by Tracy Lane
“As you wish.” Iragos smiled, pushing the orb forward, smiling. “And now, dear Kronos, prepared to learn the true meaning of darkness.”
With that, an ill wind filled the land. A cyclone appeared above Kronos’ head, twirling and whirling and howling with power. It crackled with lightning, it echoed with thunder as, inch by inch, Kronos disappeared into it.
His body broke into tiny pieces, all black and hard, like crystals, whirring around until they clattered. When at last his body was gone, shimmering and black in the cyclone above, Iragos spoke one word: “Enter.” With that, the cyclone flew to the orb and disappeared inside, one clinking crystal inch at a time.
At last he was gone, the orb grew still and silent, even its orange glow silenced for the time being. “Where… where did he go?” asked Kayne.
Iragos smiled, a look of relief passing across his handsome face. “Where he can do no harm,” he said. “For once, for all, where he can do no harm.”
45
Aurora had never been so happy to see her parents. Nor they her. That is, after Kayne removed the spell they’d been under. Her mother, sitting on the humble bed of their room at the Inn, looked at her as if for the first time.
“Aurora?” she asked, standing up abruptly and embracing her daughter tightly. “I… where have you been?”
Her father stood as well, awaiting his chance for a hug. “She’s growing up, Ma,” he said playfully, eyes still a little confused. “These teenagers get busy, you know?”
“Speaking of busy,” Aurora said, aware that Iragos and Kayne were waiting downstairs for her, “let’s get you home. Your little vacation is over now, you know.”
Her mother grabbed her shawl and the small bag she’d brought. “Is it, dear?” she asked, head still cloudy. “It seems like it only just began.”
Hilliard put his arm through his wife’s and led her down the wooden stairs to the lobby of the Inn. “I feel the same way, dear.”
She had arranged for a humble cart. Or, technically speaking, Iragos had. “A small gesture for helping save the planet, dear,” he’d said, bowing dramatically as he’d presented it. Now she steered it toward home, her parents in the back, arm in arm.
She’d felt bad for letting Kayne cast a spell on them, keeping them in a fog for the last few days of their perilous journey, but after what she’d been through, it seemed best that they were safe, if a little muddled. Who knows what Kronos might have done had he found them?
The ride home was brief but pleasant. She felt relieved, mostly, that the trees she’d always known, the gentle forest and sun dappled leaves would now be safe, protected by the Council and in the favor of light magic, not dark.
She felt vaguely proud, as well. After all, she’d had something to do with that, and she’d been more than just a nursemaid to Kayne. She sensed him there, in the woods, following them at a distance, he and Iragos riding side by side as they tracked them through the woods.
Lutheran was waiting at the cottage, a smile on his face, resting on a new cane. It was crystal, a gift from Iragos, and though far from magical, it was quite dandy!
With a little help from the light mage he’d been able to fix the barn and restore the damage done to the crops by the raging minions, and even managed to smuggle in a few new Bleaters, Mooers and even a Hooter or two to make it all official.
“My dear friend,” Hilliard said, emerging from the cart to embrace Lutheran. “Why, it looks like you’ve been through quite a battle.”
Lutheran nodded, casting a quick wink in Aurora’s direction. “What’s that they say, my old friend? Getting old is not for squires!”
As if on cue, Kayne and Iragos appeared at the edge of the small plot of farmland. “And who have we here?” asked Aurora’s mother, playing with her rich auburn hair. “I wasn’t expecting guests so soon after our little… trip.”
Iragos slid from his horse, bowing gracefully. “Pardon the intrusion, ma’am,” he said, as if following a script. “I know the day has just begun and you must be weary from your travels. Might we go inside and speak for a bit?”
“What about?” Hilliard asked cautiously, a note of protectiveness in his tone.
But Majorca quickly silenced him. “We’ll soon find out, dear,” she scolded him, shoving him playfully toward the door. “Now help me get some refreshments on the…”
Her voice faded as they entered the house, now lit with flickering candles; a small feast of dried fruits and berries, fresh hulled nuts and steaming mugs of root tea greeted them.
“My, my, Lutheran,” said Hilliard as he pulled out a seat for his old, limping friend. “But you’ve been busy in our absence.”
“I can’t take all the credit,” Lutheran said, winking at Aurora. “Your daughter helped me find the mugs!”
They laughed, and sat, and ate, six people – three of them enchanted, to some degree – in a room barely designed for four. Still, Aurora had never felt so happy, or quite so scared.
As the meal wore down and the bowls and the mugs emptied, Majorca stood to refill them. Aurora gently dragged her back into her seat, clinging to her hand.
“Mom, Dad…” she began awkwardly, “I… I have something to tell you.”
“What is it, dear?” her mother asked, gripping her fingers tightly. “Is everything all right?”
“Did something happen while we were away?” Hilliard asked, a flash of concern in his eyes.
“Yes,” she confessed, “and no. It seems, well… it seems I’m enchanted.”
Her mother’s hand grew clammy in her own, her father grew speechless. They stared at her, uncomprehending. Aurora had been prepared for fussing, fighting, maybe even fireworks, but not… silence.
“If I may,” Iragos cut in, receiving a grateful nod from Aurora, “it has come to the attention of the Council of Bright Orders that your daughter here is, in fact, enchanted. As such, we’d like to invite her to join us on Ythulia and begin her training as a squire.”
“A squire?” asked Hilliard.
“Ythulia?” asked her Mom.
It went like that, for much of the morning. Through another round of tea and a fresh loaf of crusty bread slathered in Stinger honey, Iragos gradually convinced her parents that, for a girl like Aurora, “Mage City” could be a home away from home.
“I should start packing,” she said at one point, silently standing from the table. Her father nodded, shooting her a painful look that tugged at her gut. Kayne followed her into her room.
“You’re lucky,” he said, leaning in the doorway as she shoved a few things in her battered leather pack. “I only had a few minutes to say goodbye to my folks.”
Aurora nodded. “So, I really can’t come back and see them?”
He shrugged, avoiding her eyes. “Someday, Aurora. But not for a while. And honestly, it’s best that you give them time to get used to not having you around.”
Aurora nodded, realizing the truth in his words. She looked out her window, a pleasant valley breeze fluttering the curtains her mother made by hand. Outside laid the family farm. “But who will help my father plow the fields?” she asked.
“I will, of course,” said Lutheran, having limped up behind Kayne. He inched past him, and gently grabbed her shoulder. “Your parents will be well looked after, Aurora.”
His eyes were gentle and kind, though his face looked haggard from their journey and its many battles. “I owe you that much, at least, for saving my life.”
“And who will look after you, old man?” Kayne chuckled, ribbing Lutheran playfully.
Lutheran turned, rubbing the blond hair on Kayne’s head. “I may not have magic, you two, but I’ve got resources. Skills. We’ll be all right.”
Aurora nodded, turning and hugging him quickly before grabbing her pack.
“You have to be,” she muttered, drifting past him. “You have to be. They’re all I have…”
Her parents stood outside the cabin, conferring with Iragos. Aurora hugged them both, tightly, wa
rmly, never shedding a tear. Her mother nodded, kissing her on the cheek.
“Learn well, dear,” she whispered. “We’re so proud of you and your… powers.”
Aurora nodded, throat too constricted with emotion to reply. Her father hugged her as well, a rare display of emotion.
“You’re sticking me with Lutheran, huh?” he chuckled, pushing her away and holding the sides of her arms while he studied her carefully. “That’s a fine way of getting out of your chores!”
She laughed, turning as the first tear fell. Iragos led the way, on foot, past the replenished root garden at the edge of the farm.
“What about your horses? Your buggy?” Hilliard asked, calling after them.
The light mage turned, brilliant, maroon cloak swirling at his feet, electric silver hair swirling around his head.
“A parting gift,” he said, nodding toward her parents. “To help you and Lutheran around the farm.”
Hilliard nodded, blushing, not one to accept favors graciously. But the relieved expression on his face told Aurora he was grateful. And that was the last she saw of her father’s face, for a while: that look of gratitude, Lutheran on one side of him, Majorca on the other.
“They’ll be fine,” she muttered on their way off the farm and into the woods that led to the Crystal Car. “They’ll be fine…”
46
Kayne felt the urge to hold Aurora’s hand but, with Iragos right in front of them, fought it with the best of his abilities. Her skin was like an addiction.
Not just the electric jolt they got whenever they touched, but the desire to embrace her and hold her close to his own young skin. He had never been in love before but if this was what it felt like, he hoped he’d never be out of love again.
They walked together, in silence, through the gentle woods until Iragos turned and, with his staff in hand, smiled knowingly to the cloaked squire.
“This is where I take my leave,” he told them, looking from one to the other with curious, yet knowing eyes.
“But, we’re not yet to the Crystal Car,” Kayne reminded him, pointing just over his shoulder to indicate the rest of their journey through the forest.
Iragos smiled.
“The Crystal Car is a convenience,” he explained, silver hair whipping around his dignified head as if they were suddenly caught in a thunderstorm, “not a necessity. At last, not for mages. I must return posthaste to alert the Council as to the latest developments. Kayne, can I trust you to lead Aurora straight and true up to Ythulia? I’ll warn the Council she’s coming so that she can have clothes, a room and dinner awaiting her…”
“Yes, of course Iragos,” Kayne said, bowing deferentially to the powerful light mage.
Iragos nodded back and reached out for Aurora’s hand.
“Thank you,” he said, quietly, as if perhaps Kayne was intruding. “The Council will be forever in your debt for the role you played in retrieving the orb. I look forward to working with you personally up in Mage City, as you call it.”
Aurora smiled, bowing. “And I you,” she said. “It’s with great honor that I begin my squire-ship.”
Iragos corrected her, “It is I who am honored, my dear. Safe travels and keep an eye on Kayne. We both know how he likes to wander…” Iragos grinned and, reaching out with his crystal staff, poked a traveling butterfly.
Before their eyes, in a haze of blue and white mist that appeared out of nowhere, Iragos merely floated into thin air, arising as a second butterfly, drifting up into the mist, then above it, to flutter away and toward the distant, clear city of Ythulia.
“I never get tired of watching him do that,” said Kayne with an admiring tone.
“Will we be able to do that one day?” asked Aurora hopefully.
He looked down at her and smiled. “Sure, in about a hundred years or so.”
“So soon?” she chuckled. Instinctively, they reached for each other’s hands. He forgot, for a moment, their enchanted connection, the entwined courage that gave them such great, and unexpected, power. But only for a moment, then the power surged through their pores, their cells, their veins, their fingers. More powerful than before, it almost knocked them apart.
“Whoa,” she said, slipping her fingers from his. “I’m not sure if we can do this much longer.”
“Me either,” he said, wriggling his fingers. “And I want to do it a lot longer.”
She inched closer and Kayne pulled her the rest of the way, a sizzling crackle filling the air around them. “How long do we have before we’re due in Ythulia?” she asked.
He risked a kiss, finding her chin upturned and willing. “We should definitely get there by tonight,” he said, between feathery brushes against her electric lips.
“You heard Iragos, he said he’d have ‘dinner’ waiting.” They shared a glance. “He didn’t say anything about lunch…”
47
Aurora stood, in a white cloak of her own, next to Kayne. Before her sat eight mages, four of them representing the dark arts, the rest representing the light.
They sat behind a high crystal table, curved to look like a crescent moon lying on its side. They wore the maroon cloaks of mages, exquisite gold animals patterned in the finest thread all over the silken material, silver hair flying around their majestic heads.
Humbly, Aurora tried to swallow and found she could not. Facing the mages, she found herself powerless before them. She looked around the room with her eyes, never moving her head.
Along the crystal walls, thick and rough but clear to the enchanted eye, torches flickered, illuminating the high walls and crystal ceiling dozens of feet above their heads.
The place was an echo chamber, every whisper of fabric, every shift in the seat, every whisper reverberating up and around and around. She was afraid Iragos and the rest of the Council of Bright Orders could hear her very thoughts, though Kayne assured her they couldn’t.
He stood next to her, careful not to touch her. Or look at her, for fear that their very glance could send sparks of power between their nervous faces. For the last two days, Aurora had been trying to find her way around Mage City. Now it was time for Iragos to introduce her to the Council, and he did so with his usual aplomb.
Standing from behind the curved table, Iragos bowed to the left, then the right, then the center, where Kayne and Aurora stood.
“Ladies and Gentleman of the Council,” he said formally, “it is my distinct honor to introduce our newest squire, Aurora Turnleaf.” He paused dramatically, silver hair swirling around his head, as the other Council members regarded her coolly.
“Why is she standing with Kronos’ squire?” asked a dark mage with wild red hair flowing around her face.
Iragos nodded toward her. “As you know, Druella, Kronos has been banished and Kayne, his squire, has no Master. I have submitted an application to the Council to take on Kayne and Aurora together, under my tutelage, to finesse the special power they posses.”
There was great rumbling amongst the Council, with the dark cursing the light and a general unpleasantness.
“We’ve never allowed two squires to train together before,” offered one mage with concern in his voice.
“Let alone two with one Master,” said another, nodding toward the rest of the Council.
Aurora glanced at Kayne, who turned, at that very moment, and winked. It was uncertain, but tender, and flooded her with relief.
Iragos quieted the crowd and said, “I’m sure when you see what they have to offer us, my fellow Council members, you will agree I’ve made a wise choice. Now, Aurora? Kayne? If you would be so kind as to merely… hold hands?”
Kayne looked at her, the hood of his white cloak up and whispering against his freshly cut hair. He looked chiseled and handsome now, at home in his squire attire, in Mage City, in his element. She felt out of place in her own cloak, hood up, hair freshly scrubbed and tied back, throat dry and hands trembling.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, reaching out to her. “Really,
they need to see it. They want to see it.”
“Here goes nothing,” she murmured, reaching for his extended hand. The power surged immediately, a loud “fizzle-thump” crackling through the air and extinguishing the torches along the wall, one by one, with a dramatic flickering of light and whispering of ash.
They went out, one by one, but no matter. Despite the powerful force between them, the violent shock of skin upon skin, the brilliant, hot white and blue power ball surrounding their hands lit the entire room in a way even Aurora hadn’t seen before.
Even above the crackles of power that flickered between them, Aurora could hear the gasps of the Council members. She risked a glance and saw half of them standing, all of them leaning forward, or toward each other, whispering and pointing and generally marveled.
“And this is with no training,” Iragos explained, stepping out from behind the giant crystal table and joining Aurora and Kayne in front of the Council.
“This is raw power, generated by and between two enchanted teens, one who never knew she was enchanted until last week! Imagine the power these two might possess, for dark and for light, under my tutelage. That is why I am requesting your acceptance of my application, dear Council Members.”
Iragos bowed, deferentially, closing his hands together in front of his maroon cloak. “That is why I urge you, I beg you, to bend the rules this one time and allow these two squires to train together…”
The dark mage with the red hair, the woman Iragos had called Druella, stood regally, silencing the Council with her mere presence and stern expression. Aurora felt a flicker in the power between her and Kayne, like a blip or a surge, as if Kayne was afraid of her – or possibly even hated her.
Or maybe it was just Aurora’s gut reaction to the vile woman.
Druella turned to them, scowling, and said, “And what promise do we have that you won’t merely manipulate these two, Iragos? That you won’t take advantage of them for your own twisted ambition to try and seize the Council’s power for your own?”