He’d been a disappointment to his father since he was small. His father was a farmer, like his father before, and a farmer’s blood flowed in Jessum’s veins. Yet, he’d once planted a field in barley instead of wheat, invariably before he finished plowing, he’d wandered into the woods, find a branch, hack off the shoots, and pretend it was a sword.  There, in the forest, he’d battle trees.

            His father beat him. “We are farmers. We’re not allowed arms.”

            He hadn’t been able to curb his impulses, though, and his father had given up. For the last few years, a careful distance had existed between them. 

            Then Euli had called.

            Euli, with his blind eyes and strange gifts, who’d gathered the young around the fire and laid a hand on each.  When he’d put a hand on Jessum’s head, he’d nearly convulsed, then spoke in a voice not quite his own. “In eye of storm, King’s Blood will lead. The Shining Road is what you seek.” 

            Jessum’s heart began beating wildly at the mention of King’s blood. Once he’d heard his father say a strange thing, “I’ll raise him as my own.” Though he hadn’t heard his mother’s reply, he’d always wondered if he’d been a foundling his mother, kindhearted to a fault, had brought in. Of his two brothers and three sisters, none had russet hair. And all could farm; even Sheena, the youngest, planted seed in neat rows.

It was no matter.  He’d believed Euli then. Now he believed in nothing except . . . Storms. This one was going to be a beauty, might well wipe Casoria off the map. The wind was rising to new heights, twisting, causing trees to bend and buckets to meet and clang in the air. What he’d thought was a human howl a bit ago was more likely a water sprite, wailing at a crumbled well.

He had to stay and watch, even if he had to swim out. 

The streaks in the sky were darker now.  Soon, purple lightening would rip everything apart.