by Kim Wedlock
"Magic," Rathen cackled acridly, rising easily back to his feet where he'd landed a few paces away, and responded in kind without a trace of reluctance. Anthis may have somehow used magic without casting any signs, but the mage formed the seals so quickly that Anthis similarly had no time at all to react. He was thrown back twice the distance, landing heavily in the dirt with a thump and a winded gasp, but before Rathen could take advantage of the result, his wrists were snatched and wrenched behind him, a knee struck the small of his back, and he was pushed swiftly to the ground. Anthis was restrained by Garon in the same instant, and as Rathen demanded that Petra release him, he finally heard Aria's young voice, racked by emotion, screaming above the clamour for them both to stop.
He looked around to her, shame engulfing him in a tidal wave as he finally caught up with himself, and found her big grey eyes looking desperately between the two of them. She was angry. She was confused. She was distraught. But most of all, she was incredulous. The wisdom she was too young to bear was shining through again, and both Rathen and Anthis squirmed under her furious gaze.
"Even an eight-year-old thinks you're acting like children," Garon spat. The addition of his authoritative tone made them feel even smaller, as well as the fact he presented. "Now pull yourselves together and keep away from each other. I'm not going to tolerate any more of this."
But Rathen couldn't help himself. "And what--"
"You don't want to know what I will do about it," he snarled. He yanked Anthis to his feet with shocking ease and shoved him off to one side of the camp, then stormed towards Rathen as Petra stepped off of him, moving instead to Aria's side, and threw him towards the other. "Go and cool off. Now."
Neither needed telling twice. Both spun on their heels and marched away.
Rathen paid little attention to where Anthis went. He'd have stayed for Aria, but he knew she didn't want to talk to him. Not because he'd frightened her, but because he'd disappointed her. And because that thought prompted shame to rise again like boiling water, he thundered off into the trees, growling to himself rather than listen to his own voice berate him.
There was a stream deeper in the forest. They'd heard its gurgle while attempting to hunt in the sparse, sandy forest, but harpies had attacked before they'd had the chance to reach it. If just to trick himself into thinking he was walking with a purpose rather than storming off to sulk, he decided to task himself with finding it, and when he did, he would wash the desert from his skin, drink as much as he could and just relish the fresh water, forgetting, for the moment, all the trials and desperate situations currently being thrust upon him, for it was very nearly all he could bear.
"Rathen."
The instant froze in time.
His legs halted as if the ground had reached up and ensnared him on the spot, roots coiling, rock clamping, and his heart erupted into his throat.
That voice... That unmistakable voice...
His blood had turned cold, if it still pumped. He couldn't turn. He didn't dare.
Softly spoken, it reverberated through his head and deafened him in cascading echoes.
His mind was spinning. How long had he been standing there? Seconds? Or hours?
Why here? Why now?
Unbidden, his head slowly turned, stretching the eternity, and as his wide, uncomprehending eyes locked onto the figure standing not five paces away from him, so still as to have been mistaken for a tree, his heart burst into an uncontrollable hammering as though it sought to shatter his ribs.
He stared. He wasn't sure if he was blinking. He wasn't sure he was even thinking. His thoughts were either moving so fast they had become a constant blur, or they weren't moving at all. He found himself curiously disconnected, in fact, as though he was suddenly standing beside himself, looking between the two of them with perfect mental clarity. But whatever his other self was thinking was far beyond his grasp.
The second him didn't return even at the sound of hurried footsteps approaching from behind, even at the accompanying flash of steel. But his body moved, even if he didn't feel it, and his voice rose, even if he didn't hear it. 'No,' he thought he had cried, perhaps in alarm, 'leave her.'
He found himself barring their path. Petra's eyes flicked between him and the figure beyond, confusion just as evident in her eyes as he thought were in his. "Rathen?" She spoke slowly, warily. "What's going on?"
The light glinting over Garon's sword from beside her caught her eye as well as his, but her bewilderment only grew, as equally as her alarm, when she caught the mixture of recognition, dread and suspicion on the inquisitor's face and watched him ever so slightly ease his sword. Rathen, too, slowly identified the myriad of reactions, and began to discover his own beneath the incapacitating shock.
She spared only a cursory glance behind them as Anthis came rushing in. "What is it?" She looked critically back to the woman who stood patiently a few feet beyond them, observing them all coolly. "Who is she?"
He felt defiance knot further in his expression, but as he looked wonderingly back towards her to make sure he wasn't losing his mind, his eyes wide beneath tight black brows, haunted with disbelief, his mind slowly, painfully slowly, began to function again. There was no mistake. There could never be any mistake.
He turned his defiance back to the others. "She's my wife."
Chapter 51
Silence gripped the forest as his words hung in the air, persistently airborne like a falling downy feather. Everyone stared stupefied, their gaze shifting slowly between him and the unrattled woman he shielded, expressions frozen but for the steadily cascading and predictable chain of thought revealed in their eyes.
Rathen, however, had begun to rediscover his bearings, and as he cast another look of awe back around towards her, a soft, affectionate smile he could never have fought curved his lips and brightened his dark eyes. "Elle..."
She returned it, a beautifully soft, comforting smile, one that transported him back in time, brutally, wonderfully. There was a certain abashment within her warm, brown eyes, one that took him even further back, twenty five years, maybe more, and stirred within him even more distant memories. But there was a shame there, too, and a doubt of the wisdom of this moment, but though he found himself wondering the same thing, he decided, quite simply, that he didn't wish to think on it. He turned and approached her, half expecting her to vanish like a spectre of his past, but instead her smile broadened into one of relief at his acceptance and she eagerly left her place among the trees to meet him.
But another figure appeared suddenly between them. Garon, it seemed, had the same doubts of wisdom, but he was quite unaffected by the sentimentality that had silenced it within them. He fixed the woman with cold, sharp, calculating eyes before speaking with contemptuous suspicion. "How did you find us?" He growled. "What do you want?"
Her eyes, so beautiful only a moment ago, hardened under the brief interrogation and became suddenly unreadable. "I have information you need to hear."
"I'm sure you do," he sneered. He didn't need to look around to know that Rathen's hand was about to grasp his collar and wrench him out of the way. "Rathen, keep away from her."
As expected, he shoved him to one side and positioned himself once more between the inquisitor and his wife. His dark eyes were steel. "No. Put down your sword."
"Move. Now."
Menace edged Rathen's stare as he slowly raised his hand. "The sword."
The inquisitor met his gaze, but the intent within them was clear. Garon's frown tightened in disbelief. "Are you serious?"
"Dead serious."
"What's going on?" Petra asked from behind them, her tone rising in alarm. "Who is she? Really? Who are you?"
The woman's brown eyes softened as they flicked towards her and she offered a friendly smile, but Garon interrupted vehemently before she could speak.
"She's one of Salus's agents. A ghost."
Petra, and Anthis beyond her, paled. If it was possible, they fell even stiller.
&nb
sp; "My name is Taliel," the woman amended, "I'm an Aranan operative, and you can trust me."
"You would say that."
"We can."
Garon's focus crashed back onto the mage, the anger and mistrust in his usually dispassionate grey eyes intensifying. The inquisitor was prepared for many scenarios, it seemed, but this encounter was not among them. "And you know that?" He challenged icily. "As a fact? As an absolute certainty? Because she has certainly lied before, her very profession demands it. As she has, no doubt, directly to you."
But Rathen remained steady. "I do. I trust her. Completely."
Garon snarled, then looked back towards the woman. "Prove it."
"How is she supposed to prove it?"
But she was already stepping past him. Swords had readied the instant she'd moved, their sharp edges angled towards her in a way that set Rathen's blood on fire, but he caught as she levelled a subtle but familiar scent, not one of perfume, but one of her. One that lifted his heart and tainted him with remorse as equally as her smile, but subdued him like an enchantment all the same.
Ignoring the blades, she handed the inquisitor a sealed sheet of parchment, who snatched it none too politely and immediately broke it open. Everyone watched impatiently, straining to see for themselves its contents or trying glean it from his reaction. But he was as unreadable as always. More so, in fact, and quite certainly due to the presence of a keen-eyed operative, even if she was paying his response very little attention.
He folded it back up and handed it tartly to Rathen, who noticed immediately the impression of the Crown's insignia within the broken white wax. "'Lord Elias Malson'," he read aloud. "I remember that name...the go-between for the Arana and the Crown?" He handed it back to Garon. "It has the Crown's official seal."
Garon screwed the parchment up with unnecessary drama and folded his arms tightly across his chest, clearly dissatisfied. "The Arana is an official body, and a deceptive one. This means absolutely nothing. We know you're after the artefact, so how can we know you're not trying to get information out of us?"
"For the simple fact that I will not speak of the matter."
"Someone like you wouldn't need to speak of it."
She smiled drily. "Nor will I use any crystal balls, probe any minds or question under duress."
Garon glared, unamused, but Elle ignored it. She straightened, raised her chin, flicked her brunette waves and let a severity fall over her. Rathen couldn't help smiling to himself. He had been on the receiving end of that look many times, and even seeing it from the sidelines, he felt a similar solemnity rise within himself. It was Elle, without a doubt.
"Salus is watching you," she told them plainly, looking from one face to the next as Anthis slowly joined them. "He's been following your trail for weeks, looking for the artefact, just as you have, and employed Tem Drassa to help him find it." Each reeled at the ease with which she'd revealed its name, but Anthis took a moment to scoff at the mention of his inferior colleague. Her eyes then fell onto him, and he took a wary half-step back as his voice caught in his throat. "And he's always kept a close eye on you, Mister Karth."
"We already knew that," Petra told her with the same caution.
"Yes, your inquisitor has been informed, but only of so much. Salus has been watching you closely."
"...How closely?"
"Closely enough to have snatched a bag." She looked suggestively towards Anthis, whose eyes brightened in relief as his shoulders sagged, the unseen weight they'd carried evaporating in an instant.
"But the fire..." He felt everyone's panic then focus upon him. "There is nothing in there that Salus or Drassa will make anything out of," he assured them urgently despite his foolish smile. "Not a thing."
"No," Elle agreed, "but his pet mage might." The concerned stares became suddenly ashen with horror. "A prisoner, arrested at Stonton," she explained. "Who has taught him to awaken his own magic."
"What?!" Their horror increased exponentially. "How--" Rathen's face dropped in grim realisation. "The magic. It's been strengthening dormant power in others, there--"
"Partly." She offered him a apologetic smile. "His prisoner sensed the magic growing in him. Apparently it has always been strong enough to qualify him for tuition in the Order, but when he was learning to suppress his emotions, he suppressed his magic, too. He became a phidipan at sixteen, so when his magic would have awoken he was already shutting himself away. His magic must have gone with it. And now, just like all these new mages popping up like dandelions, his magic was strengthened to the point that he couldn't suppress it anymore. The mage sensed it and offered his help."
"Why would he do that?" Rathen frowned, bewildered. "Not only for the leader of the Arana, but for his captor?"
She shook her head, her hair bouncing with the movement. "Not for him, but for the sake of everyone else. Apparently, he's that powerful."
Rathen laughed nervously.
"I still don't understand," Petra frowned, lowering her sword a fraction. "I thought untrained magic was useless..."
This time Rathen shook his head, his expression twisted into something unreadable. "Mages aren't accepted into the Order based on the strength of their magic alone, but their...resilience. Their body's ability to contain, process and ultimately use it. Regardless of the strength of the magic, those with too little resilience can't keep the magic flowing as it should, rendering most of it inert. Those people can't be trained because their magic is more or less lifeless, and because their lack of resilience stops them from even being able to grasp it, let alone shape it. Mages who can use their magic have far greater resilience, but it still needs training. If a mage with an adequate balance of power and resilience isn't taught how to hone their control, their magic, in time, would overwhelm them or destroy them, injuring or killing others in the process. Like the mage in the desert, but...different... That's one of the reasons the Order patrols the streets of towns and cities as it does - they're looking for traces of awakening magic." He turned his uneasy gaze onto Garon and seemed reluctant to continue. "What do we do?"
The inquisitor looked to Elle. His eyes were no less suspicious, but they revealed a similar concern surfacing within him, one he was reluctant to acknowledge on the basis of who had encouraged it, but one he was professionally obliged to address. "If he has awakened his magic," he began dubiously, "it could be as severe as if he'd gotten a hold of the artefct. Quite possibly worse."
"In five days he's not learned to do more than form a light, boil water and move small things around. Ironically, the war has come to our rescue: it's been taking up most of his time. But he has awakened it, and with it he'll be able to use the artefact with his own two hands, directing it wherever he wishes on a whim, sparing no time for rational thought and reasoning." Her eyes, dark and grave, rested heavily upon each of them in turn, and each of them flinched under their weight. "You are Turunda's only chance at keeping the artefact out of his hands. If he recovers it and figures out how to use it - and with this mage of his, he very probably could..." She shook her head, and the momentary haunting in her face only hiked their dread. "I can't even begin to think about it."
Grimly, everyone else could.
The air grew heavy as they lost themselves in their thoughts, every scenario they envisioned growing steadily worse than the last. No one spoke for a long while.
But despite the density of the atmosphere, the gravity of the matter, and the smothering expectations being thrust upon them all - him above all others - Rathen couldn't help the drift of his gaze.
A gentle breeze rustled the surrounding leaves, pulling Elle out of her own reluctant thoughts. She must have felt his stare. She smiled at him, reading with ease the surprise he could feel on his face and the myriad of questions burning in his eyes.
The breeze came again, shaking the others back to the forest with shivers. But though their lips began to shape questions all at once, she smiled at them all too easily and turned away in dismissal. "That was all I h
ad to say," she declared, her light tone indicating that her involvement in the matter was concluded, then turned to Rathen, gestured in the direction he had previously been storming, and excused them both over the top of their protests.
Garon flashed immediately in front of them, but Rathen eased him out of their way. "Enough, Garon," he said firmly, though not unkindly, then walked away by the woman's side, leaving the others without another thought as they stared after them, dumbfounded once again.
Elle cast a glance back towards them once they were in the darkness of the trees, but her attention was snatched by the wistful look on Rathen's face.
"I've had this dream before," he mused, peering up towards the dim evening light that crept in through the leaves. "It was..." he smiled to himself. "But you've never said anything about Salus having magic before."
"Perhaps it's an idea you're trying to hide from," she suggested lightly. "If it were all true, it would more than complicate matters, wouldn't it?"
"Mm..."
She watched him, raising an expectant eyebrow, and he soon looked around towards her. He considered her quietly for a moment, but a flash of sorrow, of regret, softened his eyes.
"I'm not looking forward to waking up."
She frowned sadly, her amusement escaping. "Rathen, this isn't a dream..."
"No," he sighed grimly, "it's half dream, half nightmare."
She reached out and grasped his hand, pulling him firmly to a stop and looked deep into his eyes. His heart jumped. The last time she'd looked at him so intensely, he'd just been given his sentencing. His jaw knotted and he squeezed her slender fingers. "I know it isn't a dream...but..." He shook his head as he groped for the words, searching desperately for a way to translate his impossibly tangled thoughts into a form they could both understand. His eyes weakened further in defeat. "It's been eleven years, Elle. Why did you come?"
"Because I had to," she replied softly. "I'm the only one among my colleagues who had any chance of convincing you to listen. Anyone else would have been attacked as soon as they'd spoken, as soon as they'd let slip any suggestion that they were involved with the Arana. But," she smiled that heartbreaking smile, "you know me, Rathen. So very well. And your inquisitor would have to know of me, at the very least - he'd have to know a lot about you to justify the risk of recruiting you." She watched the tension knot in his jaw as a hope began to die in his eyes. Her smile saddened as she understood. "Do you know how I found you?" He shook his head. "Because I've always known where you are."