Enquin Herst stared down at the smooth surface of his dining table, an old piece of furniture that he’d crafted on the day that he had first been permitted to live his life out in Distan. Atop it lay the little magic crystal that Alistar had given him years ago, which had originally been gifted to the boy for his first Name Day by his roguish friend Corrie. As soon as he’d learned that Enquin had been forced to give up his magics in exchange for being granted permission to live on Caedmon’s lands—he hadn’t gained citizenship to the kingdom; his presence was simply acknowledged along with his right to remain in the county—Alistar hadn’t hesitated to drop by soon after to offer up the little crystal, saying to him that it was better to have it and not need it than not to have it at all.

Such a bright lad.

In the midst of putting on his Sunday best, Enquin was steeling his heart for the events of the day. The holy delegation from Providence Region would be arriving at any time now, bringing with it a fresh wave of religious fervour. It was already difficult enough walking through the streets and attending Sunday mass, so he shuddered at the notion of Mayhaven taking on an even more hostile tone. Such was the fate of those like him, survivors of a group that had suffered the saddest of ends at the hands of the very people that they used to live alongside in relative peace.

Enquin’s thoughts once again drifted toward Alistar. He found solace in knowing that there still existed people with hearts pure and earnest, those that beheld the world through an un-perverted lens.

Did I used to look like that in their eyes?

He paused as he was pinning on his copper cufflinks, staring down at the white cotton of his soft, spotless tunic. How long ago were those wonderful memories made? In all his centuries of life, his first nine years in this world had been the only period in which he’d truly been happy. The years that followed, he recalled with a saddened shiver, had brought with them constant horrors and endless tragedy, and had ushered in an era of struggles and sufferings that still persisted into the present day.

When the Inverted Wars first began, Enquin had been no older than Alistar had when the boy had initially found his way into his uncle’s family. He’d had fifteen siblings, nine brothers and six sisters, of which he had been the youngest. Due to the pedigree of his lineage, he’d often found himself in the company of their close friends, individuals that normal Drunaeda rarely had the chance to see let alone converse with. Most of them had been full grown adults around the time that he had started to tag along with them, young princes and princesses all, similarly hailing from the royal lines of their respective races.

Falling into recollections of those forlorn days, he remembered the amber crystal that he had given to Alistar and the lie that he’d uttered in order to ensure that the boy would accept the gift without any scruples. The crystal hadn’t been the crystallization of his grandmother’s essence as he’d claimed, but that of his own magical energies. Before agreeing to give up his magics, Enquin had accepted that he was destined to lose them either way and so had made use of the unique ability of his Felian clan to condense his energies into crystallized form, similar to the natural processes that saw magic crystals form in specific environments such as within the mountains where the mines of Crystellum were located. Consuming the crystal would have returned his magics to him, a failsafe that he’d created in case things in Distan began to deteriorate. This had been the case in virtually all the other cities and towns where he’d tried to settle down within the empire, a pattern that had pushed him to the edge of despair on countless occasions.

No, thought Enquin. I’ve long since been miring through the muck. He finished getting dressed and made his way toward the door, pausing with his hand on the rough, misshapen knob. I was just a boy back then, wasn’t I? Unexpectedly, he found his mind flooded with memories of his time as a healer in the medical corps of the Inverted Peoples’ Third United Army in the years that followed the onset of human conquest across the continent.

All of his brothers and sisters had been significantly older than him. His eldest brother, for instance, had been 108 years old at the time of his birth, his eldest sister 120. Such longevity was an ordinary thing for the Felian clan, the longest-lived race of all the Drunaeda. Nominally speaking, they had been one of the four most powerful and prominent clans amongst their kind, a great entity respected in any part of Mais. In reality, most Felians lacked any offensive capabilities outside of the occasional affinities for water and wind magics. What they excelled in the most were the arts of healing, which was why when the war broke out it was only natural that a significant number of Felians had been assigned to each of the United Coalition’s armies.

Nearly all of his siblings had died within the first two years of the war, as had the majority of his clansmen. As capable and crucial healers, they were constantly targeted by secretive spells or skillful assassinations, as well as volleys of enhanced arrows from afar during the midst of their duties. It had been the same for the other races, of course, but as the war escalated and most of the talented healers were killed, even youths like Enquin had been enlisted into the medical corps of the various armies. Before long, he had been the last Felian of the clan leader’s line, but since the conflict had threatened the extinction of all Drunaeda he’d had no choice but to continue to perservere alongside his comrades regardless of the growing horrors that had persistently haunted him.

Noticing his shaky breaths, Enquin straightened up, collected himself and then left his home with careful steps. Winding his way around the hill where he taught some of the local children, he fell in next to a farmer’s family that was heading into town via the county’s southern route. His stomach sunk as they immediately fixed him with hostile looks, all dressed in roughspun clothes of white fabric. This included the children, students of his that had been absent from lessons in recent weeks for unknown reasons.

“What’s a filthy demonspawn like you headin’ into town for?” said the broad-shouldered father, who spat onto his shirt after a momentary hawking. “Don’t walk next to us. We don’t want people thinkin’ we’re chummy with some Inverted.”

“I wish to celebrate the arrival of the delegation,” said Enquin in his politest, practiced tone. “It would be selfish of me not to be grateful to those that tolerate my presence in these lands.”

“Least you know that much.”

Stifling a sigh, Enquin connected eyes with the children and was saddened when they stepped back and hid behind their parents. He’d taught them for three years, relied on his modest wages to make sure that they had always enjoyed a serving come snacktime atop the hill. And yet, now they looked upon him as if he were some vile creature that shouldn’t exist.

“Come on, Papa,” said the little girl, who was tugging at the man’s sleeve with a dainty grip. “We don’t want to miss the bishop!”

“Stay a ways behind us, a good thousand steps.”

With that, the father led his family off toward Mayhaven’s southern walls, leaving Enquin alone with his thoughts.

It seems I won’t be able to stay in Distan for much longer.

All things considered, such treatment was mild in comparison to what he’d endured in the other provinces of the empire. Beatings had been much more common, not to mention suffering from daily theft or witnessing the occasional murder of a friend or loved one. Countless familiar faces appeared in his mind’s eye, hundreds of people that only lived on in his tortured memory. The sad truth was that, aside from those consigned to slavery, there were hardly any Drunaeda left in the Holy Lucian Empire as all had been driven away or otherwise killed by zealots of the Lucian faith.

After using an old handkerchief to wipe the spit from his shirt, Enquin followed the family from a distance and eventually arrived at the southern entrance of town. After being spat on several more times and becoming the butt of a good number of insults, he realized that things were much worse than he’d previously thought. Glancing up and down the street—which was decorated with carefully-trimmed streamers and beautiful flowers all throughout—he spotted several other Drunaeda sulking within discreet corners of the sprawling crowd, some with visible bruises or swellings on faces, arms and necklines.