by Rosie Scott
A sharp pain sliced through my stomach. The new knowledge began to sink into my skull, immediately making me paranoid. My eyes darted to my right, as if they'd be able to see anything through the thick blackness of the forest. I was opening my mouth to reply when Nyx spoke first.
“Maybe your father sent his men.”
I glared over at her. I knew she hadn't meant to let the cat out of the bag in front of Theron, but her forgetfulness had gotten the best of her. Theron knew I was a Seran heir. He didn't know I was a Seran heir who was technically on the run.
Theron's facial expression didn't change. “These aren't men who are following us.”
“Then who is?” I asked, desperate for clarification.
“Orcs,” Silas replied, looking slightly more concerned than Theron. “When Theron and I were hunting this morning, we ran across a human tracker. He had an orcish-made slave collar around his neck and was sleeping at the base of a tree within distant view of our camp, but didn't wake up in time. We woke him and attempted to get him to answer our questions, but he wouldn't.”
“So...what happened to him?”
Theron shrugged. “I killed him. Some human slaves try to negotiate for freedom, but sometimes they have family that are enslaved, too. Sometimes they are the only ones in their family who are slaves and refuse to give information for fear the orcs will find out and then find their families. There are all sorts of reasons. The only thing that matters now is that he was following us and relaying information back to other trackers. Orcs sometimes use this method of tracking until they're able to get an army to a location.”
“An army?” My jaw went slack. “Just how many orcs do they think they need to send for four people?”
“I'm not sure. We found no evidence of any orcs yet, but they will be coming.” Theron reached into a satchel and pulled out a handful of nuts, which he held in a hand to snack on. “They might send a few, thinking they can overpower us. They may send more than a few if they have an inkling that you're as powerful as you are. Which they must have an idea of, or else I don't know that orcs would bother attacking us. None of us look rich, except for him—” Theron nodded at Silas, whose armor still had the emblem of Celdic royalty “—and we're not transporting much of anything, let alone goods that are expensive.”
“Maybe they see that we are capable,” Nyx suggested. “If they enslave humans, they could just be looking for more people to corral into their pens.”
“That's one idea,” Theron admitted, before eating another nut. Putting the rest back into his satchel, he leaned back on both forearms.
“You're not in the least bit worried about this?” I asked him, taking note of his relaxed body language.
The ranger returned my gaze thoughtfully. “I've dealt with orcs many times. Haven't lost yet. And besides, I've seen you fight. You shouldn't be worried, either. If anything, I've gone weeks without a fight and I'm itching for the bastards to give me a reason.”
“Surely, in the many years you've been a mercenary, you've seen people you like get killed?” I questioned. “Maybe even brutally?”
“Sure, I have,” Theron agreed.
“I'm sure you've seen someone make a mistake and get hurt or killed, or even be ambushed by the enemy and killed before they can defend themselves...?” I watched the mercenary carefully. “Any of that could happen to us.”
“It could. There would be no use in worrying about it now. Those kinds of things usually happen to the weak, so I wouldn't waste time thinking about it.”
I knew Theron was right. Worrying wouldn't do anything productive, let alone change the outcome of any potential fight. Perhaps it was my lack of experience that caused the anxiety to build in my gut. Perhaps it was the fact that I'd never faced an orc, but knew much about them due to the reputation of the race. Orcs were responsible for the eradication of many a town and city, and they weren't known for being fair in the game of war. I'd once heard that one orc was worth the strength of three battle conditioned men, and I had never really wanted to test that saying out by facing the brutal race myself.
“I'd like to know why Nyx here seems to think it's a possibility that we have the Seran Army chasing after us,” Theron went on, after the silence had befallen us for some time. I exhaled through gritted teeth when he brought it up again. I had figured he either hadn't heard us or hadn't much cared. “Unless you are not who you told me you were, I don't see why Sirius Sera would send an army after his own daughter.”
The others were silent. I understood. This was my responsibility. The mercenary did deserve to know fully what he was getting into with us. “How much do you know of Seran royalty?” I asked him. It would be easier to explain it all if I knew how the commonfolk thought of us and what they knew of the lineage.
“I know that Sirius is the current ruler of Sera, and reports to Queen Edrys in Comercio. I know he has two heirs. Terran Sera, and you.”
“Terran and I are both heirs, but Terran is his only child,” I replied.
Theron was listening, emotionless. “How does that work?”
“Sirius is not my biological father, but my adoptive father. I was dropped off at the Seran University as an infant, and he decided to raise me as his own. I realized my powers at fourteen, and my father has tried to control me ever since.”
“For his army?” Theron asked. Perhaps I was mistaken, but there seemed to be a smidgen of sympathy that crossed his features.
“Well...yes and no. He wants me for his army, but I think he was putting off letting me use my powers because he knew that once I did, I wouldn't live for long. Maybe he was waiting for the right time to use me as his joker card. In either case, I wasn't willing to let him use me. I disobeyed his orders to join the Fourth Order and left Sera without his permission or knowledge.”
Theron hesitated a moment, looking like he had a lot on his mind. “You used your powers that day at Amere. Did that give you a death sentence?”
“It's always been a death sentence,” I replied. “It is for any mage, but me moreso than others. Some mages can wield one element and live almost a full life if they're smart about it. Two elements, and you start to shave the years off your life. Six?” I shrugged. “You can see my issue.”
“Then why use your powers at all?”
“I'd rather live a short life doing what I love than to live a long and unsatisfying one.”
Theron nodded, as if he agreed. More questions were in his features, but he remained quiet.
“You have questions,” I said.
“I do, but they are mostly out of ignorance,” Theron admitted. “I have worked with mages before, but I have never understood them.”
One corner of my mouth raised in amusement. “What's there to understand?”
“How magic works. Why it kills you. Why anyone would wield it since it does.”
I thought about my upcoming words carefully. “Magic is essentially the manipulation of energy. In order to manipulate energy, you have to understand it and where it comes from. Bodies make energy, movement makes energy. Weather—wind, lightning—makes energy. Mages have the ability to mentally call this energy into submission. That ability comes to people in a variety of ways—genetics have a lot to do with it. Some races are predisposed to magic, particularly different types. Most elves have magical abilities. Some humans. Few to no dwarves. Regardless, if someone has a magical ability, their children are likely to have it as well.
“When mages call upon energy to use in spells, it is pulled from reserves in an order we like to call The Kilgorian Law, given the name of the man who founded it.” Using my fingers, I counted down as I spoke the order. “Environment, weather, self. It will not pull reserves from the life of plants, animals, or other forms of life, because that is reserved for necromantic spells. Imagine going to a recent battlefield rife with the bodies of melee soldiers and getting into a fight, as a mage. When you use your spells, the energy you use is pulled according to the Kilgorian Law. So here, the first e
nergy used would be residual energy from the battle. The energy from the exertion of bodies that are now deceased. The type of energy that hangs in the air, that most people can feel even if they are not mages. Next, it will attempt to pull energy from the weather. If there are winds or a storm, mages will pull energy from this until that weather dies down and ceases in the area. Then, it will pull energy from yourself—meaning, essentially, it begins to drain your life, much like a necromancer would do in a spell to someone else. It is not necromancy when self-inflicted, because you have permission to give your life energy to yourself. You are not taking from one and giving to another.”
“And when you run out of reserves, you die?” Theron asked. I gave him credit for listening. He did seem legitimately intrigued by it all.
“You can. For the most part, mages know they are running out of reserves and retreat from battle, or they never let themselves get that desperate. Running out of reserves means that yes, you run out of life, but most mages pass out before they get that far.”
“But mages have shorter lifespans than others in general,” the ranger pointed out. “It seems like even the ones who are smart enough to conserve their energy still die younger.”
I nodded. “They do. Allowing yourself to use any of your life energy at any point will cause that.”
“Why?”
“The same reasons why someone who never gets enough sleep will die younger, or why a poor diet can lead to sickness and early death, or why starving kills people. Depriving mortal bodies of energy weakens and ages them, whether you are a mage or not. Mages just do this as a living, so it happens much more often and tends to be much more severe because it is a deliberate act and takes more than if it were to happen naturally.”
“Are there exceptions to that?” Theron questioned. “Perhaps elves aren't as affected by it because of their long lifespans?”
“We are still affected,” Silas spoke up, for the first time in awhile. “It just doesn't seem like nearly as bad of a sacrifice as humans have to give. A full life for a Celdic elf who does not practice magic can last anywhere from six hundred to one thousand years. For a Celdic elf that does practice magic, you're looking at four hundred to nine hundred years, depending on how often magic is used. It is rare to see any Celds die from magic use, or even die younger than eight hundred because of it, because we battle infrequently. Celdic mages tend to visually age faster, as well. A Celdic mage of two hundred might appear to be twice that or more.”
“There are two other exceptions,” I added, once Silas was finished. “Out of the six elements, there are four material elements, and two wild cards. They are all under the banner of elemental magic because they are used the same. The spell language is the same. Sometimes, you'll hear someone say destruction magic instead of elemental—it means the same thing, and is sometimes called that because that is elemental magic's number one use: destruction, or use during battle. The material elements are fire, earth, air, and water. The wild cards are life and death.
“Life and death aren't considered material elements because it deals with the transfer of energy alone, as its own element. The other four elements use energy to create that element, whether it is water or earth or otherwise. With life magic, you are using energy itself to transfer into a body and accelerate natural healing processes that would otherwise have been impossible without weeks of time. With death magic, you are, again, using energy itself to reanimate the dead.”
“Life and death mages are the exceptions to the rule, then?” Theron prodded.
“Yes—essentially. While these mages can still die from their magic use, they tend to not be affected near as much as other mages in terms of its detriments. This is because their elements combat the side effects that the magic use itself gives their bodies. Healers can reverse most damage done to their own bodies, with the exception of the aging process itself. Necromancers can transfer life energy from other life into themselves, in a spell known as leeching. Not only can that help to heal them, it can also render them essentially immortal, and is part of the reason they are so feared. Taking in that much life energy can actually slow down and even reverse the aging process, in some extreme cases, even for humans. This is why there are documented cases of human necromancers living to be two hundred, three hundred, and even four hundred years old by the time they are caught or killed.”
“Valerius the Undying,” Nyx mused, speaking the name of the oldest human necromancer ever recorded. He had lived to be 457 years old by the time he was finally cornered in his tower on an island in the northern Servis Ocean. Not wanting to face him, the combined armies from Chairel did the only thing that could ensure their army's safety while killing the target: they'd lit the tower on fire, and hadn't left until it was in rubble.
“How do you think he got away with it for as long as he did?” Theron asked, speaking of Valerius.
“I know how he did it,” I replied. “I read books and books on him at the Seran University. He made a pact with a family of krakens that were known to roam the Servis before he made his home on the island there. The krakens would sink merchant ships on the trade route between Chairel and Glacia within view of the island. They had free reign of the treasure aboard the ships and would eat their fill of the seamen they could catch. The remaining seamen would do the only thing they could to survive, and swim to the shores of the island, where Valerius was free to feed upon them.
“There were so few survivors that Chairel had no firsthand knowledge of what was going on save for knowing that trade between them and Glacia was at a full stop, so they sent a navy out to investigate and put a stop to it. Well, the same thing happened to them, and Valerius got even stronger, and had enough weapons and armor to equip any of the thousands of skeletons he'd been collecting on the island if he needed to use them. Chairel finally wizened up and sent scouts along with an army and found out about the necromancer that was aiding the krakens. Before long, a full-scale war broke out between a handful of sea creatures and a necromancer and the entire country's army. Two hundred years later, Valerius was finally dead.”
Theron chuckled, surprising me. He looked extremely amused by the story rather than disturbed. “It took two hundred years for an entire army to take out one necromancer,” he mused, shaking his head. “I can see why it is banned.”
“Keep in mind that this necromancer had allies and strategy on his side,” I pointed out. “Also...human armies take time to build. Valerius had thousands of skeletons at his disposal, all of which he could use multiple times if he had the energy for it. And considering the attacks came in waves, he always did.”
“You know much about this necromancer,” Theron mused, smiling over at me. It was the first time the mercenary had shown genuine admiration for me. I wasn't sure if he liked my knowledge on the subject or the fact that I liked knowing a lot about something that was so taboo.
“I know a lot about a lot of necromancers,” I retorted, with a hint of my own smile.
“Why? Your own father has necromancy outlawed.”
“Yes, but its illegality does not make it less interesting. Necromancy is quite possibly the strongest element of them all. It intrigues me.” I shrugged. “As does battle tactics and strategy in general. I used to read books on all of history's greatest war generals, regardless of their race or type of weapon. It's interesting to see how the world was shaped and by who. What decisions made victories, what mistakes ended in losses.”
Theron watched me carefully. Our entire conversation had seemed to get him a little more warmed up to me. Perhaps he had once seen me as a green and inexperienced person of royalty. Technically, that's what I was. But he'd now seen me in battle, heard my story of refusing to cave to my duty as an heir of Sera, and knew that I was knowledgeable of my craft, among other things. I was half his age, but he now knew I was both talented and motivated. It was enough to help him see me in a different light.
Finally, the ranger spoke again. “It would be interesting to me to see y
ou put all of that intrigue and battle talent of yours to the test,” he mused.
I wasn't sure what all he meant by that. He'd already seen me in battle. Unless he meant on a large-scale, like the war generals and wars I spoke so fondly of. But I would never have the opportunity to be like those historical figures I had always admired. The only army I ever would have a chance to be a part of was the Seran Army, and I'd already squandered all chances of joining it.
I was afraid I'd have to disappoint Theron in that respect. There weren't going to be any large-scale battles or wars in my future.
Seven
It was so deep into the night, even the insects were sleeping. I watched the night sky, my mind on our little group's previous conversations. The others were asleep. Both Silas and Theron were silent. Nyx snored lightly beneath her tent. It was like this every night when it was my turn to keep watch; the assassin was somehow always the loudest sleeper.
I had described magic and its use to Theron in such great detail earlier, that now it wouldn't leave my mind. I had been alone for long enough into my watch that my brain was creating new weird and ridiculous things to focus on. For example, I could wield six elements, which meant I could also wield life and death. Would it be possible to prolong my inevitable early death, much like Valerius and other necromancers had?
Of course it would, I argued with myself. The only difference between Valerius and I was that I was unwilling to feed off of the energy of others. There was a reason necromancy was banned. Leeching energy was almost akin to cannibalism, was it not? And regardless, to learn and use death spells would be to sign my own death sentence.
Crack!
My head whipped to my right to follow the noise, my gold eyes staring into the abyss of the forest, beneath where the light of our campfire flickered off of the leaves. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, shapes began to form, differentiating themselves. For the most part, I only saw the vertical lines of the trees. Perhaps it was only a woodland animal, like it had been so many times before. Perhaps it—