Razeen gazed up at the obsidian sky, its darkness punctuated only by twinkling stars.
As he lay there in the alleyway, blood oozing from his shredded abdomen, he felt a deep sense of misery engulfing him.
The pain was excruciating, and he could no longer feel anything in his lower body.
He could only look up at the vast expanse of the sky, his breaths coming in short gasps, as his life slowly slipped away from him.
'When did this all go wrong?' He thought to himself.
Razeen.
His mother named him that. Apparently, in her hometown, its meaning was "The Wise."
She named him that hoping he would grow up knowledgeable and become a scholar. And so, he studied day and night, using the leftover books he found in the trash. His mother couldn't afford to buy him new books, and he knew that, so he never asked.
As I reminisced about my mother, a flood of memories came rushing back. I could see her bright smile and her infectious laughter that would fill the room. Her dark hair would fall in cascading waves down her shoulders, and her almond-shaped eyes would twinkle with joy. She was a woman of such striking beauty that people would often stop to take a second look.
My mother was a skilled seamstress, and her hands were always busy creating something new. She would work tirelessly to make clothes and do alteration work for middle-class women.
He never knew who his father was, and he never asked his mother. However, that changed when he was appraised by a priest of the Church of Light to have a high mana affinity at the age of 16. He was visited by a teacher from the Aurora Academy who provided him with a scholarship to attend.
Suddenly, a man who claimed to be his father showed up at our doorstep.
He was tall and had a broad build. His hair was neatly combed, and his beard was well-trimmed.
His piercing eyes were the same color as mine. He wore a fine suit, and his posture exuded an air of nobility.
There was a gentle and kind expression on his face as he looked at my mother.
"Good, you have done well, Afiya," he said.
Hypocrisy.
How could someone who had never visited his son for 16 years suddenly show up when he heard about his high mana affinity?
The man wanted to take us back to his house. My mother looked unsure about what to do but agreed, doing it for my sake, so I could become someone great.
I knew I should have stopped her, telling her that I could make it on my own, but I didn't.
That was the start of our nightmare in the house of Earl Cedric Winterbourne.
Earl Cedric already had a wife with two children.
Lady Arabella, Earl Cedric's wife, was undeniably beautiful. Her features were perfectly symmetrical and her skin was flawless.
But as soon as I met her, I felt a chill run down my spine. Her eyes were piercing, and it was hard to look away. It was as if she was trying to hypnotize me or manipulate me in some way. There was something inhuman about her beauty that made me feel uneasy.
I could tell she despised my mother and me from the moment we arrived at their estate.
Her son, Norman, was just as unpleasant. He enjoyed torturing small animals in his room, and I felt that he was inherently sadistic.
Felicity, her daughter, was quieter but equally as cruel. She enjoyed manipulating people and eavesdropping on conversations for her own benefit.
Together, they made sure that my mother and I felt unwelcome in their home.
I remembered a moment when the Countess insulted my mother by calling her a prostitute, but my mother didn't say anything in response.
I was taken aback by her silence.
Later that day, as my mother recounted the story of my birth, the pain and shame in her eyes were unmistakable.
She began by telling me about the war when she was only a teenager and was captured and sold into slavery. Forced to work in a brothel, she endured unspeakable horrors at the hands of her clients.
She had lost all hope of ever escaping that life until one night she met Earl Cedric. My mother had thought that she had finally found a way out of her miserable existence. But Earl Cedric had only used her for his own pleasure and then discarded her like a piece of trash.
Despite not wanting a child, my mother soon found out that she was pregnant from that fateful night. She struggled with the decision of what to do but ultimately decided to keep the baby.
However, she knew that she couldn't continue to work in the brothel while pregnant, so she immediately quit, earning her freedom using the money she had saved up and borrowed from others.
That was one of the last times I had a long conversation with my mother. Her health suddenly began to deteriorate, and it wasn't long before she became bedridden.
But I never expected her to pass away so soon. Just one year ago, she slipped away peacefully in her sleep, leaving me with nothing but memories and a deep sense of loss.
I couldn't even be there with her in her final moments, as I was still at the Academy, too far away to make it home in time.
I was convinced that my mother's death wasn't natural. The Countess must have had a hand in it.
I searched tirelessly for any evidence that could expose her, but now it seems like I won't get my revenge.
He never expected that his search would attract the attention of both siblings. When he arrived to make a deal with his information broker, he found Norman and Felicity standing there, waiting for him.
As one of the top students in his class, he wasn't afraid of them. But suddenly, they used a spell he had never seen before. It caught him off guard and inflicted severe injuries that even magic couldn't heal.
Despite his injuries, he fought back for a while, but it didn't last long as he was stabbed in the back by a sword, which pierced and sliced through his stomach.
'Mum... your son is going to see you soon,' he thought to himself.
______
"Oi! You ruined our fun! We were just getting excited but look at him now. He looks like he'll die soon!" Norman grumbled, looking at the hooded man holding a pitch-black sword.
The hooded man didn't reply. He bent down and assessed Razeen's wounds.
"He won't die. Your job was to finish acquiring the target as fast as possible, not attract the attention of the 'watch dogs'," he said in a deep voice.
Norman was taken aback. "What do you mean?"
The hooded man replied, "They're coming towards here. You need to clean up your mess. It's not yet time for me to be revealed."
He then looked into the distance and chanted a magic spell, disappearing with Razeen in an instant.