REINCARNATION OF THE WAR LORD

THE POISONOUS THORN

They said the worst part about servitude was the silence but they lied.

The worst part is pretending you don’t hear the laughter, you know that smug, polished kind of laughter nobles have perfected over centuries of thinking themselves gods. It echoes louder than footsteps in the marble halls, louder than the bells that summon us to chores. And today, it was aimed directly at me.

“Look at him,” one of them snorted as I bent to pick up a stack of dropped scrolls. “Seventeen and still polishing boots. I’ve seen toddlers with more purpose.”

“I heard his parents sold him for a loaf of bread,” another said, her voice laced with syrupy cruelty. “And judging by that posture, they overpaid.”

I gritted my teeth but kept my head down. My fingers tightened around the scrolls. Sarcasm coiled in my chest like a blade begging to be unsheathed.

"Yeah smarty pants". I thought. "Truly, history will sing of the day House Corven’s heirs mocked a servant boy in a hallway. Statues will be built. Songs will be written."

“Oi, dirt-boy!” A sharp voice cut through my inner monologue. “Did you forget how to bow? Or is that beneath you too?”

I forced my face into something neutral not a smile, not a frown just a blank canvas. That’s what they wanted, a nobody they could paint their superiority onto. And for now, I had no choice but to let them.

“No response?” one hissed. “Maybe he’s mute.”

“No, no of course not... mutes are useful. They don’t waste air existing.”

The laughter burned worse than any slap could. I wanted to break something preferably their smug faces but all I did was nod obediently when their instructor appeared down the corridor. He glanced at me like I was a speck of dust on his floor.

“David,” he barked. “The western garden is overgrown again. Go make yourself useful.”

The nobles snickered as I turned and walked away. “Make yourself useful,” one mimicked. “If that’s even possible.”

"One day," I thought, "you’ll choke on those words."

The western gardens sat behind the Academy’s towering spires a patchwork of ancient greenery bordered by shimmering runes and stone statues of long-dead heroes, mine was inclusive but I was looking funny in it.

To the nobles, it was a place for leisurely walks and magical herb studies. To us servants, it was a graveyard of labor... weeds thicker than rope, soil hard as bone, and plants with tempers worse than their masters.

“Back again?” asked Miri, a girl about my age, wiping sweat from her brow as I arrived. Her eyes were tired, her apron streaked with mud.

“Apparently, my endless potential is wasted indoors,” I muttered.

She snorted. “At least they noticed you exist. I’ve been here since dawn and no one’s even yelled at me.”

“Trade you.”

“Tempting,” she said with a wry smile. “But no, I will pass.”

We worked in silence for a while or as silent as it got here. The plants rustled with unsettling intelligence, leaves twitching when we got too close. A few were harmless. Others… not so much.

The Academy liked to keep a few “dangerous specimens” for study. And by “study,” I mean “let the servants deal with it while the nobles play with enchanted swords.”

“Careful with that one,” Miri warned, pointing to a dark-green vine coiled around a marble pillar. “Venomthorn, One scratch and you’ll be unconscious for a week.”

“Great,” I muttered, grabbing a rake. “Nothing says job satisfaction like potential death.”

We hacked, trimmed, and uprooted in the oppressive afternoon heat. My hands ached, my knees were caked in dirt, and my back screamed with every bend. All the while, my thoughts spun on the wheel of quiet fury.

"Once, they knelt when I walked by. Once, kingdoms trembled when I raised my hand. And now? I scrape moss from stones while children who can barely cast a light spell call me worthless."

I stabbed the rake into the ground a little harder than necessary.

“You alright?” Miri asked.

“Yeah, am Fine,” I lied with a small smile.

She shrugged and went back to work, and then it happened.

I didn’t notice the vine moving at first. It slithered silently, almost playfully, down the pillar. Then like a snake striking, it whipped around Miri’s ankle and yanked her Immediately.

She screamed and fell, clawing at the dirt as the Venomthorn tightened. Its thorny coils pulsed with sickly purple light, poison leaking from needle-like tips.

“David!” she choked, panic flaring in her eyes.

I dropped the rake and lunged to her side. My mind screamed a hundred possible actions it was either I grab a knife, call for help or perhaps run but my body ignored them all and my Instinct took over.

My hand shot out and touched the vine.

It was like plunging my arm into ice water laced with fire. A faint surge subtle but ancient rippled from deep inside me, somewhere older than this life. The air around my fingers shimmered, the runes on the nearby statues flickering like they recognized me.

And the vine recoiled.

It hissed like actually hissed and slithered back, curling in on itself like a wounded animal. The faint glow in my palm faded before Miri could notice. She scrambled away, gasping, clutching her ankle.

“What… what was that?” she panted.

“Probably got scared,” I said quickly, forcing nonchalance into my tone. My heart was hammering, my veins still thrumming with the ghost of my old power.

“Scared?” She glanced at the plant, then at me. “It’s never done that before.”

“First time for everything.”

We sat there for a while, catching our breath. She looked shaken but alive, I’d call that a win.

“Thank you,” she whispered eventually.

“Don’t mention it.”

I went back to work, pretending nothing had happened. But my thoughts were anything but calm.

"It’s still there." The realization crept over me like a sunrise. "The fire, the storm, my power they feared. It’s buried deep, sleeping… but it’s there."

It wasn’t much just a flicker, a ghost of what I once commanded but it was enough to make my pulse race. Enough to remind me that I wasn’t truly powerless, no matter how many boots I polished or floors I scrubbed.

We finished late, long after the sun had begun its descent behind the Academy’s towers. The nobles would be preparing for their evening banquets now, their laughter echoing through gilded halls. And I’d be lucky to get a bowl of cold porridge before lights-out.

Miri limped beside me as we headed back through the servant’s corridor. “You saved my life today,” she said softly.

“Don’t get dramatic.”

“I mean it.”

I glanced at her. There was no pity in her eyes or mockery just gratitude. It was strange and very disarming. People didn’t thank me. They barely noticed I existed.

“Guess I was useful after all,” I muttered.

She smiled. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

If only she knew.

By the time I reached my quarters, it is a cramped cell of a room barely big enough for a cot.

the academy was silent tonight, The nobles were asleep in their silk-sheeted beds, dreaming of glory and power. I sat on the edge of my mattress, staring at my hand.

The skin looked the same dirt under my nails, scratches from thorns but I could still feel the phantom hum of energy beneath it. A heartbeat that wasn’t mine.

"You thought you could bury me," I whispered in my mind, not to anyone in particular but to the universe itself. "You thought time could erase me. That a new name, a weaker body, a lifetime of servitude could dull the blade I once was."

A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth bitter, sharp.

"You were wrong."

They could mock me. They could command me. They could throw me to the weeds and call me worthless. But the truth was carved deeper than this flesh, deeper than this name.

I was not born to serve.

I was born to rise and rule.

And rise, I would slowly, silently, patiently until the world remembered the name it had once forget.