CHILD OF DESTINY (The Rising Saga Book 1)

by M. K. Adams

  “Well, as much as one could tell,” Turiel interjected.

  “Indeed,” Jocelyn said, a curious smile on her face. Lyvanne noticed an obvious connection between the pair. She couldn’t quite blame Turiel for being smitten, if that was the case. Despite the green skin Jocelyn was an undeniably attractive young woman, so much so that Lyvanne almost felt intimidated in her presence. “May Iridu shine upon your time with us.”

  “Thank you,” Lyvanne replied, not knowing if there was some formal response she should be saying.

  Breakfast went by fast. The others, not wanting to treat Lyvanne as an oddity, turned their attention to more mundane subjects: the weather, the food, and stories from Turiel’s recent time in a tavern. Lyvanne knew that they all wanted to talk more openly about other matters, but whatever they were, her being there stopped it. The group finished their morning meal as though nothing was wrong, but once they’d finished, Turiel’s face grew dark and he stood from his chair.

  “I feel as though I have some explaining to do to you, Lyvanne.”

  “You do?” she replied with genuine uncertainty.

  Turiel bowed his head and directed her towards the door.

  “There’s a space upstairs we can use,” he said as he ushered her through the single corridor of the house. Once up the stairs, Lyvanne was surprised to find only a single doorway. It was heavily bolted, with the same numerous locking systems the front door was equipped with..

  Turiel unbolted the door for her. The door opened out onto a rooftop, open and bland. To the left and right the roof was flanked by buildings, taller yet unimpressive, but directly opposite the doorway the view was quite something. The roof faced northwards, looking out towards the Lion Gate and the slums that lay between, separating her from the streets she had grown up on.

  “That’s quite something,” Lyvanne had to admit. “How did they afford a place with a view like this?”

  Turiel chuckled. “Sinjin and Jocelyn are brother and sister. This home belonged to their parents and their parents had a lot of friends who were willing to help them find their feet.”

  The answer was good enough for Lyvanne who simply grunted in approval and moved towards the edge of the roof for a clearer view.

  “Sinjin and Jocelyn are good friends of mine,” Turiel continued, not needing an invitation to begin his explanation. “If you’re worried about them selling you out to the king, then you needn’t be. I’m sure when I first brought you to this house that Sinjin was just as worried about you selling him out as you were him.”

  Lyvanne turned to face her saviour. “How do you know the king is after me? And on what grounds would I sell Sinjin out to the king?”

  “Well, our escapades at the Accord weren’t enough to warrant a search party the likes of which Astreya is seeing right now, let alone for the king to send out soldiers from his army into the streets. Heck, I doubt they remembered a robbery even took place by the time the sun rose. So, there must be a bigger reason, something else that happened to cause this kind of commotion, and you seemed dead set on laying low if you were willing to hide away in a sewer.”

  Lyvanne avoided his eye contact, embarrassed that he had sussed her out almost immediately. She wasn’t surprised that the first warlock she’d ever met was smart, but the way that he had so quickly come to know her was almost unnerving.

  “So what was it?”

  She didn’t understand. “What was what?”

  “Your vision,” he replied bluntly.

  Lyvanne hesitated. She trusted Turiel enough, but she didn’t know how he would react to the vision of a fallen king and her being in the throne room.

  “I only had a fever dream, a result of the wound,” she told him, trying her best to sound convincing. She couldn’t work out why, but she trusted Turiel the same way she had trusted Lira and she didn’t want to scare him away.

  Turiel reached out and grabbed her hand. He moved quickly; if he had been an enemy she would have fallen. A flock of pigeons resting on one of the buildings above went scattering into the sky.

  “Lyvanne, you need to be honest with me. The king wouldn’t have his soldiers out looking for someone after just any old vision. It wasn’t a fever dream. The Angel of Destiny visited you and whatever you saw, it was a real. You need to share with me if I’m going to help keep you safe.” His voice was stern, but soft and caring at the same time.

  Lyvanne hated this; she hated everything that had happened since she met him. She’d lost her friends, her way of life, and now she was being hunted through all of Astreya. The very thought brought bile up her throat.

  “Why do I need your help? You’ve only caused me trouble,” she argued. Her temper flaring as she tried to remember that she survived before she met Turiel and that she could do it again on her own.

  Turiel seemed cut by the words, but he carried on regardless. “Because you’re more important than you know, Lyvanne. I didn’t just happen across you on the banks of the Anya. I knew you would be there.”

  Lyvanne’s head turned dizzy, questioning everything as Turiel continued.

  “I knew you would be there because I’ve had a vision too, and you were front and centre of it. Seven years ago, I lost my father and mother, but I gained something else because the Angel of Destiny visited me on the very same night.”

  Lyvanne was taken aback. The parallels in their life were glaring. It made him hard not to trust and even harder to stay mad at.

  “What did you see?” The words trickled out of her mouth without her command.

  “Yet you won’t tell me yours?” A sly smile creeped into the corner of his mouth, they both knew that he’d won. “I saw a young woman as she stood at the head of a rebellion against the fat pigs who live in the Upper level, and the king beyond them. There were people like me, Islanders and even Hemeti, all rallied behind her as one. She stood there like a shining beacon of hope where before there was none. That person was you, Lyvanne.”

  Lyvanne almost buckled under the pressure suddenly placed upon her shoulders. Her knees quivered and her breath was sucked from her body.

  “No,” she replied with no strength behind her word. “You’re wrong, you must be. How would you even know it was me? You don’t know me!” Her voice was filled with desperation; this wasn’t what she had imagined, it wasn’t the life she had wanted.

  As if he had been prepared to answer this very question his whole life, Turiel proceeded to remove his tunic and turned away from Lyvanne, leaving the scars covering his body to stare her in the eyes.

  “Using magic takes a toll on the body, sometimes a great one.” There was a real pain behind his words, and Lyvanne felt sorry for him as she studied each scar intently. “The unfortunate reality though is that to become better with my gift, I had to use it over and over again. I had to train my body so that I could cast with more power, more efficiency.”

  He tucked his arm behind his back and traced the outline of the largest scar, which ran nearly the entire length of his body. “This was the day I found you.”

  Lyvanne’s stomach churned, why did this person have so much faith in her? Why did he have so much faith in what he had been shown by the Angel of Destiny?

  “Why did you do this?” she asked as she reached out and traced the outline of his scar with her hand. Her cheeks flushed as she ran her hand across his body, but she was comfortable enough that it didn’t scare her away.

  “Because I want to live in a better world, I want my friends to live in a better world… and I believe that you can lead us to it,” Turiel replied. “So, I spent my years training my body and mind. Then one day when I was strong enough, I reached out for the person I saw in my vision and I was shown you. I used my magic to follow you long enough that I could find you on my own, and sure enough, I found you by your hideout on the banks of the Anya.”

  Lyvanne wanted to believe him; she wanted to have someone she could trust, and yet there was still something pulling her back.

  “Your frien
ds, who are they?”

  “Sinjin and Jocelyn are the ones who found and looked after me when I had no other family left. Together we started an insurgent group called The Spring. We all believe that there is a better tomorrow for us, for everyone, if we fight for it. Now here I am, quite literally scarred for the cause, a believer that there’s a better tomorrow. I also believe entirely in what the Angel of Destiny showed me, which means that you’re just as important to all of this as we are… no, you’re more important.”

  “Killing won’t solve The Rive’s issues, it will only add to them,” She said emphatically, trying her best to recall all of Abella’s stories about the king’s wars.

  “Maybe so, but what if you’re wrong?”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “Then at least we will have tried,” he sounded defeated.

  Lyvanne shook her head, this wasn’t what she wanted.

  “I’m sorry, Turiel. I’m not the person you’re looking for. I’m not a tool for you to use in your war. Thank you for the saving me and bringing me here, and thank you for your friends’ hospitality, but I have to leave. The king is looking for me and I’m not safe staying anywhere in the city for too -

  “You’ll never make it out of the city,” Turiel said, stopping Lyvanne in her tracks. “Jocelyn was supposed to go to Avagarde yesterday, she couldn’t because the king has sealed off the city in search of you. Only traders, guild members and the rich can come and go as they please.”

  Lyvanne sighed. She struggled to believe the lengths that the ling was going to in the hope of finding her, a needle in a haystack. Did he truly fear her and her vision that much?

  “Stay one more day?” Turiel asked. “I did, after all, promise to show you how magic works. I couldn’t in good faith let you leave the city without sticking to my word.”

  It was a flimsy attempt to keep her around. They both knew it, but it made Lyvanne smile regardless.

  “One more day.”

  Chapter 8

  Sinjin and Jocelyn had more “business” talks to attend soon after, which meant Turiel and Lyvanne were free to discuss the intricacies of magic. Turiel wasn’t the best teacher, Lyvanne thought, not the way Abella would have been, but he had clearly had to explain it all before which she figured was a positive. He started by explaining how the use of magic relied heavily on the user’s body and spirit, with more intricate and powerful spells leaving a mark upon the user’s body.

  Lyvanne watched Turiel’s eyes as he went on to discuss the different kinds of spells he had mastered and the ones he was yet to try. They almost seemed to gleam in the dimly lit house, betraying the happiness that talking about his gift brought him. Despite the pain it brought, it was both a gift and curse to him.

  “When you first met me I was using a conjuration spell; it’s powerful and left a nasty looking scar,” Turiel said, appearing both proud and fearful of the memory. “I’d had to spend a few nights scouting out the woman’s house first though. I needed as much detail about the keyhole as possible before I dared risk creating the fake key.”

  “You never told me what you needed from that house. Did you get it?” Lyvanne asked, thinking back to the countless questions she’d had that night.

  “I did… but maybe it’s something you’re better off not knowing if you truly want no part in this game?”

  Lyvanne nodded, her curiosity was getting the better of her, but she knew he was right.

  “The spell I used to hide us from the soldiers last night was quite simply, an invisibility spell that cloaked our bodies and any sound we made,” he continued.

  “And I would have broken the spell if I moved out of your grip?” Lyvanne asked.

  Turiel nodded. “You would have, so thanks for staying put/”

  “I nearly didn’t.”

  “I know; you’re a tough one when you want to be.”

  Lyvanne smiled. “Thank you.”

  The conversation flowed easily after that. Turiel went on to explain the feeling that magic sends through your body as you use it, how tiring one prolonged spell can be and how he expects that he won’t live as long as the average person simply because of the toll it has taken on him over the years. Then the conversation turned towards the thing Lyvanne had been most eagerly anticipating, how to defend against the use of magic. Turiel opted for a more practical demonstration for this part of her lesson and they retreated to the rooftop. To Lyvanne’s surprise, they had been talking for so long that the sun had already begun to hide behind distant buildings, casting long shadows across the city ahead of them.

  “Stand there,” Turiel said, pointing to a spot on the roof a few feet away from him.

  “I don’t want you to hurt yourself just to teach me.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll use a weak spell, one that won’t scar.” Lyvanne nodded her agreement and took up her spot on the roof. “Watch my eyes, watch my hands.”

  She tried, but he was too fast. His hands flew through the air like knives, and she had no idea if his eyes had given away any kind of clue before she was hit by something that felt like the sting of a bee.

  “What was that?!” Lyvanne yelped.

  “A weak spell. If you were in real danger from a warlock who wanted to hurt you then they would have used much worse”

  “How in the God’s name am I supposed to stop that?”

  “Don’t stop it, dodge it.” Another blast came, another failure to dodge.

  “At least give me some warning you mad man!”

  “No,” Turiel said firmly.“The enemy won’t.”

  “I am not their enemy! Need I remind you Turiel? I’m here to learn about magic.”

  Turiel’s head dipped, but he accepted her decision.

  “Okay, point taken. Regardless of that fact there is one kind of magic that I must teach you to defend against.” Turiel sat her down on the roof, being careful not to touch anywhere that he had just blasted with magic, “The king has two kinds of warlocks working for him, those who are loyal and true to his cause lead his armies. They fight his enemies and ever push the boundaries of his empire. Although the king’s armies are proud and won’t ever tell you as much, choosing to keep the glory for themselves. The others are the enslaved ones, those who have been discovered, captured and forced into his work. He usually holds some personal leverage over them to keep them working. They’re the ones who are taught to steal into the visions of others, an incredibly painful and taxing kind of magic. And just as I -

  “Turiel,” Lyvanne interjected “How do you know so much about the king and his warlocks?”

  The question had been floating around for some time now, but she only just felt confident enough to ask it. The answer scared her, but she needed to know more about this person who was giving so much for her.

  “My father was one of the loyal ones,” he replied, a sadness growing behind his eyes. “Magic is rare in the people of The Rive, but it is more common among children with a magical parent. Once my Father had me he started to grow worried at the thought of me being forced into war after war if I showed signs of magic, and sure enough…” Turiel threw a small ball of light up into the air as demonstration “So he decided to help my mother and me escape the king’s castle during one of his return trips from a foreign war, but he was caught. My mother was killed, and my Father taken into servitude, the king deemed him a resource too valuable to waste. I was the lucky one, I escaped. It was that night that I had my vision, and by the Goddess’ fortune my father’s betrayal had caused enough commotion that my vision had been missed… or at least that’s the best explanation I could come up with.”

  Turiel looked out over the city as dusk slowly turned to night, Lyvanne could see that it had been some time since he’d had to tell the tale.

  “Lyvanne, I know you want to leave, I know you want to get out of Astreya, but you’re not safe. The king will never stop hunting you, and he has the means to find you”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The
warlocks he keeps locked away at the castle are weak, their bodies are drained from constantly watching for visions. Eventually, one of his generals, the ones fighting his wars, will return to Astreya and when they d,o he will use their power to search for you, the same way I did. They will be able to see you no matter where you are.”

  Turiel backed away, giving the information time to settle in. Lyvanne couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This was it now, this was her life, always running, always hiding.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes. You have to let me help you, I can put a spell on you that keeps them out, but it’s only a temporary solution and it will only work whilst I’m nearby.” Lyvanne seemed dejected, Turiel took it as less a slight on him and more the past few weeks draining her of any mental energy. “I can train your mind to block them out, but it’s going to take a long time, more than we have here.”

  “How long?”

  “It depends on how well you take to the teaching… weeks maybe months.”

  Lyvanne frowned. “How can I trust anything you’re telling me? How do I know you’re not just trying to keep me around because you see me as some kind of hero?”

  “I can only prove myself through my actions. The rest is up to you as to whether you believe me or not.”

  Lyvanne considered her options. No matter which route she chose to take, she felt entirely helpless. If she left Astreya behind, she might be able to lead a happy life somewhere out in the countryside, or on a far off continent like the ones Abella used to tell her about. But she would always live with the fear that Turiel was right and that one day they would find her. Or she could stay here, entrust her life into the hands of someone she’s only just met and hope that the path didn’t drag her into a war. Her mind drifted back to her vision, the battle scars on her face, her place at the table and the words of Abella who said that it was a better life being offered to her. What if this was what the world wanted from her? To be some hero.

  “Teach me to block them out,” she said, almost demanding. “Once it’s done, I’m leaving.”