crowned princess Akari. The king had been getting old and his health wasn't the greatest. She was next in line to claim the throne. The king was a fair ruler and he had saved Akane from execution.

       I had taken the fire clans pledge to serve the king and protect the lineage with my life the moment I was declared the heir to the fire matron. It was an honor I hadn't expected. Everyone in the fire clan knew what I had done and the matron still declared me heir anyways. It would be years before I would take on the responsibility of becoming matron.

      My leader was still young and strong. She lead the Seraphims with an iron fist and motherly love. She had pardoned me of my crime and taken me in as her own when all I had ever known was gone. I could never repay her kindness if I lived for thousands of years.

       I walked down the palace stairs to the first floor where I would train the new recruits for the war. I wore the armor gifted to me by my matron. With maroon undertones and silver plates. I had the fire emblem on my shoulder and my sword strapped to my hip. The sword Gideon was passed from matron to general and it had the ability to set itself on fire exactly like its user. It was the Seraphim sword of the fire clan and I would carry it with pride. Each general had a sword with specialtys and each matron gave the general the sword when they were named heir.