Excerpt: Dangers Untold

Payton Keller was certain that if a raveller looked at him now, they would see threads greener than the dragon that had attacked the capital the year before. He had never been this jealous before and it was a feeling that he hated. However, the problem with jealousy was that he had to act excited and happy and proud of his friend, while the green-eyed monster destroyed him from inside.

Of course, he found it very hard to keep everything bottled up inside for so long. This was why he sat at a small table in the squire’s barracks, cleaning his mentor’s very dirty armour. His younger brother, Bryant, would be eating scraps off of the ground for the next week, and he had menial labour as a punishment. He knew he deserved it, but he wasn’t happy – if his best friend, Cassius, were still a squire, he would be sitting right next to him, in trouble as well, and probably having a great laugh about it. Though really, if Cassius were still a squire, they wouldn’t be in trouble at all because Payton wouldn’t have taken his feelings out on his pesky brother. He frowned, trying to stop the anger that he could feel coursing through his veins. It was Cassius’s fault for being promoted. Cassius’s fault that he had to scrub the damn armour. He lifted the chest armour he was scrubbing and brought it down on the table with a good, decent crack.

It was harder than he had expected, however, and he grimaced as he noticed a small dent in the metal. Even more damage was done to the table, and there was a large crack in the wood. He hadn’t realised that the armour was that strong, though he supposed it had to be, seeing as it resisted the sword attacks that the knights suffered while fighting. But the table was the least of his worries. If his mentor noticed the dent, he was dead.

“Dear Lord, please don’t let Sir Hauville notice the dent, may You punish me instead,” he whispered, finishing his prayer with a quick, “Amen.” He had been raised a good, God-fearing Catholic, something his father had been adamant about.

“Our ancestors were good and God blessed them,” he had explained when Payton was of an age to understand. “We must make sure that we continue in their footsteps, lest the Lord take away our powers as a punishment.” Payton didn’t want his powers to be taken away. He liked being able to force people to do things, especially Bryant.

It wasn’t just the Keller family who were blessed, though. It was the whole of their kingdom, Muirean. There were a few people who were powerless, and the pastor had once given a rousing sermon about how those people were sinners and therefore God had not blessed them. Payton had been very happy after church that day. He was powerful, so therefore God must see something special in him. It was something he now lorded over Bryant quite regularly. It was the only thing he could lord over him.

Bryant was only a year younger than Payton, and was Payton’s only sibling. From the day he was born, the two had fought like cats and dogs. Bryant always seemed to be able to do everything better than Payton, and he always rubbed it into Payton's face. This sibling rivalry was why Payton had been sent to become a knight in the first place. Luckily for him, he had found that fighting came naturally to him, and it was the first thing he had ever felt good at. It was too bad that a year later when Bryant was also sent to start his training, Payton realised that he would never be better than his brother at anything, because Bryant had trumped him once again.

Payton had realised that he was rather good at convincing others to do his bidding while he was still living at home. At the age of five, most of that bidding was commanding people to go away, or getting them to bring him food, and so nothing had seemed unusual. But at the age of eight, when he told his brother to go and eat a horse and Bryant had actually tried to, Payton and his superiors realised what his powers would be. It was very unusual to come into them so young, as most young children didn’t realise their powers until puberty, and so finally Payton had something to lord over Bryant. Even when Bryant finally came into his powers, which were the rather unimpressive power of water manipulation, Payton was still happy that he was finally better than him at something.

A knock at the door startled him and he quickly put other pieces of armour on top of the chest plate, fearing it was Sir Hauville. Alistair Hauville had a reputation of being a right bastard, and he always knew when Payton was guilty of something – of course, he had the uncanny knack of being able to read anyone’s mind. Payton hated it and he always felt that he was treated unfairly because of Hauville’s power. He never got away with things that the others did.

The door opened before Payton had a chance to reply to the knock and Payton found himself breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of the sight of Sir Oisin Brennus standing in the doorway. The man was fairly short and stocky, though his muscular arms betrayed how strong he really was. Oisin got a fair bit of attention from the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, and Payton knew that his great personality and good looks were the reason for it. But Payton didn’t actually like the knight, and he had remarked to Cassius on many occasions that staying in the same room with Oisin for too long made him feel stupid. What Brennus lacked in brains, however, he made up for with kindness, and Cassius got along very well with him, even if Payton did not.

“Keller, where’s Adair?” Oisin asked, sticking his head into the room. “Or,” he added with a grin, “Sir Adair. I can’t treat him like he’s a squire anymore, can I?”

Payton narrowed his eyes, trying to think of what horrible thing to do to Oisin as punishment for reminding him about Cassius’s brand new promotion. A reminder of how inadequate he was, and how Cassius was so much better.

However, it had always been Cassius who had gotten Payton through his feelings of inadequacy. The pair were roughly equal in terms of skill, and so they were normally decently matched when it came to fighting. Except, that was, when something snapped within Cassius and he proved just how good a warrior he could be. Payton hated those moments – it was as though something possessed him, and Payton had ended up with injuries, including a broken collarbone, more than once from those events. But unlike Bryant, who would have been rubbing Payton's loss in, there were no jibes from Cassius. Instead, there was a sort of remorse, as though he wished he hadn't won after all. Cassius often said that “he did it” and Payton had never worked out who “he” was. Cassius never told him, either.

Oisin frowned slightly at the expression on Payton’s face. “You’re not actually happy about Cass’s promotion, are you Payton?” he asked, walking into the room and closing the door behind him. Payton sighed, wishing that Oisin wasn’t having one of his uncharacteristic moments of intelligence. Sometimes the man could surprise people, and Payton had been caught out before.

“Of course I’m happy for him,” he replied as Oisin took a seat at the table next to him. “I just wish I’d been the first out of us.”

Oisin grinned. “You know,” he replied, leaning on the table, “When my mother died, I was so upset that I caused quite a bit of trouble for the superiors. They tried to kick me out of the army, actually, but I persisted and made it. But I wasn’t knighted until last year, when I was twenty. You’re seventeen. You’ll get there, don’t worry, and I bet it’ll be sooner than I did.”

“That’s not much of a comfort,” Payton replied, his eyes still narrowed. “Cass still got there first.” Plus you’re too stupid to get there as early as Cassius, he added silently.

“Is this all jealousy?” Oisin asked, a thoughtful look on his face. “It’s not just your fear at being left behind, is it?”

Payton folded his arms, really wishing that Oisin would go back to being an idiot. Payton and Cassius had been inseparable since they were six years old. Uncertainty over their future and the training they were going to receive had brought them together when they first became pages, and they had stuck together like glue ever since. This was the first time that they were to be well and truly separated. And Payton knew that the separation was going to be much harder for him than it would be for Cassius. He had never known life without Cassius, and his best friend had been with him every step of the way throughout his training. But for Cassius, he was starting a whole new chapter of his life – a chapter that had never included Payton anyway. While Cassius would miss Payton, there wasn’t that fear that Payton had.

When Payton didn’t reply, Oisin shrugged. “Well, the longer you stay jealous of Cassius, the more of Alistair’s armour you’ll have to scrub.” He frowned and looked at the table, rubbing his finger along the crack in it. “I thought this was fixed,” he murmured, before looking sharply at Payton. “What part did you dent?”

Payton bit his lip. “I... I didn’t dent anything,” he replied, hoping that Oisin would drop it. Why was it his luck that the dumbest knight in the unit would work out what he’d done?

Oisin grinned. “I told Sir Darvon the same thing when I was a squire and he saw a crack in the table like that. When he saw the tiny dent in his brand new arm shield, he knew I was lying.”

Payton glared at him. “Of course the only way you’d work it out was because you’d done it yourself.”

“Wounded to the core,” Oisin replied with a laugh. “I’ll try not to think about that dent around Alistair, hopefully it shouldn’t be too hard to forget it.”

Payton was sure it wouldn’t be too hard for Oisin to forget. He was pretty sure that the man didn’t have a brain to remember anything.

“Good luck cleaning the rest of that armour,” Oisin said, standing up. “Ali’s such a bastard that he probably made it especially dirty for you.” He left the room, not seeing Payton stick his tongue out at the back of his head in temper.

You’re so mature, Payton scolded himself. No wonder Cassius was promoted and not you.

Cassius and Payton had both known that their mentors had been considering both of them to become knights for some time. They had jokingly laughed it off – they were too young to become knights! Sure they worked hard, and were skilled fighters, but there were better within their unit. And sure, maybe they were more proficient than most at the magical abilities that their kingdom held important, but that wasn't everything, was it?

The summons had finally come only five days before. It had been in the form of a note, and had been left on the lower bed of the bunk that Cassius and Payton shared. Cassius's bed.

Meet me at the edge of the forest. Bring only your sword and your mind (if the last battle hasn’t knocked it clear from your head). No food and no spare clothing. GD.

As soon as Cassius showed it to him, Payton knew what it meant. “You’re being knighted,” he stated, a slight feeling of disappointment in his chest.

“Probably not,” Cassius had replied, always the eternal pessimist. “I bet it’s just training. I’m too young to be a knight.”

He was right. He was only seventeen, and never in the history of Muirean had a boy been knighted that young. Eighteen was normally the very youngest. Most were at least twenty, normally older.

Cassius sighed. “I suppose I should go. I’ll see you this evening.”

“Alright,” Payton replied, climbing up onto the top bunk. “I’ll see you then.”

In the brief time that he had spoken to his friend, Cassius had convinced him that there was no way he could be being knighted. After all, his argument had been so logical. But when Cassius didn’t return that evening, he was beginning to doubt Cassius’s word. When Cassius still wasn’t back the next morning, that doubt began to take a stronger hold. And when Cassius still wasn’t back the next evening, Payton knew that he had been right, and Cassius had been wrong.

On the third night after Cassius had received the note, a thought took place in Payton’s mind as he tried to sleep. What if Cassius lost the fight after he had been forced to fast in the forest for three days? After all, his mentor was an amazingly strong knight. Plus, Sir Daley would be at full strength, unlike Cassius. There was no way he could win against him.

Payton held onto that thought throughout his training the next day, conveniently blocking all of the uncertainty that told him that his thoughts were unintelligent and unrealistic. After his training, he quickly realised that his uncertainty was founded – Cassius had succeeded.

He didn’t even get to find out from Cassius. It was Sir Tilly who told him in the end. Cassius wasn’t even there; he was being knighted by the king.

And that was when the jealousy first set in.