Letting out a deep breath, she tried to calm herself before she stared destroying objects in the barn to alleviate her frustration, though the idea was compelling and very tempting…
“You alright in here without a light?”
She sat up startled, reaching for a dagger that didn’t exist on her belt. She strained her eyes to see Richard in the doorway of the barn, a sol lantern in his right hand as he peered curiously at her.
Ange let out a sigh and tried to relax her stiff body as she crossed her legs and her back sagged slightly as she forced her untrusting feelings away.
“I like the dark,” she admitted simply.
Richard frowned confused as he came over and placed the lantern on the floor beside her.
“May I sit?” he asked, pointing to the hay to her right.
She nodded.
“You seem…agitated,” he observed kindly.
She let out a loud sarcastic laugh as she swept her hand through her hair. “Is it that obvious?”
He smiled slightly. “It is,” he admitted carefully.
Ange let out a loud sigh and stretched her arms out atop her knees. “I guess it is,” she allowed and fell silent.
She glanced at Richard, surprised by his silence as he stared at the lamp, seeming comfortable and calm. He seemed to be contemplating the glow of the yellow sol crystal as it illuminated the dark barn around them.
Uncomfortable with the silence, she spoke. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping your father?”
He blinked as if she had disturbed his thoughts and replied. “We have to wait for the forge to reach the right temperature before we start molding the scales and fangs.”
“Couldn’t you just make it the right temperature with magic?” Ange asked confused.
He smiled at her question, his eyes still unfocused. “We could, but my father doesn’t have that much mana in him and he won’t trust me to do it. He thinks I’ll blow something up.”
“Will you?” Ange teased feeling more comfortable with the flow of the conversation.
Richard smiled good-humoredly and scoffed. “Of course not.”
“So…you have more…mana in you?” she asked curiously unsure of the meaning of the word, and hoping she wasn’t prying too much, she wasn’t exactly the model of manners.
He nodded looking happy yet troubled. “Father says I was born with magic, a lot of it. More than anyone has probably been born with in the last few centuries. Like the thaumaturges of old before the Souls Binding Contract with the dragons.”
“Thaumaturge?” Ange echoed.
“That was the title given to the most powerful of mages. Those who performed dark magic where called sorcerers, while dealing with the death magic gave them the name necromancer. The average mage was either a witch or a warlock. There were a lot of different names, all which went in a specific hierarchy of power. It would take me all night to explain. Taliesin was one of the last thaumaturges and the most powerful in history too, he was quite the genius in my opinion.”
“Who was Taliesin?”
Richard seemed to focus then, he gasped shocked at Ange’s question. “You don’t know who Taliesin is? Taliesin the Prophesier? Taliesin the Great Bounder? Taliesin the Savior of Man? The Doom of Dragons?”
Ange frowned and shook her head.
He gazed at her baffled. “You’re not very knowledgeable for a Dragonbound, are you? I mean, if you don’t even know the name of the man that created your kind. Have the dragons grown lax in the education of their Dragonbounds?”
Ange scowled angrily and snapped. “I didn’t know I was a Dragonbound till this afternoon, you know.”
“Oh,” Richard frowned apologetically. “Sorry, I just assumed…”
He fell silent as Ange continued to glare before he averted his gaze.
Ange let out a heavy breath that ended in a hiss as she tried to keep her temper in check.
“I have a book about him, would you like to borrow it?”
She shook her head and sunk her chin to her knees. She didn’t want to explain that she couldn’t read, especially to someone who was already looking at her like she wasn’t very bright. She was cunning with strategy and stealth, not with books and puzzles. That had been Daren’s forte.
She relented and decided if she really wanted to know the story, she could ask Showl. He was a good storyteller, far better than Daren.
Richard was a know-it-all, far worse than Daren in her opinion. Daren was at least humble about his extensive knowledge, more quiet and thoughtful. He didn’t blurt out every fact he could about any particular subject. Richard was also too frivolous for her liking, it was starting to get on her nerves.
“You know, I always wanted to be a Dragonbound. You’re lucky,” he stated in a tone that implicated that she didn’t deserve it.
Her brow furrowed in agitation as she stared straight ahead, the man next to her was seriously asking for a punch in the jaw. He might as well be begging for it.
“But what I really want to do is go study at the Tower of Ingled,” he sighed dreamily.
Ange quirked an eyebrow and turned her gaze back to Richard, it was hard to believe he was twenty-three, he acted like he was thirteen. But if there was one thing that really bothered Ange, it was a mystery, of being left in the dark. She loved to learn knew information, even if she didn’t remember all of it all the time.
He smiled pleased that he had obviously gotten her attention. “The Tower of Ingled is an ancient university hidden in the shrouds of a magical fog created by the very founder of the school, Valtor the Knowledgeable.”
Ange raised both eyebrows, intrigued and curious.
“You see, Valtor was a dragon, son of two powerful dragons. Fenera the Regina of Nature and Dagda the Rex of Earth. Even before the Souls Binding Contract, Valtor had taken an interest in teaching humans in the use of magic, its principles, aspects, and implications. After the binding of the two races, he built his school where he could continue teaching magic to mages and Dragonbounds.”
“Then why did he name his school Ingled?” Ange asked.
Richard smiled and leaned forward in a straighter siting position. “He named it after his Dragonbound, Ingled. She loved books and they often spent hours studying and theorizing together according to records. They discovered and recorded many pieces of magic and how they should be applied. Many humans stayed in the tower and became what historians call today, the Bookmen of Valtor. It is said that the school still exists hidden by mist somewhere in the Shivering Sea and cared for by the Bookmen of Valtor. It is said that only people with a connection to the raw mana within them can cross through the mist and land on the shores of the most fabled library on Domus and ask to learn.”
Ange thought carefully and wondered where the Shivering Sea could possibly be, it sounded familiar like Daren might have mentioned it. She didn’t have a habit of looking at maps. She barely knew the name of the continent Cyridell resided on or the names of the binary stars their home planet, Domus, rotated around. Rubor the small red sun that was the companion of Ebur, the large white sun. She didn’t even understand the concept of eclipses, since there were so many kinds. She knew one fairly well, and that was an eclipsing binary, when one sun got in front of the other. It happened every few months. Solar eclipses also occurred once or twice a year if not three times or more.
Richard was grinning ear to ear when he had finished his tale.
“Does it still exist?” Ange asked amazed.
Richard’s smile turned into a pensive frown as he shrugged and leaned back into the hay. “I don’t know, but I most definitely want to find out. Father told me that grandfather studied there for almost twenty years when he was young. But that was over eighty years ago, I wish I could have asked him myself, but I wasn’t even born by the time he died.”
“But I heard mages hardly exist nowadays.”
“It is true that humans born with an aptitude for magic have been on the wane since the Souls Binding Contra
ct. Only a handful are born with magic across the world every year if not less, and they are usually born with so little mana they can’t even do much with it,” he sighed. “But I hope that the Bookmen of Valtor still exist, that there are still teachers to teach someone like me.”
Ange frowned, surprised by the deep sorrow and despair in his voice. “Hasn’t your father been your teacher?” she asked her voice softening.
A burst of ironic laughter escaped him as he fell back into the hay. “My father hardly knows any magic outside smiting Dragon Armor, a few basic spells, but nothing grand. He was never powerful enough to study more elaborate magic. Grandfather only taught him what he needed to know to pass down the craft special to our family.”
Ange remained silent, feeling sorry for his frustration yet annoyed with his arrogance.
“Would you like me to show you something special?”
She stiffened and turned to him warily, uneasy with his mischievous grin.
“Show me what?” she asked warily.
He sat up straight suddenly, hay clinging to his hair in a wild disarray. He looked rather silly with the straw in his black hair and a childish grin plastered across his face.
His voice was serious, sounding suddenly husky and older contrary to his expression. “You must promise you won’t tell my father.”
Ange smiled amused. “Why would I tell anything to your father?”
He smiled wider. “Good,” he stated pleased before his smile broke and his voice became nervous. He looked away, fumbling with his right inner pocket of his thick vest till he pulled out something round, wrapped in a thick grey cloth. A large sphere that fit snuggly between his hands, with a diameter of at least four inches.
With careful fingers he unraveled the mysterious sphere, as he gently unwrapped the cloth from the object, rays of silvery light began to flood from underneath, lighting the room with a brilliance greater than the sol lantern could hope to radiate.
Ange blinked as her eyes watered and burned with the light, a humming and quiet whispering began to fill her ears. She could discern no words but she could feel something powerful and warm pulsing from the orb as it was completely revealed.
She gasped as she gazed at the beautiful gemlike object in Richard’s hand. Facets cut through the gem without precision, crystals in small pyramid forms jutted from the surface in several areas. It blazed with a silvery grey appearance, under its surface seemed to flow molten silver, like liquid mercury. A humming beat seemed to pulsate from the gem, like a heartbeat, fluctuating the light like a star.
Instantly, Ange knew what it was without ever laying eyes on one.
“An Eternal Vessel…”
Richard smiled. “Aeterna Vas, as the dragons call it. You’ve seen one before, then?”
Ange shook her head, mesmerized by the beautiful crystal. She wondered if it burned like a regular sol crystal, like sticking ones hand into an open flame.
“A picture, maybe?” he asked, starting to sound confused.
“No…” Ange whispered, fighting the temptation to touch it. “But Showl told me about them earlier…what does this one contain? It feels…alive.”
Richard smiled exuberantly. “So you can feel it too? By the look on your face, I can guess you’ve never encountered magic before. But you instantly recognized it, you have an instinctual talent towards the magical, even if you don’t realize it.”
Ange blinked a few times, till her eyes adjusted to the light. She hardly paid heed to Richards words, she felt like was becoming lost in the swirling depths of the Aeterna Vas.
“Inside this Aeterna Vas, is the memories of the first Dragonbound partnered to the Rex of Metals. He forged and created the first dragon armors and weapons. His name was Silvan.”
“The memories of Silvan? What memories, exactly?” she asked awed as she met Richard’s gaze, breaking her strange connection to the Aeterna Vas.
Richard’s blue eyes were deep and thoughtful as he stared at the crystal. “The skills and knowledge of how to craft Dragon Armor, including spells, processes, everything that he knew. This is how our family retained the knowledge over the centuries. We’ve protected and kept this secret for countless years. This way, the knowledge could never be lost if our family failed to produce an heir with magical talent.”
Ange nodded, understanding the purpose of the sol vessel.
“Can…can I touch it?” she asked quietly, her hand already stretching towards it eagerly, as if something was pulling her.
“Of course, it won’t burn you like a regular sol crystal. But I warn you, once you touch it, the information inside it will flood through your mind, it most likely will give you a headache too. I know I got one when I first touched it,” he smiled challengingly. “Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two, just don’t talk about it later. Remember, my father doesn’t even know that I have actually ever even see it.”
Ange nodded solemnly as her arm traveled the last few inches between the crystal and her fingers. As she touched the surface, a warmth seared through her skin instantly at the contact and she gasped as a powerful tide of energy rushed through her. She couldn’t even hope to bolster a defense against the thoughts that swarmed into her mind without resistance.
Flashes of a hot forge flittered behind her eyes as scales of all shades were buried in glowing powder that she instantly recognized as heated sol powder. She knew the properties of each scale, whom they came from, and what they would be forged into…
The white scales of Harfang, Rex Glacies, protects the wearer even from the cold touch of death. His fangs can shatter even the densest materials, molecules tightly packed, break apart when his teeth meet.
The black scales of Corax, Rex Umbra, can withstand any blast, no matter the nature of the energy, they cannot dissolve even in the most corrosive acid. Yet they are light and easily disperse into nothing within the most minute darkness…
The white scales of Leokadia, Regina Lux, can also withstand any blast of energy, just like her counterpart. They are light, and shimmer with the brilliance of a diamond that can vanish on plain sight under any light.
The red scales of Phoenix…
Ange gasped as she fell back, losing connection with the Aeterna Vas, the warmth left her fingers, and her head throbbed horribly as she tried to expel the images swarming through her mind like angry frost bees.
“Are you alright?” Richard asked concerned. “You went pale as snow. Did you see something?”
Ange nodded slowly as she pressed her hand to her forehead, her breath coming out in ragged gasps. Her head began to thrum more painfully, her eyesight flickered in and out, a hellish heat began to build under her skin and make her sweat, pain was starting to lance through her body, beginning from her skull.
“Angeline!”
The cry pierced through her ears and she moaned in pain as she curled up, shuddering as she squeezed her eyes tight and clamped her hands over her ears.
“You fool!” snarled a furious voice.
Richard grunted in pain, something hit the floor with a thud and rolled. Ange felt her body being lifted off the hay.
“I’m here, Angeline,” Showl’s voice soothed.
She blinked her eyes open as she felt Showl’s armor pressed to her face, it felt cool. Her gaze hazy she looked up to see Showl’s furious and frightened face.
“What’s wrong with her?” Richard asked coming into view.
Showl turned to him and snarled. “Stay away from her! Leave before I kill you for your stupidity!” he snarled violently, his eyes glowing, his teeth serrated in his mouth as he snarled at Richard.
Richard backed away frightened his, his blue eyes wide. “But I didn’t do anything,” he protested.
“She hasn’t been bound to me! Her magic is still locked away and you just poured powerful magic into her body when it isn’t capable of handling it! Now leave!” he roared, his shout quaked the whole barn around them. The wood groaned heavily into the air as dust fell around them.
Showl flinched and fell silent, his gauntlet encased hand brushed her hair away from her face.
“Shhh, I’m here,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to yell,” he insisted gently.
“My head…” Ange mummed painfully as she winced and looked back up to Showl’s relaxing face, his features returned to normal, his eyes remained like hot glowing coals in his face.
“I know,” Showl replied worried. Gently he held her up with his right arm as he used his teeth to pull the gauntlet off his left arm. Ange closed her eyes, feeling too agitated to keep focusing her eyes.
She flinched as Showl’s hand rested on her forehead, it felt cold. She sighed as icy tendrils of energy started to flow over her skin and seemingly into her head like streams of water. The pain waned slowly as the cold numbed her brain and calmed the aching. The hot energy that had been building insider her receded slowly till she could no longer feel it burning her from the inside. A relieved breath escaped her as she shivered weakly, her breathing became deep and quiet.
“Thank you…” she whispered as Showl removed his hand from her forehead.
“Does your head still hurt?”
“No…just sore and tired. What happened?” She asked reluctantly opening her eyes.
Showl’s irises were still glowing as he gazed down at her with concern. “When you touched the Aeterna Vas, you absorbed some of its energy unintentionally. It transmits memories with the help of mana, so you were overwhelmed by the power since your power hasn’t awoken to defend you,” he explained quietly.
“You would think it would wake up to protect me, hu?” she joked weakly.
Showl frowned. “No, your powers are sealed. The seal won’t break till the bond is completed. Till then, you’re completely helpless to any kind of magic.”
Ange frowned troubled by the information. “Do all…Dragonbounds have this problem?”
Showl sighed sadly and shook his head. “No, only you.”
Now she scowled annoyed. “Why only me?”
Sky Warriors: Poleuthan's Thief (Sky Warriors Saga Book 1) Page 14