Marked out, and cursed under his breath. He ran a finger on his left arm to trace the charcoal black tattoo of a Celtic dragon on the ugly scar which marked him for the rest of his life. His smoky brown-stained t-shirt wet with both rain and sweat clung to his body, outlining fine bones and toned muscles. With the baggy army-green
cargo pants, he looked like a young mercenary who lost his way to the encampment while the taupe-burnt FILA slung over his shoulder implied another story.

Out here, the moonlight softly infiltrated the leaves of pines and the thin mist that drifted everywhere making it impossible to see his way down the old forgotten dirt road which ran deep into the forest leading to the heart of a valley, which for the old-timers was more of a mirage than ruins of what had once flourished. The rain left something in the air and he could almost taste it the way he could hear the soil and the pines whispering the testimonies they had silently carried for so many years. And like how imminent danger waved itself like a red flag…

He momentarily stopped on his track then pulled himself stealthily between the hollows of the pine and with trained eyes, he scanned the shadows around the low thorny hedges ahead of him… listening and waiting… The kind of silence that spelled out the same danger and fear when he was in a small Afghanistan village. 

An owl hooted. He released a sigh of relief then went on his tedious journey. It took him another half an hour to reach the mossy boulder which he masterfully climbed. On top, he could see the misty blanket sweeping the valley. Beyond the plateau where he was, the moon peered above the canyon walls; and far across on the lower hill, he can see the square house shining like a lantern with lights beaming in every window.

He shut his eyes tightly as tears burned in the corners of his eyes to tame the surge of rage and bitterness inside him then like a solitary ember thrown out of the furnace, it began to cool and seethed with unmovable coldness.

What had just happened only proved that certain powerful currents invisibly bound them altogether not only to the ideals envisioned by the brotherhood but also to the same fate of those who had gone before them under the blood of the broken covenant. No matter how much he had painfully tried to evade the birthright of the firstborn son, he always ended up aberrantly compromising his own life and happiness for a myth he had always wanted to shatter. But tonight, the wind blew differently. It pierced a wound in his being which met the wounds of his brothers that were all contained in the wound of an ancient brotherhood.

From afar, a lone wolf howled to the moon. Its deep unearthly bellow echoed over the canyon walls to the hills and plateaus and all throughout the misty village then farther still to where the cypresses grew and where an angel knelt over the grave, blending with a silent language of the natural world… weaving piece by piece of a secret that was left only to the earth and the sky, to the wind and the sea…