Forest of Kings

by Jack Knight

  Ava pushed her way into the tavern with ease, and Warren followed right behind her. Xion was several feet behind them, waiting for a wall of bodies to pass before he could follow after them, when one of the people passing by caught his attention.

  The crowd between Xion and Sapphire and the others was four bodies wide at any given part, and they moved together like a school of fish. It was difficult to tell any of them apart, they moved by so quickly and so crammed together. Xion was barely even looking at any of them, until he noticed one of the people was dressed exactly like Ava when she went into battle.

  “Whoa!” Xion said in surprise. He looked at Sapphire. “Did you see that?” he asked.

  Sapphire looked around. “See what?” she asked, confused.

  Xion tried to stand on his toes to see over the people, but he was so much shorter than most, he had a difficult time spotting who he was looking for. After a few seconds, Xion finally picked the person out of the crowd.

  Xion could not make out if the person was male or female. They were wearing black leather armor over their entire body, even a helmet, with a black cloth that attached on both sides of the helmet to hide the person’s entire face, leaving only their eyes visible. Xion tried to spot more details about the person, but besides noting that the person was shorter than the people around them, he could not see anything important before the person melted into the crowd again.

  “What are you looking for?” Sapphire asked him, when he had not moved for almost an entire minute.

  Xion realized that the crowd keeping them from walking into the tavern had dissipated while he was not looking. He wondered why someone would be wearing Ava’s exact battle armor. There was no real way of knowing, except possibly asking Ava, but she was not usually forthcoming with information.

  “I’m going to see if I can find out,” Xion answered, committing to get Ava to at least tell him why she wore that particular armor.

  Xion and Sapphire walked into the tavern. Thankfully, it was not nearly as crowded as the street outside. The room was large, big enough to fit ten large tables, and each table could easily fit ten people around it. There was a large roaring fire in a fireplace off to the side of the room, giving a warm, comfortable feeling to the space and a welcome change from the brisk air outside.

  Most of the tables around the room had at least a few people around them. Some of them looked like townsfolk, talking quietly with the others at their tables. Others were clearly travelers, dirty, and wearing armor or weapons, talking loudly and filling the tavern with noise.

  Ava and Warren had already sat down at an empty table, Xion and Sapphire quickly passed through the room and joined them. They had sat at a table near the wall opposite the fireplace, the tables near it were mostly empty, and it was the most quiet spot in the entire tavern.

  As Xion and Sapphire sat down, Warren groaned.

  “Now we’re never going to get served,” Warren complained.

  “Why not?” Sapphire asked.

  “That barmaid,” Warren pointed to a young girl, currently facing away from their table, who had a platter filled with mugs balanced on her arm, “has looked over here like five times, but she hasn’t come over.”

  “Because, I’m an elf,” Ava added grimly.

  “You don’t know if it's because you’re an elf,” Xion pointed out. “Maybe she’s just busy.”

  “We’re in a human city,” Ava explained, “humans all hate elves.”

  Xion remembered one of the people that had recruited him to go to Aur’in, a man named Brawne, explaining that the people in his village treated him badly because they thought he was an elf.

  Xion did not like that Brawne had come into his mind, and immediately forced himself to focus on the barmaid. He thought that the way her black hair was tied into a bun on the back of her head looked familiar, but he could not place why.

  “Didn’t you want to figure something out?” Sapphire asked, breaking Xion’s concentration.

  “Right,” he said, refocusing on Ava. “Where did you get your armor?”

  Ava’s eyes narrowed as she glared at Xion. “Why?” she demanded, her voice cold.

  “Because, I just saw someone outside wearing the exact same thing you usually do,” Xion answered, wondering why Ava had gotten so angry.

  Ava’s entire body went stiff. “No, you’re wrong.”

  Warren laughed. “That’s not friendship, how do you know what he saw?” he asked.

  “They wouldn’t be here.” Ava’s voice was distant, like she was questioning her own statement.

  Xion exchanged curious glances with Sapphire and Warren, both of them seemed just as confused as he was. Obviously, Ava knew something she was not telling them, but Xion could not think of a reason to hide it. His curiosity grew, he wanted to press Ava for more information, but he did not get a chance.

  “Xion!”

  Xion’s head jerked up, surprised to hear his name from the other side of the room. It was not Sarin’s voice that had called him, and everyone else in the city that he knew was sitting at the table with him.

  The girl must have set down the tray of drinks somewhere, because she did not carry it as she hurried towards them. Everyone at the table was looking at the barmaid by the time she reached them and slammed her hands down on the wood so hard that the table rocked.

  “Oh, thank the gods! Someone I know! I’ve been here for months and everyone is a new face,” the girl exclaimed. She leaned in close to Ava and said in an only slightly quieter voice, “And, most of them have been a little too friendly, if you know what I mean.”

  Xion knew that his eyes had gone wide, and that he had not spoken. He was so surprised that he did not know how to react. His brain was trying so hard to comprehend what was going on, that it was incapable of doing anything else. He was not even sure if he was remembering to breathe.

  “Um, Xion?” Sapphire asked, looking at the barmaid with concern.

  Ava ran her eyes from the girl’s face, all the way down her body and then back up again, before she looked at Xion with a raised eyebrow.

  Warren leaned forward toward the girl and said, “Hello there, what’s your name?”

  “Oh, Xion,” the girl said, seeming to notice the other people at the table for the first time, “are you going to introduce me to your friends?”

  Xion’s brain finally started functioning again. “Um, this is Ava, Warren, and Sapphire,” he said, gesturing at each of them in turn. “Guys, this is Laira.”

  Chapter 3: Accompanied

  It took considerable effort on Ava and Sapphire’s part to get Laira to take their order. She insisted on wanting to catch up with Xion. After a few minutes of pressing, Laira finally remembered she was supposed to be working, and said that she would be right back with their food.

  As soon as she walked away, Warren rounded on Xion. “Where have you been hiding her?” he asked, his eyes wide and his voice full of excitement.

  “She’s never going to pay attention to you,” Ava said, “she can’t take her eyes off the chosen one.” She gave Xion a sarcastic smile. Xion got the feeling that she was mocking him.

  Sapphire looped one of her arms under Xion’s and pulled herself closer to him. “Who exactly is she?” Sapphire asked. Xion thought that she sounded worried, but he could not imagine why.

  “She lived in Fairen with me,” Xion told them. “She was one of the only people that didn’t always treat me like an outcast.”

  “She’s the girl that tackled you after the fight with the bandits,” Ava remembered aloud.

  Xion laughed. “She hugged me because we saved her,” Xion corrected.

  “And, spent the entire trip back to the village talking about how brave you were,” Ava grinned in a way that made Xion uncomfortable.

  “I’m sure she meant all of us,” Xion reasoned. He had not spent much time speaking to Laira in Aur’in, he could not imagine her talking about how brave he was. He had not even been that useful in the fight again
st the bandits, he had mostly been a distraction.

  Ava hummed, looking at Xion in a way that told him she did not believe he was right.

  Xion did not get a chance to say any more before Laira returned, carrying a platter full of food and drinks. Xion was sure that all of them had ordered a mug of ale, bread and cheese. He and Warren had also ordered stew, so that they could get something that was both cheap and contained meat. That was not what arrived.

  Laira sat the platter down on their table and started passing out a bounty of food. She had brought the bread and cheese, and stew for Warren and Xion, but that wasn’t all. She also passed out red berries that were covered in tiny yellow seeds, grapes, apples, cooked rabbit, ale, and tall glasses filled with sparkling yellow liquid that Xion recognized as elven wine. Once all of the food had been placed on the table, Laira sat down in the seat between Warren and Ava, directly across from Xion.

  “Um, we can’t afford all of this,” Sapphire apologized, though she eyed the food with a hunger in her eyes that Xion had never seen before.

  Laira waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t worry, it’s free.”

  “You’re a legend,” Warren said, immediately grabbing the plate with rabbit on it, and ravenously devouring it.

  Ava shrugged and picked up a glass of elven wine. She took a long drink and emptied the glass before she picked up a piece of bread and started taking small bites, staring at Laira the entire time.

  “Won’t you get in trouble?” Sapphire asked. She was obviously hungry, but she still hesitated to touch any of the food.

  “Oh no, it’s fine,” Laira insisted. “Xion! Where did you go? You saved me from those bandits and then disappeared.”

  Xion felt a guilty smile creep onto his face. He had not even thought to tell Laira that he would be leaving. He honestly did not believe that she would even notice.

  He explained to her that the people who had fought the bandits with him were recruiters from Aur’in, and that he had left Fairen to train as a sorcerer.

  “But,” Xion asked, after he finished, “why are you in Aromir?”

  “Well, most of the village was destroyed. Some of the traders stayed to help us rebuild, but a lot of the villagers left. Then, like a month later, a few men from the king’s army showed up and conscripted like half the men left in the village to help with the war,” Laira explained.

  Xion was surprised the war had affected Fairen at all. It was so far out of the way, he had hoped it would be immune from everything going on in the kingdom.

  “So,” Laira continued, “with so many people gone, we kind of had to leave. My family found a caravan in Fierstead, and we came here, because ya know my brother is a blacksmith’s apprentice here. And, the man who owns this place needed a barmaid, so here I am!”

  Xion expected her to take a breath, but she just continued on. He had gotten so used to Ava and Sapphire, he forgot how much some people could talk.

  “But, a sorcerer! That’s so amazing, you have to show me some magic!” Laira insisted.

  Warren nearly choked on his food when he started laughing. Ava just smiled and continued to eat.

  “We really shouldn’t be drawing any attention to ourselves,” Sapphire interjected.

  Laira’s eyes briefly darted to Sapphire’s arm around Xion’s, and then back up again. “Oh, well you don’t have to, that’s fine. So, what are you doing in Aromir?”

  “Passing through,” Ava said, before she took another bite of her bread.

  “Where are you guys headed after this?” Laira asked, her eyes wide with excitement.

  “Celemor,” Xion answered.

  “Can I go with you?” Laira asked immediately.

  Xion was caught off guard. He looked around at the others. Ava was looking at him like she enjoyed his discomfort. Warren was too busy eating to pay any attention. Sapphire removed her arm from his, and started picking at the bowl of grapes, offering no help at all.

  “Well, we aren’t exactly going on vacation,” Xion said uncertainly. “It’s dangerous outside of the city.”

  “You can protect me, it’ll be fine.” The matter of fact way that she said it made Xion nervous. He was not sure that he could protect anyone.

  All of the others were capable of defending themselves if necessary. If they ran into something dangerous, he had no reason to worry about them, he only had to focus on himself. If there was someone else that could not fight with them, he was sure that he would spend any fight that they encountered worrying about her the entire time.

  He could not be distracted in a situation where he was using magic. If he was, even for a second, he tended to lose control and Chaos magic would burst out of him. This often resulted in dangerous, unpredictable situations, like the chimera exploding into a bonfire.

  “What we’re doing is really dangerous,” Xion warned. “Have you heard of the Darkness?”

  “Of course,” Laira said quickly, she leaned forward, waiting for more.

  “It’s actually an ancient dragon named Draxis, who wants me dead. We think. And, I’m going to Celemor to look for a tutor to teach me a dangerous form of magic so that I can stop him. This really isn’t something you can take lightly.”

  Without hesitation, Laira insisted, “I’m in, when do we leave?”

  Xion tried his best to explain to Laira how dangerous it would be over the next few hours, but she refused to listen. She would not be swayed in the least bit.

  The four of them ate, when Laira went back to work, coming by every so often to continue the conversation. Once the four of them had eaten their fill, they left the tavern to find an inn. They had made plans to meet up with Laira the next morning so she could accompany them.

  The inn was not far from the tavern, only a few buildings farther into the city. It was well past sundown when they walked outside again, and most of the crowd from earlier had disappeared.

  When they made it into the inn, Sapphire pointed out that with the money they had saved not paying for dinner, they could afford better lodgings. They paid eight silvers for each room, double what they would have been able to afford otherwise.

  They only got two rooms, Warren and Xion shared one, while Sapphire and Ava shared the other. When they separated, Xion felt relieved.

  Ava and Sapphire were very close friends, but being with just Warren was a lot easier. Warren never made him feel bad, or like he was missing anything. Xion guessed it was because he spent most of his life being ignored, but interacting with people always took a lot of effort. Warren made it easier, mostly by saying exactly what was on his mind at all times.

  Xion entered the room that he was sharing, after saying goodnight to the girls, to find Warren sitting up on one of the two beds inside.

  The room was nicer than any room he had ever had before, not that he had a lot to compare it to. There were two beds, with a small dresser next to each. There were torches set around the room for lighting, already lit in their brackets. A window was set in the wall between the two beds. It was wide open and looked out onto the street. They were on the third floor, and Xion could see out the window to the city below. It was like looking at the stars up close, with all the torches and lanterns spread out through the streets, lighting up the porches of houses, and bobbing along in the hands of people who carried them. Even at night, voices and rumble of walking feet carried up into the room.

  Xion was completely entranced. The only big city he had ever been in was Aur’in. As much as he had loved it when he arrived, he had quickly become disillusioned to it. It had been magical in every way, but it was overly structured, and everyone who lived there seemed preoccupied with important daily business. This was a city of free people. A real city, where Xion could easily imagine staying forever. He could forget about Draxis, forget about magic.

  “Gods, listen to this one!” Warren said excitedly, breaking Xion out of his thoughts.

  He looked at Warren and smiled. Warren was reading from one of the musty old tomes that he ha
d liberated from Aur’in’s library. Warren spent most of his time reading, something Xion could not understand at all. Even when they walked across the wild, Warren could only go a few hours before reaching into one of the bags for a book.

  “Another spell?” Xion asked, trying not to laugh.

  “No, I’m trying to figure out what you are,” Warren explained, not looking up from the book.

  “What do you mean?” Xion asked, confused. His forearms started to itch again, he had to fight the urge to start madly scratching them.

  “Well, you always said that when they tested you, Sarin and Agron couldn’t figure out what your ancestry was, right?”

  Xion nodded. He remembered the day when he had pressed his freshly cut hand against the blood orb, a magical item that would test a person’s blood. If there was any magical ability in the person, the blood orb would show what sort of origin the magic had.

  Most elves had fey blood, from when their race had begun. Elves were descendant from fey and humans intermingling. Many elf sorcerers used magic from their fey side. Everyone had expected his magic to have a fey origin as well. Except, when he placed his hand on the orb, it had showed fire, and then a golden eye with a slitted pupil. It had reminded Xion of a cat’s eye, but Xion could not think of any magical cat creatures.

  “Okay, well this is a book of all the magical bloodlines that someone could possibly have. There are even references to vampire and lycanthrope bloodlines,” Warren explained. Xion could tell from his voice that he found the book extremely fascinating.

  “Wait,” Xion said, looking at the book. “That book is just a list of bloodlines?” Xion had imagined that there were maybe a dozen possibilities. He thought that it would take a few hours of research to narrow down what anyone was. This book was nearly half a foot thick, there was no way that could be right.