The Sartious Mage (The Rhythm of Rivalry)

by B. T. Narro

  “I do.” I realized something. “I’ve wondered how you saw me behind the dresses. You sensed me with psyche, didn’t you?”

  He smiled, his eyes wide in pleasant surprise. “You know more about psyche than most.”

  I decided not to admit that all my knowledge came from songs. Neither did I mention that I’d thought it didn’t exist until today. I made a mental note to go over every song that had even a line about psyche when I had the time.

  There was one last thing…and the most important of all. “The King isn’t keen on letting me see Lisanda after she wakes, but I would very much like to do so.”

  Micah’s mouth twisted as confusion caused his eyes to squint. Then he seemed to figure something out, for his eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open.

  “This I didn’t expect!” He shook my shoulder excitedly and laughed. “You’ve developed feelings for her.”

  I felt blood rushing to my cheeks.

  His laugh grew louder, only making my embarrassment worse. “No reason to be embarrassed,” he managed to get out between deep giggles. Then his laughter subsided, and he culminated it with a long sigh. “Unfortunately, I have little power over you seeing Lisanda. It’s mostly up to Lisanda and her father.” He leaned toward me and whispered, “Mostly her father. If I were you, I wouldn’t hold on to the expectation of being able to visit her.”

  My heart sank. Not knowing what else to say, I told him, “Thank you, anyway.”

  “Come, Harwin will improve your mood. He certainly does for everyone else. The boy’s been pampered since he got here. A few lonely people in the palace have fallen into a silly competition of seeing who can become the lad’s favorite. They bring him gifts, read him stories, teach him whatever he wants to learn that they can offer. He’s been quite entertained.”

  At the thought of Harwin not crying himself to sleep as I’d imagined, immense relief flowed through me, pushing the tightness from my chest and turning my mouth into a grin.

  Chapter 34: It’s Time

  “Jek!” Harwin ran to me. I knelt down and wrapped my arms around the little Prince. Micah Vail was right—as soon as I saw his smile, joy surged through me.

  “Look what I learned!” He ran to the other side of the room to retrieve a wand. His bright face became serious, his lips pressing tightly together. His hand started to shake and then his arm with it. Harwin grunted and moaned.

  Giving up, he lowered his arm, now breathing heavily.

  I walked toward him. “What are you trying to cast?”

  “Wait, I can do it.” Determination made his eyes squint as he let out another grunt. His hand started to shake once more. To my surprise, the tip of the wand started to glow.

  “Amazing!” I yelled, completely serious. To accomplish that, he must’ve been practicing for hours each day since I’d left. At just seven years old, it was clear he had a gift for magic.

  “A Bastial mage has been teaching me!” Harwin offered his wand to me. “Show me how to control Sartious Energy.”

  I smiled at his innocence.

  I stayed with Harwin for an hour. I answered all his questions as best I could, and I would like to think he understood at least a little more about SE by the end of it. He told me he was excited to see his father again and wanted me to be there.

  I gave an innocent lie by telling him I wished I could. The whole time we spoke, I wondered what Harwin would make of this experience when he was older and understood what really had happened. I felt sadness tugging on my heart, knowing his father most likely would describe me as a villain. The little boy’s mind was easily turned, and I imagined his father had more sway than anyone.

  When Micah Vail came to take me away, I knelt down one last time for a hug.

  “Bye, Harwin. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” Though, it might be when we’re on opposing sides, I realized with dismay.

  “Bye, Jek.” I’d forgotten how strong he was until he was squeezing me as hard as he could.

  Then words I hadn’t planned came out of me, almost as if he’d squeezed them out: “No matter what people tell you about me, make sure you remember I would’ve never let harm come to you.” I looked into his eyes. “Will you remember that?”

  He seemed confused, but he didn’t shy away from my stare. Nodding solemnly, he muttered, “I will.”

  Micah took me to the entrance through the outskirts of the palace. It was an attempt to avoid running into others, and I welcomed the idea. I’d already received dubious stares from those we’d passed on the way to see Harwin. I figured each of them would require some sort of explanation, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause more trouble.

  “We’ll send a messenger when you’re allowed to come back and begin your training as the King’s Mage,” Micah told me. “But give us some time, a few weeks at most. There are other matters that need to be dealt with first.”

  He lowered his voice as he continued. “If Lisanda voices any discontent with you being free when she wakes, then I’m afraid the guards will come after you. That’s not likely to happen, is it?”

  If this had ended after the first day I’d taken Lisanda, she would’ve wanted my head on a spike. Luckily, I knew that wasn’t the case anymore.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Must I wait to be summoned before I can come by to see about visiting Lisanda?” It just came out.

  Gently grabbing my shoulder, Micah turned me toward him. “I’m not sure what happened between you and Lisanda, but as I said, you shouldn’t keep your hopes high about anything happening between you two again. The only reason you’re not in prison right now is because of what the King witnessed with you and Exo. He doesn’t feel comfortable with you and Lisanda being around each other, especially after the poison attempt. He expects you to have at least some sense of revenge.”

  “I don’t,” I said, accidentally letting frustration slip out with my words.

  He squeezed my shoulder. “You’ve been through a lot, Jek. It may take some time for you to really understand how you’re feeling.” He took his hand off and continued forward. “I’m going to send you back to the farm with some of the King’s men. They’ll bring back the bodies of the fallen for proper burial. Keep yourself distracted with the journal as you wait for our summons. This is the best advice I can give right now. We’ll talk again when you’re brought here for training.”

  I tried to convince him to speak to Danvell about letting me visit Lisanda, but he simply said that he’d do what he could and I should try not to think about it.

  In all my frustration, though, at least I did remember to thank him for everything he’d done. Without Micah Vail, who knows what would’ve happened to me.

  Suddenly I was eager to return to the farm. I needed to be there before Sannil and Kalli. Otherwise, they would be horrified by all the charred bodies, especially not knowing if I was one of them.

  Luckily, the men charged with bringing back the dead were just as eager to get there. The thought of leaving their comrades abandoned and baking in the sun contorted their faces with desperation. We sped through the city.

  The sun had set behind the forest by the time I got there. Sannil and Kalli already were inside the farmhouse. They wept with joy upon the sight of me, and the three of us shared a hug. I wanted to give them more than just an explanation and gratitude. They’d done so much for me, eagerly putting their lives at risk for me, but all I could offer were promises never to do that to them again.

  It seemed so inadequate. Guilt felt like a cage around my heart, squeezing tighter the more I tried to apologize. My stomach coiled into a knot, and then the tears came. I wasn’t even sure what specifically had made me cry, but I was weeping furiously.

  Kalli shushed me lovingly and held me as I cried on her shoulder. Was this sudden outburst purely from guilt? From seeing my family cry? Perhaps from killing Exo? Was it from all the death I’d witnessed? Was it because I might never get to hold Lisanda again? Wa
s it coming to terms with there being no cure for my darkness?

  My thoughts cycled through one after the other so quickly it made me dizzy. I figured it was everything…that Micah Vail was right—a lot had happened to me, and my mind hadn’t had time to process it all.

  The next few days were incredibly tough on me. I read the nameless woman’s journal in every spare moment. Not wanting to make marks within it, I started my own journal with notes I wanted to remember and experiments I needed to try.

  A couple of her trials felt adequate enough just reading about them without reproduction. Numerous times, she’d tried cutting herself before sleeping, each time describing the length and depth of the cut. The Sartious Energy seemed more likely to direct itself out of her open wound the longer and deeper her cut was. I wasn’t sure how this helped, however, so I didn’t feel the need to try it myself.

  She found that if she consumed enough alcohol to produce vomiting and unconsciousness, she wouldn’t have the nightmares or the cuts. Her theory was that her body was unable to draw in a poisonous amount of SE after being so intoxicated with alcohol. Again, I didn’t feel the need to try it myself. My darkness was bad, but not that bad.

  Her focus in the latter parts of the journal switched to meditation habits—something mages learned early on. It was the easiest way to regain energy without sleeping or eating. Meditation was about opening up our bodies to take in energy while in a relaxed state to rest our minds during the process.

  With enough practice, eventually our bodies learned to draw in the energy on their own. She believed there was a method of what she called “dis-meditation” or “dismed” for short. Essentially, it was teaching our bodies to block energy on their own using the opposite idea as regular meditation.

  The problem was its difficulty. Our bodies naturally contain both Bastial and Sartious Energy. To force energy out of me and then keep it out was like blowing out air and then holding my breath—simple so far, I just had to focus on the task. But her idea was to have our bodies naturally reject the energy without using our minds to focus on doing it. This would allow us to fall asleep while still preventing SE from entering our bodies.

  I tried to do it, but it was like trying to hold my breath and fall asleep. I figured even if I somehow managed to keep the energy out and fall asleep, my body would start absorbing the energy again once I was asleep. It would grow to a potency my body considered poisonous, and then it would be expelled with a nightmare.

  But I couldn’t even sleep while focusing on keeping the energy out anyway. It took too much focus, causing me to stay awake.

  One thing that got me excited was that she found great success in having another Sartious mage help her. She had someone else come into her room while she was sleeping and suck up all the SE he could. He did this four times throughout the night, expelling the energy about fifty yards from her room each time, and she had no nightmares. A week later, they tried it again but spaced it out to three times throughout the night. It worked again. However, when they tried only two, the nightmare returned.

  The possibilities it created got my mind rolling. If there was something—some plant or animal—that sucked up SE, that could be all I needed. I didn’t know of one, but I was hardly an expert on the great variety of plants and animals in the world. It gave me hope.

  Besides the journal, the rest of my time was spent helping Sannil and Kalli get ready to move. We had a lot to buy from The Nest, even more to sell, and we had a lot of preparation to do on the farm before it was ready for a buyer.

  Sannil had a cousin in Facian, about ten miles southwest of The Nest, who had a small house for sale that he’d been holding for our family. I could tell Sannil and Kalli were eager to move, but they were being polite by hiding it as best they could, for they knew I was waiting for a messenger.

  They suggested I deliver a message to the palace with our new address, and the King’s men would find me there when it was time for my training. I knew that was true, but honestly it was Lisanda I was thinking about when I told them I wanted to wait a few more days.

  Even without me mentioning Lisanda’s name, they must’ve known.

  “She can find you at our new home in Facian,” Kalli told me with a sweet tone.

  I shook my head. “Her father might not give her the new address.”

  My father and sister shared a nervous glance I pretended not to see. I’d heard them speaking about me with low voices when they thought I wasn’t close enough to hear. They didn’t believe Lisanda would be allowed to see me, and they worried I would never come to terms with it. While they didn’t say this to me directly, I could see it in their sad eyes every time we talked.

  On the third day, I got Sannil’s permission to borrow his new horse for a ride to the palace in an attempt to see her.

  The guards stopped me at the gate, and I could see they recognized me.

  “Jek Trayden?” one of them asked.

  “Yes, I would like to see Lisanda Takary.”

  They both shook their heads. “We have orders not to allow you in the palace yet. The King isn’t ready.”

  “Could you tell Lisanda I’m outside?”

  They each pressed their lips into their teeth as they shared a glance. One of them took a slow breath and said, “Let me check with our superior.”

  I made polite conversation with the other guard, though my mind couldn’t stop picturing Lisanda gracefully descending the stairs past the gate. I stared at the tall wooden doors in anticipation.

  Ten minutes it took before the doors opened again and the guard came through. Unfortunately, Micah Vail was with him instead of Lisanda.

  He shook my hand, though his face was grim, ready to deliver news I didn’t want to hear.

  “She’s not here, Jek.”

  “Where is she?” I readied myself to travel wherever I needed to go, but then I remembered I was supposed to be back before sunset. Sannil needed the horse tomorrow. “Please tell me it’s not far,” I added.

  “Lisanda went to the docks this morning with Jessend, who’s sailing across the Starving Ocean to Kyrro.”

  Leaving? The docks were one hundred and fifty miles from here. Terror seemed to take control of my body, turning my horse east and getting ready to kick before I even had a moment to consider what I was doing.

  Micah grabbed the reins. “Lisanda’s not leaving with Jessend, she just went to see her sister off. She’ll be back sometime tomorrow.”

  I remembered to breathe again. I’d misunderstood. “What’s Jessend going to do in Kyrro?”

  “Danvell Takary needed someone to go who he could trust and Jessend volunteered. It took hours of arguing before he finally decided to let her go. I was there throughout all of it.” He sighed. “She’s a stubborn one.”

  There was a shadow of a smile along his mouth as he shook his head. It was as if he knew it should be comical but it had happened too recently to be funny yet.

  “We haven’t heard from the Takarys in Kyrro in many years because it’s a dangerous trip over the Starving Ocean. In addition to checking on them, it looks like we’re going to need any men and women they can spare. Jessend will be our liaison. Her retinue and Takary name should protect her once she’s there; it’s the five days each way over water that makes us nervous.”

  This was just creating more questions that didn’t have to do with Lisanda. I didn’t know there were Takarys overseas, and I didn’t care at that moment. “I wish her luck,” I said politely. “I’ll come back tomorrow when Lisanda is here.”

  “Well…” Micah Vail led my horse away from the guards who were listening. “It would just be a waste of time. Oleya says the antidote to the poison Lisanda consumed might not completely clean it from her body, meaning her mind can still be affected long after.”

  “I don’t understand. If she’s healthy enough to go with Jessend to the docks—”

  “Sorry, let me explain better. When Lisanda woke, she was not herself. She was manic…crying and lau
ghing, confused and incoherent. It was a painful sight to watch, taking half the day before we could even understand her.”

  I felt claws digging into my stomach and twisting at the thought of her like that. “But she’s better now?”

  “Yes, she seems back to her old self.”

  I took a breath of relief. “But then why can’t I see her?”

  Micah rubbed his forehead as his eyes sank. “You were the first subject she brought up that we could understand, Jek. And she wouldn’t stop talking about you.”

  I would’ve thought this was good news, but his face said otherwise. “What did she say?” I asked, my chest tightening with dread. Did she tell them I’d hurt her? Maybe that I’d seduced her?

  “She was raving about how you were innocent and how she needed to see you, even claiming she loved you. She yelled it over and over again like a mad woman.”

  I was hit with too many emotions at once to comprehend what I was feeling. Tears started surfacing but I kept myself from letting them out. My whole body was flushed with a burning feeling that clouded my thoughts.

  “So, she sounded insane…” I answered for him. I was flattered she’d said these things about me, but they couldn’t have come at a worse time.

  “Yes, absolutely insane. Even though she’s much better now, her father and sister believe the poison has produced false feelings for you because her mind was twisted when you saved her. Lisanda’s made it very clear she wants to see you, but her father is reluctant. He thinks the sight of you could trigger a relapse in insanity, which Oleya says is possible.”

  “Her feelings toward me are sincere,” I said as factually as I could, though I could feel anger ready to erupt if I was doubted.

  Micah tilted his head. A smile slowly grew along his mouth, starting from one side to the other. “Bastial hell, you’re telling the truth.” He shook his head and laughed. “One of these days you’ll have to tell me everything that happened after you left the palace. It’s unlike Lisanda to fall for someone so soon after meeting them—she’s not like Jessend. And you took her against her will, dragging her through the dirty southern streets! I can’t imagine her being pleased with that.” He laughed again.