The Wheel of Fate - Servant of Destiny

I - Semenn

At the moment when sunlight danced on the raised blade and five heads detached from their bodies, I already knew that destiny had changed its course. Black birds took flight, leaving behind torn feathers. However, I knew even then that they would return, return to feast on the bodies that would lie in the same place for three more days. It took the One God three days to overcome his own death. It took the One God three years to destroy the existing world. Only after three days could families collect the decaying corpses and bury them, but of course, in the ritual of the One God, for in three years, he had also killed all the Old Gods.

The gathered people spat on heads and hurled rotten vegetables. One man even began to urinate on them, but that was a mistake because he got too close. The Eastern Guard Knight pierced his head with a sword before he could finish urinating. His body fell beside five corpses. That's how all the Eastern Kingdoms were supposed to look.

I stood at a distance, surrounded by the Eastern Guard. The Guard that was supposed to serve as my defense. But it was just another cage in which I had been trapped. All I could do was watch, so I watched the head covered in gray hair and the blue eyes that exuded lifelessness. All I could do was watch my father's head... All I could do was watch as his body would be desecrated over the next three days, and then I would bury him in the name of the God who had ordained this fate.

The square was becoming emptier, and I continued to watch. Nothing else remained for me.

"Father, Aredin is looking at you. Other vassals have already joined him, and..." I interrupted him with a hand gesture. I looked into the blue eyes of my son, the eyes that my father and grandfather had.

"Stay with your brother and wait for me." I didn't let him finish. I didn't want to hear his terrified voice. "I'm going now."

I didn't even take the first step, and the Guard had already created a path for me to approach Aredin. I glanced at my two oldest sons, Davaros and Neim. I repeated to myself that I did everything for them and our family, for our people... I had to keep telling myself that I was doing it for their safety, because otherwise, I would have long been lying dead next to my father, trying to kill Aredin.

As soon as I approached the new King of all the Eastern Kingdoms, he embraced me tightly. His body smelled of incense, which he burned with great reverence in the temples. He reveled in his victory and my misfortune. It's true... He had won. He had won because he believed in his destiny. In his destiny that was about to mock him terribly. I had promised him that, and I knew I would fulfill it.

I first kissed him on the cheek, which was incredibly smooth, and then on the signet ring with the Wheel of Destiny. I did what the other men standing next to me did. There were five of us. Five fallen rulers. Five sons who lost their fathers that day and were called Vassals.

We knelt before Aredin, the First of the Davret dynasty, the new King of the Eastern Continent.

Kneeling with my head lowered, I stared at my father's eyes. Eyes frozen in an expression of terror. I closed my eyes to avoid looking at him, but then images of what had happened before his execution flooded in.

I begged Aredin on my knees to let me speak with my father one last time. I kissed his hands and cried for him to at least let me see him. I humiliated myself before him, but it was worth it - with a mocking smile on his lips, he allowed me to talk to him. In moments of desperation, a person can commit the worst treachery, but later, despite the passing of years, one knows that they did the right thing.

I entered the dungeons, and immediately, I could smell the stench of blood and excrement. I followed the guard slowly. I had only one goal. When we stopped in front of the farthest cell, I had to lean against the wall. My father sat in his own vomit and excrement. His hair was matted with filth, and scars had appeared on his face that I hadn't seen before. I cowered. While he had to endure such conditions, awaiting death, I stood there, clean and finely dressed, waiting to become a Vassal.