Life Beyond the Temple

by Nikolai Joslin

  I hated it. I hated everything about it. But I couldn’t have any more, and neither of us wanted less.

  I looked down at my lap and whispered, “Alright.”

  She sighed and said, “Do you want to know my favorite story?”

  I didn’t say anything. I just nodded. She pulled me against her chest, and I listened to her heart beat for a little bit while she tried to figure out what to say.

  “There was a knight who protected an ancient castle. One day the king noticed her fighting in the ring, and he encouraged her to join the tourney.”

  “Tourney?” I didn’t read a lot of those sorts of stories, and life back then didn’t interest me. Magic and creatures and mysteries are what captured my attention.

  I think she was smiling. I liked to think I could make her smile. “Tournament. Jousting and sword fights. The prize was kept a secret, and many thought it was for the princess’s hand in marriage, even the knight thought so, so she kept her gender a secret when she entered the ring.

  “She won of course, like all heroes in stories do. The prize wasn’t the maiden’s hand, but instead a job offer as the princess’s personal bodyguard. Our knight accepted eagerly. She had seen the princess from afar and found her so breathtakingly beautiful that she believed she had fallen in love.”

  “You’re a romantic, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Perhaps a little bit.” Regan laughed quietly and then continued her story. “She was wrong, of course. She was not in love with the princess, but she did fall in love with her. All of those days watching over her, all of those nights keeping her safe from harm. She was with her every day. They didn’t speak much, and in fact the princess had grown so used to the knights surrounding her that she barely paid attention to this one. But the knight loved her so. She knew she could not say anything. She was a lowly knight, and a woman at that, but she still loved her.

  “After a few years the princess received a marriage proposal, which her father quickly accepted. The knight’s heart broke, but she said nothing. She knew that she couldn’t do that to her princess, and so she watched her princess and the prince fall in love.

  “Despite all of the time the knight spent with the princess, she could not spend every moment with her, because knights must sleep too. And one of those nights she spent away from her charge, the princess disappeared. The castle searched day and night for her, the king sent groups to find her, and even the prince himself searched for his love. Our knight spent a week at the castle before one day getting up and walking out.

  “She walked and walked and eventually came upon a little hut in the forest. She knocked on the door, and an old woman hobbled out to greet her. The knight was wary of the woman but asked about the princess. The old woman said she had not seen her, but the knight discovered her lie. The old woman was a powerful mage who had escaped the Temple using dark magic, and then she kidnapped the princess in hopes of a ransom. She had hoped to give her back in exchange for her freedom, but she later realized she would be hung before she was freed, and so kept the princess.

  “The knight decided not to kill the mage, but said she would convince the princess to tell her father that a man had kidnapped her and that her knight had rescued her, killing the man. She gave the mage her freedom to live the rest of her days in the forest and took the princess back to the castle. Before they reached the castle however, the princess stopped. She confessed her fears of the marriage, and her knight comforted her. She told her to follow her heart, no matter where it led her. The knight wished for the princess’s heart to fall in love with her but did not believe it would.

  “They entered the castle, and there was the prince. He embraced his love and whispered sweet nothings that the knight was forced to listen to.”

  Regan stopped, and I looked up at her. “What happened next?” I wanted the princess to fall in love with the knight. I wanted to hear the happy ending. I remembered Regan had said her favorite story had a happy ending for one and a sad ending for the other.

  “The princess married her love the prince, and the knight lived on protecting the woman she loved without saying anything. The princess would often go to the knight for help with her marriage or her children or anything else in her life, and the knight was always there for her when she was needed. She protected her love until she died saving her from the same mage she had let live years before.”

  I frowned. “That’s a sad story.” How similar was it to me? Regan and Cam. Who was my prince, and who was my knight? I wasn’t sure anymore. I liked to think Regan was my prince, but the idea of Cam as my knight didn’t sit well with me.

  “Most of them usually are,” Regan replied. “You should get some rest. You have a bad guy to kill, don’t you?”

  I nodded, and she lowered me down. She started to get out of bed, but I grabbed her hand before she could leave. “Don’t go,” I whispered.

  She looked down at me and smiled weakly before settling herself back into bed with me. Her arms wrapped around my waist, and I yawned, suddenly feeling tired. “Never,” she whispered in my ear before I fell asleep.

  Chapter 10

  I WOKE up because something was moving around behind me. Whatever it was, I didn’t want it to go. I frowned, my eyes still closed, and pulled it toward me again.

  I heard someone laugh quietly, and I felt lips brush along my neck. “I’ll be back. I need to shower and get ready. You should too,” Regan whispered, and I sighed heavily but let her go.

  “Fine,” I mumbled unhappily.

  “Unless you want me to stay.” I could practically hear Regan’s smirk as she settled herself back into bed behind me and kissed my neck.

  I couldn’t stop myself from closing my eyes and biting my lip. “You need to stop,” I finally managed.

  “Why? I’m having fun, and you seem to be having fun.” Her hand slid around to my stomach and slipped under my shirt. Her fingers trailed along my taut stomach, and I shivered. “See?”

  “Because I have things to do.” It was getting harder to say no. I didn’t want to, but I should. I was just having trouble remembering why.

  “What things?” She brushed my hair away and kissed my shoulder.

  “I have to….” What did I need to do? “I have to help Cam.”

  She sighed and pulled away. I guess Cam wasn’t her favorite topic when we were in the middle of something. She forced a smile as she stood up and said, “You’re right. I have to start my new job today anyways. Meghan found a place for me, so I can’t be late.” She walked to the bathroom after grabbing a pair of jeans and a plain navy blue shirt.

  Maybe she liked hearing Cam’s name as much as I liked hearing Meghan’s.

  I sighed heavily and sat up. I went to check the time on the alarm clock, but as I reached my hand out, I froze.

  A little ziplock bag of white powder was lying on the nightstand.

  It’s not possible. You can’t give something to someone in a dream and have it appear in the real world. It’s not possible.

  I felt sick with fear.

  He was too powerful.

  This was too much. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t take him. None of this was possible. I knew the limits of magic. I had tried to cross the line before, and I paid dearly. Most mages tried to do that, to cross that line of possible and impossible, and the price they paid varied on how far they tried to go. Most just did little things, making something completely vanish, or to make something teleport. You can’t do that. You can levitate something and move it across the room, but for it to just appear there wasn’t possible.

  They just did something small, too small to matter.

  I had gone too far, and I knew this was something you could not do.

  I shook the thoughts from my head and looked back at the powder. How had he done this? How on earth was this possible? I didn’t think necromancers could even do this. Dark elves couldn’t do this.

  He was more dangerous than I ever thought.

  I picked it up ginge
rly and dropped it into the drawer, hoping to forget about it. I was pretty sure it would occupy my mind the entire day, but it couldn’t hurt to try. It creeped me out too much. He creeped me out.

  I lay back down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. If I managed to kill him, if by some sheer stroke of luck I completed my Proving, Regan would go back to the Temple to serve as a knight for the rest of her days. Once you were a knight, you could never turn back. This would only end badly, and it wouldn’t even be a real relationship.

  But I couldn’t have that with her. I had a necromancer to deal with, and finding the bag of powder, Clerstan, made me realize I shouldn’t even have this… almost friends-with-benefits thing with Regan. I shouldn’t have anything with anyone. I needed my complete focus on him.

  I was still deep in thought when Regan came out of the shower. “Is everything alright, Casey?” she asked when she saw me lying there grimacing.

  “Yeah,” I lied and stood up.

  Regan stepped in front of me, shocking me once again with the length of her legs. She wrapped her finger and thumb around my chin and lifted it up so I’d look at her. “I can’t help you if you don’t let me,” she said quietly.

  I pulled away from her touch and slid past her. “I’m fine, Regan.” I couldn’t let her know about the Clerstan. I couldn’t tell her about any of this. She’d freak out. It would complicate everything. It would make all of this ten times harder. I needed to talk to someone else.

  And then I realized exactly who I needed to see.

  I showered and got ready quickly. I came back out of the bathroom, grabbed my jacket, the packet of Clerstan, and said, “I’ll be here around twelve if you want to go to lunch. I’ll be back.” And then I bolted out of the door, Cinder on my heels.

  STON SAT across from me at a table in the corner of the hotel lounge. “What did you say you want to talk about?” He seemed bored, but he wouldn’t be for long.

  I dropped the powder on the table, and he looked at it curiously. Cinder whined when he saw it and lay down, putting his paws over his nose. “This is Clerstan. Don’t worry, you’ve never heard of it. It’s a temporary power source. It amplifies Life Force for a short time. It’s temporary necromancer power. He’s been using it while he looks for a permanent ‘solution.’ He created it himself. I don’t know what’s in it, but he has to be pretty brilliant to create it. Once he did, he crossed the Veil.”

  “He did what?” It was impossible for a living being to cross the Veil. The Old Ones had traveled to a sort of limbo area to talk about the Proving Journey, but to actually enter the Veil was impossible and punishable by death. The Old Ones themselves saw to that.

  I was using that word impossible a lot today. “He crossed the Veil. He’s consorting with demons.”

  He scoffed. “Fairy tales.”

  “Fairy tales are lessons and truths we’d rather forget, remember? Demons are in all the legends and myths of the ancient times. Maybe they’re not as make-believe as we thought they were.”

  Ston didn’t talk for a while, his violet eyes glued to the Clerstan between us. “If he’s dealing with demons, then he’s got bigger plans than killing a few people. He’s going to open the Veil.”

  “And let demons roam free.” I finished what he was thinking.

  “The demons have been around since the beginning of our world. They would have seen the ritual done first by dark elves.” I nodded in agreement. “We need to stop him before he finds that ‘permanent solution.’”

  “We? I thought you were done with us.” I grinned a little, but the cold fear that churned in my stomach didn’t let it last long.

  “That was before I realized the extent of this. I didn’t even think it was a necromancer you were chasing. I didn’t believe you.”

  “What makes you believe me now?” I asked. He had no proof this was what I said it was. Hell, I had no real proof.

  “He Dreamscaped you last night. I could feel it, the surge of power. No mage could give off that much power. At first I thought, because of the dark elves in this inn alone, that it was a dark elf, but it was too powerful. Not even I have that much power, and I was the strongest of my clan. I know you think you can take on the world, and I know Regan thinks she can protect you from everything, but you’re going to need more.”

  “What do you suggest?” He was right. I needed more than just Regan.

  “I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, but if we leave tomorrow we can get to Haven in about three days.” Haven? The largest elf city?

  Elves weren’t banished like dark elves and mages were by the humans. They believed themselves better than the rest of us, and so they created their own cities, places where only elves lived. They separated themselves from the rest of us by choice. What was weird about suggesting the elves was that they didn’t deal with anyone unless they were elven, especially dark elves. The dark elves and elves had a feud that traced back to before they were dark elves, when they split off from the main elven clan. Later the group became dark elves, but that was a few hundred years after the bad blood began.

  The fact that Ston suggested going to the people he hated let me know how serious he thought this was. I was glad we were on the same page.

  “Alright. I’ll tell Regan that we leave tomorrow morning.”

  “Cam too. We’ll need everyone we can get.”

  Great. Cam and Regan. This was going to a barrel full of fun. He was right, though. We needed everyone. “Alright. I’ll let her know today. And… don’t tell Regan about the Clerstan or the seriousness of the situation.” I hated doing this. I was lying, but she couldn’t know. I wasn’t sure if I wanted Cam to know yet or not, probably not. This should stay between Ston and me.

  He didn’t ask, he just nodded. “Okay. Just us, then.”

  “Thanks.”

  I was glad the conversation was over right then, because that’s when I saw Cam’s spiky blonde hair show up.

  “Case!” Cam had this huge smile as she walked up to me. She looked at Ston and back to me.

  “This is Ston. A friend. We’re going to be leaving tomorrow, so we were making plans. Ston, this is Cam.”

  Ston stood up and held a hand out to her. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a bit about you from Regan when we were looking for Casey the other night.”

  She shook his hand and then looked back at me. “You’re leaving? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Last minute idea. We have to go to Haven. You can come if you want.”

  “Why to Haven? What do you need elves for?”

  “We thought more help to find the necromancer would be good. Elves had hundreds of years tracking people and all of that, so we thought we’d give it a shot. You don’t have to go.” I knew she’d say yes, but I thought if I said she didn’t have to go, she wouldn’t think this was as big a deal as it was.

  “Of course I want to go.” Cam looked back to Ston. “Hope you don’t mind if I tag along.”

  “Not at all.” He knew what I was doing, and he played along. Ston was a better friend than I thought he was.

  “Sorry to leave so soon, but Cam and I have some training to do. I’ll see you tomorrow here, okay? Will about eight in the morning work?”

  “Sounds great. See you then.” He slid the powder off the table and into his pocket. I knew he wouldn’t use it. It was dangerous. We didn’t know what it was. I trusted Ston with it. And if he had it, I didn’t have to worry about Regan or Cam finding it.

  Cam didn’t see him put it away; I don’t think she even saw it on the table. Good news for me.

  “Come on, we should get going. I want to fit in as much training as possible. We may not have a lot of time on the road.” I wanted to work her hard because she needed it. If she was going to help me, I needed her to be at her best.

  “It was nice meeting you, Ston,” Cam said as she followed me out of the hotel. When we were out she said, “I knew you stayed in the hotel that all the dark elves go to, but I thought that was because
it was cheap. You actually know one?” She didn’t seem thrilled, but she wasn’t disgusted like most.

  “I do. He’s a good guy, helps me out when I need it, which is a lot more than you know.” I tried smiling, but it didn’t feel right, so I stopped. “I know you grew up here, so it’s sort of normal to hate them, but get to know him. You’ll grow to like him.” I hoped she would. She grew up hating mages and elves and anything not human. Even though she was a mage herself, learned all of this. That’s why she had been hiding it from the world. Fear. Shame.

  How horrible was it to be ashamed of who you are? She would grow to like him. She would find out how much they had in common soon.

  I watched Cam open the rusty old door and gesture for me to go in.

  I had more to worry about than if she liked Ston. I had to help her. I had to teach her how to become a stronger mage. I needed to help her survive anything that necromancer could throw at her. I liked Cam. She was my friend. I wasn’t going to let her die on me because I was lazy.

  I had work to do.

  A FEW hours later, it happened. I was damp with sweat from the training, so was Cam. We weren’t talking much. We were doing tai chi and practicing hand-to-hand combat occasionally, but mostly it was about building her control.

  And then I felt it. The fire, the sharp fire running along my back, like fire and ice mixed together. The burn. The horrible burn of ice and fire. The ache. Like knives coated in alcohol. Like something I couldn’t describe. Oh God it hurt. And then there was more, like a knife making its way along the small of my back. Dragging in what I thought was a random pattern. I screamed out in pain and fell to the ground.

  Cinder howled and writhed on the ground; I was sure he could feel everything I was.

  Cam ran to me, of course. I knew what she’d see, I could feel it, hot and sticky, making my shirt heavy as it soaked it in. Blood. And a lot of it.