The Immortal / Fourth Wing

Chapter Two

POV: The Immortal

The city of Basgiath was bustling with energy and countless voices. I pushed myself through the crowd and towards the center of the lively city. Basgiath was one of the biggest cities in Navarre and was well known for its Basgiath War College. I would know since I helped building it some time ago.

Tomorrow would be a very important day for all twenty-year-olds in the country. I believe they call it "Conscription Day". I had absolutely no idea when they started doing that, but I guessed it was around a few centuries ago. I couldnt keep track of everything, okay?

On Conscription Day, thousands of twenty-year-olds were waiting outside the gate to enter their chosen quadrant for service. There were four quadrats in total if I remembered correctly. There was the Healer Quadrant, the Infantry Quadrant and the Scribe Quadrant, my personal favorite. And then there was the Riders Quadrant. I've visited the Basgiath War College many times over the years, every time under a different name but I've never been interested in the Riders Quadrant. Riders were considered the elite of Navarre. That's why hundreds of teenagers were preparing themselves for it. The challenges were difficult and very deadly. Not everyone survived. Some considered it a game. A sadistic game where they killed and killed until theyve reached their goal.

I've been a total of five times in the Riders Quadrant. Every time it was to support a dear friend who had set it in their head to kill themself. And every single time they survived. I didn't.

Well kind of. I normally died because I was "reckless" and got myself "killed" because I wanted to prove myself. I never died of course, but it was easier to play dead than to explain somebody that I've been walking the continent for eons.

That brings me to my most important rule. Well second most important. The first one was to never reveal myself or show who I was. The second one was to not get attached. It was not like I didn't like humans. I liked them. Most of the time. But time had taught me mortality and the pain that came with it. I had to learn it the hard way. Baghira. My dear child.

It was weird for somebody to say or even think that who looked like he was in his mid-twenties.

Coming back to any kind of socialization was weird. Ive kept my distance from any humans or dragons for the last I didnt-know-how-many centuries. I spent my time in isolation, in a small hut on an island next to the Cygnisen Province. Nobody came there because you would have to cross the wild Emerald Sea und the living conditions on the island were spare to say the least. It took me almost seven months to get here by foot. Was it unnecessarily long? Yes. But I wanted to see what had changed in the time I wasnt here.

I was alone on that island. Apart from some birds of Course, but I don't think that I'll be eating fish anymore in the next few centuries. The taste is like a phantom pain in my mouth. Let's hope that that will pass.

Back to the city. Because it was the day before Conscription Day, it felt like almost everyone in Navarre was here in the city.

There were so many voices all at once that it was hard to focus on one. Especially for someone who hadn't seen so many humans all at once in a while.

It was overwhelming but I fought myself through the crowd. I stood out among the other people here because I towered over them like a stature, completely covered by a beige cloak with a hood that threw my face into shadow.

One of the reasons I liked the Scribe Quadrant so much was the ease with which everything was processed. And it was very interesting and funny to read the rare stories over The Nomad. I especially like when they tried to describe me. I had to rip out a page two times in my years, because the description was a little too close. But I didn't have any worries now.