by B. T. Narro
“It is,” I said.
“Seriously?” Michael asked, as Hadley gasped and covered her mouth.
“I’m serious.”
“It’s still warm!” He held it out for Reuben and Hadley as they poked it.
“By the devil’s tail,” Hadley said. “You just went all the way to Koluk and returned?”
“I sure did,” I said with a proud smile. “How long was I gone?”
“Maybe thirty minutes?” Michael asked as he looked at the others.
“Well, I practiced for about five minutes before I started heading there.”
“So twenty-five minutes?” Reuben said with wide eyes. “That’s more than twenty miles from here, Jon!”
“And twenty miles back,” I added.
“Good god!” Michael said. “Can you take me next time?”
We all chuckled.
“No, I’m serious,” Michael said. “Can you take someone on your back?”
“Oh, um.” I tried to imagine Michael on my back. He didn’t look very light. He was somewhat tall, like me, with broad shoulders. He had a defined chest and toned arms from all of his sword practice.
“Get on and let’s see,” I said.
“Really?” I couldn’t tell if he was excited or scared. He sounded to be both.
“I’ll just take us a little bit into the air to see how it feels.”
“Shouldn’t you start with someone lighter?” Hadley offered. She was much shorter than Michael, thin as well.
“If we’re volunteering, then I’d like to go too,” Reuben said.
“Ladies first,” I said as I stood in front of Hadley with my back ready.
“Here,” she told Michael as she handed him her bow and quiver. Then she put her hands on my shoulders, but she didn’t jump up. I looked back to see her with a fearful expression.
“We did see you fall a number of times, in dramatic fashion,” she said as her hands slid off my shoulders. “And your clothes! Look at them. I hadn’t really noticed until now.”
“I stopped falling soon after I left the forest.”
“But you haven’t tried with anyone on your back yet,” she said.
“If you don’t want to go first, I will,” Michael said.
“No, I should go first, being much lighter than you.” She bent her knees as if to jump up, but she didn’t. “You will be careful, Jon?”
“I will…at first,” I mumbled after she hopped on my back.
“Jon!” she complained. “Be careful!”
“Hold on!”
I took off through the forest. Hadley gasped in my ear as she clutched me tightly. It was a tad more difficult to get us going, but I felt that I could still make it high into the air and even all the way to Koluk with her on my back, if I wanted.
I pushed us faster and higher, keeping my eyes out for branches.
“Watch out!” she yelled as I jolted out of the way of a tree then dipped down beneath a branch.
There was a small clearing in the canopy ahead. I flew almost straight up into the air to reach it.
“Too high! That’s too high!”
“Just hold on!”
She screamed in my ear. “We’re not going to make it through there!”
“We are. Just keep close to me.”
She squeezed me tighter. I pushed us upward, up and up. The trees of Curdith Forest were very tall, but it didn’t matter. We broke out from the forest through the gap in the canopy.
I finally stopped pushing and let us slowly come to a stop in the sky above the treetops. There I held us. I wouldn’t be able to maintain this hold for long. It was easier to put my strength into tossing us in a direction and guiding us using momentum. I was waiting for Hadley to react, but she didn’t say anything.
I looked back at her to find that she had closed her eyes, though she was beginning to squint one open.
She gasped and squeezed me, shutting her eyes again.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I won’t drop us.”
Slowly her eyes came open. “By the devil’s tail,” she whispered as I felt her hold relax somewhat. “This is something else, Jon. You are a marvel.”
“I could take us a little farther if you’d like.”
“No, please get us down!” she said with a frightened laugh.
*****
We joined with the second group soon after I took Michael and Reuben on a little trip above the forest. After Jennava scolded me for going off on my own, I spent the next couple of hours taking each of my friends up and around one by one. Eden was the only one who didn’t volunteer. Even Jennava wanted a turn. She claimed it was because we might be using this technique as a form of transport, and she needed to see how efficient and dangerous it was, but we all knew that she also wanted to see what it felt like. Who didn’t wish to fly? Besides, she didn’t seem mad at me, just concerned I would endanger myself again. She made me promise to inform her if I wanted to go off on my own again.
It was good practice for me to carry others, not just because I agreed with Jennava that we might use this technique for transport, but because it seemed to be the quickest way for me to strengthen my spell. The additional weight on my mind proved challenging, but I felt my skill growing quickly.
Eventually we stopped for lunch. We sat in a loose circle as we ate dried food from our bags. My flights had proven to be a huge distraction—no one had caught or slain any creature of the forest—but no one was complaining, either.
I sat near Michael and Hadley. I heard Reuben and Kataleya nearby, as they spoke about the Chespars and the other nobles, mostly expressing concerns to each other.
“Say, Hadley,” Michael said in a quiet voice. “If curses can make people feel things they wouldn’t normally feel, can they cause an attraction?”
“Yes,” Hadley answered quickly.
“How would it work?” Michael asked. “Would you need the hairs of both the person you’re cursing and the person you’re making them attracted to?”
“You would, and having two targets would make the curse more difficult and weaker than if it only had one target.” She glanced over at him. “So it would be easier to make one person attracted to another than to make both attracted.”
“I see.”
Hadley stared at him a moment longer. “Why do you ask?”
Michael gave a quick look at Eden that appeared to satisfy Hadley’s curiosity.
“I highly doubt Eden’s skill with curses could ever lead you to have a false attraction toward her,” Hadley whispered. “Besides, the attraction would change drastically when the curse went away. It might even turn into disgust for a short time. You would know if you’d been cursed.”
“That’s good, I guess,” he muttered. He didn’t sound too pleased by her answer.
I figured he was looking for an easy explanation for his feelings for Eden, which probably had not changed even after her betrayal had come out. Michael didn’t seem to want these feelings, which made sense to me. Eden scared me a bit. Perhaps she scared Michael as well.
She sat mostly on her own, some distance between Remi and Aliana on one side, Reuben and Kataleya on the other. I was a little surprised to hear Kataleya laughing, especially because it must’ve been something Reuben said, as he held a smile.
“Jon,” Hadley said. “How much of your ability to fly has to do with that Induct stone?”
“I was already able to throw myself with almost the same power before I had the Induct stone. I had just never tried it before. I think what the stone mostly does is increase my ability to continue casting without feeling tired, so long as it’s the Grab spell. It feels like another sorcerer is helping me every time I cast it.”
“Then I think it’s worthwhile to calculate the risk versus benefit of obtaining more Induct stones for the other sorcerers.”
“Hey, that’s a good point,” Michael said. “Why don’t you fly to the center of the forest and get some more, Jon?” he asked facetiously. “Try not to wake Gourfist while you’re the
re.”
“I’m serious,” Hadley said. “It’s not as if a separate trip needs to be made for every Induct stone.” She held up a finger. “One trip, and you could equip almost every sorcerer in the army with an Induct stone, after they had been primed and infused, of course.”
Michael put his hand over his chin. Eventually he opened his palms in a shrug. “But Gourfist…Hadley. Gourfist.”
“How long would it take for a group of us to reach the center of the forest? Eden came from there. She might know. Eden—?” Hadley started to call to her, but Michael interrupted.
“She didn’t fly back from the center,” he said. “She rode cantars nearly to Koluk, which is much closer to the center than we are here. It’s not like all of us could ride the beasts of the forest.”
“Eden, will you join us?” Hadley asked.
Eden lumbered over. I caught her glancing at the Induct stone sitting beside me, making me want to hide it from view, but I didn’t. I wanted to give her a chance to control herself.
Hadley’s beckoning of Eden had drawn the attention of everyone else. Reuben asked, “What’s going on?”
“We were discussing how much extra mana Jon receives from the Induct stone.”
“While casting the spell infused in the stone,” I added, realizing then that I was against the idea of traveling to the center of the forest. As good as it sounded to equip our sorcerers with a stone like this one, I couldn’t fathom safely getting there with a large enough group to take on Gourfist.
“Yes, while casting the specific spell trapped inside,” Hadley agreed. “Obtaining more of them would be extremely beneficial to our cause. I was wondering, Eden, how many did you see on the ground near the portal to Fyrren?”
“There were a lot,” she said. “A hundred, I would guess, maybe more.”
“It would just take one trip,” Hadley said. “I thought we could put our minds together and figure out how we might do it.”
Kataleya had a crinkle across her forehead “You’re talking about killing Gourfist to get more Induct stones?”
“I am.”
“But Gourfist could be the only thing stopping Valinox from killing us directly,” Kataleya said.
“The demigods on our side—Souriff and Failina—could fight just as viciously once Gourfist is gone. It is only fear of retribution that is stopping them.”
“Says you,” Reuben argued. “Souriff admitted herself that she is unlikely to kill any of our enemies, even if Valinox shows that he can do it without punishment. This sounds like a terrible idea. Think about the time it would take to get there and the men we might lose in the fight. What if Valinox brought his best fighter to the bout with Gourfist and ambushed us while we dealt with that four-footed, multiclawed, beast-of-an-eagle? With an invisible demigod behind us, and the transformed one in front of us, that might be the end of everything.”
Eden gasped. “With Gourfist gone, we would be able to get to Nijja.”
“Oh!” Remi said as she pointed at Eden. “That’s right!”
I hadn’t seen the enchanter and the fire mage this animated in some time.
“What does that mean for us?” Michael asked.
“Nijja should be able to disenchant the gem Valinox took from her, the one that maintains his invisibility spell,” Eden answered. “Then we could hide her from Valinox to keep him from forcing her to make another for him.”
“You talked about this with Remi?” Aliana asked.
“It came up recently,” Remi said. “I was wondering if Eden could disenchant the gem.”
“I had tried last night when he attacked Jon, but the enchantment is too strong.”
“But the room was cursed,” Hadley said. “No spells could be cast anyway.”
“I’m not sure what to tell you,” Eden said. “My disenchant spell went through. It just didn’t work.”
“That is fascinating,” Hadley said. “I’m not sure why that would be, but that’s a matter for later. I agree that Nijja should be able to dissolve her own enchantment, but would she have to be close to Valinox to do it?”
“That’s the best part about it,” Eden said. “An enchanter like her should be able to disenchant the gem from many miles away.”
“The hardest part would be convincing her to come with us out of Fyrren,” Remi added.
Jennava finally stepped in. “And hiding her after, like you mentioned, Eden. Well, you met her. Do you believe she could be convinced of these things?”
“Not by us, surely. We would need Souriff to agree to go with us. That means killing Gourfist with her help and going into Fyrren. But Fyrren is a very dangerous place. I nearly died there when a swarm of camouflaged snakes attacked me. It would probably be better to have Souriff go alone once we take care of Gourfist. I don’t know if she would be up for any of that.”
I said, “Valinox probably could tell when we awaken Gourfist. He might come with his strongest sorcerer, like Reuben suggests.”
“We still haven’t discussed the difficulty of getting there,” Reuben added. “Eden, what would a trip like that look like for us?”
“I imagine it would take a week, and it would not be safe. There were huge beasts close to the center. I’m not sure we would be able to fight against all of them in our way.”
Kataleya asked Eden, “Don’t you think it’s worth it to put an end to Valinox’s invisibility spell?”
She shook her head. “I think it’s better if Jon, Souriff, and Failina take the people they can carry to the center and fight Gourfist on their own.”
“That’s only if we can reach the demigods and convince them to help us,” Jennava said. “We still haven’t met Failina, and Souriff does things on her own.”
We all fell silent.
“I will speak to the king about it tonight,” Jennava said. “If all of you are done eating, we need to make the most of this time.”
“Jennava?” I tried. “Is the king going to send us to intercept Rohaer in the near future?”
“Like the rest of you, I have not been made aware of his plans yet. The specific tasks involving us are most likely still in the making.”
Kataleya said, “The king will not let our enemies step foot in Lycast. It would be detrimental to allow Rohaer to pillage our cities and set up strongholds. The only real question is if the king has the power to force his nobles’ armies to take the front line, because he definitely won’t want to send off his troops—and that includes us—to stand as the first line of defense.”
I noticed Reuben and Aliana looking at each other as if there was something each of them wanted to say.
“Go ahead,” Aliana urged him.
Reuben addressed us. “The king spoke to me a while ago about this. He enlisted the help of my father to make our own stronghold, but not in any town. They’ve been building one in the forest, close to the only road between Lycast in Rohaer. It won’t be much longer before it’s well-equipped. I believe that is where the king will station most, if not all, of his troops soon enough, and we might go with them. Rohaer is bound to cross by it.”
I didn’t understand something. “Wouldn’t it take a long time to build a stronghold from nothing?”
“It’s only made of wood, Jon,” Reuben said. “Not stone, and it has been in the works for a long time now.”
“He received help from my father as well,” Aliana said.
I had almost forgotten about Aliana’s father, a rich noble who had wanted his identity to remain hidden from his illegitimate daughter. Was he still in the dungeons beneath the castle? He had been put there after we figured out he had been working with Cason—something he had eventually admitted to.
“I’ve been talking with my father from time to time.” Aliana spoke mostly to the ground. “The king has wanted me to ingratiate myself with him to turn him to our side. I’m still not sure he can be trusted, but he is helping by using his own coin.”
“But he’s still in the dungeons?” I asked, then noticed Hadley
shoot Aliana a look of surprise. That’s right, she wasn’t here when it happened.
Aliana must’ve noticed Hadley as well, because she spoke to her directly. “I never knew who my father was until recently. It turned out he was working against the king, but he was caught.”
“I see,” Hadley replied. “I’m sorry for my reaction.”
“It’s fine. I’m not close with him,” Aliana said.
“Aliana, Kataleya, and I are quite knowledgeable about the nobilities’ roles in this war,” Reuben said. “All noble families are invested, some more than others, but Kataleya and I agree that most are looking at this war as an opportunity. Someone is likely to betray the king, either during or after the war.”
“It might even be my family,” Kataleya said.
Now this didn’t surprise me because Kataleya had spoken to me about this, but I could see others among us who were hearing it for the first time.
“It has only recently come to my attention,” Kataleya continued, “that my father might’ve been planning a revolt against our king. He wanted me to marry Trevor Chespar so that our families could unite. Our armies, together, are stronger than the army of the king. Trevor has still shown interest in me after hearing about the death of my father, but I don’t know if he’s part of the plan or if all of it is in my imagination. I’m fairly certain I will have to investigate it and most definitely speak to my mother about it, which means I’ll probably be leaving for a time.”
“So you’re certain now you’re going?” I asked.
“The only thing that would change my mind would be if Trevor marries the king’s daughter, which would put everyone’s worries to rest.”
“I thought she was going to marry Jon,” Remi said to my surprise.
“What?” I said. “Why did you think that?”
“You’re not going to marry her?” Remi asked.
“I’m not involved with her romantically. Not at all. We’re just friends.”
Remi seemed surprised, but I was even more surprised. Why was she looking at me like I was a fool?
“Jon’s weighing his options,” Kataleya said as if to answer everyone’s silent question.
“So he could marry the princess?” Aliana asked. “I mean, it’s been offered to him?”