by Trudi Jaye
Tightening his grip around Argus’s waist and placing one of Argus’s arms around his shoulder, Nate half dragged the semiconscious mercenary toward the burning lodge, the only shelter on the bare mountainside. He muttered a floatation spell, but it barely made a difference to the weight of the mercenary. He tripped on the rough ground several times before he made it to the edge of the shelter.
Nate sensed the dark shape just above them before he saw it. The lavaen was flying in a swooping dive. He looked up; all he could see was molten fire and deadly claws. The beast was enormous, but so beautiful it hurt; black, shiny skin like molten rock, eyes of fire, and a body designed for death and destruction. The sun glinted off gleaming ebony claws, throwing light into his eyes and reminding him why they’d been running.
He made a last desperate dash, diving through the front door, and dragging the mercenary with him. He fell to the floor with Argus beside him, gasping for breath. A heavy, hot wind followed them into the house, along with the snapping of empty claws hitting the air they’d just occupied. Smoke filled the air, and Nate coughed, his throat burning. It was only slightly less dangerous inside the house; flames licked at the building and smoke wrapped itself around their bodies.
The lavaen screeched overhead. Tiles from the roof scattered as claws scratched their surface. Wings beat upward into the sky, but this time savage howls mixed with the drumbeat of its flight.
Nate scrambled to his feet and peered out the open door. One of the wolvans clung to the lavaen’s neck, claws and teeth sunk deep into the creature’s strong neck muscles. A part of him wished they hadn’t had to set the wolvans onto such a majestic creature; but the image of its black soulless eyes was enough to remind him that the lavaen would rip them apart without a second thought.
Dense smoke pushed at his face, and Nate coughed again. Flames leaped eagerly in his direction, and Nate put his hand over his mouth, trying not to breathe in the fumes. They had to leave this place, right now.
“Come. We run,” gasped Argus, attempting to stand. Blood flowed sluggishly out of the wound at his side.
“How exactly?” said Nate, gesturing above their heads to where the wolvan and the lavaen were both screeching in a pitched battle.
Before Argus could answer, the howls of the wolvan abruptly cut off. Out the window, the lavaen rose up into the air on its powerful wings and sent a burst of flame toward the remaining wolvans. The dead body of the first wolvan dropped to the ground, landing heavily in a bloodied heap.
The lavaen flew in low, again aiming for the house. Before it could draw breath, the remaining two wolvans leaped at it. They clung to the thick hide with their claws and bit deep into the lavaen’s skin.
“Now! We must go now!” gasped Argus. He was standing, but his breathing was agonized.
It was their only chance. “You’ll have to lean on me.”
Argus nodded, his face hard.
Nate opened the door and half ran outside, pulling the mercenary with him. He again put his arm around the bigger man’s waist, and looped Argus’s arm around his shoulders.
The lavaen screeched in the air just above, and Nate jumped. A gust of wind from the wings pushed them back. Fire and ash filled the sky above as the lavaen and the wolvans fought for survival.
“I have horses, down the mountain. But we must run. There is very little time,” said Argus.
Nate nodded, concentrating on the strength he’d need to drag them both down the mountain. He whispered another small spell, drawing strength. Argus immediately felt a little lighter, not much, but a little.
They took off toward the path down the mountainside. Nate kept to the flatter sections of rock, and they swerved an awkward path down the rocky slope. Nate managed only a few steps before Argus’s bulk pushed them into a slide on the loose shale. They both skated painfully down the rocky path on their sides, their combined weight providing momentum to their descent.
Nate’s skin scraped on the shale as his grasping hands tried to get a grip on the surface. Burning pain shot up his arm and he knocked his head hard against a boulder. He heard the mercenary grunt in pain; the big man was trying to stall their fall as well.
Nate forced himself to concentrate, drawing on his connection to the earth below them, and somehow, he managed to push his feet against the ground, slowing their downward spiral. Eventually they both lay gasping on the ground.
The screech of the lavaen overhead made Nate jerk. He pulled his aching body up, dragging Argus with him. The mercenary was pale and grim faced, but he didn’t say a word, and they kept moving down.
By the time they reached the lower level of the mountain where some vegetation was attempting to grow around the rocky formations, Argus’s wound was leaking blood down his clothes and over Nate.
“I... must... stop,” said Argus. His eyes were dark stains on his deathly pale face and his breathing came in rattling gasps. Still leaning on Nate, the mercenary used one trembling hand to reach into one of his hidden pockets and pulled out a small leather flask. He tried opening it, but was shaking too hard. Nate grabbed it and pulled out the cork, handing the flask back to Argus. The mercenary took a sip. Then another.
Nate felt the tingling sensation of a powerful spell at work in the air around them. Someone extremely proficient in the mage arts had cast it. After only a minute or so, the mercenary’s face gathered some color, and he stood a little straighter.
“What was that?” asked Nate, although he already had a good idea.
“A potion from my master. To keep me alive.” He saw Nate’s expression. “For last resort only. Come, we must keep moving.”
They continued on, but gradually Argus stopped leaning on Nate and was able to walk without help. He was slow, and clearly in pain, but he’d recovered some of his strength. The blood from his side also stopped flowing.
It was a powerful spell, one that not many mages would be able to achieve. Who was Argus’s master? And why did he want Nate? The thought sent a shiver down his spine. Mages never did anything without reason. Especially the powerful ones.
Nate risked a glance back toward his house; the lavaen was still in the air, locked in its lethal embrace with the two wolvans. The wolvans couldn’t win, although they seemed to have wounded the lavaen. Perhaps it would go back to its lair to lick its wounds. But the buildings had all been destroyed, and the other mages were dead. There was nothing more for him here. A lump settled in his stomach, and he resolutely turned back to Argus.
He might be dangerous, but so far, Argus had kept Nate alive. “What happens now?”
“Once we get to the horses, we ride to my master. He will help you.” Argus was looking down at his wound, holding a wad of material over it to close the seeping gap. But he didn’t stop striding down the rough path.
Nate nodded. He didn’t plan to meet Argus’s master. The ghost’s words had been enough to warn him by itself, but now that he’d seem some of the master’s powers, he was even more determined to avoid this mysterious mage. He would go his own way, but not until they were safe from the lavaen.
In the meantime, he needed more information. “Why would Prince Lothar be trying to kill me? I don’t even know the man.”
Argus glanced up, his dark gaze sharp. “Lothar is attempting to take the crown. You are his cousin, the son of his uncle, and you stand before him in the succession.”
Nate stiffened. Bitter emotions raced through his heart. Anger. Resentment. Fear. “That’s a lie. My father deserted my mother before I was born.” It was an old festering wound.
“No. Your father was Prince Raffeus, second son of King Harad, and for you to have been named in the Flames, your parents had to have been married.” Argus paused and looked at Nate. “I can see you don’t believe me, but I speak the truth. My master would not have had me travel all this way if it weren’t.”
CHAPTER NINE
Jena was exhausted.
The road she traveled was a smaller side route through the partial desert that
stood between her and the Forest of Ghosts. All around were dirt, dust, and rocks. The mix of the heat and the barren terrain in Ignisia’s northwestern climate ensured most travelers found easier roads. She was alone as she took a sip from her water flask.
Sweat trickled down her body, joining days’ worth of old sweat, travel grit, and dirt that had ground itself into her skin. Her head hurt, and her body was one massive ache.
Jena found herself falling back on the patterns of her childhood with the traveling Utugani. Elsa’s soft voice chimed in her head, telling her to eat well, drink often. Not to draw attention to herself. To take care of her feet. Jena smiled. She wore two pairs of woollen socks, and Thornal had ensured her boots were made of strong, well-worn leather.
Her feet were fine, thanks to Elsa’s warnings and Thornal’s care.
Placing her water flask back in her bag, Jena hauled herself up a rangy tree at the side of the road. It was twisted and dry; but it had somehow managed to survive in the desert. She squinted into the distance, her view marred by the heat and the turns of the road, but it seemed clear. There was still some daylight left before the cold night would force her to stop and huddle beside her fire.
She had decided on the first day to hide from other travelers. She didn’t like meeting new people in general; they stared at the burned skin on her face and neck, and asked her awkward questions about how she’d come to be burned. But she was also a woman alone, near the borders and far from the cities. She had no idea if Thornal’s enemies would search for her. She had been witness to the king-in-waiting using his Hashishin to kill the most important mage in the Kingdom. There would surely be repercussions. The King might rule, but the Mage Council wasn’t without its own power in Ignisia. It all added up to keeping out of the way of other people.
Beside the road, scraggly hills boasted a network of strange shrunken trees. Their bare winter branches threw out skeletal shadows. In the lengthening afternoon light, the boughs looked like they were crawling toward her, trying to pull her into their spidery network. She shivered.
On the other side of the road, boulders and rocks of varying sizes marked the gradual edge of what became a steep, rocky incline. There were no other living creatures around her, not even the raven, which was flying on ahead.
Jena’s hand twitched and a small cool glow appeared in her palm, soothing her fears. It calmed her and made her think of Thornal. He wouldn’t have sent her on this journey if he didn’t know where it was going to end. She just had to make it to the Forest of Ghosts, and she would be safe. At least for now.
The raven flew back into view over the skeletal trees, circling her head.
“What can you see up there, Raven?” she asked, holding her hand over her eyes and squinting up into the glare of the sun. The bird cawed and she watched as it coasted through lazy circles.
It had become her friend, the one creature that knew who she was and what she was doing. At night, after a long day, she would eat her evening meal and tell it stories of her time with the Utugani, or sing old folk songs she thought she’d long forgotten. Anything to avoid thinking about how alone she really was.
She blinked. The raven had changed its relaxed pattern of flight and had looped around in a determined dive.
It dove straight at her, its sharp orange beak aiming for her body.
The raven swooped low and she ducked, feeling the wind from its wings on her hair, and the scratch of its claws just touching her scarred arm. Her heart leaped in her chest. What was the silly bird doing?
Frowning, she turned to follow its movements. She could somehow feel its urgency, but she didn’t know what it wanted, or why it had aimed for her.
When it came around and dived again, without thinking she crouched low and put her bare arm in the air, trying to get it to land on her forearm. With her other arm, she covered her eyes to protect them from the raven’s sharp claws.
She heard the whoosh of the bird’s wings, and then razor-sharp pain screamed up her scarred arm as it landed on her outstretched limb. She gasped. Her head came up and her arm came down in one abrupt movement.
Expecting to see blood, she looked down to where the large raven clung to her arm—but it wasn’t there.
Instead, she saw a dark ink pattern swirling over the pale skin of her forearm. As she watched, it churned and then took the shape of a tattooed raven over her burns. The recognizable part of a mage tattoo, the raven’s wings, showed clearly against her upper arm.
Jena’s vision clouded and she swayed where she stood. She inhaled large gasping breaths. Thoughts whirred through her head, and blackness threatened to overwhelm her as she tried to understand what was happening.
The raven had become a tattoo on her arm. Not just any tattoo. It was clearly a mage tattoo, the one that marked a fully trained mage at the end of their training. It was a sacred tattoo that was completed in a secret ceremony once a mage was deemed to have reached a certain level.
And it was now on her skin.
Information clicked into place in her head. She’d always wondered what had happened to Thornal’s tattoo. Now she knew. Somehow, Thornal’s mage tattoo had left his body and become a real raven.
And now it was on her skin.
Jena’s stomach clenched and her lunch rose up, burning her throat. It was one thing to cast mage spells, to know the spells in the Book of Spells. No one could prove those things. But as a woman prohibited from casting mage spells by the strictest of the old laws, to have the mage tattoo on her arm was equal to a death sentence. She rubbed her hand along her arm. The raven reacted by moving around her fingers as she rubbed. But it didn’t come off. She had a raven tattoo on her skin, blatantly declaring that she was a mage. There was no hiding this. She leaned to one side and vomited into the dust. When it felt like there was nothing more to come out, she stumbled down the road a ways and then collapsed under the patchy shade of one of the twisted trees.
She held her arm up, squinting at the patterns.
It was on her skin.
How would she ever get it off? Thornal had been the Great Mage; it wasn’t so far-fetched to think he could find a spell to create a familiar from his tattoo. But that had been after centuries of study. She was good, but not that good.
She blinked. There must be a reason it had done this.
She focused and opened her mind to the earth elements around her. Immediately, an image of soldiers riding hard along the same trail she was on flicked into her head. They were heavily armed and marked with the Royal standard—Prince Lothar’s men, although not the elite Hashishin.
She understood immediately that these men were heading in her direction.
Fear pumped through her veins again. She stood and ran to the large boulders on the other side of the road, muttering a camouflage spell to make sure she was hidden from view. Crouching low behind a boulder, Jena fumbled around in her backpack, pulling out the Hashishin knife. She stared at the lethal weapon, held tight in both hands, and wondered if this were the moment she would use it.
She closed her eyes again, trying to stay calm. Pictures continued to fill her head, showing a group of twelve men riding their horses hard along the road. The images were from high overhead, a raven’s eye perspective.
As she waited, she touched her arm, fingering the drawing of the raven that was now inked into her skin. As she watched, it moved and pooled around her. She pushed her finger hard into her skin. Sharp pain made her gasp, and she pulled her finger back.
It had been like a peck from a raven’s beak, except under her skin.
She blinked.
Her hand, gentle now, traced the shape of the raven from the lower wing on her hand, where the painted feathers lined up between her fingers, to where the body curled up around her elbow and upper arm. She had to search under her shirt to find the second outstretched wing over her shoulder. It was actually rather beautiful.
The beat of hooves interrupted her contemplation of her skin. Jena glanced up, craning her n
eck to look for the soldiers. The jangle of weapons and the pounding of hooves became clear, but the actual riders were still out of sight. The horses’ hoof beats hammered the road harder and faster, until the very blood pumping through her veins seemed to take on the beat.
She tightened her grip on the knife. If they saw her, she would fight them using everything she had.
The fire ruby in the hilt started to glow as they raced closer and closer, and a whole new thought crossed her mind. What if they could tell she had a hashishin knife? They might not be hashishin, but they were Lothar’s men and might have some sort of magic she knew nothing about. Her hand became sweaty where it held the knife, and as she stared, the ruby glowed even brighter.
Soon the group came into view, surging along the road. She held her breath. Her whole body tensed; she could only crouch behind the boulder, hugged against the hard surface, and pray to the Flames.
The sun glinted off their polished armor. The royal colors of red and orange filled her line of sight. Their weapons contrasted effectively against their flaming background.
The smell of sweat and dust filled the air as the group swept past. Dirt flicked off the ground, forcing Jena to scrunch her eyes closed. As a group they were strangely silent, no voices raised in laughter or jokes. Their mood was grim, and Jena was certain their mission was deadly.
The raven had saved her from what could have been a very bad encounter.
She laid her fingers lightly on her arm and felt the rippling effect as the raven settled.
An image of Thornal came into her head, a very different view of the mage she’d known. Young, energetic, and with the wings of a raven tattoo spread across his face, he looked charismatic and vibrant.
She swallowed back her tears, and tasted peppermint on her tongue. Suddenly her master didn’t seem so far away.
CHAPTER TEN