by DB King
Tanuin and the newcomer shared a look, and suddenly Alec knew his old friend had been keeping tabs on him while he was away. He knew far more than he was letting on. “We’ve heard something about that,” the elven ranger admitted. “News…”
“...travels fast,” Alec finished with a chuckle. “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately when it comes to the Archon Temple, Tanuin. You and your friend go wait outside. I’ll be out in just a minute.”
With a shrug, Tanuin and the newcomer did just that. As the pair slipped out of the open chapel doors, Alec returned to his knees before the altar. He closed his eyes, intending to thank the Archon for responding to his prayer so quickly. After all, he’d asked for help—and what could help him more than having his best friend returned to him?
As the words of thanks sprang to his lips, he realized he was kneeling on something even softer than the steps of the altar.
He opened his eyes to find a garment laying across the steps to the altar. Its fabric was a deep red, the shade of the carpet that would line a king’s throne room. Lifting his knees, he pried it out from beneath him and held it up, marveling at its quality. He’d wager even Uriel Diamondspear didn’t have a cloak this fine. The material shimmered, its touch silky beneath his fingers yet stronger than the simple fabrics and leathers the monks wore.
How had it gotten here? Tanuin certainly hadn’t left it behind. Alec would have seen it, or anything his new friend had tried to tuck beneath his knees on the altar. He looked around the empty chapel, half-expecting a monk or one of the boys to leap out behind a tapestry and laugh at him.
No such thing happened. Instead, a solitary beam of light broke through the ceiling, illuminating the fabric in his fingers. It shone with a thousand different shades of red, sparkling before his eyes like a vision. A deep, booming voice sounded in his head:
“For you, my child. A gift that will protect you from whoever may seek to do you harm. Wear the Bloodcloak well, for it is one of a kind.”
The words shocked Alec to his core. For the second time that day, he had heard the voice of the Archon.
A chill passed through his body, and without meaning to he drew the cloak around himself. Instantly the cold feeling passed. It felt warm and safe around his shoulders—as if he’d owned it all his life, rather than only for a few moments.
“Thank you,” Alec whispered to the statue of the Archon.
He clasped the robe closed around his shoulders and hastened to catch up with Tanuin and his new friend. He wasn’t sure what he thanked the Archon for, exactly: the robe? The ring, the dagger, the friends he was finally seeing after so long? Perhaps it was for all of it. Either way, the Archon clearly understood.
He emerged into the daylight, striding across the Temple grounds with renewed vigor and confidence. Tanuin stood a short distance away, conversing with Uriel Diamondspear. It didn’t shock Alec at all that the two spoke to each other like they’d known each other for a long time. Clearly Tanuin knew far more about current events than a wandering elven ranger should. His companion stood a polite distance away, far enough not to eavesdrop on the conversation but close enough to keep an eye on things.
As he approached, the female elf’s gaze traveled to him. For a moment her shoulders tensed, then she dismissed him as not a threat. Alec smiled at her, receiving a scowl in return. Sunny woman, Alec thought ruefully. Wonder what Tanuin sees in her.
Uriel turned as Alec reached the pair, smiling down at Alec. “I see you have a new cloak,” the man said, looking past Alec to the open chapel door. “A gift from one of the monks?”
“No,” Alec said, shaking his head in wonder. “At least, I don’t think so. Right after Tanuin left, it was just… sitting there on the steps to the altar, waiting for me. I think it’s a gift from the Archon.”
Uriel gave him a knowing look. “Right. Aren’t all things gifts from the Archon?”
The words were so similar to what Master Abel had told him that it tickled the back of Alec’s brain. Suddenly he wondered if there was anything that happened in the Temple Grounds that the Archmage didn’t see.
“Don’t look at me,” Tanuin said with a laugh. “If I’d wanted to give you some fancy new clothes, I would’ve simply handed them to you with a bow like a normal person.” The elf’s fingers seized a fold of the cloak, held it up to the light. “And I certainly wouldn’t have been able to afford anything this fine,” he added with a worried expression.
A moment later, Uriel’s own face matched the elf’s look. “This is no ordinary garment,” the Archmage whispered, taken aback. “This is the Bloodcloak!”
Alec nibbled his bottom lip nervously. “Bloodcloak? That’s what He called it, I think.”
Tanuin stared at him. “What who called it?”
A nervous laugh escaped Alec’s throat. “The voice in my head. I heard it while I was praying. P-perhaps it was the Archon?”
He’d meant it half jokingly, but the look on Uriel’s face was anything but. “To see the Bloodcloak again, after all these years,” the old man muttered. “Truly you are highly favored, Alec. My goodness. I wonder if I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew in my twilight years.”
Alec wanted to ask more, but just then the elven woman strode forward. As if they’d agreed on this introduction beforehand, Tanuin gestured toward her without looking, dropping into a smooth bow. “This is my… traveling companion,” he said, his voice catching only a bit mid-sentence. “Her name is Eleira, and she’s a wood elf. She’s been a great help during my travels. She’ll be coming with us to Northmund, and attending the Academy with Alec.”
The Academy. It made Alec’s heart flutter in his chest. To think that was their destination! His gaze sought out Eleira, but the woman had nothing but scowls for this proclamation. Alec wondered what made a wood elf different from any other kind of elf—Eleira’s skin looked a shade or two darker than Tanuin’s, but no human who looked at them would have said anything other than he was looking at two elves.
“She’s an orphan,” Tanuin said with a glance back at the female elf. “Like you, Alec. She only recently discovered her highborn nature—she’s a lost member of the Leafwalker Dynasty. She’ll be the first one to attend the Academy in quite a long while, and we’re all very pleased.”
She doesn’t look pleased, Alec thought, watching the elven woman pout. What’s wrong with her? Perhaps all women behaved this way. He’d met so few of them, after all. But there’d been that woman who worked in the cafeteria for a season when he was younger, and sometimes maidens came from the town at the bottom of the forest to serve as maids for the monks. No, women weren’t all cranky and distempered—just this one. Why?
“We’ll be traveling together,” Uriel said with a kindly smile. “You and your friend Tanuin will have ample opportunity to catch up on the last five years.”
Five years. Alec wanted to be angry, having been separated from Tanuin for so long without explanation. But as always, he found it difficult to hold a grudge where the elven ranger was concerned. It was impossible to stay irritated at Tanuin for long—the elf simply inspired joy and mischief wherever he went. The last few days had provided so many wondrous things that his anger dissolved, melting away like the remnants of his prayer to the Archon.
Any misgivings Alec had about the situation disappeared when Uriel next spoke.
Just then, the roar of engines sounded over the square. The massive airship tethered to the bell tower rocked back and forth, shuddering to life like a great beast.
“Ah!” Uriel looked exceedingly pleased. “I believe our transport has been adequately prepared. Shall we be off, then?”
An airship, Alec thought, growing dizzy. He was actually going to fly on an airship!
Chapter 12
As Archmage Diamondspear led the group out of the square, Alec heard a cough just behind him. He turned mid-stride to see the elf woman matching his pace, looking him up and down with a strange expression on her ageless features.
&nb
sp; “Hello,” Alec said. Normally he would have had to force a smile to speak to this woman, but today required no such awkwardness. It would have been harder not to smile. “I’m Alec. Tanuin said your name is Eleira?”
The woman frowned at him, a line appearing across her forehead. “I know you, Alec. Tanuin’s told me a great deal about you.”
“Has he?” Alec glanced at the ranger’s back. Tanuin walked next to Uriel, the two quietly discussing matters of fuel, food and armaments on the airship. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about you, though…”
The elf woman’s eyes narrowed. “What’s your relationship to Archmage Diamondspear?” He found her words just as frank as her gaze. Perhaps elves were like this when they hadn’t spent a long time among humans, learning their ways? Alec found the whole thing somewhat rude.
“He’s my uncle,” Alec said. The lie came smoothly, just as Archmage Diamondspear had taught him. “I’m his sister’s bastard son. We only just discovered—”
“No you’re not,” the woman said, cutting him off. She shook her head. “Fine, then. Keep your secrets. Believe me, I understand not wanting everyone to know your business.”
The group turned a corner, heading toward the bell tower. The airship was tethered to the edifice of stone, swaying gently in the wind. Every few moments, a tremor passed through the engines as they spooled up, preparing for flight. To Alec’s eyes, Archmage Diamondspear’s airship resembled a great beast—one none too happy to be caged. Such a device belonged among the clouds, flying from kingdom to kingdom.
His reverie kept him from seeing the shoe in his path. Alec stumbled, nearly losing his footing, and bumped into Uriel’s back in an attempt to right himself. The party paused, Uriel and Tanuin sharing a confused look as they tried to see what had made Alec trip.
“What in the world?” Uriel asked. “Careful, young man!”
“I tripped,” Alec said, looking at the spot where he’d just been. A single shoe lay in the path, the laces undone and spread out across the pavement. It was very tiny, designed for a young boy, and Alec recognized it instantly. “That’s Thomas’s shoe. Oh no…”
“Who’s Thomas?” Tanuin asked, stiffening at Alec’s tone.
“The youngest boy,” Alec explained. “I was worried he’d be bullied once I left. It looks like whoever did this couldn’t even wait for me to get on the airship!”
He’d expected them to laugh. But Uriel’s expression hardened, filling with far more than mere concern for the treatment of a young boy at the hands of his peers. “I think we’d better return that shoe to its owner,” the Archmage said. Just like that, the airship had been put on the back burner. “And make sure the boy is alright.”
Alec picked the shoe up. “He might have just lost it,” he mused, glancing over the short wall toward the vegetable garden. The vast majority of the Temple’s food was grown there, and Thomas preferred it to all other spaces in the grounds to play in. “The shoe’s a little too big for him, you see, so it falls off easily.”
Uriel nodded. Alec could tell he didn’t believe the shoe had just fallen off.
That was alright, though. Alec didn’t believe it either.
They picked up the pace as they made their way through the vegetable garden. In their wisdom, the monks had cut narrow lanes between the rows of produce so the foundlings and servants could make their way through without disturbing the plants. Alec took one of these, with Tanuin and Uriel in another. The strange elven woman Eleira followed at a distance behind Alec, that eternal frown stretching the corners of her lips.
Soon they were beyond the grounds of the Temple proper. Alec’s heart pounded harder in his chest as he realized just how far Thomas would have had to travel barefoot to have ‘lost’ his shoe. The sound of raised voices reached his ears, and he broke into a dead run.
Just around the corner, a group of bandits stood in a circle around two boys, laughing and taunting them. Thomas and Mortimer stood in the middle, the latter with his hand over the place where his hollow eye socket lay. The bandits had stolen his eyepatch!
“Please just let us go!” Thomas whimpered, tears streaming down his cheeks. Both of his shoes had disappeared, and his bare feet were covered in dirt. “We don’t have any money! We swear!”
Alec pulled the dagger from his belt. Though the strange magical aura did not spill from its hilt at being drawn, it was still six good inches of cold, hard steel. It felt good in his hand, as if it had been waiting just for this.
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size,” he yelled, raising his voice. “Wait—it’s you!?”
He stared into the eyes of the lead bandit. He recognized the man instantly. He’d been a member of the band that attacked his group on their way back with food for the winter. He remembered the sabotaged caravan, the obvious trap that he’d sprung. When the carnage cleared, only one bandit had survived to fight another day. This man.
Apparently, ‘another day’ meant today.
“Would you look at this!” The bandit’s smile stretched across his face like a rictus, a look much harsher than the neutral one he wore on the wanted posters hung up around town. “I was hoping to catch a couple of young’uns to sell off, but little did I know I’d find you here. I owe you a little pain, boy.”
Alec gritted his teeth. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
“Probably.” The bandit laughed, murder in his eyes. “You know, you really messed up my plans when you killed my friends a year ago. It’s time for me to return the favor!”
Each of the bandits drew long, vicious-looking knives. Thomas and Mortimer trembled, dropping to the ground on their hands and knees. Alec brandished his dagger, hoping he looked braver than he felt.
The sound of chanting echoed behind him. When Alec turned, the elven woman Eleira had her eyes closed and had begun speaking in a tongue completely unlike any he’d heard before. Harsh, guttural syllables passed her lips as energy built around her body, the air crackling with magic. The temperature dropped as if a storm approached, and fear shone in the eyes of the bandits.
Then something inside of Eleira broke. The magic fizzled, sputtering out like a candle’s flame before a deluge. The woman’s scowl deepened to unseen lengths, her eyes widening with shock as her attempt to cast magic failed.
“Ha!” the lead bandit howled. “Looks like the little bitch isn’t a true mage after all!”
Two of the bandits seized Eleira, intent on keeping her from casting another spell. She writhed in their grip, losing her footing, and the edges of Alec’s vision began to go red. The way the bandits treated her enraged him—far, far more than simple bullying would have. His senses felt inflamed all at once as the beastly men tried to drag the beautiful elf girl away.
Just then, he heard a strangled cry. He expected Uriel and Tanuin, but a different duo emerged: two men who could not have been in a worse place at a worse time. Masters Matthias and Abel, who’d come running at the feeling of magic in the air.
“Bandits!” Abel hissed, dragging his limping leg before him. “Let those boys go, you damned brigands! Run now, or we’ll call the guards and have you all hanged!”
The lead bandit stepped out in front of the boys. “Oh no,” he said, pleasure evident in his grin. “That’s not at all how this is going to go, old man. You and your friend here are going to be nice and quiet. Otherwise those two little boys my men have are going to get gutted like pigs.”
Every eye in the square traveled to Thomas and Mortimer. The two looked utterly terrified at the prospect of facing those sharp, vicious-looking knives. “No please!” Mortimer begged, afraid to raise his voice too loud. “Don’t!”
No one else can help them, Alec thought. Just like no one else could help Marcus escape from the hag…
Alec knew what he had to do.
This time, it wasn’t difficult to reach out to his magic. It reacted based on need—and he had a mighty need to save the people around him. With the danger his friend
s were in, seizing his powers proved as easily as reaching out to adjust a button on his shirt.
A small pond lay at the edge of the vegetable garden, a kind of cistern that the monks used to irrigate the rows of produce. A small, somewhat misshapen statue of a unicorn stood in front of the pond, a group project put together by a previous generation of the Archon Temple’s foundlings.
Alec reached for that pond with his powers, pulling its energy into himself. Energy flowed into his fingertips, just as it had with the flames and the plant stems. Just as before, he felt it inside of him—but as it was water, the sensation this time around didn’t feel quite so unpleasant. Thinking of the unicorn statue, he molded the power inside of his mind and released it.
A unicorn made of churning water raced from the pond, charging directly at the bandits. They had just enough time to cry out in disbelief and surprise before the beast slammed into one of them, hitting the man just as hard as a real horse would. It galloped over two more men, trampling them beneath foamy hooves as the rest of the bandits scattered to the four winds. Thomas and Mortimer took one look at the unicorn and gasped, then booked it to the safety of Eleira’s embrace.
Alec stepped forward with his dagger. Something told him to sheathe it back on his belt, and he did so. Then he reached for the Diamondspear. The baton felt like a living thing in his hands, pulsing and vibrating with barely repressed energy. I wonder if it’s like the Shield Ring, Alec thought dimly. Growing in power along with the user—becoming more dangerous the more magic I wield.
He decided to test the thought. Sparks flew between his body and the weapon as he extended the Diamondspear to its full length—a kind of link between him and the blade. The angry redness at the edges of his vision returned, filling him with bloodlust. It made the way he’d felt the first time he fought the bandits feel sedate and exhausted in comparison.
