B008P7JX7Q EBOK by Usman Ijaz Page A

practice,” Owain growled, turning in his
saddle to give them all a cold stare.
    “He must not have any children at all,” Connor muttered.
     “On the contrary,” said Alexis. “He has
several.”
    “And Hamar?”
    “Two small boys.”
    “And I can only pray that they don’t grow up to
be half as annoying as you two,” Hamar called back over his shoulder.
    “How long was yourtraining?” Connor
asked Alexis. It was more than curiosity Adrian heard in his cousin’s voice;
Connor really did want to know.
    “A few years.”
    “How old were you when you went to Grandal?”
    “I was sixteen.”
    “What was it like?”
    “It was hard and grueling. Why all the
questions, Connor? Do you wish to join the Legion yourself?”
    Connor shrugged. “Maybe.”
    Adrian stared at his cousin in stunned silence,
though he didn’t know why he should be surprised. Connor had always held
Legionnaires in high respect, and had at times said he wanted to be one, but
when he’d said these things it had been with the air of one who knows that it’s
nothing but a whimsical dream. Perhaps now that he was in the company of actual
Legionnaires, the dream was beginning to seem more plausible.
    They rode in silence for a mile. Alexis began
whistling, a bright and lively tune that carried Adrian’s mind across the
plains. He thought of what his uncle had told him of his parents, and wished
that he could have met them, even if only for a moment. He shouldn’t have to
remember his mother as he had seen her in his dreams; no one deserved to
remember another in such a state.
    “Stop that infernal noise!” Owain called over
his shoulder.
    Alexis stopped his whistling with a smile. “Is
something the matter, Adrian?” he asked.
    Adrian looked at him, awakened from his
thoughts. “No, simply thinking.”
    “About?”
    Adrian thought on whether or not he should
discuss the run of his mind, then decided that it couldn’t hurt. “Alexis, why
did the Ascillians die? Why did the people hate them so?”
    Alexis sighed and looked to the Legionnaires at
the front, as though expecting them to answer. They remained silent. At last he
said, “The people were scared. They are still scared.”
    “But of what? It’s hard to believe that they
killed them all out of fear.”
    “Ignorance is more like it,” Alexis muttered.
“Nero despised the Ascillians. He saw their powers as an insult to Lycios, the
God of the east. He loathed them, and he was never known to be completely sane.
I read that he once led his army down to the beach and had them spend the
afternoon picking seashells for him. He inspired in everyone around him the
same hatred for the Ascillians that he shared. They were used as scapegoats.
Whenever there were crop failures or disasters of any kind, they were the first
to be put the blame upon. They were blamed for starting wars that they had
nothing to do with, for diseases that spread throughout the land. Do you begin
to understand?” Adrian nodded.
    “The people ... they knew that the Ascillians
possessed odd abilities, but beyond that they knew nothing of them. They were a
mystery to the rest of the world,” explained Alexis. “The Ascillians had a
capital of their own, called Asgar, but now all that is said to remain of it is
a burned ruin. The people were already reeling close to madness in those days,
but the Mad Emperor started the true slaughter. He pushed his countries into
civil wars that lasted for over a decade, all because his hate fueled him and
blinded him. He couldn‘t see that he was literally tearing his empire apart.”
    “Didn’t the Ascillians try to fight back
though?” asked Adrian.
    “They fought back when they realized that what
they were facing was more than a misunderstanding. But they were outnumbered
from the beginning,” Alexis said sadly. “You have to understand that the
Ascillians were a small race to begin with. Nero had his armies searching every
town and city within his Empire, killing