Shattered Illusions (Terra Chronicles Book 2)

by J. C. Jackson

  I looked at the other side of the pins and saw a circular line of something embedded in the metal. The two which belonged to me looked like they each held a strand of my hair coiled in the metal. Brown’s appeared to be what I remembered his hair looked like. Testing my thought would likely be a chore itself. One I might not be able to spare the time to pursue for a while.

  Pushing the lenses up on my head, I sat back on my stool and contemplated. I really wanted an answer now, but Silver would be in the middle of training. I would get a video call from him every couple of days, but I tried not to bring my work into it. He had enough to deal with in Ocean’s Edge without me dropping work from the main office on him as well.

  My computer started making noise at me, signaling someone requesting a video call. I only hoped it was not from one of the branch lab techs who made sport out of insulting me. I did not think I could bite my tongue today.

  Once I wheeled my stool over, I raised an eyebrow at the name and punched it up to the larger screen behind the computer. “Hi, Rathal.” I heard from him regularly, but like Silver, he usually did not call until after normal hours - unless he was trying to get an update. He had become a friend over the last few months.

  “Heya, cutie. How goes?” Rathal smiled broadly. “I’m bored and hoped you had something new.”

  Then there was that - calling when he had nothing to do, though these were rare. I rolled my eyes at what he called me. He still called for an update, but more to just have someone to talk to.

  “Who are you harassing now?” I heard Savanas’ voice. A moment later she walked into view of the camera. “Oh, hi, Ket. Is he bothering you?”

  I shook my head, the heavy glasses sliding awkwardly so I took them off and smoothed down my hair. “No, I’ve got something new, but I’ve hit a block.”

  Rathal grinned broadly at my statement. “See, totally getting an update,” he said to Savanas.

  Savanas rolled her eyes before she reached forward to hit a few buttons on Rathal’s keyboard and suddenly my view changed to where their large screen sat. Outside of the rest of Savanas’ team, I could also see the recruits moving about. I felt self-conscious as a few stopped to look. A sandy-haired Halfling seemed most interested, but kept moving after hesitating a moment.

  Savanas stepped in front, followed quickly by the others. “What do you have?”

  Focusing on the task at hand, I rolled my stool back to where I left the pins. “I’ve been examining the Arcane College pins when I noticed a seam which didn’t make sense. I pried my student pin apart and found a mix of arcane and divine text inside.” I grabbed the tray with the pins and wheeled myself back.

  “Why would there be divine text on an Arcane College pin?” Brad looked confused. Arcane and divine text rarely ever appeared together. They were two very different types of magic. I found it surprising anyone ever figured out how to use both energy types at the same time.

  The necromancer spells were the only ones I had seen merging the two, but even then Brown’s arcane and divine notes mostly remained separate.

  “I don’t know,” I said, turning on the microscope and getting my Researcher’s pin lined up underneath before reaching over to add the image to the video feed. “This is the pin I wore. It bears the same inscription as my student pin as far as I can tell. The other side looks like it contains a strand of hair embedded in it, but I haven’t been able to test that theory yet.” A machine behind me beeped, reminding me I had other tasks to deal with.

  “The only part in arcane text is a listing of ranks,” Rathal observed. He turned to look at someone off screen. “Hey, Silver, you got a minute?”

  “Dawnseeker, I’ve told you time and time again you can’t just borrow my recruits,” an annoyed female voice came from the side.

  Savanas rolled her eyes and turned in the direction of the voice. “I’m authorizing this one, Faring. If you’ve got a problem with it, talk to Vince.” Then she muttered something too low for me to hear.

  “Sorry I don’t have more information. I haven’t had a chance to learn how to read divine text yet.” I had it on my list of things I needed to do, but I felt like I barely had time to breathe lately. I understood the dangers of learning divine, but if I could at least be able to read the text, it would help speed processing this case along faster.

  A few seconds later, Silver strode into view. I still found it odd to see him outside of the garments of his order no matter how many video calls we had. He wore a light blue, short-sleeve, button-up shirt tucked into khaki-colored pants. He still wore the gauntlets, belt, and a few months ago reforged his circlet into ear cuffs.

  Silver bowed slightly, before saying, “A pleasure to see you, Ketayl.” The formality caught me off-guard. His attention quickly shifted to the side of the screen the video from the microscope displayed.

  He also seemed distracted. All the other times we spoke were after he completed his training sessions for the day. I must have caught Silver in the middle of something.

  I shifted uncomfortably, adjusting my lab coat. I had not wanted to bother him with this. He needed to be able to focus on his work. Though, I began to wonder why my own training had been so vastly different.

  “What is this from?” Silver looked at me, confused.

  “My Arcane College pin - the Researcher one I wore,” I said quietly. Why did I shy away from facts? It made no sense. Maybe I was ashamed I did not know about this.

  Crossing his arms, Silver studied the image. “It looks like it’s meant to enhance a spell. To control the wearer? The wording is a bit flowery and old. What’s the arcane text?”

  Rathal stepped in, “It’s a listing of ranks. You said this one and your student pin were identical, but what about Brown’s?”

  “The list is shorter.” Having something to do, I regained my confidence. I swapped the pins out to show them the Archmage’s. “His only has the Circle of Magi.”

  Savanas pursed her lips before she said, “Makes sense. You don’t want someone lower being able to control someone higher up. Does it say anything about causing the wearer pain if they fight it?”

  Silver nodded, reading the text again. For such a small pin, there was a lot of text. “It’s not gentle, that’s for certain. It explains Ketayl’s reactions though fairly well. Did you feel like you were having a hard time breathing?” He looked at me, concern plain on his face.

  I nodded, looking down to fiddle with the other half of my Researcher’s pin. I found annoyance at Kitteren’s avoidance of the topic every time I tried to talk to her about it and here I was doing the same thing.

  Darius said, “I have to ask, but are those things safe for you to handle? I mean, we’re talking about spells to control people.”

  Looking back up, I nodded. “These pins are inactive. My student pin was dead when Lockonis and Magus Engelil looked at it and I broke the spell on my Researcher’s pin. With the Archmage dead, I don’t think they were able to get a good understanding of how it worked.”

  “So we need someone alive and with an active pin to get a full picture,” Savanas summed up. “It won’t be an easy task.”

  “Could be fun though,” Darius commented. “I specialize in pissing off Arcane College mages.”

  “You failed with that one,” Rathal pointed at me.

  “She doesn’t count. Ket is one of us.”

  Silver had been reading through the text again. He said, “This looks a lot like the way those necromatic spells were written. Can you get me copies of the text on each pin? I’d like to try to cross-reference them when I get a chance. There’s some older language used in there I can’t quite make out.”

  “I’ll have the images uploaded to the case file by this evening,” I promised. It would not take that long, but I would rather give myself a little breathing room.

  “Who else has been apprised of this new information?” Savanas asked.

  I bit my lower lip. I had not thought through revealing this to them without consulting any
one else first. “No one. I found it shortly before Rathal called.”

  “Okay…” Savanas started to say.

  Another voice in my lab cut her off, “Ket, you should be packing. What are you doing in here?” Kitteren let herself in.

  I turned to glare at her and tilted my head at the large screen on the wall.

  “Oh, hi, sorry. I’m not here,” Kitteren said and took a seat on a stool at the back of the room. However, I did not miss her narrowing her eyes when she noticed a particular person in the group on the screen.

  Kitteren still blamed Silver for me getting hurt and no amount of telling her it had been my choice would change her mind. She very loudly voiced her dislike of him when she found out he was being assigned as my partner.

  Savanas followed where Kitteren moved behind me and did not speak again until my sister seated herself. “I’ll let you finish with Rathal. Thank you for the update, Ket.”

  Standing up, I bowed to the group as Rathal ran back to his desk to return the feed to his computer. As soon as he settled back in front of his camera, he smirked, “So, working yourself to death again?”

  Rolling my eyes, I tossed back, “I’m backlogged. Lockonis has been coming in to help. The pins came in this morning and I wanted to take a look at them before I left.”

  I glanced back when another machine beeped. They would all be demanding attention now.

  Rathal smirked. “Just so you know, I’ll be picking you up at the airport. I promise not to make an ass out of myself this time. Is anyone else from the main office coming with you?”

  I pointed back at Kitteren. She took it as a sign to come forward. I had not paid attention to the fact she wore her physical training attire. The green sports top and black calf-length pants showed how toned she kept herself. I still preferred baggy shirts to hide how scrawny I was.

  “Rathal was it? Not in any official capacity of course. We’re headed for vacation after the ceremony.” Kitteren’s tone was odd and I could not place it.

  “You must be the sister I’ve heard about,” Rathal said and smiled.

  “Half-sister, technically,” I muttered just loud enough to be heard.

  Kitteren patted my head and I elbowed her in return. Not hard, but enough to re-enforce my aggravation with her. She said, “She’s just mad because I got Vince and Lockonis to sign off on it.”

  Rathal looked up from his computer and then hushed as he spoke again, “I better get going. The boss lady is glaring at me. I look forward to seeing you lovely ladies in person soon.”

  The connection cut.

  “You have some good looking contacts,” Kitteren mused, smirking down at me. Then it finally clicked as to her behavior.

  Shaking my head, I set about getting the images Silver requested. “Rumor has it Rathal likes to chase women.” I still did not know why Darius insisted on telling me during one of our calls.

  “Hm, could work to my advantage.” I did not need to look up to see the sly grin I knew would be on my sister’s face. I knew more about her love life than I wanted to. She had taken a couple of lovers in the time I had been with the TIO and insisted on telling me about them. And then some past ones. Though she had not been with anyone for almost a year now.

  I tried not to think too hard about her desire to join with Rathal. I had gotten to know him in the following months after I returned - when he was not under the influence of a necromatic spell. He seemed like a decent person. Talkative. Rathal had been concerned about what I thought of him during the investigation, but given my own problems…

  Well, we found common ground and I tutored him so he could be more effective as an Arcane Investigator. Especially now that the arcane camera filters had gone into production for the branches. Ocean’s Edge received the first one.

  I glanced at the box of blank filters sitting on my desk in the office which would have to wait until I got back. I tried to get at least 10 done in between everything else during the day, but I fell behind there also. Taking a vacation now would only make the backlog worse. My biggest problem had become certain branches kept breaking theirs. I wished we could have used plastic, but it did not take the spell as well as the glass filters did.

  “Ket, what’s wrong?”

  I sighed, returning to the microscope, trying to line up the last pin to take an image of. “I really don’t think taking a vacation now is a good idea. I’ve got so much work to do.”

  Kitteren put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed lightly. “It’s precisely the time for it. Ket, you’ve been working yourself harder than ever before. The lab, physical training, studying who knows what - you need a break. You need more than a few hours to get away so you can come back fresh. Now come on, let’s go get you packed and then we can spend some time in Great Tree before our flight.”

  Sitting back, I sighed. “Give me an hour to get everything in and shutdown.” The logical part of my brain kept agreeing with Kitteren. Why did she have to be right?

  Chapter 2

  Dropping my bag on one of the beds in the hotel room, I took a moment to stretch. We flew out late last night and had a long layover in Chained Lakes. I still did not care to fly and it would be a longer flight to Mystic Port.

  I pushed back thoughts of what I would encounter there. I needed to get through today first.

  At least this time, with the help of headphones and some music, I got some rest on the second leg of our trip. Perhaps requesting overnight flights had not been the wisest option.

  Rathal picked us up as promised. He and Kitteren seemed to hit it off fairly quickly and I sat silently in the backseat of his car. He dropped us off at the hotel and excused himself - citing work he needed to complete this morning.

  Kitteren quickly retreated to the bathroom with her carry bag when we arrived. This was the same hotel I stayed in the last time I had been in Ocean’s Edge, but this room had not been designed for an extended stay. It contained only a bedroom with two beds, a desk, and the attached bathroom.

  I wished my sister would hurry up - I wanted to go to the Hidden Flower again to get breakfast. I would make the trip to Lou’s bakery, but I did not remember how to get to there from here. Not to mention everything looked so different being green and alive instead of snow-covered and frozen. We were on a floor just high enough to see over the canopy of trees. Odd I paid them little notice during the winter.

  Digging through my suitcase, I searched for the clothes I planned to change into. I could just use my power to clean the clothes I currently wore, but I figured I might as well put on something more appropriate for the ceremony this afternoon. I debated trying to get more rest, but it seemed every time I stopped trying to distract myself, my mind inevitably turned back to what Kitteren said about Don. I could not afford to deal with those thoughts right now.

  Only a few items in the suitcase looked like the clothes I packed. Did I have the wrong bag? I checked the tag and it said this one belonged to me.

  Something inside the suitcase caught my attention. Picking up the dark blue material, I let it unfold, turning it around to get a better look at it.

  The dress was soft and silky. It would come up over one shoulder with the waist coming up just under the bust. Two offset layers formed the skirt part which came down into points. A wide sleeve half-attached to the one side left the shoulder exposed.

  It reminded me of the dress I wore when Mother found us. Of course it had more or less been barely held together rags at that point. My old dress originally had both sleeves, but I lost one along the way when I needed something to fix the sled I pulled Kitteren in. The third and longest layer of skirts I had torn off a year prior in order to give my sister some extra warmth.

  “Mom made it for you.”

  I jumped. I had not heard Kitteren come out of the bathroom. Quickly folding it back up, I put the dress away. “She shouldn’t have. I really don’t need more clothes.”

  “She wanted to.” Kitteren came and sat down on the bed next to my suitcase wearin
g only a towel around her torso. “It’s for the Summer Solstice. You need to let yourself remember things about that time, Ket. Talk about them. Mom wants to try and help us find out where we came from, but I was too little and too sick to remember much of anything. Not to mention with your birthday being near the Summer Solstice, she wanted to get you something.”

  “It’s not really my birthday.” The year Mother declared it, the Summer Solstice fell on the 21st of the sixth month, this year it was on the 20th. I still did not understand the reason it had been chosen.

  I returned to trying to find something to wear for the day before the conversation went where I did not want it to. The past would be better left alone.

  Where did the outfit go I packed for the ceremony? “Kitteren, did you repack my bag?”

  “Yes. Come on, Ket. You have the worst sense of fashion. You always wear that over-sized stuff. You’ve got a nice figure - you shouldn’t hide it.” Reaching into my suitcase, she pulled out a purple sleeveless top and a pair of black dress pants. “Wear this.”

  I made a face of annoyance at her and grabbed the rest of what I needed to change and freshen up. This trip was not starting well. I wanted to speak further about her repacking my bag, but I needed to eat and there was no point in arguing now. The deed was done and I trusted she would not have put anything in there I would completely refuse to wear.

  “Hey, Ket, can I get some help before you go change?” Kitteren said as I reached the bathroom door. Turning, she held up a lock of wet hair in my direction.

  Rolling my eyes, I shifted everything to one arm and opened my now free hand in her direction. I focused my power on drying her hair. While not as long as mine - it only came down between her shoulder blades - it was just as thick and would take long to dry on its own. Especially in this humid environment.

  “Good?” I asked after a few seconds.

  “You’re the best,” Kitteren said, smiling at me broadly. She picked up her brush and started working on getting the tangles out.