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They called themselves the Gaatlok, and they were the first Qunari Ketojan had ever seen aside from his parents. None of them looked happy to have the little family and their not so little herd of sheep invade the camp full of mercenaries.
Ketojan curled his fingers into the wool of the ram he was riding and stayed quiet.
“The boy has magic,” Dad was saying, “the basvaarad tried to kill him rather than take him to the Circle. Do you have anyone who can teach him?”
Mom looked nervous around the Gaatlok but she managed a warm smile for her son when Ketojan caught her eye. Ketojan wanted to hide, Mom loved the little house they’d left behind, she’d filled it with flowers and empty jars and discarded bird feathers and all sorts of ‘completely unnecessary, wonderful things’ all of it got left behind except for the piece of obsidian that looked like a dragon claw Ketojan had stuck in his pocket.
Eventually their leader nodded and waved forward a tall, whip-thin Qunari. His horns had been cut, not broken like Dad’s and wide, dark eyes that stared far past Ketojan. “We don’t do charity,” the leader said, “the boy will work off his training.”
“Not until he’s of age,” Dad insisted.
The leader held out his hand to shake and Dad took it. The thin Qunari surged forward in a blink and snatched Ketojan by the arm pulling him from the startled ram. He yelped and fire burst from his hands but the Qunari did not let go, “You will come with me,” he ordered.
His parents were yelling but the Gaatlok remained unmoved, “Saarebas will train the boy, but I’ll not have it in my camp, and he will not be disturbed.” Mom wailed, Dad bellowed.
Saarebas shattered a nearby pine tree and spoke calmly into the silence. “The boy will visit when I feel he is safe enough, he will return to me when I feel he has stayed enough. A weapon must be properly honed.”
“When will we see him again?” Dad demanded.
“When he is safe enough.”
Dad snarled.
“But it will be before his training is done?” Mom asked.
“Yes.”
She darted forward to hug Ketojan fiercely, “Train hard, come back to us, imekari. We’ll be waiting for you, right here.”
Dad rubbed his growing horns for luck, ducking to whisper, “You are stronger than him. He may seem a mountain, but you are the tides. Let him train you, but never change you.”
Hot tears were running down Ketojan’s face, “Mom, Dad…” He didn’t want to go with Saarebas, he was scary, he didn’t like the Gaatlok they frightened his mother and made his father twitch for the war hammer he’d stolen from the dead Templars.
But the whispers in his dreams were louder now, the campfire the other night turned into a burning pillar taller than his father, he’d called lighting down on a sheep that knocked him over and the frightened ewe had nearly started a stampede.
His magic hadn’t done that before the Templars came. But it wasn’t stopping either, just getting worse. Saarebas could help, would help, and then Ketojan could go home.
Saarebas dragged him away from the Gaatlok camp, unwilling to move slowly enough to let him walk. Ketojan waved frantically at his parents, snot joining the tears as he called his goodbyes and promises to see them as soon as he could.
Three and a half years later, Saarebas permitted a visit.