⚔ Maiden ⚔

[Maiden]

⚔ MAIDEN ⚔
PROLOGUE

   When Léandre Chastain emerged from his mother's womb, he did so with such a tumultuous fuss, that his father was shortly thereafter rendered a widower.
   It was here that a deep resentment took root, for a moment ago, Aldric Chastain held his beloved wife in his arms. Now, he held a beastly likeness of himself. The babe's skin bore a sickly green-grey pallor, and its jaw was wide-set in preparation for the monstrous tusks that would eventually sprout forth. Aldric may have felt some semblance of love, had this creature not stolen away the only thing that had ever held him dear.
   In spite of his upset, he bestowed the babe the name his wife had chosen: Léandre, or 'lion' in the common tongue. Aldric wondered if this name was foretelling. Would the child endeavour along a chaotic path, preying on the weak to sate inherent bloodlust? Aldric himself had been possessed by violent urges and a biting anger at times. It was a mark of discipline that he did not indulge them. He prayed to Oghma that Léandre had not been born simple.
   As it were, the majority of half-orcs in Suzail fell in with the street gangs and the smugglers that worked out of the lower district's shebeens. It would be only too easy for this child to join them when he sprouted into manhood, tempted by wealth and lacking other avenues on the part of his fearsome visage.
   Aldric made up his mind to raise the child by hand, cane, and a stern tone. He hoped it would be enough to reign the beast of blood.

   Though he would never know it, Aldric Chastain could not have been more wrong about his son.