by Kim Wedlock
"You were bait?" Garon growled, his anger incensed by his own worry.
"N-no, he thought I was him. He s-said so - something about a b-book next to m-me." She swallowed hard, trying and failing to fight back her tears. She said nothing else. No one did. The silence lasted for an age.
Finally, Kienza withdrew her hands and sat back with a deep, troubled sigh. But she didn't turn her eyes away from the still body. The tension in the darkness mounted. "It's his magic," she said at last. She sounded as though she was going to elaborate, but seemed unable to decide. It became gradually clear that she wouldn't.
"Is it the loose magic?" Petra asked, stroking the girl's curls, doing her best to soothe her. "Is it...getting to him?"
"No." No one liked the hopeless certainty with which she'd said it. "It's something within him. Which means there's nothing I can do." The sorceress's emerald eyes closed achingly at the worsening of the child's cries. She gestured to Petra, who passed her gently into her arms. Kienza held her close and rocked her with a hush, then kissed her softly on her forehead. Her sobs began to subdue, then diminish, then she seemed to fall asleep. She carried her a few paces to the side of the large, soily den and lay her down on a thick, soft blanket that appeared on the ground.
"Could the Order not help him?" Garon asked as she stroked the girl's hair away from her face and covered her from the chill, but she shook her head all too readily. She said nothing else as she returned to her lover's side, where she leaned over and placed a long, gentle kiss on his forehead.
A swift exhalation startled them as she smoothly pulled away, and Rathen sat up in a fever, eyes wide and haunted with a terrible shadow, flicking unseeing through the darkness until, finally, they settled on Kienza. She smiled back softly while the others cursed and laughed in their relief, but the joy didn't touch him.
"Where is he?" He demanded, searching through the black again, eyes grim with purpose beside the lingering darkness as he pushed himself to his feet. Kienza placed a firm hand on his shoulder before he could manage.
"Dealt with," she assured him. Then she turned a look to the others, friendly, but one that brooked no argument nor offered explanation. "I must speak with him. You don't need to leave."
"Where are we?" Garon asked quickly, guessing what she as about to do.
"Inside a sett. It's abandoned, don't worry."
"A sett? Ditchlings?"
"No." She turned her back, a campfire sprung into existence, and a wall of silence dropped between them.
Rathen frowned at the eerily quiet flames and the looks of unease on his companions' faces. His own relaxed a great deal, however, when he saw Eyila beside the fire, instructing Petra in her search through the healer's collection of herbs and plants, Garon and Anthis standing over them while Aria slept with unnatural serenity close by. He recognised the touch of Kienza's magic on her sweet, round face.
Partially subdued, his gaze returned to find her staring back at him with an indecipherable expression. It stirred a new terror in his gut. He swallowed hard. "What happened to me?" He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.
"In suppressing your transformations," she replied almost clinically, "your magic gets squashed down. Even if you don't succeed in stopping it, the magic is still restricted. But in consciously letting that transformation out and trying to control it, there was nothing to constrict it. It was freed and it was welcomed, as a whole, for the first time in your life." She watched his eyes drift down to his hands. There was nothing to see, but he stared all the same. In time, his gaze rose and penetrated well beyond the thickest depths of the darkness.
"I'd not felt anything more than a warmth in my arm since we were in Banmar Dells," he whispered pensively, "when my...magic..."
She nodded. "I know. And you barely used it after that."
"Only when I had to."
"And it has burned on every occasion since?"
"Yes... I felt something different when I used the Zi'veyn on Eyila, it was just starting when her spell interrupted it and threw the Zi'veyn from my hands. Or, rather, me from the Zi'veyn..."
"And that was the first time you'd cast anything since Ferna?" Her eyes didn't move from the metal band concealed beneath his sleeve.
"Yes."
"And this was the second..."
"What's happened?" His voice was quiet. Vulnerable. Despairing. "What have I done?"
Her eyes lifted to his. They glittered in the light of her orb, his distress laid bare. She smiled sadly. "You accepted it."
"And that means...what? That I'm going to be overpowered like this every time I use my magic?"
"Yes," she replied simply, "you will. So you will have to use it carefully. Shrewdly."
"...I...I don't know that I can push through it..."
"No, you fool, of course you can't. You're not listening. You cannot hide from these pains. You cannot turn a blind eye to them just because they only affect you and no one else. You cannot brush them off as if they are nothing. They are serious, Rathen, but they aren't immediately debilitating, and if you're going to the Order, you're going to need to have your wits about you and be ready to do whatever you have to, and that means you need to face your situation."
"Why?" His brow dropped guardedly. "What do you know?"
"In this case, as much as you do. And you, my love, know as much as I. So don't try to attack this head-on and don't shy away from it. I will do my best to find a solution. But, in the mean time," her tone softened, and she placed her hand upon his and squeezed it gently, "if anything should happen, I'll be there."
He observed her carefully. "Will you?" He said at last, and she nodded without breaking her gaze.
"I give you my word."
"But you also told me I could control this."
"I did. And you can. But there was...an element I hadn't accounted for, until recently."
His eyes flashed in fright. "Which is?"
She smiled softly, then leaned in and kissed him. Quite suddenly he found his mind empty. He couldn't recall the thought, if he even noticed it was gone. "Now, my love," she said warmly, "are you all right?"
"I...I think so..."
"And...Ferna? The harpies weren't too rough?"
He nodded to himself in understanding. "You sent them. Yes, I'm fine. I'm...fine."
Her head tilted thoughtfully. "But you're ashamed."
A sudden loathing spiked through his eyes and curled his lips from his teeth. A loathing that had been hovering just beneath the surface. He looked briefly towards the others, but they still spoke and moved without even the thinnest sound. They couldn't hear him, either. But as his eyes caught on Petra, crushing two plants together in a small, stone bowl which Eyila took and drank from, all he could see was his own insurmountable disgrace. "I let it happen, Kienza," he growled quietly, turning his head away to stare at the wall of excavated soil beside him instead, embedded with bones, roots and insects that seemed to shy away from the presence of the light. "I could have stopped it but I let it happen. I fought to control it - I thought I could control it, but...I killed the bounty hunter. First I just wanted to scare him off so we could flee somewhere, but once the...once it set in, killing him was the only acceptable solution...and after that, the screams...the...people being crushed by the...the things...I wanted to help them. I don't know what I was going to do, what I thought I could do...they were stone, they would have probably killed me first...but..." he shook his head in growing discomprehension. "What if I'd gotten out there and lost control? I-I could have...I..."
She threaded her arms around him and held him close against her. He was shaking and slow to react, and she could feel the rigid knot in his jaw. Tears pricked her eyes and she wished, not for the first time, that she could take it all away from him. Helplessness railed against her in that moment, but she shut it away with cold and efficient determination. She had learned long, long ago that such thoughts and feelings served no purpose at all.
"But you did control it," she whispe
red, her lips against his ear. "The bounty hunter was the reason you let it out, and he remained your focus. And then you sought to protect. Tell me: have you thought anything else while under such influence?"
"...No. Not that I can remember..."
"And I doubt you ever have."
He stroked her hair as she squeezed him, his thoughts twisting and contorting. He shook his head at their mercy. "How could something like this ever only be a deterrent?"
"You are only half-elf, my sweet. You don't have the inherent control. But you will get there." She gave him one final squeeze before releasing him. His eyes remained shadowed, but the lines in his face she loved so dearly weren't as deep. "I have to speak to Anthis."
He nodded, still lost in his lingering torment. With a kiss, she rose and stepped away, leaving him sitting upon the blanket he had yet to notice had appeared, knees pulled into his chest, absently watching the insects. She sighed to herself and turned towards the suddenly audible fire. "I apologise," she said to the others as she crouched beside the sleeping child, checking on her needlessly as a devoted mother would, "but I need to speak with Anthis."
"Kienza?" She looked inquiringly towards Eyila while the others began moving away. There was some restlessness in the girl's eyes. "I'm quite all right now - is there anything I can do for Rathen?"
Her plump lips pursed as she considered her, then bowed into a flawless smile, her doubt hidden away perfectly. "Bring him water," she replied, seating herself gracefully beside the young man. "And slap him if he mopes for much longer." Eyila blinked in surprise, but Kienza offered no hint as to whether or not she was joking. When she departed uncertainly to fetch a waterskin, the sorceress turned towards the historian and another wall of privacy set about them.
"Well done," she told him, pulling his eyes from the tribal girl onto her. "Those were quick reactions. And powerful magic. How long does it usually last?"
"Oh...uh...a few days..." He shifted quite uncomfortably.
"Mm. To save yourself, no doubt. In case something goes wrong after the hunt. ...Eyila seems awfully understanding about it." She smiled briefly as he brightened at the mention of her name, but sobered in a heartbeat. "Tell me."
He needed no elaboration, and Kienza nodded without reaction throughout his report of Rathen's increasing urgency and mutterings beneath the pressure of the magic. Until she pressed for anything 'less important'. Then her eyebrows rose. "'Boastful'?"
"He could have caught Garon with magic when he slipped," he explained carefully, wary of offence or being overheard, "but he made the rope coil around him like a snake. It was showier. And he referred to his magic as a power that the Root Mother, the vakehn, and no other man possessed. And that the world would crumble if it wasn't for his help."
She nodded slowly, her captivating face made somehow more beautiful by its slightest crease of concern. He began to wonder if he wasn't being unduly fastidious, until she looked back from the fire with even more severity. "And his magic usage? Aside from zoomorphic ropes?"
His eyes flicked back towards the mage, beside whom Eyila now sat, probing him with some spell or other. He fought down his instinctive jealousy. "He, uh...may have used it against me." He turned a hurt look back at the sorceress for her sudden laugh.
She pursed her lips to catch it. "I'm sorry - he 'may' have?"
"Well I...can't really remember. There was a, uh...misunderstanding. It happened a bit fast..."
"Well we'll just gloss over that one, then," she grinned. "Anything else?"
"Yes. In the Wildlands, he retaliated immediately. Without thought. He didn't hurt anyone, but he dispelled the Root Mother's attempts to capture us." He shrank back at the sudden incredulous widening of her eyes.
"He dispelled it?"
"Oh...well...yes, there's a difference, isn't there? Of course there is. I don't know. He stopped it with magic, and quickly. Roots rose and wrapped around us, then they loosened and retracted. It happened a couple of times..."
"...And?"
"...It was a little too quick. I didn't see anything, but I've...been wondering if there was anything to see...if you understand."
The disturbed look on her face suggested that she did. Her eyes travelled towards the dark-haired mage, and she thought back to the shield he had apparently cast about himself. Petra had presumed it had been the portian. But Kienza had destroyed that man, and there hadn't been a trace of magic about him.
It was all coming together too neatly.
There was someone she had to speak with.
"Did he have any pain through this?" She asked, drawing herself out of the dark thoughts.
"Not that I'm aware of. A bit of discomfort, maybe, but it never slowed him down."
"Mhm. And what about when he was retaliating 'too quickly', specifically?"
"He...well I don't know, there was a lot going on..."
"Think, Anthis."
He swallowed hard as her emerald stare speared him. "He had no hesitation. Before or after." Again she lapsed into thought. "Kienza," her eyes flicked back to him, "what is this about?"
"Elves," she replied simply.
"I had gathered that much, to be honest," he said. "It's almost as if he's becoming one."
She chuckled briefly. "Fortunately not."
"Is there anything we can do to help?" She shook her head. "...Are we in any danger?" She shook her head again, but it was slower to come than the first.
"Please keep watching him." She rose to her feet, ignoring his disquiet. "I may have a solution soon - but in the mean time it must not get worse."
"And if it does?"
She reached out, took his hand and pressed something small and round into his palm. "Then I will come. But only if you believe it is escalating. Use your judgement, Mister Karth, and trust it. Always trust it."
The wall of silence dropped and quiet conversations from the rest of the room spilled over him, whispers as loud as a tavern. Kienza turned towards the others, and all looked back at her unspoken call for attention, finding at last the natural congeniality she had been missing. "You are safe. The shack is half a day behind you and I've cast a protection about this sett. Leave only when you're able and ready." Her gaze touched Rathen, Eyila and Anthis, but a humourless grunt drew her attention towards Garon. She raised her sleek eyebrows and smiled patiently. "Yes, Inquisitor?"
Quite foolishly, he barely flinched. "We're grateful for your timely arrival, of course, but you must know that this isn't as helpful as you think. Every few days we seem to be picked up and put down somewhere else - it's exactly why Salus thinks we're working with elves." He bristled as her fair voice burst into a peal of laughter.
"Is that what he thinks?! Well, then you have him at a disadvantage, don't you? He's confused and looking over his shoulder for your pointy-eared 'allies'."
"Perhaps - but it also has him hunting us even more aggressively! This whole abduction happened because of it!"
"Would you rather I put you back?"
He didn't reply.
"That's what I thought. Come now, Inquisitor Brack, I understand your concern, but as long as you keep ahead of him and step carefully past what webs he may weave, you will be fine. He has other things to think about than the six of you, does he not? His position is a demanding one. He cannot pour his every resource into hunting all of you. Now," the slightest waft of breeze ruffled her skirts, ridding them of bugs and soil as she strode through the enormous burrow. She paused beside Aria to kiss her brow, then bestowed another upon Rathen, but his forlorn expression stalled her. She smiled sadly back down at him, took him by the chin, whispered something in his ear and rose again while he nodded sullenly. "I have things to see to. I will be back when I am needed. The exit is that way," she pointed past Petra, "it's not far to the surface." Then, with one final, decisive sweep across them all - and a vague but far too knowing glance from Petra to Garon - she wished them all luck and vanished.
"I doubt we'll get any more sleep this morning," Garon
sighed with frustration even as he looked towards the slumbering child. "We'll eat and set out in an hour."
As he and Petra began dividing the rations, Rathen dragged his blanket closer to the fire and sat beside his daughter with a heavy heart. Staring into her peaceful face, he lost himself in his own seething worries.
Eyila had been taken. That was unacceptable. But what if it had been Aria? Salus was resorting to kidnapping in a bid to remove them as a threat, and his subordinates had gotten far too close to success. Had they wished, they could have killed Eyila and any number of them while they'd slept - and as Rathen was supposedly the only one capable of standing against him, Aria would remain in constant, direct danger for as long as they were involved. And...this was what would happen to him if he tried.
His jaw clenched, his knuckles turned white, his eyes sparked like a hammer against steel. He had to get rid of the Zi'veyn. He had to get out of all of this, for her sake. The Order could handle it. They may not be able to use the Zi'veyn itself, but they could surely construct this spell of his; he had no inconsequential number of notes he could give them to get them started, and they could probably dismantle the Zi'veyn while they were at it and learn all they needed to from that. As well as keep it out of Salus's hands...
Yes. The sooner they got to the Order, the better. For everyone. They would be able to find a solution far quicker than he alone, and then the whole matter would be at an end. No more chasms, no more afflicted mages, no more reactive magic. The matter would be done, and Aria would be safe. The Order could do it. The Order would have to do it.
It was only then that a distant thought began to prod at him: Kienza hadn't asked him why they were going to the Order...
A sudden strike across his cheek startled him out of his melancholy, and he blinked several times into a scrutinising bronze face.
Chapter 47
The smoke rolled in. Channels and currents of chilled breeze dragged it up and over the frozen mountain. It hung several feet too high to choke, but the sweet scent of burned resin, noxious itself in its concentration, stooped just low enough to reach him. Salus tolerated it, a sleeve pressed over his mouth and nose.
