Dragon Order of Flame - Volume 1 - Chapter 1

Volume 1

Chapter 1 – The Count’s Illegitimate Child

Chirp, chirp….

Luke slowly opened his eyes to the twittering of birds. Bright sunlight streaked in through the cracks of the curtains stinging his eyes.

“Hm…….”

Raising his hands in an attempt to rub out the sleep, Luke slowly came to. As he took in his surroundings, he became aware of the luxurious bedding and cushiony mattress hugging his body. It was a strange sensation. He had not felt a bed so soft in the past 10 years. In fact, he could not remember a time in his life when he had been in one such as this.

‘What is this place? Where am I?’

With a frown, Luke looked around the room.

It was a majestic room to say the least – so much so that a glance was enough to tell it belonged to someone from money. Aside from the push bedding and fluffy duvets, royal red carpeting lay atop hardwood floors and the immaculate painted walls were adorned with a beautiful mirror and a painting of a colorful mountain landscape on an autumn day. There was also a vase atop a lone table, but nothing else really jumped out.

Though it may have been modest by a noble’s standards, for someone who had endured homelessness hundreds of times, it all looked more than luxurious.

‘I don’t get it. Why am I in this place?’

He didn’t understand where he could be much less how he could have gotten there. He tried to recollect his thoughts and sift through them piece by piece in search of some kind of a clue, but all that resulted in was a dull headache of broken memories.

“Uh…”

Luke got out of bed while pressing his temples.

<Lu…..ah….>

He heard a strange sound. The sound resembled whispers, but they were whispers without any discernible meaning riding along the passing wind.

Luke’s expression crinkled into a frown as he looked around searchingly. But the windows were closed, and it did not seem likely that any wind could be leaking in.

Knock knock.

There was a knocking sound at the door.

Luke peered a wary eye in the direction of the new noise. Luke had a gift that allowed him to anticipate such things; it was something akin to a sixth sense. In fact, he should have felt the person beyond the door approaching even before he heard the knocks, but he had not felt a thing. Now that it was gone, something that had always been as natural to him as breathing, the loss of his gift was more than unnerving.

“Oh?”

As there was no answer for quite some time after knocking, the person beyond the door decided to invite herself in. She was a maid – and when she saw that Luke was in the room, she made a start.

“Oh Master, if you had awoken you should have answered when I had knocked.”

“Oh, I – I’m sorry.”

He could not find any hint of animosity in the maid’s words and, baffled by the whole situation, he could but utter an apology.

The face of the maid, who had by then closed the door behind her to come in and place a tray laden with bread and milk upon the table, seemed oddly familiar. Luke began probing his memories to try and recall her name, but no matter how hard he tried to remember he came up with naught.

“What is your name?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Your name.”

“I’m Mary. I’ve only told you just three days ago. Have you already forgotten?”

The young maid lightly complained as Luke spied her mockingly laugh at him. It was at that moment something clicked as he made the connection between the name Mary and that laughter – a memory came rushing to the forefront of his mind.

’Could it be…?’

But Luke could not believe it. Because it was surely impossible.

Luke asked.

“Where am I?”

“Beg pardon?”

“I asked where I was.”

“…..”

Mary stared at him incredulously and asked.

“What a strange question you ask, Master. Are you hurt anywhere?

At that, Luke immediately put on a scowl and retorted.

“Just answer my question. What is this place? Where am I?”

“Why this is Sir Astal’s castle. Surely you must be toying with me?”

Mary’s voice seemed to hold a hint of anger; that is, until it was overtaken by a sneer. It was obvious that even with her status as a mere Maid and his as her Master, she held not an ounce of respect for him.

With a rude shrug and no parting of words, she slipped out and left the room. Indeed it was an incredibly rude gesture on her part, however, Luke did nothing to stop her – only watching the door as it closed behind her. His expression hardened as he stared piercingly into the panel of the closed door.

“What the hell is going on around here?”

<…That….A….stal.>

Again, it was that strange whispering sound. Jumpy as he was in this unnerving situation, every echo and whisper of noise seemed to sound like words…words being spoken by someone; but each time he scanned the room, there was nothing amiss and no one to be found.

Luke, suddenly a bit thirsty, stretched him hands out toward the cup that held the milk Mary had brought in earlier. The moment he brought the cup to his mouth, he made a frown as if an idea had formed and stopped what he was doing.

“…I have to check.”

Luke nodded and mumbled to himself while putting the milk cup back down. He straightened back up and walked over the mirror hanging on the wall.

It was there that he lost all words and stood frozen like a petrified stone.

“It cannot be….”

Caught by such surprise, he forgot to breathe. It was only a long time later he gathered enough sense to at least mumble a few words.

The mirror reflected back the face of a young child.

His age could have been somewhere around thirteen or so? Light brown hair adorned a skinny and haggard face which in turn held a set of turquoise eyes. Luke stared at the child in the glass for a long time before he slowly raised his hand to touch his own face. It was without saying that the child in the mirror did exactly the same.

“What the hell is going on here? Why did I get younger? Am I dreaming?”

Only just realizing the boy in the mirror was himself, Luke began to stumble around in a panic of disbelief.

No matter how he looked at it, there was something definitely wrong here. He was thirty-seven, had the build of a warrior, and it was hard to ignore the fact that the entirety of his face and body was criss-crossed with the scars of countless battles. But as if his whole life up to this point was nothing but a lie, he now had the body of a skinny young child who seemed to have grown up with far too little to eat.

<Luke …A….stal.>

There it was again! That strange wind. Luke gritted his teeth and asked in silent anger.

“Who are you? Who is it that keeps calling my name?”

<It seems now you can finally hear my voice.>

The moment Luke finally responded, the strangely ephemeral wind transformed into a clear voice. Before Luke could even say anything further, the voice continued on.

<I began to think you had lost your hearing, but that seems not to be the case. Although my words should be heard by the mind – maybe suspecting there were something wrong with your head would have been more accurate?>

“What? And who exactly are you?”

At Luke’s confusion, the strange voice began a haughty sort of laugh. Anyone who overheard would have immediately identified it as a mocking sort of laugh, and this only further stoked the flames of Luke’s anger.

“I mean to get an answer from you. Otherwise, I will have your head.”

<Foolish Luke Astal. You can never kill me. No, there is no one in this world who can kill me.>

“I’m not in the mood for games or words. Shut your mouth and present yourself to me.”

<That is not possible. I am essentially as good as the dead. One cannot kill what is not of the flesh. And that is why I cannot stand before you this moment either.>

“What?”

Hearing the voice refer to himself as someone as good as dead, Luke had again lost all words – something that seemed to have happened one too many times in the span of one day.

Chapter 1 – End.