The Circles of Magic

by Gabriela Fišerová

  But he’d already told Feyrith exactly what he thought about it, so Edwyr would try to contain himself. His friends had been giving him strange looks since they’d left Everward, particularly Lanna, and Edwyr didn’t need to draw more attention to himself.

  “We’re not going to make it to the next town today,” Arbane said from behind Edwyr, bringing him out of his thoughts. He frowned up at the dark blue sky, the last few rays of sunlight still present barely visible over the trees in the distance. When had it gotten so dark? He’d completely missed that.

  Edwyr hadn’t exactly memorized the route or the villages and towns they would pass on it, but he was sure Arbane was right. If it was already this late, it was still a better idea to stay out here with minimal cover than to try to make it. At night, a lot of nocturnal predators went hunting, and they were much more likely to come across some while moving, especially since they would have to have torches so as not to lose sight of the road.

  “Guess we’ll have to camp out here,” Lanna replied, sighing. “You can protect us, right, Fey?”

  “Fey?” Edwyr wouldn’t deny that he enjoyed hearing the very subtle but definitely offended tone the elf had used, even though he fully related to it. Arbane had tried calling Edwyr Ed when they’d first met, and even now the idea made Edwyr feel annoyed. He was well aware that humans had an obsession with nicknames, but he didn’t mind them too much as long as they sounded good. Ed certainly did not.

  “Yes, of course I can protect you,” Feyrith said, clearly trying to ignore the nickname, much like he’d ignored Edwyr’s taunts earlier. Edwyr felt a little guilty about that. After all, the reason he was treating Feyrith this way wasn’t that he hated Feyrith specifically, but because he hated the Council. But Edwyr didn’t feel like taking it back either.

  “Great, then let’s find a place to set up camp.”

  Edwyr let Arbane and Lanna take the lead, following them off the road and towards the bottom of the cliff they had been riding along for a very long time now. It still took a while to even get to it, as it was farther than he’d originally thought due to how dark it was getting.

  Tempest made a short, high-pitched noise that Edwyr had come to know as her complaining, usually because she was tired. He ran a hand over her feathers. He’d barely thought about how she was handling the long travel since rescuing Feyrith, and his stomach twisted at that realization. He didn’t think he’d pushed her to go harder than she was able to, but she wasn’t used to long journeys, and he should have taken the time to at the very least pet her every once in a while since it never failed to improve her mood.

  As expected, Tempest lay down as soon as they reached the stone wall of the tall cliff and Edwyr climbed off her back. He couldn’t help but smile to himself as she stretched out her front legs and unceremoniously started devouring the grass around her head. Edwyr sat down next to her, petting the side of her neck. It was surprisingly effective at helping him get rid of some of the tension he’d been feeling for hours now.

  Unfortunately, his mood quickly took a turn for the worst as soon as Feyrith arrived as well. As did his squawker, of course, which changed nothing about the way Tempest was inelegantly lying down, but she did immediately turn her full attention to him. Edwyr shook his head at her, which Tempest firmly ignored, preferring to watch that damned squawker as she continued chewing grass. Edwyr decided to just take off her saddle and reins to make her more comfortable and did his best to ignore both Feyrith and his mount.

  “It’s probably safer not to start a fire, huh?” Arbane asked, looking between him and Feyrith with wary eyes as if the human was expecting them to attack each other at any moment.

  “Yes, probably,” Edwyr agreed, sighing again. He wouldn’t mind a fire. It was still humid and hot, but the wind, which currently seemed to be getting stronger, was a little bit chilly in comparison. Still, if Edwyr had to choose between unnecessary danger and comfort, the choice was obvious.

  Not to mention that there would be no true peace and comfort for him with Feyrith around, so there was little to lose.

  They proceeded to eat something before Lanna volunteered to take the first watch. There was no point staying awake for longer, especially since if they would get attacked, it would be likely after midnight, so Edwyr didn’t argue, only rolling out the blanket he’d brought with him in case of situations just like this, and lying next to Tempest. It wasn’t very comfortable, as even with the blanket and grass beneath him, the uneven, hard ground pressed into his back, but at least Tempest’s warmth was relaxing as she automatically pressed her side against his. It was something most squawkers tended to do with other members of their herds, but less so with other species. Tempest was an exception to this.

  Despite the less-than-ideal sleeping conditions, Edwyr ended up falling asleep fairly quickly, apparently more tired than he’d realized. But it wasn’t the usual sleeping experience he was used to. He didn’t dream. He had never dreamed, and neither did other elves, from what he’d heard.

  Yet here he was, standing in the middle of a dark forest, long, oily shadows moving and shifting around him. But for some reason, he wasn’t disturbed by the image. Being inside of a thick forest should normally be enough to put him on edge, never being there at night, and yet he felt nothing.

  Edwyr looked around, trying to spot if there was anything else here, but all of the trees looked the same and blurred together. The more he tried to distinguish between them, the worse it got until they barely looked like trees at all. Just dark, ominous poles, their branches blending together into masses that seemed to get closer to him whenever he looked away.

  And still, Edwyr felt no fear or concern. He mostly felt confused by what he was seeing. He might have never dreamed before, and this didn’t feel like reality, but it also felt like nothing his friends had described to him when he’d asked what dreaming was like.

  Edwyr decided that he might as well try walking around and seeing if there was more to this place than just warped trees, but he quickly gave up on that when he realized the forest was moving with him. Logically, he felt very disturbed at the way he walked next to the same trees, no matter how fast he went, and through an environment that didn’t change, but in his heart, there was no such emotion.

  He did flinch, however, when suddenly he heard someone clear their throat behind him. Edwyr whirled around, gaping at the strange elf in front of him. And he wasn’t strange simply because Edwyr didn’t know him—no, this elf was different. From his long, wavy, unbraided hair to his yellow eyes, the general, relaxed way he held himself….

  “Who are you?”

  “I was about to ask you the same question,” the elf replied, raising an eyebrow at him, though he looked somewhat amused. Before Edwyr had the time to fully realize how bizarre it was to see another elf emote so freely, the other elf bowed his head at him, answering his question. “My name is Wyn. And that is all I am at liberty to share about myself at this moment, I’m afraid.”

  “Wyn?” That wasn’t an elven name. Not a full name, at least. Who in the Goddess’ name was this person? Had his mind made him up? Lanna had once told Edwyr that she’d dreamed she’d flown a squawker through the sky, and somehow what he was experiencing right now seemed less believable than that.

  “Ah, don’t say it like that. You’ll make me self-conscious,” the elf joked, confirming once and for all for Edwyr that this indeed wasn’t real. The elf tilted his head at him then. “You look confused.”

  Edwyr let out a short laugh at that, unsure how else to handle the absurdity of that statement. What a wonderful use of logical deduction on Wyn’s part. Edwyr still didn’t believe that was his real name. Or that he was even real in the first place.

  “Why are you talking to me?”

  Wyn seemed a little surprised at how unfriendly Edwyr had sounded but nevertheless replied. “Well, I was simply curious about you. When Genrith mentioned meeting you, I got curious. And so I decided to contact you in a dream.”

>   Edwyr almost felt annoyed at the matter-of-fact tone Wyn had used to explain all of this. Even though a few questions of his had been answered, Edwyr now had a hundred more to take their place. And he had a feeling the other elf wasn’t going to give him many more answers.

  “So that woman I met before—you know her,” Edwyr said, starting off with the most believable parts to try to put this all together somehow.

  “Genrith, yes. It is not often that we randomly meet a magicless elf by chance, which is why it stood out to me.”

  There it was again. That word. Edwyr certainly liked it better than what the other elves used, but this was incredibly strange. Who were these people? Edwyr had never met anyone who would use the term magicless, and yet here was another elf saying it.

  “We usually manage to monitor when someone is banished,” Wyn continued, frowning. “When did it happen to you?”

  Edwyr gave him a withering look. This was about the last thing he wanted to talk about. “You invade my mind to make idle small talk?”

  “It isn’t small talk,” the other elf denied, but Edwyr didn’t let him continue.

  “How are you even doing this? I never heard of magic like this.”

  It wasn’t exactly a sound reason to suspect something was amiss. Edwyr was aware that there were certain kinds of magic that were talked about only in certain Circles and otherwise kept secret, so it was possible there was magic like this, but it still felt odd. All of this felt odd. Edwyr was clearly missing an important piece of the puzzle, and no one was willing to give it to him.

  “Oh, there are a lot of things the Council keeps secret,” Wyn replied, smirking. He didn’t even make it look arrogant—he mostly seemed amused again—but Edwyr still wanted to yell at him for it. This wasn’t helpful in the least. He knew very well the Council didn’t tell them everything, and even though he hated them, Edwyr could agree that the ability to enter someone’s sleeping mind should at the very least be monitored and regulated, as it could easily be abused.

  “But I apologize if I overstepped my boundaries,” Wyn continued, bowing his head. Edwyr narrowed his eyes at the gesture. Wyn somehow managed to act in a very typical way for an elf, and not at all at the same time. Edwyr truly had no idea what to think of that.

  “You did.”

  “Right, well, apologies.” Oh, now he sounded a little annoyed. Edwyr was surprised it had taken this long, to be honest. Still, he was the one who should feel annoyed, not the other elf. “If I could have contacted you another way first, I would have.”

  “So, you did all of this to, what—check on me?”

  Wyn looked away, though there was a hint of a smile on his face as he did. “Not entirely.”

  Edwyr glared at him. Of course that wasn’t all of it.

  “I have a question for you, and I need you to answer it.”

  “Why? You answered none of mine.”

  “I told you my name.” Wyn raised his index finger at him as if to show off that Edwyr wasn’t right in saying that. As if that had any weight at all. “I need you to tell me if there is another elf traveling with you. An elf sent by the Council.”

  What an odd and specific question, particularly because all elves on the mainland had been sent by the Council. But for now, Edwyr decided to focus on the question itself, and not the questions it raised.

  His first instinct was to lie, but he didn’t act on it. He had no obligation to protect Feyrith. Especially since Feyrith himself had made no attempt to hide. If humans were capable of sharing news faster than by manually going from town to town, the entire region would have already known an elf was here. So what could be the harm in telling Wyn as much?

  “Yes, there is another elf,” Edwyr replied simply, which brought a smile to Wyn’s face again.

  “Thank you for your honesty,” Wyn said, bowing his head and looking very pleased. “We already suspected as much, I simply wanted to see where your loyalties lie.”

  Edwyr scowled at him. He wanted to ask who exactly Wyn was talking about, but he could already tell that he wouldn’t be given an answer anyway. “Why would I ever support the Council?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  But Edwyr didn’t get the chance to ask what that was supposed to mean as he was suddenly dragged out of his dream by a shout.

  “Edwyr!”

  He sprung up, his eyes widening when he saw Lanna trying to fend off a dark, massive cat with a branch, doing her best to wrestle it out of the beast’s teeth. Timberclaw tigers. Oh no. This wasn’t good at all. What had Wyn done to him to sleep through that for so long?

  Edwyr immediately grasped blindly for his bow next to him, just as fire appeared on his right, forcing one of the tigers to back away, its angry eyes glowing in the distance. Assuming that the fire had been Feyrith’s doing, Edwyr didn’t bother trying to find the origin of it and focused his full attention on the tiger attacking Lanna instead, aiming right for its head and sending his arrow flying. Despite the low visibility, the night provided him with, the glowing eye of the tiger was enough of a target for him to shoot at. Edwyr let the arrow fly, the tiger’s roar soon following as it jumped back. Before it could try to attack again, Edwyr nocked another arrow and shot at it as fast as he could, hitting the tiger right between the eyes.

  The tiger roared once again and jumped back, finally turning around and sprinting away. Not giving herself a second of rest, Lanna threw the branch away and hurried off to help Arbane, grabbing her bow on the way. However, before she could reach him, Feyrith got there first, chasing off another tiger with more flames from his staff.

  Edwyr wondered if Feyrith was aware that fire was the only thing that could kill these creatures, as their bodies were made of wood, branches, and leaves, or if it was simply the first thing he could think of. Nevertheless, Edwyr couldn’t deny that it had been effective.

  There was only one tiger left now, baring its wicked, wooden fangs at them. Edwyr was already about to take a shot at it when Feyrith yelled a spell from behind him, sending a ball of fire right at the tiger. Edwyr jumped back as the fire flew past him, forcing the creature to run away.

  As he watched the last tiger disappear into the night in the distance, Edwyr shot a quick glare at Feyrith for almost singing him just then. But his annoyance dissipated as he realized that something was amiss.

  Edwyr looked around, quickly realizing what the problem was. Their squawkers were gone.

  “They got spooked when the tigers attacked,” Lanna explained before he could even point it out, already rushing to collect her things. She was clearly eager to go find Stomper. Immediately worried about Tempest, Edwyr did the same, slinging his bow over his shoulder. The sooner they found them the better—before something else scared them even farther away. Or hurt them….

  “What were they even doing out here?” Arbane said, making Edwyr pause for just a moment. In the rush of things, he’d not even realized that it was odd for tigers to be here, and not stalking the jungle. And now that he thought about it, they had come across them more often as well lately. At least they disliked sunlight and stayed away from towns for the most part.

  “Doesn’t matter now. We need to find our squawkers,” Lanna said, looking even more worried now. “Let’s split up in two groups. We’ll meet back here.” Before Edwyr could express his lack of interest in going anywhere with Feyrith, Lanna turned to the elf. “Keep my husband safe, all right?”

  Feyrith bowed his head, summoning a light into his hand with a mutter. Edwyr had to blink to get used to how bright it was. It managed to easily illuminate their entire makeshift camp, of which only blankets, the flattened grass from where they’d slept, and their squawkers’ reins and saddles remained as evidence of their presence. “Of course.”

  Arbane looked a little dubious, likely because he’d wanted to go with Lanna instead, but he didn’t argue back and just nodded, leaving in the direction of the distant jungle. Feyrith followed after him without a word, though Edwyr didn’t doubt t
hat he didn’t like being led anywhere by a human.

  “I think I saw Tempest run this way,” Lanna told him, pointing to the left, to the sprawling, flat fields. With only the moon and stars to light their way, this was going to be very difficult. Edwyr couldn’t just summon a ball of light like Feyrith, and they didn’t have the time to make a makeshift torch, so they would have to make due, and hopefully not get attacked again.

  They set off, walking in silence for a while, constantly checking around for either their squawkers or more danger lurking in the shadows around them. Edwyr wished he could call after Tempest, as she usually came when called, but right now, that would just call attention to them, and without knowing where the squawker was at least a little, the risk wasn’t worth the potential gain.

  But the drawback of the perfect silence was that now Edwyr couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d seen and heard while asleep, on top of being worried for Tempest. Now that the initial shock of being woken up to a tiger attack had worn off a bit, he couldn’t seem to think about anything else. Had that dream been real? He could still remember it as if he’d talked to Wyn just moments prior, but at the same time, the memory felt fuzzy and unreal. Was this normal for a dream?

  “Are you okay, Edwyr?” Lanna suddenly asked, making Edwyr look at her with a frown. She shrugged, giving him an empathetic look. “You were talking in your sleep.”

  Edwyr’s heart lurched uncomfortably. Had he said something incriminating? Was this why Lanna had wanted to go look for their squawkers with him? He’d thought it had been simply because she’d thought he and Feyrith would start arguing, but maybe there was more to it than that.

  “Well, it was mostly just mumbling,” she amended, letting Edwyr relax his pose. For once he was glad it was so dark because he had definitely not managed to keep a blank face when she’d said that. But why was he so worried about her finding out about him meeting strangers people, anyway? He wasn’t actively helping them, and there was no telling if they had anything sinister planned, on top of it. Even if Lanna knew, it would be very easy to talk himself out of it.