by Eric Vall
“So, you’re not going with me?” I turned to see she’d stopped a few steps behind me.
“I’ll be right here once you’ve found your answers,” Miraya replied with a smile.
“Okay,” I murmured before I turned back around and continued into the forest, or Videnia, or whatever I was headed for.
After a few minutes of walking, I reached a clearing. It was a perfect circle among the trees, and another circle appeared in the dirt ahead of me. I didn’t think I had much to worry about in my own spiritual sea, but I walked toward it with caution and kept my eyes on the trees around me.
As soon as I stepped into the dirt circle, a dark curtain seemed to drop from the sky around me. Before I could react, the curtain lit up with glowing boxes filled with letters and numbers that shifted and changed like running code on a computer.
“What the hell?” I muttered as I watched the screens change and flutter.
The scene reminded me of the landing page on a video game, the section where you can change your character and loadout and get information on your next mission in the game. Then the screens stopped moving and settled on one image. It was my dragon form, and it stretched halfway around the curtain. It almost looked like I was in flight as the curtains waved in the light breeze. I reached out to touch one of my wings, and the image shifted again to reveal dozens of boxes. Each one featured a name, and as I looked closer, I recognized the names as my ancestors whose moonstone statues currently surrounded my physical body.
“No way,” I breathed.
I tapped on Tristan’s name, and the box opened to reveal hundreds, maybe even thousands, of still frames. I touched one of the images, and a video began to play. It was as if I watched from my grandfather’s point of view, and I could see the moment he found me in the statue room of the archives. The Sword of Healing was pressed into my back, and I heard my own voice as I told him that I carried the blood of Hatra el Shamash.
“So, I can watch their memories?” I murmured. “But how do I find the one about locating a mage?”
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, the video stopped, and the still frames whooshed past in a frenzy before landing on a different scene. In this memory, Tristan walked through a forest, and I could sense an army of warriors walking behind him. He held the Sword of Hatra out in front of him, and another man crept up beside him.
“Lord Tristan,” the man whispered. “I think I know how we can find the one you seek.”
“Your tricks did not work last time, Mertel,” Tristan replied under his breath. “We need actual magic to defeat the mage.”
“I found a spell, my lord,” Mertel hissed. “I know it will help.”
“What is it?” my grandfather asked as he looked directly at his companion.
I could finally see Mertel’s face, though some of it was hidden in the shadow of his hood. He had some kind of scarring, maybe from burns, and it covered the skin I could see. His eyes were a pale green, though, and he looked sickly, like the life was almost drained out of him.
“It’s a Trovar spell, my lord.” Mertel pulled a journal from a pouch on his belt and flipped to a handwritten spell. “I wrote it myself.”
I tried to peer at the letters in the man’s scrawl, but Tristan looked back up to the forest.
“Are you sure it will work?” the fox asked. “We can’t lose him again.”
“Yes, I’m certain,” Mertel insisted.
“Then do it,” Tristan commanded as he lifted a hand to stop the army from continuing through the trees.
Mertel nodded and began his spell. As the man muttered the magical words, I could feel cold air surrounding Tristan and his men as puffs of warm air became visible with their breathing.
“What is happening, my lord?” one of the soldiers shouted.
“It’s working!” Mertel exclaimed. “We must follow the warmth, my lord.”
Tristan grunted and moved forward through the forest. As he walked, I could feel a slight change in temperature every once in a while, and he turned toward the warmer air until it was almost comfortable again.
“We’re close,” Mertel hissed.
The heat was noticeable now, and it almost throbbed with warm energy as the group weaved through the trees.
“Spread out!” Tristan directed the troops, and the men behind him dispersed into the trees to search for their target.
The video faded back into the still frame, and I shook my head to get my bearings. I swiped my hand across the curtain, and it showed the beginning boxes with family names again. I could watch hours of my ancestors’ memories, and it took a lot of willpower to step out of the circle to save the videos for later. As soon as I put my foot outside the circle, the curtain lifted, and I stood in the rainbow forest again. Then I turned and sprinted back through the trees to the place where Miraya stood waiting for me.
“That was badass,” I said with a grin.
“Videnia showed you what you needed, then?” the spirit asked as her lips curled up into a smile.
“Yeah, we have to get back now,” I answered. “I know exactly what they need to use. Come with me. I’m already in the room, so you should be fine.”
“If you say so, my lord,” Miraya agreed.
In the blink of an eye, we were back in the hall of moonstone statues. Tristan and Vayan paced back and forth in their ethereal forms, and they both stopped and looked at us with utter shock when we returned.
“I can see now why you prefer this beautiful form,” Vayan murmured approvingly as his gaze dragged over Miraya.
“Yes, my grandson has good taste,” Tristan chuckled. “For a dragon, you sure are just as sly as a fox. Did you find what you needed?”
“Yeah, Miraya’s idea worked,” I replied. “Now, I need to go tell the others what spell to look for.”
“Well, off with you, then!” Tristan shooed me away. “We’ll always be here if you need us.”
“Thanks, Gramps,” I said with a grin.
“Gramps?” Vayan sounded bewildered as Miraya and I sprinted out of the big blue doors.
We rounded the corner and jogged down the hall to where the other women had piles of books surrounding them on the floor.
“We found it!” I exclaimed as they all looked up at us in surprise.
“Found the spell?” Alyona asked with a raised eyebrow. “Where?”
“Long story, but you need to find a journal from a man named Mertel,” I advised them. “It has a spell called the Trovar spell, and we can use it to find where the intruder is hiding.”
“Okayyyy,” Aaliyah drawled and stood up to look through the shelves. “What does the journal look like?”
“Brown and kind of small.” I held up my hands to show the size. “It’s all handwritten since he wrote his own spells.”
“Wait, did you say Mertel?” Naomi asked as she slid a pile of texts to the side. “I saw that name a while ago.”
“Here!” Laika grabbed the journal I recalled from Tristan’s memory and held it up.
“That’s it!” I gasped.
Laika handed the journal to Alyona, and the princess began to thumb through the pages.
“Found it!” she called out. “But I’ll have to modify it a little.”
“Why?” I wondered as I strode closer and looked at the spell with her.
“Well, reading over this, I don’t think Mertel was exactly a mage,” Alyona murmured. “It looks like he was more likely a Pyro.”
“He liked fires?” I asked as I remembered the scarring across his face. “He did have a lot of burn scars.”
“Not just that he liked fires, but his magic was born of it,” Alyona explained. “In most cases, a Pyro should have died in a fire, but instead of taking their life, the fire imbues its power in them. He probably wrote his own spells because typical magic doesn’t work the same as Pyro magic.”
“So, can you use it?” I peered over her shoulder at the words strewn across the page in the Pyro’s messy handwriting.
“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “As long as it works.”
Alyona smiled and pulled out a sheet of parchment from her spatial storage, along with a quill and inkwell. Then the two mages set to work. After about ten minutes, they had a new spell written out, and they leaned back to observe their product.
“I think we’ll need to use a map,” Naomi suggested.
“Yes,” Alyona agreed and pulled a map from her spatial storage. “We can use the new Trovar spell to find a place on here.”
The two rolled the map of Hatra out on the floor, and Laika and Aaliyah each grabbed a side to hold it down. Then Alyona and Naomi joined hands and began to murmur the words they’d written. As they spoke in unison, the map lit up as though a spotlight was underneath it, and then sections of the city dimmed one at a time. Finally, only one section remained lit, and I crouched next to the map to see what was left.
“The pavilion?” I asked in surprise. “We were just there.”
“It’s not just the pavilion,” Alyona said as she pointed around it. “There are several other buildings to the north that we didn’t check because they were open. When everyone came to the meeting, the intruder could have slipped inside any of them since we closed for the day after that.”
“Dammit!” I cursed. “Let’s go.”
We quickly put the books back onto the shelves and headed down the hall to the marble stairs that would lead us to the surface. The sun had lowered in the sky, and it was odd to see no movement in the city in the late afternoon as we hurried through the empty market toward the Smoky Pavilion.
Before we reached the large gazebo, we hooked left to the buildings on the edge of the marketplace.
“Do you want us to split up and search the buildings?” Aaliyah asked as she eyed the deserted area.
“Not really,” I muttered. “If he can bust through that wall with his magic, I don’t want to put any of you at risk.”
“He’s already slipped by us once, my lord,” Miraya reminded me. “How will we find him if he keeps moving and we stick together?”
“I think I can narrow it down,” I mused as I considered my new abilities. “What if I shoot an arrow aimed for him? We could follow it straight to him.”
“Does it work when you don’t see your target?” Alyona wondered.
“I guess we’ll find out.” I smirked as I conjured my fiery bow and arrow.
Then I closed my eyes and pictured the mage I’d seen running from Lexavo this morning. Something told me that was exactly who we were looking for, and I pulled back the bowstring and released the arrow.
The fire projectile zoomed through the air and then veered around the first building, so I sprinted after it with my women right behind me. The arrow hummed as it flew and then stopped in mid-air in front of the door to the last building. It was small, maybe a tool shed or a storage building for one of the shops, and I knew there couldn’t be many places to hide inside. I signaled to the women before I threw the door open, and my arrow continued on its path into the room until I heard a howl of pain.
I ran into the room behind the arrow, and I found the mage with my projectile sticking out of his shoulder. Blood poured from the wound as he tried to put out the flames that had taken over his robe, and then he conjured a water orb in his hand and dumped it on himself.
The magic extinguished the flame, but the hole in his shoulder continued to bleed. He scowled at the damage to his arm and then looked up at me with rage in his green eyes.
“Stupid dragon!” he bellowed before he launched another watery orb at me.
“Stay back!” I called out to the women as I dodged the mage’s attack. “It’s too small in here!”
The water ball collided with the wall behind me, and it splashed down the surface with a sizzle as some kind of acid ate at the stone.
“What the fuck?” I muttered as I turned back to see the mage rise to his feet and grip his injured arm.
I conjured my own fireball and threw it at the mage, but he created a water shield just before my magic could hit him. The fireball clashed into the watery defense and hissed as it seemed to melt away.
“You are no match for a water wizard!” the mage called out. “And you will pay for what you’ve done!”
Suddenly, a wall of water rose from the ground between us and then crashed like a wave over my head. For a moment, I was taken aback, but then I remembered my own ability to control water. So, I pushed the liquid away from my body and out the door in a river that flowed past my women, and the mage’s eyes widened in shock as the water disappeared from the room.
“You broke into my city!” I snarled. “And you have the balls to say I will pay?”
As I spoke, I called on my stone magic to pull the sand from the floor up the mage’s legs. He tried to move his feet, but the ground continued to rise over his legs to his waist.
“Your city?” the mage spat out as he tried to push the sand back down. “You are nothing!”
“I am the Lord of Hatra!” I roared as I bellowed flames onto the sand that crept up his body. “And you will soon be nothing but ashes!”
“At least I will have died avenging my family,” he hissed. “The family you stole from me.”
“What are you talking about?” I furrowed my brow. “I’ve never killed a family.”
“My son and my daughter!” the mage screeched. “Milo and Sila were my children, and you slaughtered them! So, I came to take your children. The news of your eggs has spread like wildfire, and I could avenge my children and sell your demon spawn!”
“Your children were thieves,” I sneered. “It looks like they learned from you, so who is really to blame here?”
The mage’s eyes widened even further, and the sand now reached his throat. His arms were pinned to his chest as he tried to struggle again, but he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’ll have your head!” he gasped as I stopped the sand just underneath his chin.
“I don’t think so.” I smirked, pulled the Sword of Hatra from my belt, and plunged the blade through the sand and into his chest.
As I yanked my weapon back, blood seeped from the wound and tinged the sand with a deep red. More blood leaked from the mage’s mouth before his eyes rolled back in his head, and then his body went limp.
I released the sandy prison, and the mage’s body fell to the floor in a heap at my feet.
“Lord Evan?” Alyona called out from past the door. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, you can come in,” I replied as I nudged the mage’s body with my boot. “He’s dead.”
My women scurried into the tiny room and looked at the mage with curiosity.
“Who was he?” Laika asked as her gray wolf ears and tail twitched in time with each other. “He looks somewhat familiar.”
“He was Milo and Sila’s father,” I answered. “Apparently, he planned to steal my egg and sell it to avenge their deaths and make some money. Two birds with one stone, I suppose.”
“What a vile man.” Miraya scrunched up her nose.
“Agreed,” I said. “I’m going to drag his body outside and burn it. Then we can be done with this whole damn bandit family.”
“I’ll help you,” Laika volunteered and grabbed the mage’s legs.
I lifted his arms, and we carried him outside. Moments later, I set the corpse ablaze, and as the body burned, Alyona leaned against me and sighed.
“Good job with that spell,” I murmured and pressed my lips to her hair. “I don’t think we could’ve followed my arrow through the whole city.”
“Thank you, my love,” she replied and then smiled up at me. “Your search certainly made that happen, though. How did you find it, by the way?”
“So, you know that whole thing where I gained the knowledge of the previous Nobles of the Sword?” I asked.
“Yes, of course.” She cocked her head to the sid
e with curiosity.
“Well, Miraya showed me how to access it,” I explained. “It’s called Videnia.”
“It exists?” Alyona raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I’ve read about a theory of the knowledge that is passed down with the swords, but to know it exists is incredible!”
“Well, now you know,” I chuckled. “In my spiritual sea, it’s a whole forest with these neon-colored trees, and then I can watch my ancestors’ memories like a movie.”
“The story that moves, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, that,” I laughed. “It was crazy, but super cool. I’m going to have to go back in sometime and watch more.”
“Are we ready?” Laika asked before Alyona could respond. “The body is done.”
I looked down to see the flames had almost disappeared, and only a large pile of ashes remained.
“Yep, we need to let everyone know it’s safe now,” I agreed. “Let’s get back to the palace, and we can send out messages from there.”
We made our way around the Smoky Pavilion and headed for the Lunar Palace. The giant gold dome loomed overhead, and I pushed open the doors to go inside.
“Oh, thank the gods!” Julia gasped as she rushed into the great room. “You found the intruder? Where is he?”
“He won’t be bothering us again.” I smirked. “Where are Ruslan and Valerra?”
“Oh, they’re coming,” my mother giggled.
Before I could ask what she meant, I heard Valerra’s shrill voice echo from down the hall.
“You don’t need to have a party for everything!” the Crimson Dragon shrieked.
“My lady, it would raise the morale of the city!” Eleanor insisted as she chased Valerra into the room, and Ruslan and Emily trotted along behind them.
“Evan, I’m assuming you found the culprit?” Valerra raised a red eyebrow.
“Yeah, of course,” I chuckled. “So, it’s time to party?”
“No--” she snarled before Emily cut her off.
“Yay! Lord Evan agrees!” the brunette cheered. “We’ll spread the word!”
The two women scurried out the front door of the castle, and Ruslan’s laugh echoed throughout the great hall.