Blaze (Tranquility)

by Krista D. Ball

  Bethany just stared at him. She had no idea. That’s what aides were for.

  He smiled and gave a little laugh. “Never mind, I’ll figure it out. Assistants in Taftlin made ten gold per annum, since few people are literate enough there to do the job. That did not include lodgings, though.”

  “Ten gold it is, then. I spend more than that on wine every year.” She gave an awkward chuckle.

  Arrago smiled politely, sorting like some form of obsessive sorting creature.

  She drummed her fingers against her thighs. “I’ll give you an advance on your salary and take you into Orchard Park tomorrow. I’ve seen better dressed vagrants.”

  Arrago looked down to survey his clothes and shrugged. “The priests didn’t have much money, as there were plenty of poor in our village to help. But, I’d be happy to go into town. I haven’t really seen Orchard Park.”

  The desire to strangle him rose inside Bethany. No doubt Jovan had scared the boy senseless. Man, she corrected herself. Apparently, he was twenty. Older compared to most initiates but not overly so. Those few years of experience might make it easier for him to survive working with her.

  “Well, you look busy so I’ll get the rest of the scrolls out of my office.” She turned to head into her adjoining office.

  “Bethany! They just captured -”

  She turned around to find Erem standing in her doorway, gasping for air and staring at Arrago. When he looked at her quizzically, she said, “Erem, you know Arrago, of course. He’s my new aide.”

  A chair scraped across the stone floor. “There are a lot of papers that still need to be moved off your desk. If you’ll excuse me, Lord Erem, I need to fetch them.” Arrago quickly walked to the adjoining study and snapped the door shut.

  Bethany stared at the shut door. Rebecca had never been that smart.

  “Well?” Bethany asked, turning back to Erem.

  Erem leaned forward and said, “Lord Lomat is detaining one of the initiates. Apparently, he had a magical text with him. Jovan’s already there.”

  “Which initiate?” Bethany asked, following Erem out of the room.

  “Edmund Greyfeather. He’s a noblemen’s son from Taftlin. I don’t know much more than that.”

  “Of course, he’s from Taftlin. I swear, if there is ever another war, I won’t rest until I burn that entire nation to the ground.” She picked up her pace and ran towards the stairs.

  Chapter 10

  The Diamond must remain resolute. The Viper watches her steps and sees ones not yet taken.

  — The Prophecy of the Diamond, Second Tablet

  As Bethany once again descended the slimy stairs to the underground dungeon, wave after wave of Power surged through her body. She had forgotten that Rygents would be down there, forming anti-Magic fields with their own Powers. This was the first instance of Magic deviance at the temple in four decades. She was happy Lord Lomat, the duty guard, had remembered the proper protocols.

  Her mind was not prepared for both the barrage and the yearning of her immortal blood to dance in the river of Power. She gritted her teeth against need inside her and clawed at the wet stones to stay upright.

  To regain focus, she concentrated on her surroundings. The drip-drip-drip of seeping seawater falling from the rocky ceiling to the floor. The salty mustiness of the underwater caves. The sour stench from the sewer aqueducts.

  Turning the corner, Bethany stopped when she saw Lord Lomat in the hallway, standing under a wall-mounted torch. “Anything to report?”

  The short human shook his head. “He’s mostly been whimpering and begging since he’s been here. The others are in there with him.”

  Bethany nodded and walked past the knight and into the well-lit cavern, thanks to the torches and candles that filled the walls. Kiner, Allric, and Jovan paced closest to the entrance. Further into the cave were three Rygents forming a triangle, whispering chants to their god. Their Power created an anti-Magic buffer zone. The process had been created long before her time with the Silver Knights yet it remained the only trustworthy way of containing Magi.

  In the midst of the chanting Rygents sat a stout human boy, all four limbs chained to the floor. Inside the field of Power, anyone could step inside and be safe. He wept, begging for release. He was in remarkable condition, however. She had expected him to be bleeding and barely conscious by now. Bethany wondered if Jovan was afraid to hit any recruits after the mess with Arrago.

  “Where’s the book?” Bethany asked Jovan.

  He pointed to the back of the small room. “There.”

  She saw the book on the floor and a heavy weight pressed on her shoulders. With its dark cover and tattered edges, a gut-clenching memory of catching Sarissa with a similar book decades before flooded her mind. She shook off the memory. Later, she would mourn the fall of her sister. Right now, her duty impatiently waited.

  Bethany thankfully avoided the awkward questions of being involved in Magic interrogations by claiming she had a small amount of Rygent blood in her. It had been the lie of her life and one that she said with such ease in these situations that she almost believed it. Her pale skin and red hair announced that her bloodline was far removed from the dark-skinned Rygents. But she could justify any overt strangeness by saying she had a trickle of their blood in her.

  Bethany waited for Allric’s silent permission to enter the sacred space created by the Rygents. Once he nodded his head at her, she said, “When you’re ready, break the field so that I can walk in.”

  She knew it would be several seconds before the women could end their chain long enough for Bethany to walk through. The first time she had ever walked through an established barrier caused one of the Rygents to scream in agony. Every pore on the girl’s body seeped a drop of blood when Bethany’s Power had surged through her body.

  So, Bethany waited. She watched the silver-haired woman of about ninety sitting on a chair, anchoring the triangle. To look at Pearl, the elder Rygent, one would think the woman could not have the strength to do such an important task. Yet, Bethany knew that the fragility of body did not equate frailty of spirit. It was an honor to stand beside her.

  “Lady Bethany, the bond will break in three, two, one. Step in,” Pearl instructed in her raspy voice.

  She stepped past Pearl and stood next to Edmund. “Edmund Greyfeather, you have exactly twenty words to explain to me why you were holding that book,” she demanded, pacing circles around the spot where he was bound.

  Edmund stammered, his words hitching in his throat. “A knight gave it to me. Said I had to hold on to it. It was a test, he said. I didn’t know I’d get in trouble.”

  Bethany looked at the young girl with the white, coiled birthmark on her arm. “Lily?”

  The girl did not open her eyes. “He speaks the truth.”

  Looking back at Edmund, she asked, “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” the girl said.

  Bethany sized up Edmund, looking for signs of deceit in his quivering face. Clearly he had never been tied up like this before. She didn’t believe anyone could fake the fear that flashed in Edmund’s eyes. But she remembered something Sarissa had once said during her trial. Depending on a person’s ability, some Magi could project fake thoughts upon a Rygent reader. However, pain would break the bond.

  After pondering for a moment, she backhanded his face so hard that he hit his head on the stone with a thud.

  “Ow! Whatca do that for?”

  Crouching, she grabbed the front of his brown tunic and pulled his face close enough to hers that she could have bitten his nose. “I want you to listen to me very carefully. I’m not known for my patience. If I even suspect for a moment that you are lying to me, I’ll beat you within a strip of your life and then I’ll get that little Rygent girl there to heal you back enough so that I can hurt you some more. Do we have an understanding?”

  Edmund looked so frightened that all he could do was nod frantically. She realized he was telling the truth when she felt the kn
ee she had wedged between his legs grow wet. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she dropped him against the rocky floor once more. “Pearl, I’m done.” Bethany stood and waited for the women to leave. The break in their bond shook Bethany, but she had prepared herself against the shock. She doubted anyone noticed her slight shiver that lasted only a split moment.

  The Rygent women pulled down their triangle and silently exited the room. The four knights remained quiet. Once they had left, Bethany pulled a tiny dagger from underneath her baldric and played with it in her hands.

  “So, I believe you, because anyone walking around with that,” she pointed at the book, “in the Temple of Tranquil Mercies is an idiot. Now, I’m willing to let you go and forget this entire process. I’ll let you go back to training. You can tell all of your noble friends that you sparred with the great Lady Champion and I’ll even let you say that you won. In exchange for my good will, you will tell us how this book came to be in your hands. Step by step. Or, I’ll stick Jovan on you and he hates kids from Taftlin even more than I do.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  Bethany kicked him in the ribs. “Everything.”

  “Ouch!” His voice was a little too shrill for someone his age. She liked it when men sounded like men, the way Kiner did. The way Arrago did. “I can’t talk if you keep hitting me.”

  She frowned and resumed pacing. “Who gave you the book, Edmund?”

  “I already told you. A knight.”

  Allric asked, “Which knight?”

  Edmund shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. You elves all look the same.”

  Jovan stepped in close and grabbed Edmund’s tunic. “I look like Bethany, do I?”

  Kiner let out a deep sigh. “Did he have ears like mine and Bethany’s, or long lobed like Jovan’s?”

  “I think like yours, Lord Kiner,” Edmund said slowly as he pondered his words. Then he spoke faster. “Yes! Yes, they were just pointy. They didn’t have the bottom ridges like Lord Jovan’s.”

  “An Elorian,” Kiner said, garnering nods from the others.

  “Male or female?” Jovan asked, still face-to-face with Edmund.

  “Male. He was taller than me, too.”

  Bethany rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t seem to be difficult. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t think so.”

  Allric began pacing now. “How about his voice? Would you remember that?”

  Edmund shrugged. “Maybe. He handed it to me in the corridor, outside of the initiate dining hall. It was pretty noisy there.”

  “Does anyone else know about the book?” Jovan asked.

  Again, Edmund shrugged. “I only had it a few minutes before I was jumped by six knights. I never even looked inside.”

  “You’re lucky that you didn’t. It would have cost you your life,” Jovan said, sneering.

  Bethany motioned for the others to step aside. In a low whisper, she asked, “What do you think? He seems harmless enough, but why would this knight give it to him? And why is there a knight using Magic?”

  “I don’t believe it was a knight,” Allric said. Maybe it was the flickering torchlight of the tunnel but Bethany noticed that his rugged face was becoming haggard lately, like he wasn’t sleeping. “He could have easily stolen a baldric or some armor. Maybe he was afraid someone would recognize him and gave the book to Edmund, thinking that he could get it back in a few minutes.”

  “And between here and Orchard Park, there has to be thousands of male Elorians,” Kiner said in his usual grave tone.

  Bethany looked at Jovan, who only shrugged. “I suppose we could send knights to investigate. Wait. Maybe we can see if anyone has lost their baldric. Or if the laundry gals have noticed anyone strange hanging around.”

  Allric remained quiet for a moment. Finally he nodded and said, “It’s not much of a plan but it’s something. Suggestions for dealing with him?”

  Bethany waved a hand dismissively. “Let him go. As much as I want to think he did something wrong, he didn’t. There is a Magi in the temple, but it isn’t Edmund.”

  One of them spoke, but she didn’t hear the words. She stepped to the back of the cave and picked up the book. Water had dripped on it and she wiped it off with her sleeve. She flipped through the pages. Only a few blank spots without words remained. Whoever owned this had progressed through most of the book’s spells.

  She threw it back on the floor and grabbed a torch from the wall. Once the fire hit the paper pages, the book released its Magic, hissing and groaning in the damp air and echoing through the caves. As she stirred the embers with the blazing torch, she wondered why she had not just done that to Sarissa’s book, instead of turning her over to people who would banish her.

  She waited for the flaky embers to cool, knowing that it was too late to think of such things. The past could not be changed. But that did not diminish her suddenly rush of responsibility for Sarissa’s insanity and Garran’s death.

  ***

  On Allric’s instruction, Bethany made her way to Aneese’s study for an emergency meeting. She’d prefer to ride off and find the Magi involved, but meetings were a frustrating reality of being third in command. She consoled herself that she sometimes got to take off for adventure. Allric hadn’t left his desk in a century.

  Aneese’s study uncomfortably sat four. Allric, by far the largest of them, stood next to the closed door. They remained silent as Aneese finished writing her letter. No matter the crisis- the entire temple could be burning around her-Aneese would not be rushed.

  Bethany shifted uncomfortably in the silence. The small, windowless room never made Bethany feel welcomed, the way Torius’s breezy study did. Aneese’s room was sparse and spotless. No personal effects warmed the room. Simply neat stacks of scrolls and baskets of mail, all matching, all tidy.

  She watched the elderly woman dip her quill into the ink and begin a section page. One would think she’d just finish her sentence, or paragraph, but no. Aneese would finish her entire long-winded letter. Next to her ink pot sat a new item, a leather-handled magnifying glass. A twinge of guilt struck Bethany, the one that often hit her when criticizing the old woman. She hadn’t known Aneese’s vision deteriorated.

  For a moment, Bethany felt her own mortality. One day, this could be her. Retired from the Elven Service and doing a job to keep her busy while knowing the best days were behind her. A chill crept up her spine.

  Aneese put her quill down and flipped the lid on her ink pot. “I apologize for the delay. However, the details for the upcoming Remembrance celebrations in Orchard Park, this autumn, need to be arranged.”

  Bethany gritted her teeth. “I think we have more pressing matters at the moment than your party. Namely a text of Magic in the temple.”

  Aneese’s eyes widened. “A Magic text? Here at the temple? Oh Apexia, grant us strength. What have you done to fix the situation?”

  Jovan interrupted before Bethany could blast venom at her. “While Apexia is deciding to grant us strength or not, we need to consider our next steps.”

  “Of course, Jovan,” Torius said, his voice meek. He looked pale, almost sickly.

  Bethany leaned forward. “Torius, are you all right?”

  A weary smile spread across his face. “Indeed, child. Old memories coming back, that’s all. The shock will pass.”

  “I understand.” The chill increased, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

  In rapid order, Allric filled Torius and Aneese in on the details of the day, outlining the text and Edmund Greyfeather’s involvement.

  Aneese scowled at Bethany. “You should have not burned the book. We could have learned from it.”

  Bethany threw her hands up in the air. “None of you are able to read it and I certainly refuse to study Magic. Even if I am immune to its effects. I want nothing to do with it.”

  “We have people who could have read the texts without harm, but now your rash actions have
made it lost to us.”

  Bethany opened her mouth, but Allric interjected, his tone neutral but clear. “That’s enough, Bethany.”

  She frowned but obeyed. She glared at Aneese before looking away.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d wager my gold buttons that Aneese was Bethany’s mother. Two peas in a pod,” Jovan mumbled.

  “Do not disrespect me, Lord Jovan,” Aneese snapped.

  Bethany snorted. The others stared at her. “Oh, it was funny. Look at us. Here we are with a bloody Magi in the temple and we’re arguing over the stupidest of things. If we can’t even get along for five minutes in the same room, how are we supposed to find this person?”

  Silence fell on them.

  Aneese straightened in her chair. Her voice softened, a tone Bethany had not heard in a long time. “Perhaps our openness with each other and the comfort of knowing we can speak our minds is what allows us to conquer all the things that oppose us.”

  A small smile tugged at Bethany’s mouth and she bowed her head a little at the elf, signalling surrender. “What is everyone’s opinion of this Edmund?”

  Torius cleared his throat. “I don’t believe we should trust him. He is from Taftlin and one of their nobility.”

  Allric shook his head. “Edmund Greyfeather’s father is a minor noble as far as I can tell. It appears he sent his son only after hearing about Prince Daniel’s admittance. One can assume he hoped it would improve the family’s position at court. That suggests Edmund isn’t involved in any conspiracy from that end.”

  “I agree,” Bethany said. “I really do believe his story.”

  Aneese folded her wrinkled hands and placed them on her desk. “I am surprised to hear you defend anyone from Taftlin.”

  “They’re not all bad.” It just slipped out, before her brain registered the words. Heat rose in her cheeks as all eyes turned to her. She gave a little shrug. “Well, you know, Arrago isn’t that bad as an aide so far.”

  They continued to stare at her for far too long. Torius broke the silence. “If she, who has gone on official record stating the entire nation of Taftlin should be burned to the ground and furrowed for potato planting, trusts this Edmund Greyfeather, I’m inclined to believe his innocence.”