by Lexy Wolfe
The sprite looked repentant. "Petal will be more careful. I promise!"
"Good." He waited until the sprite crawled into the pocket of his cloak's hood. "Now stay put until we get to the market bridges. I really did promise my friend Jaline I would visit her on the first rest day I had a chance." Unbarring the door, he paused to state, "I didn't want anyone to know about her. Not yet, anyway. But I knew it would get Emil going and he'd keep everyone distracted so I could get you out."
"Terrence likes Jaline? Jaline is pretty?" Peeking out, Petal whispered conspiratorially, "Terrence want make babies with Jaline?" She squeaked and giggled as she ducked a playful swat.
"Hush," the young man hissed as they walked into the kitchen. He looked around the bustling kitchen as servants attended to cleaning or other tasks. "Miss Kelafy! Master Ash has granted me a rest day and I am leaving to go to Market Circle! Did you need anything while I am there?"
The older woman emerged from the deep pantry, brushing her hands on her ample hips. "Ah, Journeyman Terrence, you are such a thoughtful young man! Master Ash is so fortunate to have a fine young man like you as a student." She took down a piece of parchment from the wall board filled with a multitude of other notes and missives, folding it and handing it to him. "If you could give this to Melik for me, I would be grateful. It will save me the trip."
Terrence grinned when Kelafy swatted his hand for reaching for one of the tarts cooling nearby. "Of course, Miss Kelafy."
Patting his shoulder, the woman instructed as she straightened his cloak with a maternal fussing, "Now, you keep warm. There's rain in the air, I am certain. We don't need anyone catching the sniffles, we don't. And if it does start drizzling, try keeping to the broad bridges. You know how slippery the narrow sway bridges get." Taking one of the larger tarts, she put it in his hand. "Now, run along, Journeyman. Enjoy your well deserved rest day."
Once they were well away from the house, Petal peeked out. "Ooo! Petal smells something sweet! Terrence share please? Pleaseplease?" Breaking off a piece of the tart, Terrence handed it to her and she ducked back into his hood to eat contentedly.
"Just don't leave any crumbs in there!" the young man warned. Sighing at the muffled response, he just shook his head as he ate the rest of the warm tart with a happy sigh. "Miss Kelafy's desserts are the best. I love it when she indulges in making something with her own hands."
It was not long before Terrence was in Ithesra proper, and he paused to look at the web of bridges that crisscrossed between the many massive trunks and heavy branches. He leaned on one of the rails of the broad bridge to watch the many people moving as they went about their day's business, pensive.
"Hey there, Journeyman." Terrence looked over his shoulder at the sound of Nolyn Lirai's voice and straightened up, offering a respectful bow to Ithesra's guardsman captain. The man waved the formality off. "Relax, Journeyman. You're on a rest day, aren't you?"
Terrence blinked. "I am, but... how did you know, Master Nolyn?" He went back to leaning on the rail when Nolyn did so himself. "You spoke with Master Ash?"
Nolyn shook his head, brushing his fingers through his light brown hair. "Didn't need to. I could tell just by looking at you." The older man took pity on the confused journeyman mage and explained. "I've watched you since Ash took you in as his apprentice. The only time you ever relax is when you're on a rest day." Looking away from Terrence's flush of embarrassment, he gazed out on the bustling city in the trees. "I noticed you seemed rather pensive. Something bothering you?"
"No! Well." Terrence sighed, closing his eyes. "Yes. Nothing's wrong! It's just that..." He waved a hand towards the city. "Ever since we returned from our journey outside of Forenta, it just seems... different now."
"Mm." Nolyn was quiet for a moment. "Experience tends to do that to a man."
Terrence blinked and looked confused again. "Experience, Master Nolyn? Why would practicing magic make things look different?"
Chuckling, Nolyn shook his head. "Not that kind of experience. The kind you get when you go into a new land. You never left Forenta before, had you?" Terrence shook his head, looking down towards the forest floor. "When you see how people who are not Forentan live, see the world they live in, and live in it yourself for a time, it colors your perceptions of things you've always known." He added dryly, "At least, if you're a man who follows the Edai faithfully. Not as many people do anymore."
"The Edai... the Great Mother's holy edicts about honoring the gathering and sharing of knowledge was very helpful when we were out there." Terrence paused, touching his temple as he focused on the tickle of Dzee's thoughts, pushing them back. "I learned more than I expected." Once the tickle was quieted, he confessed, "I feel like an outsider looking in."
"Not surprising. You had quite an adventure out there." Nolyn smiled wanly, regarding the younger mage. "Our experiences change us. You're just noticing that change whereas most of these people," he waved a hand vaguely towards the city, "aren't aware of themselves enough to have a clue." Standing up, Nolyn put a hand on Terrence's shoulder in reassurance. "Don't worry, Journeyman. It will only be a matter of time before you settle into your new perspective and everything will go back to normal."
"Back to normal," Terrence echoed. "Are you sure it will be the same as before, Master Nolyn?"
Nolyn's easy smile faded into a more serious expression. "It will never be the same, Terrence. Your past always leaves its mark on your future. Normal is just coming to terms with those marks and moving forward." He glanced at the parchment still in Terrence's hand. "You want me to deliver that to Melik? He is on my way." The simple offer brought a grateful smile to Terrence and he nodded, handing the parchment over. Hand over his heart, Nolyn intoned solemnly, "I promise I will not fail Miss Kelafy." With a jaunty wink before heading off, the guard captain said, "I'd not wish her scolding on my worst enemy."
Terrence laughed and waved. "Thanks, Master Nolyn!" With a lighter heart, the young man continued on to a small tailoring shop nestled against one of the large trees at the end of one of the more remote paths that made up the tangle called Market Circle. Rapping on the knocking plate by the entrance, he peeked into the small shop. "Jaline?"
The delicate brunette girl sitting in the corner looked up and smiled brightly. "Terrence!" Sitting her sewing aside, she went over to hug him tightly. "I heard you and the Illaini Magus had returned two sevendays ago but no one had seen either of you anywhere. I was worried you were not ever going to come!"
"And why wouldn't I?" He stepped back from the hug so he could look at her. "Master Ash has never denied me a rest day. We have just been busy assisting the Dusvet Guardian and his students." Taking her hand, he led her back to her bench, drawing her to sit beside him. She blushed, smiling shyly, and picked up her sewing again.
Terrence was content to simply sit with her, watching her as she worked on the elegant embroidery design. When she dropped the shirt she was working on, they both reached for it at once, both of them turning red as their hands touched. Terrence had reached it first, gallantly returning it to her. There was something in her touch that troubled Terrence. "Why were you so surprised that I came to visit when I promised you that I would, Jaline?" he wondered, studying her.
Eyes lowered respectfully for his higher social rank, Jaline blushed more at the question. "Well, you are a senior journeyman now! I thought they would be matching you up with someone of a better family than mine."
"No, they aren't. My family is still regarded as lowborn. And even if someone was trying to match me with someone, I would still come to see you." Terrence smiled reassuringly. "Besides, I doubt Master Ash would let anyone try pairing me off to someone. I'll be a master someday!" He reached over to take her hand, squeezing her fingers lightly. "Then no one will be able to tell me who I can be with and I can choose as I want."
Jaline blushed, lowering her eyes shyly. "You would still choose me over a prettier girl who had real talent?"
"There are no prettier girls," Ter
rence assured her, leaning close, almost kissing her. Both sat away from one another as a customer came into the shop. The girl got up, offering the woman a neatly wrapped bundle and taking her coins, putting them in a box. When Jaline sat down, she looked up at Terrence with wide eyes. "Is it true?" she whispered. "Does the Illaini Magus really bed the desert woman?"
The unexpected question startled Terrence. He shook his head. "No, he does not." Jaline looked disappointed and relieved at the same time. Terrence frowned slightly. "Why would it matter? Is it because of the darkling Se'edai's accusations during Amelana's trial?"
Jaline wouldn't meet his eyes, brushing at her stitchery unnecessarily. "Well, I don't care. He is the Illaini Magus and can do whatever he wants. He could bed lupines and I doubt anyone would really care." Leaning closer, she whispered conspiratorially, "But wouldn't it be such a scandal if he ended up making half-breed children with her? Could you imagine it?! A child born of a mage and a warrior?! How horrible would that be, being born half murderous savage?"
Terrence blinked at Jaline, taken aback by her fascination with petty gossip. The negative focus on his master and the Desanti woman he considered a friend bothered him more than he expected. In sharper tones than he intended, he snapped, "You should not accept old stories as being the basis of truth, Jaline. Children of mages and warriors were the ones who sacrificed themselves to save Desantiva from being completely destroyed during the Great War."
Jaline blinked, tilting her head to one side. "Why would they do something like that?" she wondered honestly.
Biting back a more scathing response, the young mage journeyman stated flatly, "The spell was like the morelmi, except it was born of forbidden magic. It had no limitations put on it. The wave of death would not have stopped with Desantiva's destruction but spread until there was nothing else left." Terrence got up from the bench, crossing his arms as he stood with his back to the girl. "The children of mages and warriors saved all of us from being destroyed. They were the only ones who could because they bridged both worlds of physical and magical."
Only the sounds of the market outside disturbed the silence in the room as it stretched out, until Jaline finally spoke. "Really?" she asked softly. "I did not know that." She got up, tentatively putting a hand on his arm. "I am sorry; I did not mean to make you angry, Terrence."
Terrence sighed heavily, turning back to the young woman. "I should not have gotten angry with you. There is a lot that our ancestors didn't want us to know because they were ashamed of what they had done." He turned back to her, smiling sadly as he touched her chin gently, turning her eyes up to meet his. "The Desanti are strange, but they are not the evil that they have been made out to be. I consider them both friends."
"I have seen them from a distance," Jaline confessed. "When they were fighting on the bridges while the Illaini Magus was ill. It was like watching wild animals. Beautiful but scary."
Terrence chuckled softly, forcing a smile. "They are very kind... so long as you do not attack them. They never attack anyone who is not a threat to them." He brought their clasped hands up, kissing the backs of her fingers lightly. "You should meet them. Then you would know for yourself instead of trusting the old, flawed teachings."
Jaline bit her lower lip. "I don't know. I am not that brave." She looked up at him briefly then down, cheeks bright red.
"You don't have to today," Terrence assured. "Dusvet Guardian Almek wants to wait until spring before we travel to Fortress. There is plenty of time."
Light brown eyes went wide. "You are going to Fortress?!" she gasped. "They said that the Illaini Magus was going to learn Guardian magic, but I thought that was because he is the Illaini and they can do anything. That it was probably Fortress that was afraid that Forenta would prove them inferior." She stopped talking when Terrence arched an eyebrow at her words. "Are you... are you going to become a Guardian, Terrence?"
Terrence shrugged. "I do not know," he replied honestly. "But I go where my master goes. I have learned so much from him already. And there is so much still for me to learn." The two looked up as the sound of horns filled the air. "It is the noon hour," he said quietly.
The young woman nodded, looking down. "I was worried about you," Jaline confessed quietly. "Every day you were gone from Ithesra, I would climb to the highest reaches to look at the stars and pray to the goddess to keep you safe."
"I know." When Jaline looked up with a slight frown, Terrence said, "I am still alive because She must have heard your prayers and answered them." He smiled more as the blush on her cheeks deepened and she looked down shyly. Hesitating only a moment, he leaned down to lightly brush her lips with a tender kiss. "Come. Let's go get something to eat at Oak's Hollow and I can tell you about some of the things I had seen since we were last together."
Chapter 14
Magelight sconces lined the halls of the Magus Academy, their cool, unflickering light brightly illuminated the many mosaics and sculptures. Mages of all ranks, students of all ages, and servants went about their daily business in a continuous sea of noise and motion. Ash walked at an unhurried pace, looking at the place he had known most of his life. Over untold millennia, the mages had wielded their dominance over the world around them to create the surreal beauty that filled the mountain. Mosaics had been formed by drawing tiny particles of color together to form recognizable shapes that mingled with brightly colored ceramics and carved gemstones to give the illusion of the forest within the echoing stone halls.
"How strange," Ash mused to himself, troubled. "All my life, I thought nothing in the world could compare to the magnificence of the Magus Academy." He paused by a mosaic, tracing the image of a dragon peacefully curled around a tree, only now understanding its true meaning. "I wonder. If Master Almek had not convinced me to join him, would I have ever learned the truth without seeing the halls within the butte of the Desanti's city First Home or the Vodani's island of Water's Resonance?" Shaking the disquieting thoughts out of his mind, he turned to continue down the corridor.
Many whom Ash passed offered respectful greetings, which he returned graciously. Since the day Storm revealed the former Se'edai Magus Ysai Oberlain to be possessed by a darkling, and Almek's banishment of her, the attitudes towards him had altered drastically. The pleasure he felt soon turned to irritation. "Are we so like sheep that we require someone to tell us what to think?" he seethed under his breath. "Nearly all of you treated me as flawed and inferior because Ysai told you I was. Now that she is gone and Ellis speaks otherwise, you suddenly give me the respect I was due?" Impulsively, he hit the wall with his fist, barely noticing the pain in his annoyance. "At least the Desanti are unwavering in their justified distrust, you vacillating marmosets."
"You seem troubled, Master Ash," a droll voice from the darkness said, bringing a smile to Ash. Emerging from the shadows of an ornate column, Nolyn Lirai reached up to brush his light brown hair out of his sparkling blue eyes, idly tugging at his guardsman's tunic. "I should think you'd be in a much better state of mind with Ysai gone."
"Master Nolyn." Ash clasped Nolyn's hand in a firm, brotherly greeting, looking over him as if seeking some ill. "As much as you loathe the Academy's underground halls, I wouldn’t have expected to see you anywhere near here."
"Feh." Nolyn shrugged, averting his eyes but unable to conceal all of his discomfort. "Edai Magus Ellis has wanted regular reports from me since you'd left Forenta, and now since Ysai is gone, he's no time to leave to meet me elsewhere. The woman... er, darkling... left quite a mess behind." He ran his fingers through his hair nervously. "Trust me. If there were any way I could avoid this tomb, I would gladly do so." He heaved an exaggerated sigh. "The things I suffer in service to Forenta and our goddess."
Ash watched Nolyn's profile as they walked together, his words rousing memories, and guilt, of the past. "I should have been there with you and Master Bennu when you went to investigate the western mines." He closed his eyes, looking away. "And I should not have taken my grief out on yo
u for surviving the collapse when—"
"Ash." Nolyn stopped, putting his hand on Ash's arm to stop him as well. "Your presence may not have made any difference, except that the thing that caused the tunnel collapse might have killed you, too." Intently, he stated, "I loved Bennu, too. Don't you think I've blamed myself for not being good enough to save him as much as you have blamed yourself?" He shook Ash's arm lightly. "We were just boys. Merely journeymen. We did what we could."
"I could have done more. I should have! I knew something was wrong," Ash said in a low voice. "I begged off the patrol because I knew something was not right."
"You tried to convince Bennu not to go in the first place, Ash." Nolyn tilted his head, frowning slightly. "Don't you remember?"
"No." Ash's eyes focused on the past. "I... only remember trying to heal him, and knowing it had been too long. I felt his life slipping out of my grasp." Hands curled into fists at his sides unconsciously.
"You damned near died trying to save him." Nolyn's sour words drew Ash's attention back to the present. "You would have died with him if he had not found the strength to push you away and break the connection between you. I have thanked the Great Mother he did, too."
Shame colored Ash's guilt. "I would have died if you'd not been there." Ash met Nolyn's worried gaze. "I could not deny his dying words to me. You used them to remind me of my duty." He closed his eyes again. "Protect Forenta."
"He was always proud of you, Ash," Nolyn stated, drawing Ash to look at him again. "I envied how close you were to him, even though he pushed you harder than anyone else." He released Ash's arm, the two resuming walking. "But never as hard as you pushed yourself." He smirked a little. "Look at you now. The Illaini Magus! Most powerful mage in generations. Our people are lucky their asinine attitudes did not lessen your love for Forenta, or at least your fanatical sense of duty."