Elainne
Viktor doesn’t follow and I am glad. I knew this would likely happen, but aunt was right, Viktor needs to be taught or he will be a danger to everyone. I can’t keep him with me if he might accidentally torch people’s houses when frustrated.
Still, it hurts that I am here - in this position - again. Another group of people that know nothing more than my birth but think it is reason enough to hate me. Sometimes I want to just give up on being good and nice; burn it all to the ground. I only don’t because then I will become exactly what my father wants of me. Heartless. I refuse to let him win our battle of wills.
As determined as I am, I still can’t stop the tears that fall. I can’t stop feeling that I want just once to worry about my own happiness. To just go far away, somewhere where people don’t know or care about my birth; where they judge me for my actions and words, not my pedigree. To let me just be myself.
“Elainne.”
I don’t turn, don’t respond. I can’t. Not this time.
Viktor
She says nothing, but I can feel her pain. Not physical, no, this cuts more deeply than anything I have ever felt from her. She feels despair, sorrow, hurt, anger, and hopelessness. The last worries me the most. She always holds on, no matter who or what is in our way.
I am not sure how to help her. I just know I can’t stand so far away when she is standing here alone in so much pain. Besides, she has to know she is not alone anymore. I am here and I am not going anywhere.
I stand, slightly behind her, letting her cry in peace but staying there for as long as she does, so if she needs or wants anything, she will know I am there for her.
After an hour, she goes and unrolls her blanket, casts a couple of spells and rolls away from me, going to sleep. I am worse than an ass bringing her here. I am not sure if it is me or the world she hates right now. I just know I can’t comfort her and she doesn’t want me to, even if I could.
Elainne
The next morning, I awake before Viktor. I set out a sensory spell and am shocked to find myself pulsating. Those bastards! While I’d been destroying their creature, they had been working on me, using my own fears and doubts. That’s why I felt so much despair last night. Crafty bastards, but I won’t go down that easily. Still, I am not sure how to break the spell; it is not one I recognize. I go over and shake Viktor, waking him. I will need his unreliable magic for this.
“What’s wrong?”
“Those bastards spelled me so I would attack myself. That’s what last night was about. It will make me falter, I can fight it for a while but I don’t know for how long, as we get closer to their territory I will weaken and they will strengthen. I don’t know how to break it and I don’t have the right magic to do so without injuring myself.”
“What do we do?”
“You’ll have to break it with your mage magic.”
He looks shocked and afraid. What is he going to do to make it worse?
Viktor
“I can’t. You know I have no control.”
“Of your Elvin fire, yes. We don’t know anything about your mage powers and maybe if you use them, they will believe me and stop attacking us. That… and… well, it will make me… falter at some point. It won’t end well.”
“What will happen when you can’t fight it anymore?”
She sighs and looks away, biting her lip, refusing to answer. I can sense the fear in her. Not just for her but for me as well.
“Elainne.”
She looks at me as if she doesn’t want to say but she doesn’t want to lie either. The indecision is terrible. Still, she is trying to keep from telling me even though she wishes to be honest.
I grab both her wrists but don’t squeeze them, not trusting myself to not hurt her accidentally.
“What will happen to you?”
“When I can’t fight it anymore, I will kill myself.”
I release her wrists because I know I will hurt her. Not on purpose, but I feel the rage filling me.
“The mages are left alone because when a mage dies, he releases his magic into the land they live on. The others can call upon that mages as a group, combining everything together to create battle magic, to get enemies to turn around or die. However, it is easiest to kill the intruders, the magic will find that way and make it happen. My emotions are my weakest point, having lived so long without belonging anywhere and still… well, it’s the easiest way for them to kill me, so the magic is leeching onto me and doing so. It can only be called off by a mage, Viktor. I know you worry about hurting me, but if you don’t, I will die before we reach the village. That’s how it works.”
I am speechless. This can’t happen. Without her I… I can’t imagine it. It hurt and scares me more than thinking about my own death. I have to do this. Maybe it will prove to them that I am one of them. What if this is what they want? What if… what if I kill her by trying to save her?
“What if I kill you?”
She throws herself into me, hugging me so tight I can barely breathe. I am hugging her just as tight, not wanting to let her go, wanting to protect her from this. I am a Kemp; I have to be able to protect her somehow.
“I would rather die by your hand, Viktor, than by those blasted mages.”
She can say that but she is not the one that will go insane from the pain of losing her. I wish I asked for perfect control over all of my powers. I wish I were braver so I could master the magic. I wish my damn Kemp bond would come in handy and let me take this curse from her.
“I won’t let you die. I won’t let them hurt you.”
I wish so hard; I pull at everything negative I feel around her and the power I can feel saturating the land to the east. She gasps and collapses. I feel so much weight being thrust onto me that I sink to the ground. She pushes up as I fall down. She leans down and feels my pulse. I am still alive but I can’t believe the amount of pain I am in. Not physical pain, but emotional pain.
“Viktor, you dolt!”
I am not sure what I have done but she is worried and I feel worse than I ever have before.
“What were you thinking? I said to break the spell, not take my pain away!”
Is that what this is? I feel like I hold the world on my shoulders. I feel the death of my mother closer than it has been since the day she died. All I wanted to do was take the curse into me; instead, I had taken all her pain away.
“How do you feel?”
It is hard to speak but I have to ask. I hope it worked at least, that the curse can no longer get her. She raises an eyebrow at me and laughs. Better than she had been, I take it.
“I’ve never felt like this before. I thought that I had been happy before but now, it’s as if I don’t have a care in the world. I can be happy without worrying about what other people will think. Like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders. How do you feel?”
“Let’s say I understand why you are so short. Carrying this much weight around all the time would stunt anyone’s growth.”
She laughs, and though I am glad that she is happy and able to enjoy it for once, I am miserable. What if we get there and they agree to train me but she can’t stay? How will I live without her? Who will protect her? Will she like her new guard better than she does me?
I shake my head, trying to dispel such thoughts. What am I worrying about? We are a team. We always will be. Until her aunt finds her someone to marry. She will ask for the Kemp bond to be dissolved. I will be alone while she goes on to live happily ever after with someone that will never feel about her as deeply as I do.
“Viktor, stop!”
She shocks me into looking up at her. She has packed everything up and is looking at me with a serious but optimistic face.
“Stop worrying, fight it. We will figure this out. You cannot keep all that pain, it’s not yours; it will make you insane faster than it will me. Maybe I could…”
She doesn’t finish her sentence but comes over and grabs my head as she did
before when she was spelling me with the dreaming spell. She whispers something under her breath and I feel a barrier erect in my mind. At the forefront of my mind are my normal thoughts, my normal worries, and our bond. Behind the wall is the negativity from both of us.
“That should hold until we can make them break the spell, or you figure out how to do so. If it comes down to it, we will leave. Once away from their territory it’ll fade and disappear. It’s a defense mechanism no longer needed if we don’t continue on our current path. We will find some other way to teach you.”
I nod and throw my pack over my shoulder. We need to get there before her magic is too weak and theirs is too strong. She won’t let me suffer for long before pulling the pain back into her through the Kemp bond. I know that the second she figures, it out she will be doing that, and I refuse to let that happen.
Elainne
Viktor looks stubbornly to the east as we continue on our way. I am using a sensing spell almost constantly so that we won’t be caught by surprise. The mages will mask their next attack. I also have to keep the barrier that is keeping Viktor's mind stable up and strong enough to fight our combined negativity. It is going to be a long day.
Chapter Three
As I get more into the barren mountains, I lose my magic. Elvin magic is tied to Elvin forests. Aunt’s kingdom borders the Elvin one and I am strong enough to pull from it still. Here we are further and no amount of strength can pull from so far. I am also trying to take the negativity back. Viktor can’t sense it but I am prying in his mind. It is a lot to do so far from the woods that gives me my power and I start to feel the exhaustion by lunch.
“We should rest, you look terrible.”
I nod and stop, dropping my pack and letting myself drop along with it.
“Is the drain so bad?”
I nod. “You won’t feel it because as your Elvin magic fades to the background, becoming inaccessible, and your mage magic will come to the forefront. You will likely feel about the same as always. It’s the wonderful thing about mages. They have their own magic; they don’t need the forest or water, like Elves and mermen. However, you all have the same amount of individual magic, no one has more than anyone else, and they can’t call on the collective magic that they leave in the land unless standing on it.”
“Whereas Elves can pull from the forest as long as they are near anything wood related, forest or not. Sounds like everyone has an up and down.”
I nod. “Everything is about balance. Elves generally have more power than mages, personal power anyway, but up here, we are weakened by the lack of nature. In our lands, the mages are outnumbered and don’t have the collective to call on.”
“It explains why everyone keeps to themselves.”
That is true. Elves stay in the forest lands, the humans stick to the fields that grow their crops, and the mages stay on their mountainside free of the bother of others, ready to draw on the collective if need be. Everyone has his or her place. I am hoping to shake everyone out of it. If I can make a trade agreement, we can rid the neutral territory of thieves and mercenaries, maybe domesticate them, and add them to the army. We can have them be paid to protect the trade items on their way back and forth.
I am also hoping the mages will be more willing to work with us since they are another human kingdom, technically, I am the heir and Viktor, a mage, is my champion. They don’t have Kemps but they understand the concept of a champion. Perhaps I will make Viktor our ambassador.
“Viktor, do you hope your grandfather is still alive?”
He looks at me, eyebrows raised as if he is going to laugh at me.
“I just mean, it will seem awkward, I guess. To meet him. Your mother never told you about them or introduced you. He doesn’t even know you exist because he doesn’t know he had a daughter. It seems a difficult situation. He could have other children and grandchildren….”
“Okay, now I’m more nervous.”
“Sorry. I think you will be okay. I mean, your mom, she was so gifted, and I think he would have been proud of her. I think he will be glad, that the love of his life had their child and she gave birth to a grandchild. Even if he has others, you’re from the woman he loved most in the world.”
He nods and tosses me a full canteen, keeping the half-full one for him. I toss him a bundle. We bundled food into meals so we know how long we have to get here and how much food we are allowed to eat at each meal. Ahh, meal times, when I get to eat, drink tons of water, and best of all rest my feet.
Viktor
“I always wondered what it would be like to have grandparents. I wonder how much mine would have disapproved of me.”
She doesn’t wonder what they look like or what they have in common, but instead the first thing she thinks of is how much would they disapprove of her. It says a lot about her life. I want to tell her that they would have loved her. But I doubt her grandparents on her father’s side would have thought much of her; I am not sure about the last King and Queen. They died before I was born. I heard that they were fair rulers, but that doesn’t say a thing about their family life or what they would have thought about their daughter marrying the Elvin king.
“I’m sorry you won’t ever get to meet them.”
She shrugs and smiles at me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you butt heads with your grandmother while in the Elvin lands. She is quite the lady; I would have loved to see that showdown.”
“That’s basically all it was. She planned to marry me off to some full-blooded Elvin lady to pass my dual magic's on without further polluting the bloodline. I felt like a horse being led to stud, not a human being.”
Elainne smiles but manages to hold back her laughter. I can sense she wants to giggle though.
“What is so funny?”
She doesn’t hold it back, instead comes over and gives me a one-armed hug.
“Poor Viktor. Heaven forbid your grandmother want to marry you off to some wealthy, elegant, graceful, entirely too beautiful for words Elvin lady.”
“I don’t want that.”
She hugs me again and lays down, popping food in her mouth, watching the clouds in the sky. It will get nasty soon. She can alter the weather sometimes, but I can tell that effort of keeping her sensing spell on all the time, placing the barriers at night, and now my mind barrier is wearing her out. We are too far from anything that she can pull from, so she is using her own energy. Elves aren’t built to do that so she will tire quickly.
“Ah-ha!”
I slip backward as she says it and feel so light that I feel like I will float off. On the other hand, I feel her absorbing all the negativity back into herself. She smiles weakly at me.
“Sorry Viktor, but it would be worse for you since it’s not your pain. This way I don’t need to hold the barrier and keep searching on how to get it back. I’m using less magic. I can hold out until we don’t need me magically anymore.”
I am furious and she feels it through the bond. She flinches and I feel like I kicked a puppy. Still, it is my job to protect her, even from herself, and I have been doing that. She kept me safe, and though I know she can’t for much longer before her magic fails, I don’t want her to have to suffer. Just one whole day forgetting how it feels to have the world hate her. That’s all I wanted for her.
“Let’s keep going.”
She nods and stands, following. I can feel the internal torment going on within her, but I can’t do anything about it because I don’t know her exact thoughts. I just feel how much pain she is in emotionally. But she has blocked me from it. I can’t touch it anymore. I can’t even share in it so she won’t be so weighed down.
As we get closer to the mages’ community and leave bandit country, I can see her physically wilting. The curse is doing its job; she is berating herself so bad that she is about to just drop and wait to die off. I can feel how down she is. A distraction is needed.
“Elainne. If you did have grandparents, how would you introduce y
ourself to them?”
“I don’t know.”
Hmm okay, option two for conversation topics.
“How long do you think it will take to train me?”
She shrugs. That is worse than a short answer. Okay, time to do something drastic. I let the anger at what the mages are doing to her fill me and act out by shooting a fireball from my hand. It flies in front of us and it blows up, pushing us back onto the ground and continuing to burn, despite there being no fuel for it.
Wait, I am too far from the woods, I shouldn’t be able to use Elvin elemental magic. I try to put it out using water, I am adept enough at water, but I can’t even summon water. She sits there on her butt, looking shocked and terrified of the flames. Damn, I hadn’t thought this through. I am pulling from the mage magic within me, and I am close to their homeland so I am stronger, maybe pulling from the collective without knowing how I am doing it. I don’t know how to put it out. Just like, I hadn’t known how to put out the Elvin fire. I am never summoning magic while angry again.
I am panicking, trying to figure out what to do when a figure walks towards us. A swipe of his hand and the fire goes out. I drop my pack and pull out one of my swords.
“Put that away, young man. It will do you no good. You are on the edges of our land. I can call upon the collective if need be.”
“So can I.”
He inclines his head and smiles. Three more men step out. I back up towards Elainne, who is looking at them as if she has seen the grim reaper himself.
“But you aren’t proficient. You haven’t been taught. You have mage powers, obviously, but you can’t use them correctly. I don’t think it would take much to beat you into submission. Luckily, for you, that’s not what we want to do. Luckily, for you, there is only one mage that could possibly have any descendants with Elvin blood and he is on our ruling council. Your life will be spared.”
Champion Complete Series Page 24