Clash (The Arinthian Line Book 4)

by Sever Bronny

  Mr. Goss and Leland also retired to the Miner’s Mule Inn, having taken up residence there to give the Okekes space. Augum longed to live alone, or with Leera, but the latter just wasn’t done until marriage.

  Mrs. Stone had left a sum of coin with Mr. Harvus for lodging and expenses a while ago, though how much remained and when she paid him last was a mystery. When she teleported in, she could never stay long because the Legion warlocks were always teleporting after her, using Magua’s divining rod to point them in the right direction. But the warlocks could only teleport to a location they had been to, and since apparently none of them had stepped foot in Milham before, Mrs. Stone guessed they initially appeared at the Legion constabulary in Eastspear, many leagues to the south. By the time they started on their journey to Milham, she would teleport away. The warlocks would then teleport to the next closest location they visited and the chase would start anew. But each time she came to Milham, they got a little closer, and so she stopped coming altogether of late. It was a dangerous game, one Augum knew had to come to an end one day, especially now that those warlocks had no other scion to track down.

  As he watched Bridget and Leera practice dueling, he wondered if his father was part of that search party, or if he was in the bowels of Bahbell exploring its library or trying to figure out how to work the gate portal. Garryk surely would have told the Legion everything under duress, which meant they probably knew the trio had destroyed the recipe. That didn’t stop Augum from entertaining the idea that his father frantically searched Bahbell’s ancient library for a copy. Amusingly, he imagined the man throwing childish fits and tantrums as he repeatedly failed.

  After ducking a stick Leera threw at her using Telekinesis, Bridget placed her hands on her hips, breath coming in short gasps, three ivy rings disappearing from her forearm. “More light, Aug.”

  “Right, sorry.” The lightning rippling around his hand crackled brighter. He was so good with the Shine spell now he hardly gave much thought to brightening his palm.

  Haylee, who was still struggling with her 2nd degree, angrily threw her cane. “I hate this thing! I hate this leg! Why couldn’t they have done a better job healing it?”

  “Just bad luck, Hayles,” Augum said.

  “Don’t you call me that. He called me that.”

  “Of course. My apologies.” He forgot Robin had a slew of nicknames for her. He could hardly blame her for being angry. Everything about Robin made Augum angry too. He often enjoyed remembering his fist slamming into that idiot’s face in a most satisfying way.

  Bridget turned to Leera. “Again?”

  Leera, forehead beaded with sweat, nodded. She slapped her wrists together, three watery rings appearing around her arm. “Annihilo!” A jet of water shot forth, slamming into Bridget’s shield of leaves and ivy.

  Bridget grunted from the force of it. The moment the shield disappeared, she brought her own hands together. “Annihilo!” and a vine shot forward, the end a dull stump very much like a fist. It punched Leera’s hastily summoned shield of pond leaves and driftwood, sending her tumbling backward.

  Bridget’s vine and Leera’s shield disappeared, leaving no trace. The girls’ shoulders heaved with exertion.

  Leera brushed herself off. “Good one.”

  “Reflect,” Bridget said, readying herself.

  Leera groaned but withdrew the prism from her pocket.

  Bridget slammed her hands together. “Annihilo!”

  “Mimica!” Leera shouted, trying to catch Bridget’s spell at the exact angle and reflect it back at her. Instead, the vine slammed into Leera’s hands, bending them back. She yelped and fell to the ground, sucking air through her teeth from the pain.

  “Sorry,” Bridget said, hands on her knees as she breathed heavily. “I eased up on the hit too.”

  “Hate this dumb spell,” Leera muttered, standing. “Never works …”

  Bridget jerked her chin, ponytail swinging. “Hit me back.”

  Leera slammed her wrists together. “Annihilo!”

  “Mimi—” but Leera’s jet of water bowled Bridget over before she could say the trigger word, which had to be spoken very quickly.

  “Late,” Leera said.

  Bridget watched as the water disappeared from her robe. “I know,” then slowly picked herself back up.

  “Take a break, you two,” Augum said, striding between them and extinguishing his palm. They both slumped onto a log bench around a dark fire pit, while Augum prepared to run through the spells he knew. Unconsciously, his three lightning rings flared to life around his arm.

  “Haylee, want to join me doing a cycle?” It’s what they called going through every spell they knew.

  Haylee, who had been watching their jousting, picked up her thoroughly-dinged cane. She brushed aside her long golden hair, sighed, and nodded.

  He started with Shine’s extension, practicing shocking a stump. The lightning left a charred hole on the bark, but otherwise dissipated harmlessly. Haylee followed, temporarily icing the stump. He quickly moved on to Telekinesis, raising a log into the air before placing it a few feet away. Haylee moved the same log back to its original position. He then broke a stick over his knee, dropping the pieces to the ground. He splayed both hands over it. “Apreyo.” The two parts came back together, light shining from the mending seam. Haylee took the stick from him and attempted to break it with one hand while holding the cane. Augum reached out to help.

  “No! I need to be able to do stuff like this on my own.” She placed the cane under her arm and strained to break the stick, but lost her balance and fell. She cursed and flung the stick into the stream, promptly doing the same with her cane. “I’m a cripple,” she mumbled, weeping. “A useless cripple …”

  Bridget strode over and gave Haylee a gentle hug. “You’re not a cripple. You’ve got a bad leg. Doesn’t mean anything. Look at Leland. Little tyke is blind, mute and in constant pain, yet he is as happy as can be and never complains.”

  Augum took a seat beside Leera.

  “Poor thing is really struggling,” she said to him quietly, chin resting on her hands.

  “She is.” He watched Haylee retrieve her cane under Bridget’s compassionate supervision. “Your friendship means a lot to her, you know.”

  Leera’s brows rose. “Really?”

  “Yup.”

  “Huh.”

  “I think it’s helping her get past the murder of her parents. And … maybe it’s helping you too.”

  “Maybe.” She idly kicked at the ground. “I’ve been thinking. Would you still … you know, like me if I suddenly got older?”

  “Where’s this coming from?” but he knew exactly what she meant—he’d been thinking about it too. The side effect of Cron was instant aging. Every successful casting of the spell aged the caster. What did that mean for them? How much would they age? Would they suddenly turn old like Mrs. Stone? Would he miss out on the entirety of his life just to defeat his father? Was that really what all of this was coming down to?

  “You’ve been thinking about it as much as I have,” Leera said. “I know Bridget has. I can tell. You know she woke up the other night screaming?”

  He glanced at Bridget, who was now whispering something to Haylee. The rings under her eyes looked darker. “Thought I dreamed that.”

  “Nope. That was Bridget. Fess up, you’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?”

  He rubbed his face, ran both hands through his hair, and expelled a long breath. “I have.”

  Leera turned her head to watch him, chin still resting on her hands. “Could you imagine? What if we, you know, became old suddenly? Old like Mr. Goss. But we’re still us. Fifteen-year-olds trapped in forty-year-old bodies.”

  She was a month away from turning fifteen, but correcting her right now, even jokingly, didn’t feel right in this moment. But would they even get to her fifteenth? What if the Legion found them before that? And then, if all worked out and they learned Cron, they’d skip a whole bunc
h of birthdays all at once. Or is that even how it worked? What was the difference between getting captured and dying, and dying from old age very fast? What was the point?

  He took his birthday necklace and absently placed it between his teeth, chewing on it in thought.

  Leera returned to idly kicking at the dirt. “Feels like my dreams are dying. Like I have no future.”

  Augum’s heart sank. That’s the darkest Leera had ever sounded. Wait, did she mean no future with him, or no future in general? He shoved the thought away. He was being paranoid. Besides, it was best not to overthink it.

  “Maybe the point is to …” He sighed, allowing the chain to fall from his lips. What was he trying to say? What would Sir Westwood say? Or Mrs. Stone? “Maybe the point is we’re to enjoy it while we have it.”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. Suddenly she snorted. “That all you got?” She was smiling as their gazes met.

  “You two make me want to puke sometimes,” Haylee said, wiping her tears, voice full of envious affection. She had flung her cane to the stream once more after yet again failing at some spell Bridget was trying to teach.

  Bridget patiently retrieved the cane. “You and Chaska are just as bad, and you know it. Now let’s practice together.”

  “I wish we were,” Haylee mumbled, accepting her cane and straining to stand.

  Leera slapped Augum’s knee. “Come on, I’ll hide something for you.” She jumped up, picked a rock from the ground and disappeared behind the cabin, soon returning and taking a seat. “Well?”

  Augum strolled behind the cabin and extended his palm, concentrating on that subtle tug that told him something was purposefully hidden nearby.

  “Un vun deo.” Almost immediately, he found the stone buried under a branch. He brought it back to Leera, who gave a brief nod before standing apart from him. They were so practiced with their training regimen they hardly needed to speak.

  Augum stood across from her, mentally readying for the Push spell. He shoved at the air before him. “Baka!”

  She summoned her shield but was still knocked backwards a few paces.

  Leera gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Now Slam.”

  Augum made to throw at the ground. “GRAU!” The sound of thunder ripped through the air, scattering birds from trees. Bridget, Haylee and Leera were so used to it they barely flinched. But the spell was more powerful during battle anyway, which they theorized happened from the excitement, giving spells that extra nudge.

  Augum felt a minor throb begin in his brain—the side effects of depleting his arcane reserves. Grueling hours of training tended to do that, though these days it wasn’t as big of a problem as it was at the beginning.

  Leera strolled over and picked up the rock, tossing it to Augum’s feet. “Object Alarm.”

  He dropped to his knees, gripping the rock with both hands. “Concutio del alarmo,” and let go, closing his eyes. He heard Leera walk over. The moment a bell tolled in his mind, indicating someone touched his enchanted object, he raised his arm.

  She gave a nod. “Good. Object Track.”

  Augum splayed out his hands over the stone. “Vestigio itemo discovaro,” and once again closed his eyes while Leera took the rock and walked off to hide in the woods. He soon got up and followed the subtle arcane pull, finding her hiding behind a large spruce, where she immediately yanked him close and kissed him, sending a thrill through his spine.

  “Cut it out, you two!” Bridget eventually called from the cabin. “We’ve got training to do.”

  Leera rolled her eyes and tugged on Augum’s sleeve, dragging him back. “And you two could have made yourself useful and started a fire,” she said to Bridget and Haylee. “It’s getting cold.” Dusk was quickly dimming to night.

  “Grau!” Haylee yelled, but the noise generated was nothing more than that of a snow bank crumbling slightly. She flung her cane at the fire pit. “Use that damn thing for kindling.”

  Bridget sighed, recovered the cane and handed it back to her. “You’re too hard on yourself. You’re letting your emotions get in the way of concentration.”

  “Stop trying to be my big sister.” Haylee’s shoulders dropped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’ll try harder.”

  Bridget gave a proud nod, then smiled at Augum and Leera holding hands. “I’m amazed you’re getting away with it so long. Just tell her.”

  “I don’t want to add to Nana’s worries,” Augum said, though the truth was he was also scared of Mrs. Stone forbidding him and Leera from liking each other. Absurdly, he even feared her sending Leera away. She’d say it was for their safety, or whatever. “Everyone pretty much knows anyway.” He grudgingly let go of Leera’s hand and began scouring for dry branches.

  “Everyone except your mentors.”

  Leera gave Bridget a sardonic look. “Harvus doesn’t matter, nor is it any of his business.”

  “He is your mentor whether you like it or not.”

  “Mrs. Stone is our mentor.” Leera shrugged. “And we’ll tell her. Eventually. When we’re ready.”

  “When we’re ready,” Augum agreed, thinking the best time would be when he turned sixteen and became a man in the eyes of the world. Could he hide their relationship for another year? He almost scoffed aloud—not a chance in Sithesia.

  Haylee glanced behind her at the cabin. “Better keep your voice down if you don’t want Mrs. Stone to hear.”

  Leera gestured dismissively. “I wrapped the orb in a couple blankets. She won’t hear a thing.”

  Bridget frowned. “And what if we got into trouble? What if the Legion comes? How will she hear our calls for help? Really, Leera, sometimes I question where your head is at.”

  “That’s what all her enchantments are for.” Leera glanced from Bridget to Augum to Haylee. “By the Fates, between the three of you, I don’t know who worries more.”

  Augum and Bridget shared a tolerant look. Haylee turned her back and used Telekinesis to repeatedly whack the cane against a rock until it broke. Then she repaired it, only to break it again, seeming to take great pleasure in the vicious act.

  Bridget waved a hand and a branch floated over to the fire pit. “Never mind the fire. I’ll take care of it. Keep training. Aug, I want to see you cast 4th degree spells on Leera while she practices Mind Armor.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Stone,” Augum said with a wry smile. Ever since he and Leera admitted their affection for each other to her, Bridget went out of her way playing the protective big sister. It was as if she was afraid of something awful happening. It was an unspoken fear, sometimes showing itself in the way she watched Augum and Leera. Strangely, it made Augum respect and appreciate her that much more.

  He and Leera stood to face each other. Leera winked and made to daintily adjust her hair like Harvus.

  Augum cracked a grin. “Stop it, I need to concentrate.”

  She pursed her lips in a pout.

  “Stop it already,” he said, unable to cease smiling.

  “You need to learn to concentrate through distractions,” Bridget said absently, floating a small log to the pit.

  Leera made a See, how do you like that? look and continued to make stupid faces.

  Augum decided to start with the Deafness spell. He raised his arm at Leera, his three lightning rings leaping to life. “Voidus aurus.”

  Bridget arranged dry leaves into a clump in the fire pit. “Augum no longer likes you.” When Leera kept making stupid faces but did not glance at her, she said, “Good job, Aug.” Then she turned to Leera, pointing at her mouth and saying, “You’ve got to concentrate, Lee.”

  “HUH? WHAT? DAMN IT!” Leera made a looping gesture at her temple, speaking very loudly. “I could sense the spell working, just can’t seem to get the hang of blocking it.”

  Augum pointed at his mouth. “Loud.”

  “WHAT?”

  Augum spoke slower. “You’re. Being. Loud. Again.”

  “OH. SORRY.”

  Behind Leera, Haylee sni
ckered to herself. “Wish Chaska had the talent for arcanery, then we could banter on about spells too.”

  “Consistency and concentration, Lee.” Bridget made a little house of sticks around the leaves. “Aug—try Confusion.”

  “Ready?” he asked Leera.

  “Stop giving her warning,” Bridget said. “She needs to be able to sense that initial arcane attack.”

  “Right.” He raised his arm, barely noticing the throb in his head had developed into a pounding. “Flustrato!”

  Leera immediately developed a dazed look.

  “You’re getting better, Aug, really well done. But Lee, seriously, what’s going on?”

  Leera looked around. “Wha …?”

  “Give her a moment, Bridge.”

  Bridget crossed her arms as she waited for Leera to snap out of it. “I’m worried about her. She hasn’t been able to defend herself very well with Mind Armor. Really hit or miss. I mean, she was able to do it fine with Mrs. Stone. It’s like she can’t concentrate—” She suddenly realized something and gave Augum a scolding look.

  “It’s not my fault! I try to get her to focus, you heard me earlier—”

  “Well you need to do a better job. I’m not kidding, Aug.” She gestured at him and Leera. “You two messing about together better not cost you your lives.”

  Augum knew she was right—one slip in concentration could easily get them killed. He needed to take this more seriously, before it was too late.

  “What happened?” Leera suddenly said, glancing between the two of them. “Did I mess up again?” They avoided her gaze. “Bah, I knew it!”

  Bridget strolled to the cabin. “Keep working at it.”

  Leera made to move to him as soon as Bridget disappeared inside. As much as he wanted her in his arms, he held her at bay. “No. Let’s keep working.” He opened his palm as disappointment showed on her face. “Dreadus terrablus.”

  This time she was ready and blocked it using Mind Armor, though she had always done better blocking this spell above the others—not that he was any good with it, making for a poor practice partner.