Chapter 192 - 193
He’s quite handsome. He had hand-length hair that was somewhere between honey brown and amber, with smooth, appealing facial features and a noble countenance despite his unconscious state. Built sturdily, too. Maels noticed that both of the boy’s wrists as well as all of his fingers were decorated with expensive magical supplements, not thinking for even a moment that they might be limiters due to the excessive amount that the boy wore. Those are high quality, he thought, sensing the subtle energies that were leaking from the jewelry. Only the most expensive supplements contained enough energy to give off such seepage. But why so many?
Resting a hand atop the boy’s face, he mended his nose with a slight effort and then summoned a bit of water from the air with which to wipe away the twin trails of blood that led down from his nostrils, which had mostly hardened at this point.
Suddenly, his throat was quite dry. Suddenly, his throat was quite dry.
"I suspect that he’s a Silverkin," said Gartur, who pulled his hood down lower when some passing priests sent him dirty looks through the polished glass. "He’s clearly from a wealthy family, of which there aren’t many in this part of the kingdom. His hands also have the roughness of a swordsman, same as the Silverkins we’ve met along the way."
Maels’s heart sank by a slight degree. If the boy was indeed a Silverkin, then the chances that he still retained his virginity were quite slim.
"You might be right. Still, I don’t recall there being any males among House Silverkin’s branch families in this region." Raising one of the boy’s eyelids and being met with the expected whites that an unconscious person was prone to show, he added, "But considering that scandalous clan, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of their bastards."
"I recall hearing that Lord Caedmon wasn’t that type of person," said Gartur, crossing his scarlet, white-sleeved arms and looking down at the boy with interest. "Though I suppose we can’t believe in everything we hear."
Maels felt pity for the boy, along with a stirring of guilt that he quickly shut down in a stoic manner. The boy’s fate had already been predetermined, and his sacrifice would greatly contribute to the correction of the world’s current imbalances.
Archbishop Vestach had no way of knowing that Maels had uncovered incredible magics long lost to the ages, so never in his wildest dreams would he suspect that the inconvenient and sensitive mission that he’d saddled him with would be a stepping stone for Maels that might enable him to rise to a position where he could rival the man’s own influence within the clergy and by extension, the empire. It had been centuries since anybody had subjugated a bred and born demon, entities which were said to have been embodiments of evil that possessed powers far surpassing that of the average man. Once his plan had properly played out, Maels will have vanquished one such creature before the frightened eyes of Mayhaven’s hapless citizens, which was sure to leave a great imprint in modern history.