The Circles of Magic

by Gabriela Fišerová

  “Yes,” he replied, sounding unfocused even to himself. “I feel…odd.”

  Wyn let out a relieved breath, quickly schooling his expression to one of his usual calmness and sophistication. “Ah, yes. That is normal. However, your body should quickly adapt to your increase in magic.”

  Edwyr looked down at his hands again. They didn’t look any different, and yet they did. There was magic flowing through them now. Magic that could fix so many things and help so many people. He didn’t need to try to remember how to cast some simple spell to test it. He could feel the change, and he knew he would be able to use magic if he wanted to.

  And despite still feeling an echo of the horrible pain he’d just gone through, he’d never felt better in his life.

  “I can feel it.”

  Wyn smiled at him. “I will show you how to use it.”

  Edwyr couldn’t wait to get started on that. There was so much to learn—of that he was certain—but he was more than willing to do his hardest to master as much as he possibly could.

  “But not here. We’ve done what we wanted here, and now we must leave as soon as possible,” Wyn continued, letting out a sad sigh. “The Council’s elves will no doubt be on their way soon.” Edwyr wanted to suggest something about fighting them, but Wyn spoke before he could, as if reading his thoughts. “You are not ready to face them. And there is not enough of us here to do so, either.”

  That was a shame, but Edwyr supposed Wyn was right, and it was for the best. He wished he could convince his friends to leave before he did, just to make sure they would be okay, but there was nothing to be done about that at the moment. They wouldn’t listen to him anyway until they found Feyrith.

  “All right. Then let’s go.”

  Wyn smiled. “Good. Then I shall go retrieve our quasir while Orenis explains how this works.”

  Before Edwyr could ask what that was supposed to mean, Wyn was walking away from them, leaving Edwyr to his confusion. Thankfully Orenis took mercy on him without him even having to ask.

  “This thing, the Infuser, it’s not just to do what we just did,” she said, pointing her thumb back at the massive device. “We might not know all of the stuff it can do, but….” She turned to the device, studying it. “It can create a doorway between it and other Infusers, too.”

  Edwyr frowned up at the Infuser, trying to imagine how this might work. He also just then noticed that the glow it had had before he’d received magic was practically gone, just a barely-there dim light remaining. “As in a portal? Isn’t that impossible?”

  He was fairly certain that there had been theories, but it wasn’t actually possible to teleport through magic. Or the Council was lying about it, so only they could use it. Edwyr thought that was unlikely, but he wouldn’t have even been surprised anymore. But the point was that if they could teleport, Feyrith wouldn’t have come here using a squawker, and Edwyr would never have gained magic in the first place.

  He shuddered, not sure if from the thought or from the ghostly cold that he could still feel within him. It was far from comfortable, but he clung to the feeling, enjoying it despite how odd it felt.

  “Apparently not impossible to whoever built these things.” Orenis grinned over at him, looking very enthusiastic about this whole thing. “It looks really neat.”

  Edwyr wanted to drily comment on the fact that if this device could truly transport them from place to place instantly, it truly didn’t matter what it looked like, but he kept that to himself.

  “I think the Infusers might be capable of doing much more than just this, but I haven’t been able to figure it out. The Infusers didn’t come with any instructions, unfortunately.”

  Orenis laughed at her own joke, as if this all didn’t raise a hundred questions. Who made these things? Who’d built the ruins? And what was the purpose of all of this? Edwyr hadn’t even thought to think about any of it before, but now these questions nagged at him.

  Edwyr looked behind himself as he heard the clicking of claws against stone, seeing Wyn leading both of their squawkers to them. Edwyr frowned, only then realizing how odd it was that Wyn had a squawker here in the first place.

  And so he asked as soon as Wyn was close enough. “If you got here through a portal, why is your squawker here?”

  Tempest pulled her reins out of Wyn’s hand before he could answer and ran over to Edwyr, pressing her head into his shoulder and sniffing him much more than usual. He wondered if he smelled different to her now as he petted her head.

  “Oh, she gets very lonely without me,” Wyn explained, running his hand over his squawker’s head as well. Edwyr still wasn’t entirely sure what to think of Wyn but seeing that made it difficult to dislike him. “And it can be practical to have at least one quasir with us in case we need to go anywhere.”

  Then Wyn turned his attention to the Infuser, raising his hand and speaking yet another spell Edwyr didn’t know. Edwyr stared as the device’s deep blue color turned lighter and much brighter, a whirring noise filling the room as one of the metal rings that were around the bulbous device slid away to the side. As the glowing got even more intense, forcing Edwyr to squint, the surface of the Infuser seemed to start to shimmer, the center of it now almost white.

  Tempest let out an alarmed caw, hiding behind Edwyr, but he managed to calm her down fairly quickly by stroking her neck. Wyn’s squawker didn’t seem to react at all, but then she had likely already seen this before.

  There was only soft humming coming from the device now, but its glow was still close to blinding. Edwyr was guessing they were supposed to go through it, though he couldn’t say that idea didn’t put him on edge at least a little.

  “Shall we?” Wyn asked, looking pleased.

  “What about Genrith?” Orenis asked, reminding Edwyr that there was one more elf around here. He’d completely forgotten about her already.

  “She still needs to finish something. But she knows how to open the gateway,” Wyn replied, his smile suddenly noticeably less genuine. “She will join us later.”

  Edwyr wanted to ask what exactly Genrith was doing, especially considering that she’d been in Everward for seemingly no reason, as she’d been surprised to bump into him as much as Edwyr had been. But then he decided against it. He doubted it was that important, and he could ask later.

  With a shrug, Orenis walked into the light, disappearing with a small crackle as if she’d done it a dozen times before.

  Then again, she probably had.

  “There is nothing to fear, Edwyr,” Wyn said, joining his side. “We have tested it many times. It’s perfectly safe.”

  Edwyr was a bit suspicious of how much Wyn was trying to convince him, but then he was feeling very nervous about this, so perhaps it was justified. “Yeah. All right.”

  Edwyr took a deep breath, approaching the glowing Infuser. If he hadn’t just seen Orenis walk through it, he would have thought he’d walk right into the smooth, horribly cold surface of the device. And irrationally, he still somewhat feared that.

  But he pushed those thoughts away and walked closer, bringing Tempest with him. She let him, though she was shaking her head and snorting as she did, clearly not bothering to hide her concerns about this as much as Edwyr was. The elf ran his hand over Tempest’s feathers once more as they finally reached the shimmering surface, which Edwyr could barely see through the bright light emanating from the Infuser.

  And at that moment, he fully realized what was about to happen. Something he had barely dared to dream of was waiting for him on the other side of this portal. A life with other elves, who would accept him despite his differences, of which there would probably still be many. Elves who wouldn’t bother hiding their well-deserved distaste for the Council. Elves who wouldn’t have to express themselves in only one specific way.

  A smile tugged on Edwyr’s lips, his heart hammering away with exhilaration as he stepped forward, walking through the gateway’s surface.

  A new life awaited him, and he couldn�
��t be more excited about it.

  24

  When Feyrith came to again, for a short moment he didn’t remember what had happened or why he was on the dust-covered floor of some old, dark room with his hands and ankles tied together with rope.

  But everything immediately came to him as soon as he noticed the dark, imposing figure of the elf who had attacked him, standing over him menacingly. He flinched, automatically pushing himself against the wall that was behind him.

  “Aris!” Feyrith yelled by instinct the moment he realized he wasn’t gagged anymore, trying to summon at least the weakest shield spell he knew just to protect himself from the other elf, if only for a moment. But there was only a very weak flash of light that momentarily lit up the old, stone walls of the room before dissipating.

  Oh, Goddess, he really couldn’t do magic, could he? Feeling his eyes starting to sting, Feyrith tried to force his face into a neutral expression, but he knew it wasn’t working. The wave of panic and despair that was hitting him was too strong to hide. All he could really do was force himself not to start crying in front of his captor.

  “That shield wouldn’t have done you much good, anyway,” the other elf said, glaring down at him. Feyrith glared back, pulling on the ropes. What did she even want with him at this point? They’d already taken his magic. He had nothing left to give.

  That thought just made his eyes burn more. He hung his head as he felt what little fight he still had left in him dissipate. If this was permanent, if he couldn’t get his magic back, then there was no reason to fight anymore. His life was over, whether the elf standing in front of him decided to kill him or not.

  In fact, if she did kill him, it would be better for him. The Goddess taught them never to hope for death, but Feyrith was having a difficult time not doing so at the moment. The Council would banish him like this, just like if here were Cursed. And what kind of a life was there for an elf with no magic?

  “Do you recognize this?” Genrith asked him, once again making Feyrith look at her. He could barely see what she was holding in her hand through his tears and with how dark it was, but he recognized the item immediately anyway.

  “My communication stone…” he gasped, trying to get up in his shock only to give up immediately as his bound ankles refused to give him enough support to do so.

  “Indeed,” the other elf replied, looking at the stone in her hand. “I knew you would try to contact the Council immediately, which is why I took it from you.”

  Feyrith’s mouth hung open in shock. So, the stone had been stolen from him. The fact that losing the stone hadn’t been his fault did help push away some of his guilt and shame. He gritted his teeth as anger started to burn inside of him instead.

  So this elf had been with him throughout most of this entire trip. She must have snuck into the room he’d rented and taken it from him, disappearing before he could have seen her. That noise that had woken him up back then must have been her.

  The sheer audacity of this was completely unbelievable, but before he could say any of the things he wanted, she pointed his own staff at him. Feyrith gulped as the wooden tip almost touched his neck.

  “Now I do need you to use the little magic you have left and contact them, however,” she said, a small smirk on her face. “And I need you to tell them that you found absolutely nothing here.”

  Feyrith stared at her, his outrage at being asked this overshadowing his fear. What she was asking him to do was insane. “I will never lie to the Council.”

  Genrith’s smirk grew. “I don’t care about what you perceive as right or wrong, whelp. I am telling you what will happen. And if you refuse to do this, I will kill you and those humans who came with you. I would hate to leave witnesses.”

  Feyrith was afraid to die, but he was willing to accept it if it meant not betraying the Council like this. But Lanna and Arbane didn’t deserve such a fate. They’d only come here because they’d wanted to help Edwyr. Feyrith couldn’t be the cause of their deaths, and if he refused to go along with this, he had no doubts that was what would happen. The two humans had proven themselves surprisingly capable, but they wouldn’t stand a chance against an elf, much less one as powerful as this one.

  But Feyrith couldn’t agree to do this. He couldn’t lie to the Council. It didn’t matter what would happen to him now that he had no magic. Lying the Council was…unthinkable. It was wrong and went against everything Feyrith stood for. It was one of the worst things any elf could do.

  He had to do this, but…. How could he?

  “Difficult, isn’t it?” Genrith mocked him, finally putting the staff away. “The most important mission for any good pawn of the Council is protecting humans. But to do that, you have to betray the Council itself.”

  Feyrith swallowed, keeping his eyes trained firmly on the ground. He didn’t want to see the other elf’s taunting eyes.

  “You will kill them anyway,” Feyrith finally said, finding the strength to speak.

  “I might, I might not,” she replied uncaringly. “But I guarantee I will if you don’t do this.”

  Feyrith was sure this meant that she would kill all of them, whether he did lie to the Council or not, but he also had no way of knowing this, so it hardly made it easier.

  “So, which will it be?” she asked, her sharp smile audible in her tone. “Your misguided sense duty, or your foolishly placed loyalty?”

  Feyrith didn’t look up, despite how angry those words had made him. He would not be lectured about what was right and wrong by a deranged elf. But fear kept him from saying anything.

  “I will let you think it over for a moment,” Genrith said, sounding very amused by all of this. “I am sure you will make the right decision.”

  And with that, she started to walk away, heading up the stairs without another word. Feyrith stared after her in surprise, having expected her to demand he decide immediately. But she was clearly enjoying this. Perhaps she wanted him to suffer for longer.

  With the other elf out of sight, Feyrith felt the barriers that had been holding back his true feelings break down. He let out a shuddering sigh, putting his bound hands over his face. How had he gotten to this point? Before he’d left, the worst thing he’d thought could happen was failing at completing his mission. But so much more had happened on top of that…. Feyrith couldn’t even imagine what could possibly make this situation worse, anymore.

  And now he had a choice to make—likely the last one he ever would make. He already knew what he’d choose, but he doubted he would be able to lie to the Council convincingly. Whichever member of it the stone would connect him to, they would no doubt pick up on something being wrong. Perhaps that would even reveal to them that something much bigger was at play here.

  Thinking that did help him a little, though the idea of actually going along with this made him sick. He tried to swallow the feeling down, but if anything, that just made him feel worse. More tears pricked at his eyes, this time spilling over, forcing Feyrith to scramble to wipe them away. Even though he was alone for the moment, he couldn’t handle bringing more shame to his people by displaying emotions so openly like this.

  He flinched when he heard footsteps descending towards him, shutting his eyes. He hadn’t expected the other elf to come back so soon, but…. Wait, those were two sets of footsteps. Had she brought her associate from before with her as well?

  Unable to resist his morbid curiosity, Feyrith looked up, only for his eyes to widen in shock. Staring at him with similar levels of surprise were Lanna and Arbane, who were now rushing to him.

  “Fey! Are you okay?” Lanna asked with a whisper. She seemed very angry—in fact, they both did—but at least she didn’t seem angry with him. “We’ve been looking for you for ages.”

  Feyrith had no idea how to react to that, or even if he should react as the two humans made quick work of the ropes binding his wrists. It was very considerate of them to worry for him, but it confused him profusely. Still, that was not what he should be
focusing on right now.

  “You need to leave,” he argued with a shaky voice, keeping his tone as low as he could. “She will come back and kill you.”

  “We would have left already if it weren’t for you, you dummy,” Arbane whispered and pulled the elf to his feet as his ankles were freed as well. Feyrith would have assumed that the man was blaming him for the two humans still being here, but the tone he’d used didn’t quite fit. “Now come on, before that crazy elf comes back.”

  Feyrith nodded, his eyes not leaving the ancient, stone staircase he was facing. At any moment, the other elf could appear there, and they would all die. Even if they managed to leave this place, they might still be killed. And like this, Feyrith couldn’t protect the two humans anymore.

  He voiced none of these thoughts as he followed Lanna and Arbane, his steps shaky and unbalanced. He could barely believe it when the old, dark steps came to an end, and finally, he saw the night sky.

  Feyrith did his best to keep up with the two humans as they started running away, noting that he was already very tired as he tried to keep his breathing even. He didn’t know whether this was due to his sudden lack of magic, or if it was from everything that had just happened to him, but it brought tears of frustration to his eyes.

  Just a few hours ago he had been able to heal any injury, and now he was getting winded from running for a minute or two.

  He could barely hide how hard he was breathing as they finally reached their quasir. Feyrith didn’t need to be told to mount his, no matter how clumsily, and then they were galloping away into the night. Feyrith let his quasir chase after Lanna’s as she zigzagged between the ruins, wisely avoiding the main road.

  Even after they left the ruins they didn’t stop, forcing the quasir to keep pushing on and to go faster and faster. Feyrith was permanently stuck between wanting to look back to check if Genrith was following them and being too afraid to do so in case she was there.

  But as they continued moving, the landscape slowly changing around them, and nothing had still happened, Feyrith felt some of the terror he had been feeling for hours finally lessen, leaving him exhausted.