It had never occurred to him that he might be so different from his friends, certainly not in the way his life was set, but now he knew beyond a doubt that it was true. He wasn’t meant for this life.
“Good-bye.” he said with a sad smile, giving Katherine a heart-felt hug. He shook Pyotr’s hand, trying to ignore the other boy’s stunned silence. And then he climbed onto Dash’s back and rode out of town.
He tried to keep them from seeing the tears running down his face. Aleksei rode, looking straight ahead. This was not his first time leaving a home he loved.
He rode, turning his eyes from the things that inevitably recalled fond memories. He never wanted those to haunt his last thoughts of home. He wanted to remember his father, sitting at that rough table, telling him to go, while also achingly begging him to return.
He wanted to remember his friends as they were now, not as they had been all those years ago. The gods only knew when he’d see any of them again.
And suddenly Aleksei was passing the fair grounds, where he’d spent so many enchanted days, clutching his father’s hand as they moved from booth to booth, watching fools’ skits put on by the locals. He was leaving it all behind and something deep inside told him that it would never be the same. He might return to this place but he would never belong again. He passed the grounds and found himself in unfamiliar territory.
What was the rest of Ilyar like? Were the people the same? He pushed the thoughts aside as best he could. He knew that no answers awaited him. Not here, only down the road.
Whatever purpose this voice, this green-eyed man had for him, Aleksei still had to reach him before he could find answers. And in order to get there he had to survive the journey.
Would there be brigands on the road? He knew that the Legions kept way-stations on the major roads, but they couldn’t patrol the road all day and night. What would he do if someone tried to rob him?
The life of a farmer did not lend itself to combat. True, he was a competent archer, but he had only ever shot at squirrels and rabbits. His belt knife would likewise do him little good against experienced robbers.
As the shadows lengthened, his worries and doubts grew. He began to jump at nothing, the whisper of the wind, the flight of a bird. His mind twisted reality into possibility and illusion. Yet by the time night fell completely and he pulled a few paces off the road, he had encountered nothing but the local fauna.
Aleksei sighed in relief as he built his campfire and began to rummage through the pack his father had prepared for him. Some hours ago it had occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten breakfast before leaving, and his worries and fears had so consumed him on his ride north that he’d hardly thought of food.
Now he was starving and as he sorted through the various provisions his father had packed, he was relieved to see there was plenty of food to last at least two or three days. After that…well, he would figure that out when he got there.
He was just biting into an apple when the crunch of dry leaves and twigs sounded from behind him.
Aleksei hurried to his feet and spun around, his heart racing when saw two gleaming swords casting the firelight across the clearing. It was a pair of Legionnaires.
“Well, what have we here?”
Aleksei frowned. The uniforms were correct, as were the swords, but their scent told him these weren’t the straitlaced soldiers he’d heard about in tales. Something about them smelled…wrong.
“Just a farmer making his way north.” Aleksei said amicably, slowly reaching for his belt knife.
“Aye,” said one of the men, eyeing Dash. “Making his way north on a very handsome horse. How’d you come by it?”
Aleksei straightened to his full height, “My father gave him to me.”
The two men shared a glance. He was bigger than either of them, but that counted for little against their blades. It didn’t take a lot of training to cut down a farm boy. “Your father, eh? And where’s he?”
“Back at home, waiting on me.” Aleksei said cautiously. Something was definitely wrong.
One of the men grinned. It was not a nice expression. “Well, won’t it be a shame that you’ll be walking all that way?”
The other nodded his agreement, “That is, unless you give us trouble. Then you might not make it back at all.”
Aleksei tried to reconcile their words with the idea of Legionnaires he’d grown up with. “What’re you saying?”
“I don’t know, Gus, what are we saying?”
“I don’t know, Jack, I think we’re saying that if the farm boy puts up a fight, he’s likely to end up on the point of my sword.”
Jack nodded, “That’s what I thought we were saying.”
Aleksei tried desperately to make sense of it all. These men were just going to take Dash?
Something primal stirred within him.
A strange feeling descended on him as he watched the motions of each man, studying the way they stood, their individual balances. In the back of his mind, Aleksei was aware of each observation, yet he didn’t feel like he was the one making them.
“You can’t have my horse.” he said calmly. When had he become calm?
“Can’t we?” Jack asked, genuinely surprised. “Well, what a shame. You hear that, Gus? We can’t take his horse.”
Gus chuckled, “Too bad for us.” He took a step forward.
“I’m warning you.” Aleksei growled, his voice still impossibly cool and collected, “You cannot take my horse.”
He was warning them? Of what? Aleksei’s mind raced. Where were these words coming from? He had little doubt that his threat would be ignored or even mocked. But they were going to take Dash. And what was to stop them from killing him all the same?
But even as he struggled to understand everything that was happening, he felt no panic.
“Well, when you put it that way….” Gus chuckled, taking another step forward.
The feeling grew. Aleksei’s vision clouded at the edges
And then something shifted.
He hurled the half-eaten apple into Jack's face. A heartbeat later his hand shot out and caught Gus in the stomach. As the man doubled over, Aleksei brought his knee hard into the Gus’ face.
The man collapsed, but even as he fell Aleksei caught the sword that dropped from his nerveless fingers and pivoted to face Jack, kicking out with his foot and catching the man high in the throat.
Aleksei froze, realizing that he had Jack pinned to a tree, his foot cutting off the man’s air supply. In his right hand he held Gus' sword, pointed towards the man’s prone form on the ground.
His vision cleared.
“Get out of here.” Aleksei managed. He let his foot down and glared coolly at Jack, “Take your friend and get out of here. And if I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
The two men scrambled to get out of the clearing as fast as they could. It was only when they were gone that Aleksei slumped to the ground.
What had he done? He didn’t know how to fight. He’d never wielded a sword in his life, yet here he was. Aleksei suddenly realized that his right hand still clutched the Legionnaire blade. More worrisome still was the comfort he felt with the sword in his grip. The understanding that it belonged there.
The strange feeling evaporated as quickly as it had appeared, and a sense of absolute disgust overwhelmed him. Aleksei rolled to the side and retched violently into the underbrush, his body heaving painfully. A part of him had enjoyed the violence, and that very thought made him sick.
Exhaustion overwhelmed him. He slumped against his pack, fighting to keep his eyes open. As he fell into a fitful sleep, the voice echoed in his head.
Aleksei thought he heard it laughing.
Bael sat back on his heels, staring into the smoking embers of Jorna’s pinion fire.
Her tent had been reconstructed without a word from his Lord Father. The remains of the scryer Bael had incinerated had been cleared with the rest of the debris f
rom Darielle’s visit and a new hide tent erected in its place.
In a shocking revelation that rocked their small congregation, his Lord Father Rafael had revealed that the scryer Bael had murdered was under the influence of the Lord of Lies and Light, Dazhbog.
Bael, though a mere pawn in the Dark God’s embracing shadow, had acted as a vessel of purity and had removed the filth of betrayal from their sacred congregation.
Bael was as stunned as the rest to hear the words escape his father’s cracked lips. In truth, it sounded as though Volos himself was dragging each word out of Rafael with white-hot pincers. But preach them he did, and his word was law.
Bael became something of a hero overnight, rather than the murdering toad boy he knew he was. There was nothing just in killing that man.
Bael had felt a flash of anger and irritation and had thought nothing more of it. He’d felt no divine hand guiding his actions, only the mad visions of an insane woman poisoning his mind towards a darker path.
But no longer.
Not after what he’d just witnessed in the smoke of Granny Jorna’s fire.
The ‘boy’, as she’d originally called him, was so much more than that. He was something unlike anything Bael had ever beheld. Simple, powerful; unsullied by the wickedness that his father always claimed gripped the world beyond their cloistered Commune.
And yet, despite the weeks Bael had been watching the other man toil away in his fields, pray to his false gods in the night, or weep with confusion at Bael’s consistent intrusion into his thoughts, it had come as a complete shock when Aleksei Drago had packed his belongings and headed north.
Away from a father who loved him.
That alone left Bael shaken.
But not so shaken as watching through Aleksei’s eyes as the two men approached his campfire and were immediately defeated. Defeated by a peasant boy who seemed to possess less ferocity than the wild squirrels Bael trapped in the woods.
And now Aleksei Drago was heading north. North, towards Bael. Towards the voice that had dogged his dreams for days and weeks now. It was nearly too much for Bael to comprehend.
He wasn’t sure whether he ought to be more surprised by Aleksei’s actions, or by the fact that he could now feel some small connection between himself and the farm boy. He said as much to his grandmother.
Jorna gave a low cackle, dribbles of black smoke falling from her empty eyes and mingling with the fog of her tent, “You’ve been diligent enough. I would be quite surprised if the boy wasn’t forming some connection with you. It might even be stronger still if there were not another to interfere.”
Bael frowned at her through the haze, “But how is that possible? Your vision said nothing of another seeking the same prize.”
She nodded slowly, her gaze somehow penetrating him to the core, “And Darielle’s vision? Did you see nothing of this other seeker? For if this other is successful, I fear that your sister will prove herself to be right yet again.”
Bael suppressed a shiver.
Darielle’s vision promised him only darkness and death. A life he could hardly imagine, much less desire. But no, through the flashes of black flame and the screaming, Bael saw no other seeker. He didn’t even really see Aleksei, though Jorna promised that the farm boy played heavily into her own prophecy.
“I’m doing everything I can.” he finally allowed, brokenly. “I’ve done everything you’ve told me to. And there is another?”
“Tut-tut, young one. You’ll get nowhere if you drown yourself before you can truly swim. The presence of the other seeker means one very important thing that you’ve missed.”
Jorna leaned forward, “This is not a simple piece of spellwork, Bael. If there is another seeker, one who can reach our boy, then we are playing a very different game than I first imagined.”
Bael felt rage swirl up in him as he leapt to his feet. “It’s not a game!” he screamed.
The fire roared in response to his rage, a column of green and gold fire blasting through the top of the tent and showering him in tiny flecks of sparking ash.
Bael stood in the acrid snow for a moment before lowering his head in shame.
“I’m sorry. That was horrid of me, especially with what Darielle’s put you through. I just…I just can’t…” The rest of his words dissolved into unintelligible murmurs that escaped around his sobs of frustration.
From across the firepit, Granny Jorna watched him cautiously.
“Careful with that temper, dearie.” she said in a choking whisper. “Or it will get you burned.”
Jonas Belgi stood before his aunt, his face cool and collected.
“This is a mistake. One with dangerous consequences, if you don’t play your hand very carefully.”
Andariana regarded her nephew with a mixture of surprise and concern. Jonas was not one to get worked up over minor political machinations.
“There’s nothing I can do, Jonas. You must understand that.”
“You’re the Queen.” he said softly, his tone never hinting at his true emotions. Somehow, that just made it cut all the deeper. “If you can’t do something about it, then what good are you?”
“Don’t be petulant.” she snapped, instantly regretting the flash of irritation she had betrayed. “You knew from the beginning that this was a possibility. Don’t take your anger out on me because of your miscalculations.”
“I will not marry the girl.”
“You were the one who saw the urgent need to have Bertrand Perron as Chancellor, were you not?” she asked pointedly.
Jonas' emerald glare matched her own like flint on steel.
“This alliance is hardly ideal.” Andariana continued lightly.
She lifted a trinket from her ornate desk and began to absently pass it through her fingers. Anything to provide distraction from her nephew’s intrusive intensity.
“But just because you marry Eleina Perron doesn’t mean you have to love her. Or even like her. You never have to be within a hundred leagues of the trollop, but you will have to marry her to uphold our end of the alliance.”
Jonas ran a hand through his thick, chestnut hair. In her own youth, Andariana would have broken something of incalculable value or gulped down a bottle of Dalitian firebrandy to numb her frustration. She had been increasingly tempted to follow the latter plan in the past few months.
Whatever it took to feel something besides the entitled rage that gripped the both of them. She deeply disliked feeling this way, and her nephew was no different. Jonas was hardly one to sacrifice his freedom, even for political gain.
But she had made Bertrand Perron the Chancellor of Parliament based on Jonas' advice, both believing the noble to be strongly on their side. Thus far, that much had proven true and she was grateful for Jonas' guidance. The gods knew she needed her nephew’s wits more than ever of late.
However, only days ago Perron had pushed a motion through Parliament that was so egregiously opposed to everything Jonas held sacred, it was hard to comprehend.
Andariana studied him for a moment, suddenly divining the source of his frustration. “This isn’t about the betrothal, is it?”
Jonas scowled, “I did not champion Lord Perron to have my own agenda tossed aside. After his outburst this morning, the betrothal is salt in an open wound.”
Andariana dropped the trinket on the desk and placed her face in her hands. She allowed herself a deep breath. This had been brewing from the moment Perron had proclaimed his first official motion of censure, but only now did she understand the true source of Jonas' ire.
The gods be damned, was it her fault an Archanium Magus had been caught breaking the law? She allowed herself a sardonic smile at the thought. Of course it was. Because Jonas said so.
In truth, Andariana thought the matter was as preposterous as Jonas. A Magus, a girl in truth, had been caught using her magic to summon fire, to ward off the chill from the northern winds that ran ragged through Kalinor
this late into Harvest.
But the use of the Archanium for anything that could be deigned a weapon had been outlawed since the war. Worse, the girl had been turned in by another Magus, one of Sammul’s most promising acolytes.
The girl was being severely reprimanded for her actions, and there were even rumblings of imprisoning her. Fear was running rampant in the chambers of Parliament, and so Andariana had done the only thing that seemed sensible at the time.
She had turned the matter over to High Magus Sammul. Over to the man whose duty it was to train and instruct the Magi of Ilyar. She had thought him to be lenient on the matter, that he would protect his own, or at least handle the matter quietly and fairly within the confines of the Voralla.
She had been mistaken.
And that mistake had ignited Jonas' ire. Sammul had been in Parliament that very morning, pushing for the girl’s imprisonment. Andariana was left wondering how long it would be before talk of banishment, even execution, began to circulate.
“I fail to see how this directly affects you, Jonas.” she said finally, fighting the tone of desperation creeping into her voice. “You aren’t a Magus. You haven’t trained in the Voralla. Only a handful of people even know that you can touch the Archanium.”
Jonas took an aggressive step forward, “It affects me greatly, Andariana. Who do you think has been bringing me the books I need to educate myself? Who do you think showed me how to access the Archanium in the first place?”
Andariana slumped back in her chair. This was much worse than she’d originally feared.
Jonas rested his knuckles on her desk and leaned forward, “Why do you think Sammul has been so venomous about the whole affair?”
The gods knew she’d been wondering the very same thing before her nephew had stormed into her chambers. “You think he’s punishing Ilyana for helping you?”
“Sammul is afraid of me.” Jonas insisted. “He doesn’t have control over me and that terrifies him.”
“Sammul doesn’t know that you can touch the Archanium.”
Jonas snorted, “He can feel it. Just because we haven’t officially told him doesn’t mean he’s ignorant. Worse, I think he can feel my talents getting stronger. That could only mean that I’m getting help from someone in the Voralla. He had to be enraged when he discovered who it was.
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