by Chase Erwin
“Why does this keep happening?” I asked. “Why can’t I stop it?”
“It’s something you have to learn to control,” Caeden said. “When you study magic, you not only learn how to cast spells, but you also learn keep the power under your own control – it is called the ‘kinetic stream.’”
“But you didn’t get the chance to learn,” Beltrin continued. “With the amount of potions you were drinking, some were bound to mix and cause permanent changes in you. And your body’s trying to sort it out for itself, but right now it’s trying to expel all this magic like it was a virus.”
I nodded, taking their words in stride. It made sense. This wasn’t something my body wanted or was willing to accept. But now that I could do so, I needed to fight off these surges.
We stopped about 100 feet from the farm’s property and examined the land in front of us. The wooden fence lining the border was still standing, though it was busted through in many places. The grass had been left to grow wild, and there were no signs of the horses or cows we had grazing there just a year and a half prior.
The grass had even grown over the path we had made that led to the house, but I remembered where it turned and bent as we stepped through the terrain.
Stopping again as we approached the porch, I shuddered. This was it, I told myself, this was where it all ended and where it all began.
“Are you okay to go inside?” Beltrin put a silvery hand on my shoulder. I jumped slightly, and he pulled his hand back quickly. “Do you need us to go inside with you?”
I licked my dry lips and sighed. “No,” I said. “I can do this.”
Every window seemed to have been busted out; there were shards of glass both on the porch and inside the front hall.
With every slow step I took inside, I remembered another split second of my abduction. While the taking of Antareus and myself only took a minute or two in real time, each memory presented itself to me in slow motion — agonizing, slow motion movements.
Walking past the living room and front parlor, I remembered Antareus put in a headlock by a Raven guard while two other goons ripped apart books, slamming glass photo frames to the floor, searching for something they were not finding.
The hearth, cold and dead and black, still held the iron pot I had been cooking in that night. The contents inside had been left to rot, break down, and reduce to the sands of time. There wasn’t even enough organic material there to produce the smell of decomposition any longer.
The same was true inside my kitchen — my once beautiful kitchen, my mother’s beautiful kitchen, which I had kept immaculate in her precious memory. It had been ransacked, with every piece of cooking material I owned now shattered and strewn about. The food that had been overturned that night had also been allowed to turn to black sludge, leaving disgusting track marks over the floor.
Next to the kitchen was my room. The door had a big black footprint on it. Rather than simply open any door, the Ravens had kicked open each door with such force as to splinter the wood. I remembered being pinned down on the floor in front of my door while another Raven sped inside. I recalled the sounds of my shelves being kicked down, items being tossed and recklessly scattered.
Indeed, when I got inside my room, it was like looking at a hurricane’s destruction. My mattress was slumped sadly against one wall, the bed frame still standing, but weakened by the elements, as every window had been broken and exposed the room to all weathers. The flooring was warped, wavy and moldy. All the clothes that were in my closet were beyond redemption.
I was suddenly reminded of the one thing I would really like to reclaim — the bracelet my mother had left me that allowed me to control heat and flame. It had been invaluable to me in my cooking.
Stepping over various debris, I looked around for the oak box I had put the bracelet into that night. I checked through mounds of wet and soiled material, peered around sideboards, and into my closet…
Yes! There it was — still locked tight, but intact. It must have been tossed aside without another thought. How curious that with everything else broken and smashed, this box was left untouched?
But the key would take forever to find. Unless…
I stared at the box, trying to imagine the inner-workings of the simple lock. I pictured a key going inside, the pressure of the key tripping the lock and causing it to —
There was a soft click. Wow, it worked…
I opened the lid of the tiny chest. There, still cushioned inside a soft black velvet lining, was my bracelet. Trimmed with gold, a disc with a black, shiny surface, and leather braids making up the wrist straps.
I picked up the bracelet like it was a thousand-year-old artifact, certain that if I grabbed it and held onto it too hard, it would dissolve through my fingers like sand.
Gingerly, I wrapped the bracelet around my left wrist, and turned it around so the disc pointed up towards me.
The black glass of the disc began to slowly change color. A deep, dark blue spun inside, before a star-shaped glow of light blue spawned an almost rose-like bloom of pink, and then a red and white iris spinning in a circular motion in the very center.
It was almost as if it recognized me like an old friend. That is certainly how I felt as a small amount of warmth began to grace the skin of my wrist directly underneath the disc.
Thank heavens, I thought. I smiled and absent-mindedly held my wrist to my chest, reacquainting myself with the presence of this treasured charm.
After a few moments, I crossed to the other side of the house, into what had once been the room belonging to my mother and father, but which my brother had moved into after they died.
The evening sun always poured into this room, drenching the walls and a big brass bed with a golden aura. Back in the day, I loved being in this room because it reminded me of my departed parents.
Now, I gazed upon a tarnished bed frame and a room as dimly lit and as dark as an angry thunderstorm. All the furniture in Antareus’ room had been axed to pieces, the innards of his mattress split open and left spilling out like blood.
The gash in the mattress sparked the memory of my poor brother’s gruesome death. Made to drink acid, which had eaten through his throat.
A hot, bubbling sensation began to flow through my legs. It was another surge of magic. No, I told myself. Not right now. Just fight it back, I don’t need magic right now…
I took a few labored breaths, and the bubbling feeling soon subsided and the heat in my legs went away.
There was a book pinned against the wall, trapped behind the bed frame. I stepped over more broken glass to reach it.
It was a leather photo album. Precious Memories, it read in embossed type. Underneath that, in tarnished gold lettering, “Mondragon Family, Est. 1465.”
That was the year my mother and father married, as well as the year Antareus was born.
I wanted so badly to open the album up, to see the photos inside. But I also knew that, apart from me, everyone inside that album was dead, well before their time, and all in tragic circumstances.
I gripped the album, pulling it from its confined space. I placed my palm on the cover. They’re all gone. It’s only me.
The tears welled up in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. Oh, how I wanted to be held just then. To be held by my mother, to be embraced by my father, or to just sit next to my brother once more. But they were all dead.
I wiped the tears away, held the album close to my chest, bracelet still secure around my left wrist, and I made my way out of the house.
“You found something, then,” Caeden said as he and Beltrin greeted me outside.
“Just a couple personal items,” I said. “Nothing else worth taking, certainly no clothes.”
“Alright then,” Beltrin said, “that settles it — we shall go into town and get you something suitable for the Grand Ball.”
We turned back towards the exit of the property and set off towards Galek once more. As we walked, I thought I felt a strange s
ensation over my right shoulder, almost like a hand being pressed against me. Instantly, my thoughts turned to Antareus.
He always used to pat me there when we set off to town together…
3. Reflections
Beltrin, Caeden and I stopped back at the Church of the Great Mother to drop off my photo album, then we continued towards the city center and the tailor’s shop.
Master Ilya Goodwin was once Londolad’s foremost tailor and cutter and was King O’Hir’s one and only choice to design the formal wear for the entire Royal Family. Then he died a year or two before my abduction, and his grandson Petros took over.
In that short time, the young Goodwin had managed to lose the Royal Appointment to a newer tailor’s shop across the street, Burleson’s. This meant he couldn’t afford to charge what his grandfather once had — a fact that caught Beltrin’s eye while spying price tags in the shop windows.
“We’ll pop in here,” he said decidedly, raising his walking stick. He used the handle, a silver-maned dragon’s head, to point at the ‘Goodwin & Son’ sign swaying gently in the breeze to accentuate his point. The three of us walked in.
“Well, hello, gentlemen,” said a thin, wiry, slightly greasy looking man at the first counter. “What can we…” his voice trailed off when his gaze met me. “What can we, eh… what can we do for you this fine afternoon?”
There was a small mirror at his counter, beside a small basket full of bowties. I gazed into it, the first time I had seen myself properly in a mirror in 15 months.
I barely recognized the face staring out at me. My cheekbones were poking through pale, almost translucent skin; my hair had long since lost any signs of health, resembled more like dead straw, and had grown down to my shoulder blades. And, of course, the clothes I was wearing were the same ones I’d worn for the better part of my stay with the Ravens - tattered, faded, and stained with who knows what.
“We have a special engagement to attend to, and we shall require three of your finest suits,” Beltrin said matter-of-factly.
“All… three of you?” The clerk’s mustache twitched as he once again looked in my direction. I frowned and pulled my hair back, holding it behind me in a half-hearted attempt to look less unkempt.
“That’s what I said,” Beltrin replied with agitation. It was plain to tell the clerk didn’t think I belonged. “Three suits.”
“Very well sir,” said the clerk. “Right this way.” He gestured to a corner of the shop near the changing rooms, where a mannequin stood displaying a black three-piece suit, complete with tails, cummerbund and a handkerchief formed into the shape of a rosette in the breast pocket.
Caeden felt the fabric of the display suit. “That’s quite the cut,” he murmured absently.
“That’s actually the last of that particular fabric I have in stock,” the clerk said, flashing pearly white teeth to Caeden as he spoke. “It actually appears to be just your size — would you care to try it on?”
“Thank you,” Caeden said, and the clerk rushed to his side to assist him in putting on the jacket.
While Beltrin browsed a few suits on a nearby rack, I scanned the store. There were about six or seven other customers in the store, each being assisted by a clerk or being rung up by a cashier.
My eye crossed an employee-only area, where a stock boy was pushing a rack of clothes into a backroom. My brow furrowed as I saw six three-piece suits, each identical in color, size and material as the one Caeden was trying on.
I looked back towards Caeden as the clerk continued to smooth-talk him into buying the suit.
That creep, I thought. I could not stand people who would say or do anything just to close a sale.
“What do you all think of this one?” Beltrin said as he held up a dinner jacket, similar in color to his own pearl-white suit, if perhaps a shade or two off. It had black buttons down the front and a swirl-shaped decoration on either shoulder in silver thread.
“That is a marvelous selection, sir,” the clerk said, handing Caeden his suit’s matching pair of pants as he abandoned him to approach Beltrin.
“I’m rather sold on it already,” Beltrin admitted. “How much?”
“It is a little on the higher-end of our scale, sir,” the clerk said, with a slight pause. “320 gold pieces.”
Beltrin looked as if he was already close to committing to buy.
“May I?” I interjected. I shouldered my way in between Beltrin and the clerk, who looked quite perturbed. Ignoring him, I scanned the seams in the shoulders, the collar, as well as the pockets.
“This is secondhand,” I said, my tone hard and accusatory.
I could feel several pairs of eyes move in our direction. The clerk’s face froze. He licked his lips and attempted to argue.
“With all due respect sir, I don’t think you have an eye for…”
“With all due respect,” I interrupted. I made sure that my voice remained firm, without raising it where the other customers could hear. “I happen to be a member of the Culinarian’s Guild, and I don’t think Signor Sante, the head of the Tailor’s Guild, would be happy to hear that someone under the employ of Goodwin’s would try to sell a suit with signs of previous use at full price to a customer!”
The clerk’s face reddened. I held my breath. He had no way of knowing I had never met Signor Sante in my life and wouldn’t know how to find him if I tried.
“The stitches here under the arms are broken,” I explained, upturning one of the sleeves to show Beltrin. “It’s been stretched, and obviously worn by a former client.”
Beltrin frowned at the clerk. Caeden stood behind the clerk, still wearing the formal suit jacket over his own tunic. His face was one of bemused entertainment.
“Uhh…” The clerk stammered. He knew he had been caught. He forced a small, humble smile. “What can I say? I must have been misinformed about our stock. Of course, we would not bill you full price for this item. Our secondhand items currently run at exactly half the ticketed price.”
“I really don’t think we should bother,” Beltrin said, his jaw set. He hung the dinner jacket back on the rack. “I think we’d be better off taking our custom next door to Burleson’s.”
He had hardly said the words when another man, hair graying at the sides, entered the shop floor. When the clerk’s eyes widened at his appearance, I knew at once it must be the Goodwin grandson, the owner.
“Let’s not be too hasty, gentlemen!” The clerk gave a nervous laugh and put an arm around me and Beltrin, spinning us to face the corner of the wall, where our faces could not be seen by Goodwin.
“As a token of my esteem to the… sharp-eyed junior here, allow me to offer you my personal employee discount on today’s purchases. 40% off, and that would include the… secondhand item.” He gulped.
“What do you think… Junior?” Beltrin looked at me and winked gently.
“It’s a generous offer to be sure,” I said, holding back a surprised laugh. “Let’s accept.”
“Done!” Beltrin clapped the clerk — hard — on the back.
The clerk gulped hard, almost in relief, and hurried about finishing the fit of Caeden’s suit. Beltrin picked up the dinner jacket again, and he helped me in picking out a suit that would fit me for the big soiree.
Beltrin paid the increasingly tired-looking clerk 400 gold pieces in all for what would likely have cost double that had I not pulled my little stunt.
We exited the shop and waited until we were clear of the store before we all burst out laughing.
“I can’t believe you did that!” Caeden laughed.
“Nor did I,” I said, brushing my long locks back. “I’m glad he didn’t call my bluff — though I figure if I pull the Guild card like that again, I should make sure I’m actually still in the Guild!”
Beltrin smiled. “Don’t you worry — tomorrow, bright and early, we’ll go to the Guild hall and get you reinstated. I’ll pay for it if I have to — that was some first-class move.”
I fol
lowed behind the other two as we headed towards the Church of the Great Mother. As another soft breeze wafted through the city streets, I craned my neck and enjoyed the feeling of air moving across my skin. It was a small but pleasant sensation.
We walked past an empty storefront, and I took another chance to glance at my reflection and my long, dirty hair. We’d have to make sure that got cut before the event. I took a moment to again observe the changes in my body since my captivity. I looked sickly thin, even though I felt like I was nearly at my full strength.
I noticed someone staring in my direction from the reflection in the glass. Whoever it was stood next to a wooden lamppost, arms at his side. He was stony-faced, a serious expression on his mouth… and a massive hole in his neck.