The Beast Within

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Ceraun laid on his pallet, unable to sleep, which was a rare occurrence these days.

Training usually wore him out so he was dead to the world the moment he placed his head on his pallet, which was a blessing, no dreams to haunt him but not tonight.

He was restless, the activities of his day finally catching up to him.

The start of the day which had begun just as any other average day that he had come to expect, waking up, going to find Adrik, getting water then racing off to train.

The trainings were proving incredibly helpful and Ceraun was sure that if they had not begun to train, he and Adrik would most likely be dead by now.

Their deaths would be easily covered up by the non-Mages, Mages died everyday, that was not news, at least not the kind of news they cared about.

His thoughts drifted to the poor innocent Mage that had been made to take the blame for his crime, even though it had been a ripple effect.

Ceraun could not help killing the non-Mage soldier as much as the scapegoated Mage could escape being picked.

This was all the non-Mage soldier's fault, he had been the one to decide to come after two children, simply because they were Mages.

It did not do much to alleviate the guilt Ceraun felt though, he could only imagine the grief the Mage's family must be in that night.

Even as he talked with his family and at the night meal, they would not eat for fear of their father, husband and breadwinner, they would not sleep for the fear of their future.

Although he might like to paint it otherwise, it was his fault, he killed the non-Mage soldier that was declared missing, not the poor Mage who was just trying to keep his family alive.

Sleep continued to elude him for the rest of the night, thoughts plaguing him.

Dawn took its time to come around, Ceraun barely got any sleep the night before.

He rolled out of his pallet just before the first bell, folding up his ratty, moth eaten blanket with a kind of absent mindedness.

He did not feel bad for killing the evil non-Mage, on the contrary, he was devastated that every little thing he seemed to do had consequences.

It was the reason why he had chosen to do nothing the first time, someone else always seemed to suffer the consequences for his actions.

He could almost understand now why the Shadow Prince had chosen to do nothing… almost…

He knew Dew was right, he had always known but he wanted to be the one to rage at his hero, if he was so powerful, why did he do nothing? Why?

So many questions, unanswered for decades, centuries perhaps, did Ceraun dare to seek answers?

He made his way over to Adrik's hut in this same distracted state of mind.

"Thinking on stupid things so early, Feyrer?" Adrik quipped just as Ceraun had expected, it was almost grounding to know that even if he killed a man and someone else was made to die in his stead, some things would never change.

"I dare say, it's barely light." Adrik continued to cruelly tease him. "I had faith in you to leave your moronic musings still the sun was high up in the sky."

"Do yer ever shut it, Adrik?" He fired with dry humor, cutting off his friend's constant chatting.

"Unfortunately, I have become accustomed to your nonstop talking, I can only presume that if you are not saying stupid things, then surely you must be thinking on them." Adrik surmised, looking dreadfully smug with himself.

Ceraun shot him a blank look. "Sure…"

They stayed on high alert as they went to get water, keeping an eye out for any strange or out of place occurrences, there were not any.

Everything was the same as usual, it was almost bizarre.

As much as Ceraun wanted to tell Adrik what he had been privy to the night before, he understood the danger of holding such a type of conversation in the Town where Mage spies were at large.

Ceraun would admit that the absence of the shaved headed non-Mage soldier gave him some semblance of peace, it was somewhat nice to walk around without feeling a death glare piercing through your very soul.

It was almost like the scourge of Ceraun's existence just ceased to exist.

They trudged off to their usual direction as soon as their barrels of water were dropped off in their respective huts.

They got to the steep incline, in hindsight, the first time they had started their races, they should have been wiser than to start it from the top when they were still so unsure to running at all or even worse, on rocky terrain.

It was a hazard, Ceraun would come to find out, of living your life with a foot in the grave, risks did not seem so dangerous to take as they should.

"Race you to the bank." Adrik called, even though he did not necessarily have to but he wanted to bring back some sort of normalcy into their lives.

"I hope you are ready to catch a fish." Ceraun taunted, although they both knew there was none in the river.

Adrik scoffed, making the signal and soon they were both tearing down the slope, tunics waving in the morning air.

They ran fast like they were running away from something, perhaps they were...

The world was scary, it made you just want to run away and never look back.

They obviously did not run with the intention to win, they ran to purge their hearts, to exhaust themselves so perhaps their minds would stop running.

They did not stop till they got to the bank, crumpling to the wet ground, gasping for precious air.

Ceraun had also taken a flask from his house, neither he nor Adrik planned to drink from the river again.

Thinking on it, perhaps they should not have been so hasty to drink from it in the first place, there must be a reason why no one came here to get water.