When Colin woke up, Kiran still hadn't returned. The two brothers had been left alone to tend to the family farm since their parents had perished from the Scarlet Pox a few years earlier.
Kiran had become obsessed with restoring their family's name. Records indicated that the family had once been noble before their lands and titles were stripped by some long-forgotten noble in response to a long-forgotten slight from one of their long-forgotten ancestors. Kiran had taken money they desperately needed to fit armor, retain hirelings, and provision a series of poorly-conceived escapades intended to win the favor of the nobles or even the king himself.
Colin dressed himself in rough homespun clothes the same grey as the mud outside. He started the day's chores, bringing food to the pigs. He slipped in the mud and a heavy pail of water crashed into his knee as he caught himself.
Colin closed his eyes and ground his teeth. He muttered an incoherent curse to his absent brother, to the pigs, to the mud, and to his whole life. He put down the pail to rub his tender knee and collect himself. That's when he spotted a spot of bright yellow on the horizon.
Colin watched the yellow as it slowly grew. He could barely make out a figure on horseback displaying a yellow banner. Colin was sure the figure was headed for his farm.
Colin found his farmhand, Godrich, and told him to hide his daughter Yelena. He told him about the rider approaching flying the king's yellow. Colin wanted to be welcoming, in case this was an agent of the king, but cautious, in case it was a brigand playing some trick.
When the rider finally arrived Colin had bacon sandwiches and ale set out for him. The man was broad-shouldered, with a neat mustache and a dusty tabard in the king's yellow over a coat of mail. This was the outfit of a knight, and Colin doubted that any brigand who could afford that mail would rob his pig farm. The knight introduced himself as Willem.
Willem was hungry and thirsty from the road. Colin waited with strained patience as he ate and drank. The knight pushed back his plate and cleared his throat, and Colin fought the urge to start asking questions and let Willem speak first.
"I'm here about your brother, Kiran." The knight stopped, as though this was a complete thought.
"Is he in some kind of trouble?" Colin asked.
"I'm afraid your brother is dead." The knight's tone was matter-of-fact, and Colin tried for a second to think if those words might have a different meaning.
"You don't mean..."
"I'm afraid so."
Colin ran through a thousand memories in quick succession. Most of them involved him causing some kind of trouble with a prank or a joke, and his older brother stepping in to defend him from the consequences of his actions. He couldn't comprehend Kiran being dead. It was like somebody had told him the sun would no longer rise.
Colin swallowed a few times before asking, "how did it happen?"
"It was Doomshadow."
Colin's mouth hung open. Doomshadow was an ancient dragon, old enough to be named in the Book of Liara. Rumors had been spreading that the dragon was rousing from his century of slumber in the mountains to the north.
"The great wyrm? But how? Why?" Colin's brain couldn't process the information.
"The king put a bounty on the wyrm. Hundreds of would-be dragonslayers trekked into the mountains, and hundreds perished."
Colin felt a bitter taste in his throat. This seemed like exactly the kind of thing his fool brother would go for.
"Your brother died with his blade in Doomshadow's throat. He was crushed in the wyrm's death throes."
Colin blinked hard. Those words didn't combine into anything he was capable of understanding.
"As his next of kin, the king's bounty is yours to collect."
"Bounty?" Colin latched onto the word randomly. Nothing made sense to him.
"That's right. One of the Coins of Meora is yours to cast." The knight pushed his chair back as if he was ready to stand.
"What?"
The knight regarded him flatly. Willem seemed familiar with the process of delivering startling news, and he waited for Colin to collect himself.
"But, the Coins aren't real. They're just a fairy story for children."
"I assure you they're very real. Four of them still exist in the kingdom, and one of them is yours to cast. We should be off - it would be improper to keep the king waiting."
Colin let himself be led away in a numb, mute stupor.
*****
The Coins of Meora were said to grant wishes. According to legend, the Kingdom of Rhyse came to be when someone cast one of the Coins into a sacred pool and wished for the formerly blasted and unlivable land to be made fertile. They said the king's castle had been built over that sacred pool.
Colin spent the long journey to the castle thinking of what he would wish for. He had long days to think as he walked alongside Willem's horse and then rode with a merchant caravan to the City of Rhyse.
His first thought was to wish for wealth. He thought better - he had seen enough people cheated out of money. He didn't think he had the skill or the patience to administer it well.
He thought about wishing for his family's ancestral lands and titles to be restored. That seemed like a fitting way to respect the memory of his brother. It hardly seemed worthy of a Coin, though, since the king could just give him that without any wishing.
He thought about wishing to be king. Something about that seemed wrong, or at least rude and ungrateful.
After long and careful thought, Colin had his wish. He would wish for prosperity and good fortune for himself and his family line. That seemed worthy of a wish without being too audacious.
Once he had made up his mind the voyage became unbearable. He itched with impatience to cast his Coin.
*****
The silence of the grotto had a weight to it. Colin dreaded profaning it with his spoken words. He looked to the Coin in his hand for courage.
It was more of a lozenge than a disk. It was made from some kind of blue crystal that glowed with a pale internal light. The walls of the grotto seemed to contain veins of the same crystal, and the whole cavern was lit with their steady, pale light with no need for a torch.
Colin looked down at the sacred pool. He was standing in water that rose to his mid-calf, and the pool was a circle of darkness in the floor. Legend said that it was so deep that the bottom of it was in a different world.
Colin dropped the coin and cleared his throat to make his wish. The sound echoed uncomfortably in the silent place.
YOUR WISH HAS BEEN GRANTED.