To me, the moon is my sun. Once the fangs of the great light retracted themselves, I roused from my slumber to… live, perhaps?

I listened as the sounds of life died down in the town of Stormvale before I stood at the front of an old tavern where I had settled in. A few men had joined me in this twilight, drifting into intoxication with the alcohol they had downed hours ago. Their raucous revelry filled those narrow streets, intruding on the silence I carried within.

Ah, if only I had the willpower to abandon myself to indulgence like they did so openly. However, it was unbefitting of me, and it was certainly unbefitting of my noble house.

Alexander Stormbourne. That’s the name my father gave me sixteen years ago, and he never missed a chance to use it in full.

Every. Single. Time.

He was a man of tradition, always harping on about proper values and the importance of doing things the “right” way. A perfectionist to his core. He believed names carried weight, that they were symbols of heritage and meaning, not to be truncated or abbreviated into something “casual.”

Well, that was his view. Most people just went with “Alex.” Whether it was out of convenience or because they couldn’t be bothered, I would never know. After all, names evolved over time, and practicality often won over tradition.

But honestly, I didn’t care. It was all about what people thought of me. Some opinions were decent. Others? Not so much. Most just didn’t think I was worth their time or kept their distance to avoid getting too near. And it wasn’t because I had some contagious disease or anything like that. No, it was just the lousy timing of my birth.

So here’s my story.

Born when the moon eclipsed the sun, most of my father’s inner circle believed my birth was a bad omen. They even suggested, with barely concealed fear, that I might one day bring about the downfall of my father’s rule.

Can you imagine that? What a wild superstition to pin on an innocent newborn. It feels like they had been scrambling for any excuse to project their anxieties onto someone, and unfortunately, I was that someone.

It wasn’t until I was eleven that my brother, Alistair, pulled me aside and gave me the whole rundown. He was a year older, so I figured he had the edge on these things. He looked me straight in the eye and said it wasn’t about the moon blocking out the sun or some fat cow jumping over the moon. It was way simpler. It was all because I was the fourth child in the family and the curse that came with it.

The second my brother started to explain why I was cursed, his expression changed completely. He resembled a deer caught in a hunter’s sights. Worried about being overheard, he lowered his voice to a whisper. The two of us hunched down, although, ironically, we were alone in our huge family library.

According to Alistair, this whole superstition wasn’t just some random quirk. It was something deeply rooted in our family’s history.

It all started with our great-great-great-grandmother, who had this strange habit of favoring her fourth son for leadership. Why, you might ask? Alistair figured it was because the guy was, well, a pretty handsome dude.

But it didn’t take long before he ran the family into the ground. Mismanagement drained the coffers, and soon enough, debts piled up. Smaller territories, the vultures in waiting, caught wind of it, and before anyone knew it, they had swallowed up some of our lands. His little reign? Ended in a hurry.

The scandal brought a swift downfall to my great-great-great-grandmother once her journals were discovered. Stripped of her title, she was forced to live in a gilded cage, a bitter mockery of the privilege she once held dear.

The eldest son, my great-great-grandfather, was reinstated to restore order. As for the ill-fated fourth son, he was spared from execution but cast out, condemned to live far from the family’s affairs.

I guess my brother’s theory about his looks is right. It seems our gallows always spared the good-looking dudes’ necks.

Well, to be honest, the superstition didn’t bother me one bit. I mean, who has time to worry about some old curse, let alone obsess over it?

What really got on my nerves was my brother’s knack for spinning tales. He had this annoying talent for weaving just enough truth into his stories to make you question everything. But me? I wasn’t buying it for a second. I knew he was just trying to scare me off or keep me from questioning our eldest brother’s right to be the head of the family.

As soon as he finished his story, expecting me to be wide-eyed and spooked, I didn’t hesitate. I jumped from where I was sitting and knuckled him on the head while he was still bent over. He yelped and rubbed the spot where I’d landed the blow, his face twisting as if he’d just tasted something sour.

I stood there with my arms crossed while he demanded to know why I had done that. It was pretty obvious what his intentions were. His spectacles slid down his nose, and he looked up at me with that fake innocent expression of his, like he had no clue what I was talking about.

I wasn’t having it. I shot back, letting him know I knew exactly what kind of trick he was trying to pull. I leaned in and jabbed a finger at his chest, just to make sure he got the point. He needed to hear it loud and clear that I had no interest in becoming head of the family. I didn’t care about all that tradition nonsense, and I sure as hell didn’t want to become some Magic Swordsman either.

Here’s a quick Stormbourne family fact. The head of our house wields real, not metaphorical, power. Only those with a mana core can claim this title. Among the children of Marquess Lucian Stormbourne, my eldest brother Aiden and I were born with this exceptional gift. This tiny detail made both of us eligible to succeed our father when he either stepped down or, you know, passed on naturally, provided nothing fishy was going on.

Alistair, still nursing the blow, retorted adamantly. He directed my attention to the row of portraits lining the walls of the library. Each one bore the face of a former head of our family, immortalized in oils and pride. Our father’s portrait was among them, looking down with that ever-present Stormbourne dignity.

With a flourish, Alistair pointed his finger at an empty space on the wall and mentioned that it was where the ill-fated fourth son, Theodore’s portrait used to hang. He then turned to me, glowing with expectation. His eyes practically screamed, “Apologize. Admit defeat. Be humbled.”

But there was no way I was going to give him the satisfaction, not in the way he wanted. Instead, I decided to humor him in my own way. With a flick of my wrist, I delivered another solid knuckle to his head, this time a little harder.

I suggested that maybe ancestor Theodore just wasn’t having a good hair day. Maybe they couldn’t get a decent portrait of him, and that’s why it’s missing. Or perhaps the wall couldn’t handle how awful his haircut was, and the painting just gave up.

Before Alistair could even shake off the second blow, I spun on my heel and darted out of the room. His curses trailed after me, but I wasn’t about to stick around for them. He’d be waiting for the sun to rise in the west before I’d let him have the last word.

Anyway, life didn’t get easier as I grew older. It wasn’t because of the whispers behind my back, but because my responsibilities finally caught up with me. Remember when I said that I didn’t want to become a Magic Swordsman? That didn’t mean I could avoid my family’s tradition the way I had hoped.

I turned twelve that day. And for the next four years, those Stormbourne instructors didn’t cut me any slack. They had this grand plan to turn me into the next Aiden, or at least their version of him. It was an uphill struggle every single day, not just with the sword, but against the weight of my brother’s legacy.

Oh wow. Thank you, my amazingly gifted brother… Truly deserving of your talent.

Every time I didn’t measure up, I could feel the frustration welling up inside me. It would simmer under the surface, always waiting for the perfect moment to boil over. And when it did, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I’d snap at the instructor, my words spilling out before I could stop them. “Are you blind? I’m not Aiden!”

It bugs me whenever he’s brought up in comparison, but still, I can’t bring myself to hate Aiden for being talented. He’s an okay dude, really. I appreciate his philosophy when it comes to me. “You do your thing, and I’ll do mine.” It worked out well enough for both of us.

Before Aiden had stepped into Silverdome Academy, he was already a third-level swordsman, known as an Adept Magic Swordsman. By the time he graduated, he had advanced to fourth mastery, earning the title of Skilled Magic Swordsman. Just a few months ago, after turning twenty-one, he pushed himself even further to achieve the rank of Expert Magic Swordsman. While he didn’t surpass our father, who reached that level at seventeen, hey, who’s complaining? I still hadn’t even made it past the Novice stage.

Aiden was our people’s darling, our father’s pride, and pretty much everyone else’s too. He was the complete opposite of me. Swordsmanship and magic ran through his veins, and he genuinely cared about the region’s affairs. The folks at Stormbourne Estate and in our town, Stormvale, literally worshipped him. There’s even a rumor that my father might retire soon and name Aiden as his successor. I could totally see why my father couldn’t stop bragging to the house elders. Even the servants got an earful of his praise.

And me? Let’s just say ale and wine flowed through my veins like a never-ending tide. I was probably the youngest Stormbourne to start drinking at fourteen, no less.

“Hey, Alex! What’s gotten into you? Let’s make a toast.” A voice snapped me back into the present. I tilted my head to the guy sitting on my right. He had a face like a sick horse and was raising his tankard of ale.

“James is right, Alex. Why did you go silent suddenly?” Dean said, sitting opposite me. His nose always appeared to be running with snot when he got drunk, and tonight was no exception.

“Probably scared he won’t be able to drink when he gets into Silverdome,” grunted Craig with a grin. He was the biggest guy in our circle, with caterpillar eyebrows that made him look hilarious. “You know how those academies are. They’ll have you trading ale and wine for dusty old tomes.”

Dean, snickering at our banter, stopped to snort snot back up into his nostril. I cringed every time he did that, but it was hard to get mad when he was so unapologetically himself. He went back to laughing, filling the stale air of the crowded tavern as if he were all that and a bag of chips.

These were the three crazy dudes responsible for introducing me to the so-called wonders of drinking, always insisting that ale and wine could solve all my problems. I wasn’t so sure it did much for my self-doubt, though. My troubles always came rushing back once the buzz wore off, heavier than before, like a former lover who couldn’t seem to move on.

“As if!” I rose from my chair, lifting my tankard high above my head. “Here’s to the future me, the first person ever in Valoria to be awarded the title ‘The Drunken Swordsman.’”

The four of us raised our ales like fools, without shame or sense, charging headfirst into battle. Laughter joined the chorus, clinking mugs as the brew slid down our throats.

“Here’s to glory!” Craig roared, his caterpillar eyebrows dancing in glee.

“To epic failures!” Dean added, his booming laughter punctuated by the unsettling slurp of his nose.

“To forgetting all our troubles!” James chimed in, a lopsided grin spreading across his face.

With every swallow, the world blurred. For that brief instant, I felt like I could take on anything, even the weight of my own doubts.

“And this is for calling yourself the Drunken Swordsman!” A wine bottle came hurling through the air from a man sitting alone at the far end of the tavern. It connected with my head with a dull thud, and just like that, everything went black.

So, that’s the gist of my story so far, as best as I can recall it. Little did I know that the next day, I would cross paths with a mysterious old man who would turn everything I thought I knew about myself and the world, let’s say, upside down.