The Final Hero: Chapter 5

“A Man Named”

SAI, HIS SIBLINGS, AND HIS MOM WERE ALL AWAKE as the sun crested the horizon. They gathered on a pillar several bridges away from theirs, standing in a crowd encircling Theo. Sai’s younger brother stood at the center, face turned toward the sky, with his eyes closed.

A tall, willowy man—Oran, his name was—stood beside Theo with a long alester branch, broken at the base but still flowering at the tip. A faint howling whistled from the spidery leaves still clinging to the twig. The officiant held it aloft in one hand as his long, brown and grey robes flapped in the wind. He read from a thick, weathered book in his other hand.

“This day marks two revolutions of Theo Varion’s apprenticeship amongst our many paths, and he will from this point on dedicate himself to one. He has proven his mettle by walking each path diligently, as our forefathers did before and as our descendants will do after us. With Theo’s choice, he will join the many and bind himself to their fate. He will become one of us, one of the chosen.”

Oran turned to Theo, swept threads of gray hair from his face, and rested the branch on Theo’s left shoulder. He whispered some words to him, smiled wryly, and turned to the crowd. “As one of the chosen, he will take a new True Name, casting off the one of his childhood and taking on a new mantle, one of a man. Who will come forth to name him?”

Sai’s heart skipped only a beat before Theo straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. “My father has already given me a new Name. I choose to accept it now, and bind it in wood.”

A shout came from the crowd. It was Tharon. “He can’t—” spluttered the reza, stepping forward, then hesitated when he realized all eyes were on him. “You…he can’t, can he? Kai—it doesn’t work that way!”

Oran stared at Tharon in alarm, then swiveled back to Theo. The officiant collected himself. “It is not unheard of, my reza, for a Name to be set in place beforehand. Eager parents have come to me years in advance, intent on solidifying the name as soon as they see it blossom in their child. I see no harm in allowing this.”

Tharon bristled but straightened his coat and nodded. “Fine.”

The officiator continued the ceremony and brought his ear close to Theo. “What Name did he give you, boy?”

Theo spoke it too quietly for anyone to hear. Oran leaned back with a brow raised. “Your father chose well.” Then he raised his voice to a shout, proclaiming his next words over the crowd. “Theo Varion, you step into a new season with your True Name—a man’s Name—and join the Chosen of Rakuken with all of your ancestors.” Oran lifted the branch, crossed it over Theo’s head, and laid it to rest on Theo’s opposite shoulder.

The crowd cheered. Sai’s sisters and mother raised their hands and clapped, while Sai was less enthusiastic. Theo, out of the full crowd, was staring at Sai; Sai stared back and nodded. His brother didn’t react.

When the cheering died down, Oran gestured to the five people who stepped up from the crowd, all bearing an item. Lev’s father, on the left, held a gilded bag like Sai’s for Advancement, and beside him, another held a blank leather-bound book for Academics. A woman on the right held a flapping green banner for Leadership, and further to the right, a man carried an iron-shod bow for Stewarding. The final figure, standing in the middle of the five, was a young woman with jet black hair dressed in iron-shod leather armor. Jal planted a long steel halberd before herself and grinned, representing Defense, and by extension, the Wargraves.

There was a small moment where Sai doubted if he had predicted correctly. He wondered if Theo might step toward the path of Academics and become the scholar he had always admired. But instead, Theo met Jal’s eyes. He stepped forward and grabbed the pole of the halberd right above Jal’s hand. “I claim my place in the Wargraves.”

Jal beamed and raised both the halberd and her voice. “We accept Theo Varion into our ranks!”

The crowd sent up another cheer as Jal let him take the weapon. Theo tested the balance, then gave a crisp salute with halberd crossed in front of him. Jal saluted back, fist over her heart, and grinned furiously. “It is good of you to join us,” she said to Theo.

Sai stopped watching then. Jealousy bit at the fringes in Sai’s heart, seeing Theo hold the halberd. Seeing his brother succeed where Sai had failed. It wasn’t that he disliked his position in the ranks of Advancement, but his heart had yearned for the Wargraves. Still did, if he were honest. They were their protectors, and it was what Kai had chosen when he was their age.

Before he started leaving Rakuken, of course.

Feeling foolish, he slipped a hand back to touch the box over his shoulder and pulled the red threads into view again. Most did not point ahead of him this time; they curved to either side, away from the circle, away from Theo. Like they were trying to run away from this whole situation. Sai frowned and searched for the little white thread. He found it snaking through the crowd, off the ceremonial dais they stood on, then down to the bridge leading off the pillar. No matter where he was, it always led off Rakuken and onto the mountain. He squinted but couldn’t see where it went after that.

Standing there, listening to congratulations lift from the crowd at Theo’s success, one piece of the solution dawned on Sai. Everything about this box, its composition, its strange relic-like abilities, and even the white thread all screamed at him to leave Rakuken. He wouldn’t find answers here. He couldn’t find answers here. Kai’s words came back to him then: There are some things you cannot accomplish in comfort. Sai stared at the white thread as a cold shiver danced in his legs. Dad said that the time will come when I have to leave. He saw Theo holding the halberd, newly inducted into the Wargraves, who protected Rakuken from all threats posed to their isolation.

He can protect them now. Dad knew that he was going to make it into the Wargraves. He even prepared a Name for him. I only needed to wait a little bit. Then… Something akin to excitement bounded in, sending a shiver up Sai’s arms. Dad wants me to follow him. I need…to leave home and follow him across the sea. Sai stared at the ground, shocked, as the crowd dispersed around him. Dad always leaves for the Alliance. Maybe it’s my turn.

“The future is never as far away as we think,” he had said.

Hanako and Mirai congratulated Theo, examined his new weapon, and greeted Jal, who had stayed behind to talk with them. Mom hugged Theo, pulling him close and whispering a quiet congratulations, and then there were only the two of them. Selene spoke to Jal, the two of them grinning and casting glances at Theo while Mirai and Hanako spoke in frantic whispers about Mirai’s apprenticeships, which were soon to begin.

Theo stood on his own, supporting himself with the halberd, and looked coldly at Sai. Breathe in, breathe out, Sai reminded himself. He couldn’t place the feelings raging through his chest; were they anger? Excitement? Confusion?

“I knew you’d make it in, Theo,” Sai said, after a time.

Theo just looked at him. Sai tried to find something else to say, but he could not. So he stared holes into the ground, sighed, then looked at Theo’s halberd. Theo held it close to him, couched comfortably in the crook of his elbow, and scowled. “If that is all, I must report for my initiate crest.” He jerked his head at Jal. She said a quick goodbye to Mom and followed after him.

Sai didn’t watch them leave. His mother, on the other hand, followed the other pair with her eyes until they were out of sight. “I know it’s hard to talk to him right now. He’s angry; so are you. But time heals many things, and if you keep reaching out to him—keep showing that you are willing to put your anger aside—you give him everything he needs to put his down, too.”

What was there to say? Sai rubbed his arm and nodded. “Okay.” He will do a much better job than I did. He can protect the family now. I…am not needed. Sai straightened his shoulders and tried to convince himself that, if he was right, an offer to join his dad on a trip across the ocean was a greater honor than joining the Wargraves.

He had a hard time at it.

 

The first thing Sai did when he got home was start packing. Since the ceremony, a nervous fervor had come over him any time he thought about the box or Rakuken. There were so many things to prepare, people to say goodbye to, and paths to consider that he could hardly think of anything else.

He set the box in his room and took up the bag given to him when he joined the path of Advancement after his own Naming Ceremony. It stung a little, holding it rather than a halberd, but Sai couldn’t change the past. He could only forge the future. He stuffed his whittling knife, several small pieces of wood, and his windpipes into the bag from his room. After a moment’s consideration, he also strung his aging hunting bow to the side of the bag along with ten arrows, lashed to the bag with Mirai’s broken bowstring, which he found in his pocket. He rolled the thing between his fingers before continuing, gathering his flint and steel and a bedroll. The bag was already getting full, but he wasn’t done yet.

Kai’s study was on the far end of the house. It was a small room furnished with a writing desk, bookshelf, and weapons stand holding daggers, polearms, and their father’s 100-pound draw longbow. Large maps sprawled the mahogany walls, detailing the layout of Rakuken first in sharp detail, kept up to date with fresh black ink marked by his father’s hand. The other maps showed the larger Windy Mountain, then all of East Tiereth and some of the West. Sai knew these well enough, remembering his father marking out the borders of their world with his finger, then showing Sai the matching places on the mountain from up on his shoulders on one of the taller pillars in Rakuken.

He smiled at the memory. But Sai’s focus was not on these; he could follow a straight line down the mountain and to the ship port at the base. Eastern and western travel was not as simple as Treeward or Rootward—with those, your heading was obvious—but he assumed the Windy Mountain would not be too difficult.

Instead, Sai dug at the nails keeping a smaller, older map in place: one of Carlen. After the ceremony, he followed the white thread until it leaped from the mountain and traveled east. It seemed to provide the straightest path to its destination, so that must mean that his father, also, had traveled east.

Rarely did he know where Kai went exactly, but Sai had heard stories of the flat, sprawling Carlen and its countless rivers. He wasn’t sure how he’d get there, exactly, but it was the first country past East Tiereth, and he knew his father had gone there before.

Nails shimmied out under his scrabbling fingers, and soon he had the whole map laid diagonally on the desk and tried to roll it up. How he would fit the rolled-up map into his bag without crushing it was beyond him, but this was his best shot at navigating the foreign country, in case it came to that.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Sai froze, keenly aware of how rash all his actions might seem. Frantic, he swept the half-rolled map from the table, dumped it into his father’s reading chair, and stood in front of it pretending to stare at bookshelves.

Mirai entered and slowed upon seeing Sai. “Hey,” she said quietly. There was a droop to her shoulders and a weight in her voice. She glanced slowly around the room. “I hate that he’s gone, too.”

Sai nodded and kept his eyes on the bookshelves. Panic mixed with a very real longing in his chest. That’s why I have to follow him, he thought. I can’t stay here anymore.

Mirai strode to one of the bookshelves and ran her finger across meticulously dusted books. “But it’s like you said, last time.” A smile crept onto her face. “We just have to keep walking. Mom’s here. Hanako is here. Dad’s not, but so what? We have our own lives. Tomorrow won’t wait forever.”

Sai’s shoulders dropped. He wanted to blurt out everything and tell Mirai his plan. But he knew she’d try and stop him. Or worse, ask to go with him. Instead, he leaned back against Kai’s desk and sighed. “That’s all we can do,” he responded. “And if things change, we change with them.” Mirai grinned; that was one of her phrases.

“Yeah.” She plucked a book from the shelf, inspected the cover—it was about the Stewardship path and each member’s duties—and tucked it under her arm. “Thanks.”

Before she left, Sai called out to her. “We should go hunting soon. Lev wants to replace all the windmill central shafts in the northern district with a new design, but I should have some time after the Skylit Waters.” He did mental gymnastics and hoped his trip wouldn’t take that long—the festival was nearly five span away. “Let’s go, before it gets too cold.”

Mirai smiled back at him. “It’s a deal. No skewering this time?”

The ground fell from under Sai for just a moment, then he recovered and nodded. “Right.”

Mirai left. Sai exhaled and rested both hands flat on the desk. Then, slower this time, he took to the map and stuffed it into his bag.

 

He waited until the kitchen was empty to gather a bundle of dried strips of bren meat, two loaves of hearty, flour & molasses Rakuken bread, four stalks of dense yalken for chewing on the road, a small sack of whiteberries, and a skin of water. Sai filled it with a short trip to the well just down the road and returned to find Hanako pacing around the entryway. She perked up when he came inside. “Have you seen Theo?”

Sai shook his head and took a nervous sip from his water skin. “Did you check the training room?”

“Yeah. He’s not in the back, either. I wanted to give him his book, the one we got for him yesterday. But I haven’t been able to find him.”

“He’s around here somewhere,” said Sai, walking into the kitchen. “Probably out with Jal celebrating his new path.”

Hanako folded her arms and pouted. “I don’t like her. She and Theo spend too much time together.” Her violet eyes narrowed.

“He’s excited. I would be, too. You’ll see when you choose your path.”

The comment didn’t seem to faze Hanako as she slipped into one of the chairs by the dining room table. She craned her neck over the table and scrutinized a paper strewn out before her. It looked like a letter of some sort. “What’s that?” Sai asked, approaching the table.

“A letter to Dad,” she said plainly, then stuck out her tongue in concentration and kept writing. “I’m going to send it on a boat so Dad can read it.”

Sai placed a hand on the back of her chair and smiled down at it. When he tried to read what it said, she covered it with her arm and scowled in a way that was not at all intimidating, though she no doubt meant it as so. “Don’t! It’s a secret.”

Sai laughed. “I can deliver it to the Trade district, if you want.” I have enough space in my bag. That letter would never reach Dad on its own.

Hanako’s face lit up, and she eagerly returned to working on the letter. “Okay!”

Sai sought out his mother. She was on the back patio where Mirai had been two days before, whittling away at a long walking stick. Sai paused at the threshold, looking at it, wondering in shock whether she had already figured out that he was leaving and planned to give it to him.

But when she stopped and smiled up at him, he saw no recognition in her eyes. “Come, sit beside me.”

Sai carefully walked up and sat down. Of all the people in their family, even including Theo’s sharp wit and Mirai’s keen eyes, his mother was the most likely to notice that something was amiss. He fidgeted with his bag, knowing that within were the tools he was going to use to leave home.

His mom was slowly, slowly carving strips from the stick, taking care of each bend and stripe to ensure it was perfect. Theo had inherited some of her perfectionism, but his mother still reigned superior. After a stretch of silence, she said, “How are you feeling?”

“Scared,” was his immediate response.

Selene smiled and turned the stick in her hands, approaching it from another angle. “Scared of the future, not your brother, I hope.”

“Maybe a little of both.”

“You’re on your way. All of you are. And the stumbles are beautiful, because they make us who we are.”

Sai crossed his hands in his lap. He didn’t know how to do this, how to say this. Even now, his mind warred within him over whether he should tell his mother or not. He knew that if he told her, she would stop him. So he couldn’t.

But so much of him wanted to tell her and ask for her advice. He found a different way.

“I feel like I’m stuck, Mom. Like…everyone else is growing and I’m not. What…how else am I supposed to learn, then to try something new?”

“New things are good. They teach us more about ourselves and the world. But don’t leave the good things behind in pursuit of something new.” She put down the walking staff and wrapped her arms around Sai. “Keep going. Keep walking. Your pursuit is just as worthy as your brother’s.”

Sai held her back and began to sob.

And that was chapter 5! I actually ended up splitting chapter 5 into two, so the last chapter you'll get on here is chapter 6, where Sai makes his final preparations to leave Rakuken and follow his father to the Alliance. Of all of Part 1, chapter 6 has one of my favorite moments in it. You can read it here!

From then on, you'll get short stories, snippets from other Hearth stories (I have a full book written several thousand years prior to The Final Hero!), and perhaps some articles.

Thank you for reading!