"Enough!" a loud voice could be heard echoing from the door. "Let the boy rest, He's been through a lot."
A man as tall as he is strong, a full 2 metres in height strode through the door swaggering from left to right, as he walked slowly towards the bed Niels is at.
"Are you feeling better child?" He asked, without the slightest bit of worry, there was no tinge of sympathy in his voice, only indifference. His cold eyes glared down at the scrawny boy with one arm held together by bandages.
"Husband! Of course, he is not feeling better! He lost his arm! for god's sake! He's in shock! How can he feel better? If anything we should praise the god of light he isn't feeling worse!" Katherine stood up and agitatedly told her Husband the Duke of Blackwood, Starm Blackwood.
"Hush woman! He was worthless, to begin with now at the very least he has an excuse to be." Starm shouted as he stared down at the one-armed Niels at the bed. His eyes were cold as winter frost staring deeply into the depths of Niels' soul. Trying to intimidate Niels, he unleashed a portion of truly thick killing intent, suffocating the people around him making the air harder to breathe. Even Edna and the twins had swallowed mouthfuls of saliva wanting to get out of this situation.
Niels, not willing to look back stared directly back, he could concede many things, but to Niels, the killing intent emitted from Starm even at full force is not even enough to phase him. At adolescence, Young Niels previous life had already treated killing as a daily task for him. How would a soldier who only kill during wars win this battle of intimidation?
"Child, are you not afraid of me? " Starm shouted, each word gaining momentum being louder than the last. "Have you gone dumb from fear!? Has being attacked drove you insane?"
In his mind, the last thing Starm wanted was a weak kid, but the transition from the little weakling who couldn't even stand straight in front of him to someone who could actually withstand his killing intent made him question if his son had gone crazy after being abducted or just broke his sense of self-preservation.
Niels who had been silent the entire time finally took a deep breath opened his mouth to speak. "You come in here shouting and wantonly released your killing intent, even the maids behind you are struggling, and you call me insane? I only have one question. Who the f*ck are you people?"
It was pin-drop silence after the sentence Niels said sounded out everyone stood silent, no one knew what to say. Sure amnesia existed, but no one actually thought it would have been real and not an imaginary condition. Katherine moved first immediately ran forward and held Niels tight cuddling him near her chest, she started sobbing hard. Niels looked forward blankly as he felt the warmth of another human, his mother that he never had and it was reassuring.
"Hmph, I thought he gained some guts. So in actuality he lost his memory." Starm turned around and walked away with Edna and the twins in tow. The room was clear and all that were left are Katherine and the maids.
Katherine held Niels face in her hands and stopped herself from crying.
"Child, you are Niels Blackwood of Blackwood kingdom, you are the 3rd Son of Duke Starm Blackwood a Paladin owning a fief under the blessing of the 113th Pope of the church of the light. I am your mother, Katherine Blackwood. You are a kind, sweet and polite boy, you wouldn't even hurt a fly…. This time.. It's mother's fault, I shouldn't have let you run out of my sight, I shouldn't have let you get caught. This is all my fault…. " She tried to hold back the tears, but she ended up crying even more.
"Son, I can't see the innocence in your eyes anymore, can you remember me? can you remember how you were?"
As Katherine was rubbing her eyes, she felt a hand reach out and touch her face
"You are not to blame ….. M..other.. things will happen for a reason, perhaps it is a quirk of fate that allowed for this tragedy to befall me. I don't blame anyone for my plight."
Niels said gently, his voice icy cold, with no emotion or feeling, as if reading out of a script. He didn't particularly enjoy using the term mother, nor any familial terms for that matter.
Katherine held onto Niel's icy hand still on her cheek and spoke once again, "Your father… he doesn't mean it. He's a great man… if not for the prophecy.... nevermind, he loves you, son, he really does."
"I don't really have a particular interest in the old man, but let me ask you, was there a girl with me when I came back? Where is Laylah?" Niels asked, after looking around the room and scanning his location.
"She's at the servant's quarter, I'll get someone to bring her here to speak to you." Katherine, motioned for the maid to come over asking her to bring Laylah over, at the same time she stood up and excused herself from the room seeing Niels like this broke her heart but she knew it would be best for her son to have his own space for the time being.
Minutes later, a young girl walked into the room, the same young girl that was previously covered in the blood of Buorb appeared in front of him all cleaned up. She stood in front of him as her vacant eyes looked at him as if the innocence of the child had been sapped completely out of her.
"Laylah, do you know why you are here today?" Niels asked as she continued to stare vacantly at him.
Laylah nodded, tears started welling from her eyes and she used her hand and folded it over her heart.
"You are here today not because your mother gave her life to protect you, it is not her sacrifice that let you end up where you are. You are here today not because I took pity on the little girl and decided to help you on a pure whim."
Niels moved closer to the edge of the bed as he gently sat up, his lips twinged as he felt the wounds on his arms reopening.
His eyes even more fiercely fixated on Laylah, who was sobbing at the mention of her recently deceased mother started to speak again.
"You are here today because we have a shared fate, an intersected mission that we must accomplish. we are here today because you found your purpose. You are seeking revenge for your dead mother and as for me, I want to seek out the people that put me into this predicament in the first place. Our interests coincide, and therefore you're here."
Niels started to smile, showing his teeth still white and pure.
"You should hold your head up high, when I passed you that dagger and asked if you knew what you needed to do, I was waiting for a response. If you gave him mercy, I would have just let you go after I brought you out. If you were to go through with the killing, I would have saved you and brought you back here let you live comfortably. But…you, I have seen your resolve, you struck every hit with the intention to kill, every time you stabbed the porker you were in a place where you were calm and the more you stabbed the more at ease you become. I am interested in you, Laylah. You have what it takes to be the spirit of vengeance and the sharpest blade and thus, you are here today in front of me."
Niels stood up slowly and he faced Laylah "From today on Laylah, be my sharpest blade. Even if you're a dull blade now, I will sharpen you, I will form you into a butcher's blade. Until we find the person responsible and you take your revenge, until you reap that life, I will shelter you, and train you allowing you to grow. Take this opportunity, Laylah, will you be a blade?"
Laylah, wiping her tears clean, took a knee before Niels and pledged her allegiance. On that day, one of the most efficient maid and also the strongest assassin had taken her first step into ascension. That is a story for a different time.