I hate it here. I hate my family. Why couldn't I have been a Valorous? We're supposed to hate them because the dragons favored them and then Lord Valorous disappeared with their gift... I bet he went on an adventure! He went to save a town from the Night Knight Pugs Frydae or the Goddess Arkana! He's probably been trapped in a dungeon or under a spell for the last 400 years... one day he'll come back with the dragon's gift and I won't have to be afraid anymore. He'll save me and all the townspeople from my family and we'll go and stop the Drakaths, and the Frydae's, and the Darkspyre's. and the Duat's and all the fighting will finally be over....
***
Jaysun broke all my mixing bowls. Mother just looked at me with disappointment. How am I supposed to defend myself against him? I hate fighting. I hate hurting people. Jaysun loves it! "He's already broken three masks and he's two years younger than you!" I hate masks. I hate them! Mother and Father took us both down to the tomb so he could hang his masks and with every coffin we passed, Jaysun just bragged about how he would have even more broken masks than Great Great Great Grandma Ripley or ol' Grandpa Fredrick. It just creeps me out to go down there.....
***
Grandpa Walter said he would teach me about potions. If I can't fight with my fists, I can fight with my mind he said. "If you learn enough, you could be the 'danger"".
I don't want to be the danger... I want to be the one who bakes.
But maybe I can learn to make a potion to make Jaysun turn into a frog!
***
I took the last sweetroll and I made Jaysun mad... I didn't know he wanted it! I didn't mean to make him mad!
He took me to the center of the castle... to the old bricked up door... and he just put his hand on it and said he'd let it out. He'd let out the thing Great Grandma Ripley trapped and it would eat me.
I hate him.
***
I don't know why they even want me at war council meetings. I'd rather be baking or cleaning or painting or... anything! I guess Father still holds out hope that I'll discover my "inner warrior".
It's all just yelling back and forth. Jaysun wants to attack the Drakaths, the Duats, the Iadoas... just everyone! Mother and Father, for all their pride at his pile of broken masks, keep trying to advise caution... to get him to plan his attacks.
But Jaysun doesn't like to wait for his enemy to come to him.
***
Jaysun... he found something out in Deadlands.
It's a cape. Made of shadow.
He says it's made of his enemies souls. That with every soul he traps, he'll become even more powerful.
I'm scared for the Drakaths... for the Duats.... for the Darkspyres... for everyone.
***
Mother and Father are... gone. Jaysun was tried of waiting to take over and he... he devoured them.... I thought that his cape was going to take me too but... but he just laughed and I said that I was wasn't worth it... that he needed someone to bake his bread.
***
I remember what Grandpa Walter taught me. I remember the stories about Lord Valorous, I've heard about the bravery of Ash Alteon, of the horrors that Great Grandpa Ripley went through to take this castle and trap the evil inside it....
I can't... I can't kill him... but I can stop him. I can be brave... I can be the danger... I can stop Jaysun.
I have to.
***
Oh, by the Avatars... what's happened? How long have I been asleep for? A man in a hood pulled me from my tomb... My tomb!
There were shadowy figures around Jaysun's tomb... but all that was left was his mask surrounded by shadow. He should have been asleep! The potion worked on me.... Did... did his shadow cape devour him too?
The castle is in ruins... I managed to escape them and get to my room but... but whatever was trapped in center is out now. I can hear the screams....
They wanted me to show them the way out but they have the cape.... I can make a potion to forget.... then no one will ever find it. The Valtrith Clan will finally be buried.