The story of a lost city- Chapter 1

Even in hindsight, I cannot see a specific point where we realised that we were living in a doomed city. I think that we just became gradually aware that something was going horribly wrong. Octavian, Syrshe and Valentine probably had the best idea of where the events leading up to the end were taking us.
On his own, we always knew that Octavian had a much stronger connection to the Estryd than was usual in a hunter. When united with Syrshe’s- I never found out how, but they somehow combined their power-, their connection became so strong that they could not just have told you where all the Estryd in the city were, but their sizes and strengths too.
As for Valentine, well. It was clear that he knew something, but was completely set against revealing his thoughts to anyone. Only little things- tiny looks, uncharacteristically subtle for Valentine, sentences stopped midway, suggested that he knew what was to happen to us. This was the only thing that he was never open about the entire time I’d known him. We were close- I still miss him.
My name is Thaddeus Lucien Raven. My family was one of the ruling families of the great city. Many of these great families have survived, and you can find them on the ruling council of New Thenek. Octavian was also noble born, a Levant. Syrshe was a Talfryn, although she disowned her family the same year as the attack. This dislocation from her relatives was the very thing that allowed her to be seen with Octavian, because the Levants and the Talfryns carried a city-old hatred of each other. When I was young, the feudal murders had long before ceased- the City Lord had taken care of that as soon as he had mounted the throne, but the grudge still stood.
The Lysival family had produced Valentine twenty years previously; only a short while after my mother Nyelle had had me. Our families were close; I grew up with Valentine as my best friend; his younger brother Gabriel and mine; our sisters too; each sibling bonded charmingly. Of course, my family is now essentially extinct; I have been led to believe by my brother that we have no surviving immediate relatives. Apparently, Silver Peak is full of distant cousins and the like, but there is no one else on the plains. Valentine’s family, on the other hand, survive and spawn to this day. I imagine he too would have had his own children if he could, but I dread to think of what they would have been like.
Octavian was also a close friend of mine. We would hunt together, which was a great cause of jealousy in Valentine. He had no Connection at all, which meant that he would have been putting himself in mortal danger every time he went on a hunt. He did go out occasionally; when he needed more money after blowing it all on alcohol and magical equipment; he only caught the things through sheer bloody-mindedness and animal luck. He came on a hunt with us once.
Octavian had won a medal at the Annual Hunter’s Ball three week’s previously, which had brought out a streak of enthusiasm in Valentine. He had been begging and pestering us like a little boy- which he was, in some ways, even though he was older than Octavian- begging us to take him out on a hunt, until, in desperation, we had agreed.
‘I don’t care if I get hurt. I won’t,’ he said. In some ways he was right.
We gathered at my house. Valentine arrived first, and was hurtling around like a runaway cart. My sister breezed around the hall simpering at him, because that is what she did, and even my brother emerged to say hello. Something about Valentine attracted people; before Octavian showed up, the housekeeper, butler, several maids and my footman had all appeared to greet him in their special ways. He managed to stand still long enough to shake the butler’s hand. He let the housekeeper try to tidy him up, and whistled at the maids, who all giggled. My footman was leapt upon and embraced.
‘You know what?’ he asked, sidling up to me and sliding his arm around my waist. ‘Your house is one of the best places in the world. I want to live here.’
‘The question you have to ask yourself is if we would have you.’ It was debatable. My grandfather, the wise Marius Raven, knew that Valentine was a complete monster, and always had him closely watched when he stayed in our home.
Valentine released me and I brushed the fluff from his coat off my clothes. He looked at me and snickered. There was a knock on the door. Octavian had arrived.
Many people considered Octavian an idiot; he did have a number of slow moments every day, but was never less than lightning quick on a hunt. He was handsome in a bland sort of way, with green eyes and medium length golden hair and a tall frame with muscle that he had worked hard to put on. Naturally, he was only a little less slim than me. He was one of the best hunters Thenek had ever seen, and you just knew that if you went out with him, you would have your pick of the city’s Estryd.