He was a mage. He had discovered it as a child.
At the age of eight he had realized he had abilities. By ten he could already use them, and he had shown everything to his mother — that he could control fire, that he could control wind, that he could move objects without touching them.
That memory stood out in his mind because it was the first time his mother had ever been truly angry with him.
She said she needed to talk to him. She asked whether he wanted to keep living with her for a long time, and told him that for that to happen he had to promise never to use those powers in front of other people.
She explained that people with such power were called mages, and that they were divided between nobles and knights. The nobles were the descendants of a divine people called the Fraisians, and the knights came from the mixing of that blood with humans.
Even so, she warned him not to use his powers. He had inherited his ability from his father, who had been a knight, and there were still many cruel nobles outside the village who treated knights like slaves. For that reason nobody could ever discover that he was a mage. She made him promise to keep it a secret.
Eight years passed.
Turan was grown now, and he had kept the promise he made to his mother, with no intention of revealing his powers and no intention of leaving the hill where he lived.
The next morning, people banged aggressively on his door.
The villagers accused him of having killed Harambert. They called him shameless for not even trying to deny it. He had injured the old man, they said, and left him there to be devoured by the monster.
Turan answered calmly. It made sense for them to think that way, he said, since the oldest man in the village had died alone while the youngest also lived in isolation, and blaming someone like him was the easiest way to ease everyone's conscience. Then he asked who it was, exactly, who had sent the old man up the hill to talk to him in the first place.
One of the men lunged at him and tried to punch him. Turan dodged it easily, thinking as he moved how convenient magic was in moments like this, and retaliated at once with a headbutt.
For him it was enough to strongly wish for something to happen, as long as it consumed mana. So, almost whispering, he wished for one of the men to fall and drop his weapon, while dodging the swing of a club that came next.
He did not need to do anything flashy. There was no need to start a fire, no need for anything excessive. A small spark was enough — something subtle enough not to raise suspicion, and also not enough to kill anyone.
And so he fought the villagers using their own clubs, dodging, disarming them, even making them hit their own heads. For eight years he had lived like that, using these methods to hide the fact that he was a mage.
After knocking all of them down, he remarked that they should spend that energy on Harambert's funeral instead. Then he looked past them at the women standing further back and asked whether they had also come to fight.
They said they had not. They had only wanted to see how he was doing.
"Then take these idiots away," he told them.
When he went back inside, he thought that this would only create more trouble in the village, the way it always did, and that they would probably use it as an excuse to cheat him at the next trade. But he was used to that. He just had to push until he got a fair deal.
He imagined that after a beating like that they would take a while to come back. But soon enough someone knocked on the door again.
He opened it already irritated, expecting the same people. Instead he found a completely different man standing there.
The stranger introduced himself as a traveler, and Turan apologized for the way he had opened the door, explaining that he had just finished dealing with some unwelcome visitors. He remembered the manners his mother had taught him, though he admitted to himself that he did not always manage to apply them properly.
He had never met anyone from outside the village before. He noticed quickly that the man carried a sword, which was something unusual here. Even so, he invited the traveler inside, and asked whether he was looking for an inn.
Later, with food already served, Turan commented that he did not have much to offer.
The traveler said it was more than enough, and was surprised to learn that Turan had never once left the village.
Turan confirmed it. He had been born and raised here, and had lived as a shepherd all his life.
But the man had noticed that he had good manners, and assumed his parents must have taught him well.
Turan explained that he had learned everything from his mother, who had died a few years earlier from an illness.
The traveler made a respectful gesture, and thanked him for the food and the lodging.