As Gwen stood at the front line of the battlefield, dressed in brown, sand-colored armor meant to blend with the desert terrain, her eyes scanned the horizon.
They had been camped here for five days. After three long years of preparation, the people of Jorgian were finally facing their oppressors, the powerful neighboring kingdom that had exploited them for decades. They took their gold. Their dark green emeralds, native only to Jorgian. And when the people had thought they had nothing left to give, one sunny afternoon, a man in radiant armor, strangely, not even a general, just an announcer, rode into the village on what the people called The Horse of Death.
His message was clear and cruel: “The kingdom now demands seventy men, age twenty-three or older, as tribute. Prepare them for war.”
The women of Jorgian had whispered in horror that evening:
“So they can't even fight their own battles anymore?”
“What more will they take from us?”
The chief priest, a woman so old she could barely stand, had been forced to act. Despite her fragile form, her voice, light and high like a ten-year-old girl, carried the weight of centuries. She summoned the ancient scrolls: The Wills.
Scrolls that offered power… for a price. She read aloud:
And so it began.
Each family, by tradition, was required to offer one. More than half the village was forced to take the curse. The powers came. Strange, terrifying, uncontrollable. Some were consumed by them but could not die. They became feral, mindless, driven only by rage. These were called The Twisteds. Still, it was the price of freedom.
“Please, Gwen, I’m begging you. Don’t do this,” her mother sobbed, clutching her chest. “Your father is already gone. He’s one of them now. Twisted. That was our obligation fulfilled. Please don’t make me lose another. Please... it hurts.”
Gwen stared out the window at the red sun sinking behind the dunes. Her gaze shifted to her little sister, curled up on the corner mattress made of torn cloth and bamboo. A soft breath left her lips.
Then she turned to face her mother and held her hands.
“Mother,” she said softly, “we don’t have a choice. We can’t stay out of this.” She cupped her mother’s face, taller, stronger now at twenty-five. “Father did what he did to protect us.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted this,” her mother whispered. Her voice cracked, her eyes swollen with grief.
“What he gave was his life. What I’m giving... is honor. To that sacrifice. To our land. To what I want my sister to grow up knowing.”
Her mother trembled. “And if you… if you become like him? What then? What happens to me?” She collapsed, tears falling freely as her body shook.
Gwen knelt beside her. “Mom. Look at me. Please.” Her mother opened her eyes, barely.
“If I become one of them… then that is my fate. But I need you to understand, I know this is what I’m meant to do. I feel it in my bones. I don’t want your permission. I need your blessing.”
Her mother went quiet. Then, slowly, she wiped her eyes and placed her hand on Gwen’s cheek.
“You’ve always been the daughter of the wind. Wild. Brave. Always knowing where to go before anyone else. So go. Be free. I bless the day you chose me as your mother. And I bless you today, tomorrow, always. May my blessing be your shield.”
For the first time since her father twisted, since the war announcement, Gwen cried. She cried as she held the scroll. As she repeated the curse. As her body ignited from within. Her blood felt like lava. Her bones burned. In her head, one word rang over and over again:
“Kill. Kill. Kill.” But somewhere beneath the chaos, she heard her mother’s voice:
“I bless you today, tomorrow, always…” Then, silence.
When Gwen awoke, the priest told her she had received fire, Grade A, one of the rarest, most powerful types.
Only, her flame was blue.
The same flame once wielded by the legendary general of the first war, when the Wills were first called upon. And so, Gwen trained. She led. She became a warrior. Three years of preparation.
Four power types: Fire. Lightning. Sound. Shadows. And then the healers.
The trumpet’s blast yanked her back to the present. The enemy was near. Sydiryn was coming. And just like that, time slowed. She remembered, in the time before, evenings at the market. Coming home. Helping her mother cook soup. Her father tasting it, theatrically holding his chest and moaning: “Ahhhhh! This is the best soup I’ve ever had!”
“You say that about every soup,” her mother would laugh. Her sister, too small to feed herself, would sit between them and get fed from both sides. They had little. But they had everything.
Gwen let out a guttural cry that shook the dunes.
“ARRGGHHHHH!!! FOR JORGIAN!!!”
And behind her, the army echoed: “FOR JORGIAN!!!”
She whispered beneath her breath, as her eyes burned blue and flame danced from her lips: “For my family.”
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