by Lisa Cassidy
“And I’m the one Cayr loves.”
Waiting another beat to make sure the words sank in, Alyx turned and strode from the room.
Chapter 37
Alyx went straight home from the palace. The gardens looked beautiful in the late morning sun, and she paused before walking along the pebbled drive, soaking up the beauty around her.
She’d wanted so badly to come home and have everything the way it had been before, when she was innocent and happy. Instead, nothing had been how she remembered it. Worse, Rionn seemed to be under serious threat.
I’m a mage.
The words had burst out of her, unthinking, but in that moment Alyx had meant them with every fibre of her being. It was time to face reality. Her months at DarkSkull had changed everything irrevocably.
Instead of going inside, she went to the stables and saddled Tingo for a ride down into market square in the city. Once she was done at the stores, she spent a leisurely lunch hour strolling through the docks and eating roasted chestnuts. This inevitably reminded her of Cayr, and she suddenly missed him so badly it hurt. Was she making the right decision?
“Your mother died when you were seven.” Her father’s voice echoed in her thoughts, followed soon after by Dawn’s, “Why would Master Romas steal your memories?”
And finally she saw Ladan’s too-serious face, as clear as day, when he’d told her he was leaving DarkSkull. “I have to leave. It’s safer if you don’t know why.”
Alyx’s resolve firmed. It was time to get some answers, and there was only one place she could think of to do that. Maybe then she’d be able to help her father, and help Rionn.
Once she’d had her fill of watching ships moving in and out of the harbour, Alyx went back to the city to pick up the purchases she’d ordered. Tingo was happy enough to see her again, and they rode fully laden back to the Egalion home. Her father was busy in his study, so she went upstairs without bothering him and opened the packages.
She wrote a long letter to her father as late afternoon dwindled, then with a reluctant sigh sealed it and moved towards the open packages on her bed.
Starting to feel the heavy weight of the decision she’d made burdening her heart, Alyx crept back downstairs and left the letter to her father sitting on a small table in the entrance foyer. The front door closed behind her with an ominous click, and she had to take a deep breath before continuing.
Cayr would be waiting for her.
Alyx strode along the grassy bluff that ran along the edges of the fast flowing river all the way up to where it crashed down towards the city below. She walked on the Egalion side; a short swim would take her across to royal land.
She wore fine gray kidskin leather breeches, a long-sleeved lighter gray tunic of warm cotton, and a long, thick grey robe over the top. Her calf-high boots were crafted of the finest leather, and the robe she wore had been finely tailored from silky felt, trimmed in ermine fur, and was worth hundreds of silver pieces. Her staff hung down her back under her robe and her small dagger sat in a simple gray leather belt that held her robe together.
If Alyx Egalion was going to be wearing the drab uniform of a mage apprentice, it would be as stylish as she could make it. It wasn’t the expensive dresses she was used to wearing, but she felt strangely comfortable.
Her heart clenched a little as she saw Cayr’s lean form waiting for her right on the tip of land where the river cascaded over the edge. For a moment she stood and watched him without him being aware of her presence. She loved him so much, but that was the problem.
He turned as he spotted her, concern warring with relief in his eyes. When he saw what she was wearing, his step towards her faltered. She ignored his hesitation and moved into him, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“I’m so sorry Alyx,” he murmured into her ear. “I’m so sorry. You’re the only one I want, I swear that to you.”
“I know.” She mustered a smile, reached up and kissed him again. “I know.”
“You look different.” He raised an eyebrow.
She nodded, met his eyes. “This is the uniform of an apprentice mage. I’m going back to DarkSkull Hall.”
“Why?” He looked stunned. “You hated it there.”
“I did.” She sighed. “I don’t know how to explain this to you properly, but I’m going to try. I love you, Cayr, more than anything in the world, but I’ve come to realise that I need to be more than a girl who loves you. I need to know who I am apart from you. I don’t want to sit around and enjoy my embroidery and gossip with the other ladies of the court. I want to be your wife, but I don’t just want to be your wife. Do you understand?”
“It sounds like you’re leaving me,” he said softly.
“For a while, yes.”
“I didn’t mean what happened with Jenna, I…”
“But it happened,” she said firmly. “And I think you need to figure out why it happened. You hurt me deeply, and made me unsure of us, of myself.”
He shook his head. “I still don’t understand. You said you were miserable at DarkSkull. You came back a shadow of your former self.”
“I was miserable,” Alyx struggled to explain. “But I never really tried. I coped, and I thought constantly about coming back to you. I never tried to learn or to fit in.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Yes there is. I need to find out who I am, what I’m going to do with myself. There are questions I need answers to. It would take too long to explain why, but DarkSkull is the only place I can do that. I don’t know if I want to be a mage, but what else is there for me here, Cayr?”
“You need to try, to really try, and work out for yourself whether you’re supposed to be a mage,” he said in understanding.
“I’ll be back, and by then maybe we’ll know who we are, and what we want. Explore things with Jenna, if you need to. As of this moment, there are no strings or promises between us. We’re both free.”
“I want you.”
She smiled. “I’m going to miss you.”
He kissed her gently. “Me too.”
They stood lost in the kiss for a long time, neither one of them wanting it to end. Eventually Alyx pulled back breathlessly, resting her forehead against Cayr’s.
“You could stay with me, just for tonight,” he murmured. “Leave tomorrow.”
“That would be wrong, you know that.”
He kissed her again, harder this time. “I don’t care.”
“I do.” She disentangled herself from him. “If we spent the night together, I’d never be able to leave, and then one day I’d regret it. It would ruin us.”
“I’ll wait for you,” he promised.
“I’m not asking for promises, and I don’t want any. We are both free for the next year.”
“I love you, Alyx. Please, keep yourself safe.”
She smiled up at him. “I will. I promise.”
Alyx walked alone back towards where she’d left Tingo tethered, tears trickling down her face. The big stallion snorted when he saw her, butting his head gently into her chest and snuffling in concern. She stroked his silky nose for a few moments as she dragged her emotions under control, then swung up into the saddle.
She urged him into a canter through the trees, then reined him in briefly outside the open gates to the Egalion manor. Night had fallen and a single light glimmered from the window where her father’s study was. Her heart clenched, hating to leave him, and she took another few minutes to compose herself. Then, she kicked Tingo into a gallop.
Alyx took the main road through the city, and eventually they emerged into the open highway that led up into the hills. She had a long journey ahead. Still, it was something she knew she had to do.
Tingo dropped back into a walk as they left the city behind, Alyx content to farewell her home slowly. The city had only just vanished from sight when Alyx heard voices down the road from where she’d come.
Frowning, she reined Tingo in and reached up a wary hand
to her staff. The sounds came again, louder this time, and then a rider appeared around the bend, his horse’s hooves clattering as he approached.
“Dash?” Alyx asked, utter surprise filling her voice. She looked beyond him, seeing a full unit of Bluecoats waiting at the turn in the road.
“Fancy meeting you here.” His grin flashed as he rode closer.
“What are you doing?”
He waved a hand. “Figured you might need an escort. I’ve got a twenty-man unit back down the road there.”
Alyx looked away. “How did you…? Cayr sent you, didn’t he? He knew I was leaving.”
“He knows you quite well, our Cayr.”
Dashan’s face sobered at Alyx’s expression, and he kicked his horse a little closer. “I understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, believe it or not. Don’t you think it would be nice to have some company along the way?”
“Dash, I don’t want to put you through this again. You could have died last time, and I don’t have time to wait around for weeks until the king can organise another safe passage agreement. The year at DarkSkull is starting now and I’m already late.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “But the king also thinks it might be a good idea to have some people in Tregaya to keep him informed of certain things. If Cayr hadn’t asked me, another Bluecoat unit would have been ordered to come.”
“Dash…”
“Alyx, really, I’m here, and we fully intend to come. You can’t stop us.”
“Well, in that case,” she said teasingly. “I could use the company, even if it is the company of the most irritating person I’ve ever known.”
“Oh, irritating is it?” he said, exaggeratedly indignant. “I’ll just keep my mouth shut then, will I?”
“Ha, like that’s possible. You couldn’t keep that mouth of yours shut if your life depended on it.”
“I’ll do my best.” He offered his hand. “Deal?”
Alyx nodded and took his hand, suddenly overwhelmingly grateful that she wasn’t going to have to do this by herself. “Deal, Lieutenant Caverlock.”
“You were really just going to ride through the disputed area and all the way to DarkSkull on your own?” he asked as both horses began moving and the Bluecoat escort rode up behind them. “You don’t even know how to navigate. You probably would have circled Alistriem three times before getting dizzy and falling off your horse.”
She chuckled. “Actually, we’re going somewhere else first. It’s not so far to Tregaya from there.”
“How mysterious. Are you going to tell me where, or is it more fun to make me guess?”
“It’s always more fun to make you guess.” She waggled her eyebrows at him.
“Fine. It’s not like I care anyway, although I will refer back to your utter inability to navigate.”
Alyx stared up at the stars, focusing on the resolve she’d felt after her encounter with Jenna. Her father had lied to her, and so had Astor. The mages had stolen her memories. Her mother had died two years after leaving her, and nobody knew how or why.
It was time to get some answers. If, at the same time she could learn her magic in a way that would allow her to help Rionn, then all the better.
“Alyx?” Dashan’s voice startled her from her thoughts.
She smiled and kicked Tingo into a gallop. “We’re going to Widow Falls.”
To be continued in The Mage Chronicles Book Two – Taliath
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About the Author
Lisa Cassidy was born in Melbourne, Australia, but now lives in the nation’s capital – Canberra. While she mostly sticks to novel-length fantasy, she occasionally likes to break out with short stories on random things like unicorns and ninjas.
When not writing, you'll likely catch her enthusiastically spectating a basketball game (#NewYorkKnickForLife), drinking buckets of coffee, or…well, who is she kidding... writing!
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