The Circles of Magic

by Gabriela Fišerová

  Though he had no interest in doing it if he could avoid it. Edwyr wasn’t sure why, but he felt like this wasn’t a matter he should discuss with a human. Perhaps that wasn’t very nice, but it felt too personal to him—like a secret he didn’t yet fully understand but was meant to keep.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?” Lanna tried again. “I mean, you said elves don’t dream.”

  “We don’t.”

  Lanna raised her eyebrow at him. If Edwyr didn’t know any better, he’d think she was suspicious of him. But even back when Edwyr had arrived in Sunwood, she’d never taken that approach with him, so he had no doubts that wasn’t the case.

  “Look, even if you did start dreaming, it doesn’t have to mean anything,” she continued, never breaking eye contact. That wasn’t at all where he’d thought this conversation would go, but now that she’d said it, it wasn’t difficult to understand why she was thinking this way.

  Edwyr almost let out a breath of relief, but he managed to hide that behind a grimace, finally tearing his eyes away from Lanna’s.

  “You’re not becoming more human.”

  Edwyr snorted. He knew as much because it was impossible. But he understood what Lanna was trying to say. Perhaps it would have been easier if he could become human, though. Like this, he wasn’t a true elf because he had no magic, but he was very different from humans, both skill-wise and in appearance. But no, even if Edwyr could alter his appearance to fit in among the humans more easily, and not walk around constantly being reminded of his situation, he wouldn’t do it. He wasn’t a human, and he didn’t want to be one.

  “You hear me?”

  Edwyr shook his head. “Yes, of course.”

  “Sorry if I’m being pushy,” Lanna said, sighing. She finally stopped looking at him and stared off at the dark horizon. “But you’ve been really quiet this entire trip. I’m worried about you.”

  Edwyr lowered his gaze, feeling his stomach twist with guilt. Of course Lanna worried about him. It seemed as though both of his friends tended to do that a lot, though Lanna did it more often than Arbane. And Edwyr couldn’t help but feel guilty about it every time. He didn’t mean to worry them, but it seemed it was inevitable, and his tendency to not talk as much as them didn’t help either,

  “Just saying—if there’s something bothering you, feel free to talk about it.”

  Edwyr smiled to himself. She’d already said that so many times before, but it did always make him feel a little better, simply because he was reminded that she truly cared about him. But this wasn’t something she could help with. Edwyr would have to figure this out on his own.

  Still, perhaps there was something else bothering him that he could talk with her about.

  “Thank you. But the only bothering me is Feyrith’s incompetence.”

  Lanna let out a short laugh, though she still looked very worried. Clearly, she didn’t believe Edwyr was saying the full truth, but he knew she wouldn’t push him further. “Come on, it’s not his fault he’s not very experienced. That’s why we came out here in the first place, remember?”

  She was absolutely right. After all, that had been Edwyr’s reason for even suggesting going after Feyrith in the first place. But he still found it difficult to take it as an acceptable excuse. Did that Council of theirs not teach common sense?

  “It’s okay that you’re jealous of him.”

  His eyes widening, Edwyr turned to Lanna with shock. “What?”

  She just raised her eyebrows at him, making Edwyr shake his head. He wasn’t jealous. He was simply sure he would make better use of magic than Feyrith could if he had it, and it was infuriating him. If the Goddess was truly the cause of this, she was cruel and sadistic.

  “I’m not jealous.”

  Lanna raised her hands in surrender, shrugging. “All right, I’m just saying. He’s not going to replace you.”

  If Edwyr hadn’t been so preoccupied with thinking about the woman and elf he’d met, that would likely be what he would be thinking about. He a little bit resented how well Lanna knew him sometimes. But at least this time it was easy to brush off because this thought hadn’t even occurred to him until now.

  “Of course.”

  Lanna didn’t seem convinced, but that was to be expected. Edwyr wasn’t exactly doing his best to be convincing, after all. But while the silence that followed was bothering him far too much to leave it at that, before Edwyr could say something else, Lanna threw her arm forward, pointing at something ahead.

  “There!”

  Edwyr frowned into the darkness, quickly noticing a shadow moving along a line of trees in the distance. There was no doubt that it was a squawker, based on the general shape of the animal. And the fact that it was alone and walking around at night had to mean this was one of theirs.

  Lanna looked over at Edwyr, who nodded. Squawkers had excellent hearing, so it would be able to hear them from even this far away. As would everything else in the area, of course, but they couldn’t run after the squawker. It was too far away, and they might lose it or scare it before they reached it.

  Lanna put fingers to her mouth, letting out a loud, piercing whistle. Even from this far, Edwyr could see that the squawker stopped in its tracks immediately. Lanna whistled again, giving their surroundings a nervous glance. They were standing in an open field, but that didn’t mean that they could count on seeing danger coming ahead of time since it was so dark. And there were plenty of nocturnal beasts who stalked the skies.

  Thankfully, now the squawker was running towards them, quickly getting closer and closer. Edwyr let out a breath when he saw that it was Tempest. As she reached them, she let out a small, vulnerable caw and pushed her head in his shoulder with so much force Edwyr stumbled back a little. The poor animal must have been scared to death.

  Edwyr ran his fingers over her feathers, feeling how tense she was. He could practically hear her heart hammering in the silence of the night. Lanna proceeded to join him, putting her arms around Tempest’s neck and helping the squawker calm down.

  Now they just needed to find the other three.

  13

  “So, what exactly do you need that staff of yours for?”

  Feyrith frowned at Arbane, suddenly feeling an urge to look over his shoulder, as if to make sure it was still on his back, despite knowing very well it was just by its weight. This human asked the most curious questions, and Feyrith wasn’t sure how he felt about them. Thankfully, a lot of the time Arbane continued talking without the elf actually replying, but that was also a problem because Feyrith was often not given enough time to answer even when he wanted to.

  “You can do spells without it, right? Does the staff make them more potent?”

  Finally given the space to speak, Feyrith replied. “Yes. The magic in the staff lets me focus my own magic better.”

  They were walking dangerously close to the jungle. After his last experience with it, Feyrith wasn’t exactly happy about that. He was still hoping that they wouldn’t have to go inside it to search for the quasir, but he was starting to worry about that being the case. He didn’t think any quasir would enter the jungle willingly, let alone his, but those tigers had scared them enough to make them scatter without looking where they were running. The Goddess knew where they could have ended up.

  “Right, so how confident are you that you can fight off whatever is in this jungle?”

  Feyrith resisted the urge to wince. Even after the fact that this human had witnessed him being held captive by bandits, admitting that Feyrith wasn’t very confident would be shameful to both him and his people, so of course, he couldn’t say that. But after his firsthand experience, even if he was stronger and more skilled, he would still think going in there was not a good idea, especially at night. He realized that they didn’t have much of a choice since the sooner they found the quasir, the less likely it was that they would get injured or eaten, but at the same time, the Council would be more in favor of losing one q
uasir rather than not getting the information they needed due to Feyrith dying.

  “I can defend you,” Feyrith replied. At least he believed he could do that much. “However, I do not think it is wise to enter—”

  “We’re not walking in,” Arbane said, running a hand through his short hair—a strange gesture that Feyrith was still getting used to. It was interesting to note, however, how varied the length of a human’s hair could be. Not that this was something Feyrith should be focusing on right now.

  In the artificial light of Feyrith’s magic, the man looked even more tired than before, though he also seemed nowhere near as worried and intimidated as Feyrith felt, which was not only very odd but also more than a little humiliating.

  “I’m going to whistle. If Aggra’s in the area, he should run to me. Stomper might come, too, we’ll see.” Oh, that seemed like a sound plan, then. It did make Feyrith wonder how he was going to find his own quasir, though, since it wasn’t trained to do such things. It knew how to follow simple commands, but he doubted it would be able to figure out what he was saying from far away, and it wasn’t used to him enough to recognize just his voice, either. “The problem is that it might also call something else to us.”

  Feyrith couldn’t help but look over their surroundings nervously when Arbane said this. No, he needed to push away his fear. He could handle whatever came at them. The incident in the jungle had only been as dangerous as it had been because he hadn’t been prepared enough.

  Feyrith gave Arbane a nod, taking the staff off his back. He couldn’t afford to fail again, and he wouldn’t. Whatever happened, he would defend both of them from whatever attacked them.

  He couldn’t hide a grimace when Arbane did as he’d said, the whistle incredibly loud in the stillness of the night. It felt as though the sound must have been heard from miles away. Feyrith squinted into the darkness as the sound of fluttering wings followed, a few branches of the jungle trees moving. He couldn’t see what they’d disturbed, but he hoped it wasn’t something too dangerous.

  His eyes left the trees, though, when he heard the sound of something beating the ground ahead. Feyrith frowned, raising his hand and the light he was keeping in it to illuminate their surroundings better, and soon he found the source of the noise. There were two quasir running towards them, one bigger, one smaller.

  Feyrith felt his shoulders sink a bit in relief as the quasir reached them, Arbane’s quasir immediately began running around in circles around its owner while Feyrith’s simply snorted and took its place next to the elf, shaking its head. Feyrith studied it closely, noticing that the quasir was shaking ever so slightly, but its eyes were calm. It looked irritated if anything.

  Feyrith closed his eyes for a moment. Thank the Goddess the quasir was all right. Not only did he need it for transport, but he already had enough to explain to the Council. Losing a purebred quasir would certainly not help him.

  Meanwhile, Arbane was muttering something to his own quasir as it bobbed its head at him happily. Feyrith stared at it with shock, never having witnessed a quasir acting this way. Was this within the norms for these lower breeds?

  “You brought the fancy squawker with you,” Arbane told his quasir, using a very strange but praising tone as he stroked the sides of its face. “Good boy, Aggra, good boy.”

  Feyrith wanted to ask what this was supposed to accomplish, hoping to learn something new about quasir training, when he heard something. It was a kind of soft fluttering, almost impossible to notice, but with how quiet it was, now that he’d heard it Feyrith couldn’t miss it.

  And it was getting closer.

  Feyrith looked around, trying to find the source of the sounds as Arbane continued praising his quasir, but he couldn’t find anything. At least not until he looked up.

  A huge shape was moving towards them. And finally, the noise made sense. They were massive wings. Almost by instinct alone, Feyrith threw his hand out, launching the ball of light at the beast as its sharp claws glinted, getting closer and closer.

  The giant bird let out a shriek as it flew up, momentarily blinded by the light for long enough to let Feyrith identify what it was. An oriam. If he recalled, the humans called them bloodfeathers, both for their bloodthirsty nature and their blood-red feathers. Somehow Feyrith had never realized how large oriam were, but he didn’t get a chance to stare at it for much longer as next to him, his quasir let out an alarmed squawk.

  Feyrith leaped forward, grabbing its reins before it could run away again. He only had a split second to note that Arbane was doing the same with Aggra before the oriam was at them again. Feyrith raised his staff, doing the first thing he could think of—summoning a shield.

  “Aris ak imir!” he yelled, pointing the staff right at the beast as the bird’s wicked claws descended upon them again. Feyrith used all of his strength to keep the quasir from moving as a golden light surrounded them, stretching above to form a shield just as the oriam’s claws reached them. A few flashes of light followed where the bird hit the shield before it flew up again, circling them.

  “Good job,” Arbane commented, his voice strained, as he walked closer to Feyrith. His quasir was frantically looking around, tilting its head up so it could gaze up in fear at the predator waiting to strike. “How long can you keep this thing up?”

  Feyrith tightened his grip on the staff, swallowing. He could already feel his strength waning. And…was that a second oriam, or was he seeing things? Feyrith took in a breath, his throat tightening. That was a second pair of wings against the dark sky, blocking off the little moonlight they’d had. This wasn’t good.

  “Not for long,” he forced out. Immediately, he saw Arbane reach for his bow. Feyrith shook his head. “An arrow won’t breach the shield.”

  “So, you either keep it up for a while longer and they kill us, or you take it down, give me a chance to maybe get one shot in, and then they kill us,” Arbane summarized, making Feyrith grimace.

  He didn’t think they would be able to outrun the oriam, even with the quasir. These birds were fast and deadly, with the advantage of flight on their side. But he and Arbane couldn’t stay and fight either unless Feyrith managed to aim his fire very well, which he doubted he would be able to with the strain the shield had already put on him. But he was willing to try.

  He felt the little confidence he had dimmish as he stared up at the two oriam who were still circling above them, wincing as one of them let out a piercing shriek.

  “Okay, here’s an idea,” Arbane suddenly said, not taking his eyes off the oriam. “We run to the jungle for cover.”

  Feyrith wanted to argue. The jungle was dangerous and unpredictable. But with the odds they had out here, perhaps staying at the edge of it, just outside the oriams’ reach, would be safer in comparison. Finally, Feyrith nodded, sighing. He hoped he had enough strength left to keep the shield up for long enough to get to the jungle. They weren’t as close to it as he’d originally thought, as a lot of trees grew right outside of it, but not in a number that would offer them enough protection.

  Without even discussing it, they both climbed onto the backs of their quasir. Feyrith moved his staff so the glowing tip of it was aimed at a spot above both of them, doing his best to keep the shield steady and strong as they started their mad dash for relative safety.

  Feyrith could feel the quasir under him trembling, but its eyes were determined as it sprinted towards the trees, despite its previous experience with the jungle. It didn’t stop until it reached the tree line, ripping through the wines that hung between the trees as the quasir barreled through.

  That was when Feyrith pulled on the reins, stopping the quasir in its tracks before it could carry him too far inside of the jungle. The quasir let out an angry caw, immediately echoed by the oriam, who shrieked into the night, sending shivers down Feyrith’s back.

  He could hear them still circling above them, but for now, it seemed the oriam couldn’t see them. Feyrith let the shield fall, making the jungle they we
re now standing in much more dark and ominous.

  “Calm down, Aggra, we’re fine,” he heard Arbane mutter to his quasir, but Feyrith didn’t even look their way. He could still hear the wings of the oriam above them, but he could see nothing through the thick branches of the trees around them.

  He flinched as the branches suddenly moved, creaking under immense weight. A little further away, the same thing followed. The two oriam must have landed atop the trees. That wasn’t something Feyrith had thought might happen. They should have left.

  “Well, that’s not good,” Arbane commented.

  Feyrith tightened his grip on his staff. He didn’t feel like he was strong enough to try to chase them off, yet, but if he threw fire at them from below, perhaps it would give him and Arbane enough time to run away. They couldn’t stay here indefinitely. He wasn’t sure if his mind was playing tricks on him or not, but he could feel something watching them from deeper in the jungle.

  He flinched when he saw something move from the corner of his eye, his head snapping the way he’d seen it, but there was nothing. Feyrith gritted his teeth, scanning his surroundings even more closely. The more he looked the more on edge he felt, but he couldn’t stop.

  “You all right?”

  Feyrith blinked, tearing his eyes away from the trees to look at Arbane. Was the human concerned about him? That was very strange. Still, Feyrith knew it would be seen as rude to question it.

  “Yes, quite. We need to get back.”

  Arbane nodded, looking up again. Even though they couldn’t see or hear the oriam, Feyrith was sure they were still there. And the beasts would likely follow as soon as they left the jungle. Oriam were nocturnal, and so unfortunately they could see in the dark much better than any elf or human.