Jonathan’s Journal – First Entry

Back when I was but a boy, maybe around fourteen or so, the biggest wonder in my life was how big our harvest would be by the end of each autumn. All of the crops were at the peak of their growth, each one ready to be plucked from the tilled soil. Me and my parents worked hard to thresh with our hoes, when the donkey would bring the plow back and forth through the wide fields. It was a simple life, back then, when the greatest concern was how much the empire’s men would take as their cut of our product.

Then, everything went downhill. It was particularly dry that day, and we had put away at least two winters worth of dry hay into the silo so our cows could survive the harsh winter. I don’t know whether it was some wayward ember, a lightning bolt that hit the wooden silo, or some other freak accident, but something smoldered in there. The fire roared as it climbed up, the whole thing going into these tall, fiendish flames, taking the whole silo onto the barn. At least the animals had a swift, painless end as the building drove them each into the dirt. Then, the fire spread across the field, right up to our house. Everything got caught in the flames, everything I had stocked up, each measly coin I scavenged and saved from every odd job I had taken in town, gone. It all happened so quickly, so fast, I couldn’t even grab a single thing before my parents had wrenched me from my room before it had collapsed. Had I been a fool and stayed a little longer, odds are, this journal would not even have a word in it, or at least a word of mine.

It’s been at least two decades since that inferno, probably why I haven’t demonstrated my spark since that dreadful day. Lying dormant in my bones, no one even knew that I could produce it. Magic’s such a fickle thing, especially where I come from. My parents weren’t those who had produced a spark, so odds were I couldn’t. Besides, I was a farmer boy, and still arguably am, so not a single soul other than my parents and maybe the town’s apothecary would care about it. The only ones with a spark who mattered in the eye of basically anyone were that of nobles, or wealthy families that could afford the practically horde’s worth of money needed to send their kid to even a decent academy, and a small fortune for the pretty alright ones.

I think that’s why, only now, I have shown that spark. The nightmares that came with that terrible day kept it at bay. This journal was meant to help me cope with the bad events that came from way back when I was kid, but I see it can help me now understand my current situation. Funny how that works out, huh?

• Jonathan of Porux, 6th of Crux, 788