by Kim Wedlock
Her fine eyebrows rose in surprise. "Really?" She asked with genuine disbelief.
"Apparently," he sighed, feeling that tiresome weight on his shoulders again.
"Uh-huh...and the ditchlings?"
"That's why the harpies attacked us?" He frowned, thinking nothing of how she'd known about that morning's encounter, and she sighed and hung her head, her long, forest-brown curls bouncing forwards.
"I did tell you that the harpies and ditchlings have been warring with each other for a few months now, but you never listen to me, do you?" She looked to Aria helplessly. "Is he at least listening to you?"
She shrugged. "It's hard to tell."
"Isn't it just."
"I'm sorry," Garon spoke up from behind them, his voice coloured by almost genuine apology in his confusion, "but just exactly who are you?"
"This is Kienza," Rathen replied, stepping forwards, "Kienza, this is Anthis Karth and Inquisitor Garon Brack."
Her eyebrow twitched curiously at the subtle emphasis Rathen had put on the latter's title, and he knew she'd noticed it. "Pleasure to meet you both," she said graciously, pulling her long, dark skirt to the side as she curtsied, ignoring the detail, "especially you, Mister Karth."
"Me?" Anthis asked in what seemed to be perpetual surprise.
"Indeed!" She grinned up at him as widely as Aria would have. "I've followed your work eagerly, and I'm particularly fascinated by your theories on pre-magic elven religion."
"My..."
She nodded enthusiastically, disregarding his stunned confusion. "Your suggestion that elves believed they weren't the first intelligent life the gods created is truly a wild claim, but it appeals to me - perhaps I just like the idea that the elves were once truly so modest. But tell me: do you think humans came first? Or something else?"
"Well, I, uh...I can't honestly say for certain..."
"That's why I said 'think'," she smiled, "not 'know'."
Anthis blinked and a smile equally crept across his flushing face. "I think it's possible," he replied slowly, the familiar note of interest in his voice joined with a restraint meant gauge the extent of her own curiosity, an approach he'd used a handful of times with Aria as an attempt to encourage her, "but I have had other ideas."
"Such as?"
Rathen shook his head and smiled as Kienza exhibited her usual enthusiasm, but Aria tugged at his sleeve, pulling his attention away. "I'm hungry," she reminded him quietly, her eyes wide and sad, and he recalled that she had first mentioned as such almost two hours ago.
He squeezed her shoulder apologetically and glanced around for Garon. He was still beside the horses, having warily not left their side, and even now he kept a careful eye on their rescuer.
Rathen still bristled at their previous confrontation, as brief and irritatingly one-sided as it had been, but he was begrudgingly aware that the inquisitor had had a point. "We'll be fine to make camp here," he said as he approached him, making an effort to sound respectful though he couldn't help a little acid from shortening his tone.
Garon didn't seem to notice, however. "Is it safe?" He asked, his eyes remaining on the mysterious woman.
"It is. Kienza led us here, and if any one of us standing in this forest can be trusted absolutely, it's her."
He turned his eyes upon him. "She's a mage."
"Yes," Rathen sighed with restrained impatience, knowing what was coming, "and she isn't affiliated with any secret and rebellious movements either. She can be trusted."
"She's with the Order?"
His lips pursed slightly as he hesitated, and turned towards the horses to begin removing the blankets and bedrolls that had been strewn over their saddles. "No."
"Then she's with--"
"She is with no one but herself," he said firmly, interrupting Garon's alarmed conclusion. He looked back towards her as she continued talking animatedly with Anthis, catching the words 'god-like', 'wild man' and 'lesser' from their excited conversation. "I don't know why, and I don't know how. That woman has been an enigma to me since day one and I learned long ago not to bother asking questions." And yet he spoke without a single trace of curiosity, as though it had been beaten out of him after countless vain attempts to encourage her to reveal her mysteries. "She has her secrets, and she's entitled to them."
Garon frowned at him, but it was clear from his tone that he honestly couldn't shed any light on just who she was no matter how hard he might press. He was less accepting of his eyes' suggestion that they had little to fear from her, but, reluctantly, he left the matter alone. Though when he turned his suddenly disapproving eyes back upon him as another issue stepped into his mind, Rathen was already shaking his head.
"I know what you're going to say, but it was either follow the light or run for who knows how far. I had no intention of 'undermining your authority', I was just doing what was best for all of us."
Garon looked around at the looming dark and empty forest. "In this case, you were right to. I wouldn't have followed the light." He looked back to him, and though the criticism in his eyes had faded, the superiority remained. "But next time you will suggest, not order."
Rathen swallowed his rising irritation. "Yes, Inquisitor."
The two of them began laying the bed rolls over the comparatively flat and dry grass, and Anthis soon joined them to lay his own while Kienza made a camp fire behind them, presumably out of nothing, before leaving with Aria to collect fresh water while food was heated over the flames.
"She's remarkable," Anthis said excitedly as he sat down beside Rathen who tended the meagre meal. "She really has been keeping up with my work - she even suggested other avenues of research I'd never thought of! Do you know, she said that if I were to go to the highest point of the southernmost reach of the Olusan mountains I'd find a semi-ruined - semi-ruined - house of the God of Mind!" Anthis's eyes were brighter and wider than Rathen had yet seen them, and he was shaking his head either in amazement or some kind of fit. "There are no known standing houses to Nara!"
"Nara?" He frowned mildly, poking at the contents of the warming pot.
"Vastal," Anthis corrected, waving his specifics away, "faces, faces; always Vastal. I wonder how she knows of it." He shook his head in wonder again, then looked to Rathen with calmer but certainly more envious eyes. "You're a lucky man, Rathen."
"I suppose so."
"And I can see the resemblance."
His thoughtful frown twisted into confusion. "Sorry?"
"Her and Aria."
"Oh." He chuckled easily, and his expression relaxed as he turned back to the fire. "She isn't her mother."
"...Oh...sorry, I just--"
"It's fine," Rathen assured him, placing the lid over the pot Kienza had conjured, and as he cast him an amused and casual glance, Anthis began to ease.
"Did you meet her in the Order, then?"
Rathen absently wondered at the young man's unrelenting interest in his past, but he didn't voice it. Instead he sat back from the flames and turned critical eyes upon him. Anthis shrank back beneath them, but what he'd seen as a warning had in fact been calculation. The mage turned away a moment later to look through the dark forest that sprawled endlessly beyond the reach of the firelight. "No. She saved my life."
The words hung in the air while Anthis stared at him in astonishment, and even Garon looked up from a short distance away. But though both foolishly hoped he might continue, as usual he seemed disinclined to divulge anything more. Anthis's brow dropped a fraction in suspicion, wondering if it was even true. Rathen had yet to reveal much about himself, after all, and he was still a little uneasy about that fact.
But neither of them pressed the matter. They let silence fall until Aria came back, filled waterskins bundled in her arms as she relayed the message that Kienza would be back shortly, that she'd already eaten and they shouldn't wait for her. Which was just as well, because the rationed meat had just finished cooking and none of them could ignore their rumbling stomachs.
Aria finished within m
inutes, and as her sated hunger chased fatigue away, she dashed over to the saddles piled on the ground to tug at the ditchlings' branch. The knots held fast and seemed even to tighten as she struggled, but before she could turn and call frustratedly for help, Rathen was already reaching over her.
He trimmed the wood down with a quick spell following her meticulous instruction, then she rushed back to the campfire - carefully, as her father called behind her - and sat down beside Anthis as he looked over the notes he'd gathered that day, while Garon pored over a map to locate their position on the other side of the flames. They both frowned at her as she giggled quietly to herself in excitement, but as a glint of light caught their eye from the blade she hacked through the thin bark, Anthis gasped in alarm.
"Should she be doing that?!" He stammered, twisting towards Rathen with dismay in his gaping eyes, but Rathen waved the concern away, assuring them a little too mildly that she was fine, and returned without another word to his spot by the fire. But despite how easily her father had redirected his attention, they couldn't tear their eyes away, and their breath tightened as they watched her hands move faster with the knife than any parent should have been comfortable with, yet with more control than either of them yielded to notice.
Moments later, Kienza appeared from the black forest. All eyes turned towards her, but she looked only to Rathen. "Walk with me," she said softly, half turning back towards the woods as she beckoned him, and the others silently and curiously watched him rise and follow her off into the tangled darkness.
They walked quietly, side by side to nowhere in particular, far from the reach of the firelight, and said not a word until Kienza cast a backwards glance towards the meagre glow of the camp. "So," she began, satisfied that they were beyond earshot, "how are you finding your new friends?"
Rathen groaned and rolled his eyes, folding his arms huffily across his chest, but she was already laughing.
"Oh you're loving it, aren't you? I bet you've been laying the misery on really thick."
"I haven't," he frowned, a touch insulted.
"No more than usual," she corrected. "And I expect you've clashed with both of them. The inquisitor seems to be in charge, so I'm sure you intentionally don't listen to him, and Anthis is young and excitable - you really must hate him."
"I don't hate him," he objected said slowly, determined neither to suggest she was right nor admit otherwise, "he's just...more lively than I'm used to."
She smiled and cocked an eyebrow. "Sweetheart, you're 'used to' Aria and I. He can't be more lively than the two of us."
"No, he isn't I suppose, but he's more lively than I'd like a stranger to be."
"Well," she sighed, "he thinks highly of you, at least."
Rathen frowned, surprised, and stepped down the ledge ahead of them and offered her his hand. "He does?"
"Yes," she replied, accepting his help. "I mean, he didn't say as much, but I thought it was quite obvious in his manner, and he was quicker to follow my flame than the other one was. He's very curious about you, too - but I suppose anyone would be."
"And about you," he added.
"Well," she grinned, flicking her stormy hair, "who wouldn't be?"
Rathen shook his head, but he smiled all the same. "You are certainly something else."
"Aren't I just?"
He stopped and caught her waist, kissing her more affectionately than the last, and she smiled warmly when they parted.
"So," she continued, conjuring a blanket which she lay across the muddy ground, while Rathen narrowed his eyes curiously at the fact that she hadn't formed any seals. But, as usual, it was a detail he chose not to question. "How exactly do you plan to 'fix' this magic?"
Hopelessness suddenly twisted his face as he dropped down heavily beside her. "I honestly don't know. Garon wants to hunt down some elven relic that can supposedly remove or suppress magic, but I have severe doubts that it even exists, let alone that we can find it. And the matter seems just too severe to rely on nonsense like that, but--"
"Why do you think it's serious?"
Rathen frowned and looked into her eyes. The moonlight that managed to leak through the leaves above revealed their powerful interest; they bore no doubt or scepticism, and he knew she was asking him plainly for his thoughts, not making a rhetorical remark.
"Because the magic is already affecting other countries. Lands are being torn apart, there have been floods, droughts, and people have been killed in the process. It's only just started to affect Turunda, but, if left alone, it would certainly go the same way. And as for the magic itself... I don't know, but I fear it has the potential to be used as a weapon. If mages somewhere have figured out how to pool it, or at least draw on it, then they have what are essentially wells of raw power just waiting to be drained all across the continent. I can't think how they could possibly manage it, but you told me yourself there was something unnatural about it."
"There certainly is." Her eyes sharpened peculiarly, sending a chill right through him. "But you've not touched on even half of it. Never mind the drying of marshes, flooding of forests and floating hills," she continued, ignoring the alarm that suddenly flashed in his eyes, "the chasms are continuing to deepen and lengthen, and already Dolunokh is set to split in half if any more of the tears meet. People have died, as you've said; villages to cities have been destroyed, and there are locations in Turunda primed for exactly the same thing. The sites of magnetism are spaced together just close enough that, if a tear formed at one in every four, the whole of Arasiin could be torn apart."
Rathen stared at her, his eyes alight with growing dread.
"Then there's the danger this magic poses to mages," she continued just as intensely. "The rebellion in Qenra was the only real one, but the events that encouraged them were tied to it. At first, everyone thought they were attacks made as a show of strength to frighten people into mages' submission, but the truth is far from as simple. Just as magic is being forced to the surface of people well past their prime, and even strengthening some who were already fully instructed, a few have been driven mad by it, losing control of their minds and their magic. They've killed themselves - some accidentally, some not - and killed others along with them, mages and otherwise. And while only a few individuals seem to be at risk, a single mage can cause a lot of damage and there's no way of knowing just who is vulnerable.
"Mages in other countries have already succumbed, and just as the state of affected land is worsening, the number of affected mages also continues to grow at an alarming rate. If left unchecked, who's to say what more this impossible magic could do? It could begin to affect spells already woven, or cause elven-made cities to collapse, killing thousands the country over - and none of this is even mentioning the social upheaval for anywhere lucky enough to remain untouched! Mages are already seen in a bad light, and they won't stand for the oppression that would come of this. Then it won't be a small faction within the Order people should worry about rebelling, it would be all mages, because they would have no choice but to fight tooth and nail for their freedom."
Rathen hadn't blinked. His heart had sank so low it now sat in his stomach, even as he felt it hammering in his throat. But she seemed not to notice his horror - or perhaps she had, but had decided that he needed to hear everything anyway.
"Not only that," she continued, her severity unwavering, "but this magic should not be here. You've been through Wrenroot, you've felt it yourself, and I'm sure you've come to the same conclusion, which is presumably why you're still out here."
"But what is so wrong about it?!" His voice finally burst free from his strangled throat as exasperation took over; in her own special way, she'd told him so much and yet nothing at all, and rendered his panic so clear in his eyes he couldn't have hidden it if he'd tried with all his might. "Where has it come from?!" He demanded. "And why?! I can see in your eyes that you know something, Kienza! Tell me!"
She shook her head calmly. "I only suspect something; I have nothing to b
ack it up with. At this point it's little more than a guess, and I won't distract you with what may well turn out to be a falsehood."
He stared at her, his desperate plea still burning in his haunted eyes, but she returned his stare levelly, unmoving. His jaw tightened. His task had suddenly quadrupled in weight, and he was more than prepared to fight whatever she knew it out of her. But...he knew her too well. If she had decided to keep a secret, not even the threat of death could free it from her lips.
He sighed roughly and turned away, suddenly certain that he wouldn't be sleeping that night, then felt a familiar wash of comfort as her hand came to rest upon his shoulder. She smiled softly. "I'm sorry. Give me time, first. Now, do continue: 'too severe to rely on nonsense like relics...'"
Rathen sighed again, only now understanding the true weight behind his own words. "As we've established," he continued, making an effort to calm himself, though it came easily as hopelessness gripped him and turned his whole body to lead, "it's serious. And some kind of elven relic probably could do the job if it exists, but if it doesn't...if it doesn't, then it's all down to me."
"What is it they expect you to do?" She asked with that same interest again.
"Repair the artefact--"
"Which you could do; it would have been a complex spell, few elves would have been able to maintain it, so those who cast it would have safe-guarded it against disintegration. I'd think there'd be enough left to work with."
"That's what Anthis said, but I'm more willing to trust your word on it over his. And..." he chuckled humourlessly, "Garon thinks that if the elves could create a spell to suppress magic, then so can I." He shook his head helplessly. "It's like the Order all over again."
"The Order may have had a point - perhaps you do have untapped power. They wouldn't have kept pressing it if they didn't truly believe it."
Rathen's brow flattened at her boldness. "Don't. Start."
She turned him an impish grin and his temper dissipated readily. "Sorry. But either way, who's to say you can't do it?"
"Who--wh--every single thing we know about magic!" Rathen blustered, aggravation quickly spilling back over him, and he wondered despondently if perhaps he was the only one who actually understood magic after all. "I would have thought you of all people would know that!"