We crowded around Dominic, congratulating him, but I held back. I wanted to see his real reaction if he was honestly happy. Was he just feigning happiness for the good of the others? Dominic would do something as noble as that. Everyone started talking at once over each other after they congratulated him. Meanwhile, I slipped by Adam and Emilie to talk to Dominic. He glanced up from studying his palm.
“Are you happy about this now that it happened?” I asked, a bit tentative.
“It’s all right, I guess. I’m just pleased I got my Vatra.” He shrugged his face a mask of stiffness. The happiness started to drain from his face, and I couldn’t tell if it was due to me talking to him or if his true feelings were coming out. Did that mean that he wasn’t happy?
“Are you sure?” I asked, knowing that I was being annoying. I just wanted a straight answer. Dominic turned his head, golden eyes hard.
“It doesn’t matter. Why would it matter to you? You ask too many questions!” His eyes were bitter, making my anger flare.
I stared at him for a moment before turning my head away and closing up. His words hurt me, but I didn’t want him to know just how much. “I’m sorry if my questions upset you,” I said each word slowly, avoiding his gaze. After that, I walked away from him and back over to Emilie and Austin.
Dominic could talk to himself, for all I cared. I didn’t like the tone in his voice; it made me feel like I was nothing. He wasn’t special, just because he got his Vatra. Emilie watched my face, probably reading any feeling of emotion that I was trying to hide. She had probably watched the whole thing; she noticed everything. I knew that the moment everyone wasn’t paying attention, she would be bombarding me about what had happened. I relaxed, trying to dispel my anger. I was probably overreacting, but I couldn’t help it.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Kat asked, her copper eyes bright as she joined us.
“Yes, I think that he’ll do very well. I’m glad that we have finally found the Chosen One.” I felt very contemptuous at the words Chosen One. To me, Dominic was just one of the four of us that had been training hard. He had just happened to be the one they were looking for.
“I don’t think he can do it,” Austin said, looking a bit angry and hostile.
“Why not?” I asked, wondering where his anger what his anger was fueled from, and why it was so strong. I still didn’t understand why Austin didn’t like Dominic.
Austin turned his attention to me. “He’s just so… stuck up. He acts like he is so cool and like he’s better than the rest of us. I can’t stand it.” Austin admitted the words, awakening some of what I had just felt from Dominic’s dismissal.
He did always act cool, but Austin did too, sort of. Still, Austin was always ready to bend down and help, while Dominic kept his back straight and watched. But, I thought Dominic was nice, just different. He didn’t fit into the mold of the others because he tended to be quiet, and some of the things he said were too honest. The kind of things people wouldn’t say- he was willing to say them.
Kat answered while I thought. “You shouldn’t give him such a hard time. Moving here has been hard on all of us. You haven’t helped much.”
I sighed, turned to Patrick, and tried to put on a convincing smile. Out of all the people here, it would most likely fool him. To my surprise, his gaze didn’t fall to me but moved over my head to something behind me. I turned, almost bumping right into Shay, who appeared out of nowhere.
“Oops, sorry,” I said, barely getting a notice from her.
“Hello, Group Zeleti. I need to borrow Dominic for a few minutes,” Shay said, a hand on his shoulder. While she was cordial, she seemed tense like she did often than days. Still, instead of being congratulatory, she seemed unmoved by the new knowledge that I’m sure she already knew. That Dominic was the Chosen One.
“Sure,” Patrick said, shrugging at me.
They walked away, and I watched their backs for a few minutes. The moment they were out of hearing, Shay began talking to Dominic and gesturing. I wondered what she was talking to him about, but he gave a single glance back, and his eyes met mine. I couldn’t read the expression on his face yet it still perplexed me. Were they talking about me or something? Why?
Emilie wanted to get back into the poker game, but I found myself not feeling very social anymore. I wanted to spend some time alone and do some training. The news about Dominic left me feeling all kinds of weird emotions. Part of me, I knew, wanted to be the Chosen One for some reason. I couldn’t explain it, but since I had gotten to Aughmortor I had been dreaming of becoming strong. I wanted others to look at me and know that I wasn’t someone to mess with. This new knowledge made Dominic feel farther away from me and made me disappointed for some reason. Our group dynamic would change now that Dominic was the Chosen One. He would be the priority. We would fight to protect him. My feelings for him were more confused than ever, and I found myself getting irritated just thinking about them.
“I think I might do my own thing and train for a while,” I said, getting up from the table and walking away. My friends knew I sometimes needed alone time, so I knew they wouldn’t take it personally.
“She’s so determined, like she has nothing to lose, and everything to prove.” I think it was Kat, who spoke the words, but she wasn’t exactly right. I had things to lose like my friends and family. I had everything to prove if I wanted to be known as strong Ones of Within member. I probably would be able to find an empty room somewhere around here.
I had bought myself a plain brown belt in Sybra a week ago with a Honam and a few Tribla. It had lots of pockets in it, something new to me. I had picked it out because I could put my daggers, sword, and important things in its pockets and take it anywhere with me. I stopped by my room for a few minutes, bringing the magic book with me and grabbed what I needed. Once I was done, I went around the Kartica, looking for open rooms, but it seemed impossible to find a room that didn’t have anything to break in it.
Finally, I decided to practice on the training grounds. As I walked onto the fields, I noticed that it was freezing cold out. I should have brought a second jacket. I didn’t want to waste time to get another one so I would have to tough out the cold. I walked over to a tree, a dagger in my hand. I marked an X very lightly on its bark, not wanting to damage the tree too much. Someday, I would be able to create a target with magic or teleport one to me. Someday.
I felt my heart sink. Magic was the easy answer to this, but nothing happened when I tried to perform magic. I couldn’t calm my mind as everyone else could. Kat found it easy, which surprised me cause she was a pretty anxious person. Austin hadn’t completed any magic yet either, but he could still hit the targets in archery with a bow and arrow, another thing I couldn’t do. I felt like I was behind everyone in the two subjects. I walked over to my book, straining to read it in the darkness. Maybe, I could just try to make a light appear, so it was easier to work?
I knew that my thoughts would be wasted and that I wouldn’t complete it, but I still wanted to try. I figured out the word for light in a few minutes and held out my hand. I imagined a nice ball of light a few inches in front of me in my mind. “Layum.” I whispered.
“Let’s see if you are gifted in the art of using the part of your mind that is hidden.” Zâdia’s words were never hard to remember due to her strong presence.
A strange calming sensation swept through my body. My arm tingled as though it was falling asleep. I didn’t want to open my eyes because I knew what I would see. I opened my eyes very slowly. In front of me, a small orb of light pulsed in energy. I felt the magic on it with my weak conscience. I touched it, so exultant, feeling the warm light with my fingers. I had completed the magic! Finally! Had my mind finally been able to concentrate on one thing? Had I finally learned to fully believe that magic existed? I pulled my hands back, fingers back into the bitter cold. If I produced fire, maybe I wouldn’t be so cold.
I imagined a few flames of light in orb formed a few inches above my hands a
nd shouted, “Frâgror.” Nothing happened. It hadn’t worked. I glared at my hand. Was it tantalizing me by letting me produce magic once, but never again? I closed my eyes and concentrated on the image in my mind again, making sure that I didn’t distract myself when I said the word Frâgror. This time, I actually felt a little magic coming out of my hands, which I hadn’t felt the first time I produced magic. I felt the light warmth of fire envelope me. It felt nice in the cold night. Somehow, today was the day I finally could perform magic. Some mental block had disappeared within me, and I had finally done it.
I decided not to tell my friends that I could produce magic, at least for now. What if I failed at it later during training? What if I needed to do magic at one moment, and it didn’t happen? For now, I would keep this to myself, because it was for the best.
Chapter Nineteen
The darkness of the night enveloped the dark leather armor covering Lyte’s skin, hiding her in the shadows. An iridescent dagger was held firmly between her teeth as her legs curled around the metal pole in front of her, and she pulled herself over the edge of the Slâva rooftop. Her soft leather shoes hardly made a sound on the well-made rooftops of the elven city. In nighttime, the streets were dark, albeit the mage lights that speckled around the city. From below the rooftops, the faint sound of voices began. Lyte launched herself carefully over the edge of the rooftop, and her feet hit the ground with a light thud. She pressed herself against the side of the wooden home and listened for something of interest. James had assigned her to do espionage on Slâva to see if she could find any of the roots of the Coalition buried in the city. The job had, so far, been no easy task, but she wasn’t leaving without something to show for it.
“Shurik dislikes the excessive amounts of travelers that reach the city.” One of the elves whispered in a gruff, masculine voice. Lyte inched herself closer to the conversation, knowing she might’ve struck gold. She’d been in Slâva before and knew very well how most of the elves were known to gossip about the politics of the day, just at the Ones of Within did.
“Valencia never allowed travelers from Romanin, Vale, or Lîva into the city, and they just keep coming.” Shurik, the latest sovereign of Slâva, recently replaced Valencia after she was murdered by one of her private guards. He’d been publicly humiliated and executed, but his secrets had died with him.
“Someone claimed the other day the travelers came to embody their city into global proportions.” A voice chirped into the discussion. Lyte sighed and crouched closer to the ground, ignoring the burning in her legs.
“Is that what you think?” One of the elves laughed and kicked up a large body of dust into the darkness. Lyte could see the clouds of brown that coated the air only a few feet from the wall she was pressed against. “I think Shurik’s hoping they’re going to join them-“
“That cause is disgraceful!” A maternal elf snapped, sounding characteristically like an old, frantic mother protesting the obscurities of the town elves. “These streets are seeded with the evil of wrongdoing. My children won’t be connected with that Coalition, and I suggest you keep yours away from it too.”
Lyte drew away from the discussion, disgusted by the lack of knowledge she’d found out. None of those elves seemed even related to the Coalition; they were just gossiping about what the Coalition was doing and how it was influencing the society. The elves hadn’t changed at all in the past six months. Lyte slipped through the small alleyways of Slâva and pulled her dark hair over her ears. From far away or even close up, it would be hard to tell that Lyte wasn’t elf because of her practiced, graceful manner. The only thing that would distinguish Lyte from the elves was the shape of her face and her human ears.
Several of the long alleyways met in a circular clearing with a large, fountain spouting out tubes of clear water. Lyte bent in front of the fountain, cupping her hands and taking a small drink of the water. In daytime, the fountain was filled with elven children splashing around. The darkness seemed to send Slava into hiding. Lyte stood up, hearing the faint sound of footsteps and turned to see a hooded figure heading towards her with purpose. James had told her that Shurik didn’t know of her trip and that she couldn’t get caught. Slâva’s guards tended to wear thick leather armor practically identical to the set she was wearing right now. This hooded figure couldn’t possibly be anything other than trouble.
Lyte walked over to the hooded figure as though nothing was up, holding up the tattoo on her wrist. She didn’t want to fight anyone; where would she leave the body? Usually, the tattoo on her palm tended to stop the elves from finding suspicion; Lyte found that although she had been the one to save that old elven woman, the gift she had given her in return had saved her life several times.
“Human girl,” The hooded figure droned in a suspicious tone, holding out his hands in a motion of mock-respect but didn’t fool Lyte. “Your hair cannot hide what your blood cannot.”
Lyte’s hair blew up in the wind as she stared defiantly at the figure. “What do you want from me?” She asked, deciding that it might be smarter to take a more neutral approach than an all-out aggressive one.
“Humans shouldn’t wander around the streets of Slâva in the middle of the night. The streets aren’t as safe as they once were.” The voice continued like she hadn’t even spoken.
“I am no ordinary human.” Lyte hissed in reply, withdrawing a dagger from her belt. “If you know what’s best for you, you’ll leave before I have to find a place to hide your chilling body.” She wasn’t patient with conceited elves who thought they were better than humans.
“Let me guess… Ones of Within member? Sybra is far away; I’m surprised James even allowed one of you to walk among our streets. The Creed does its best to weed its streets of the likes of you.”
“The Creed?” Lyte blurted out, before silently cursing her stupidity. The last thing she had wanted to do was come off senseless. This was exactly something James had asked her to learn about; Shay had recently come upon the makings of a cult in Slâva meant to drive out the Coalition and the Ones of Within from Slâva’s existence. The elves didn’t like the influence of the Ones of Within on Aughmortor and believed that the cause considered itself the rulers of the whole country when it should be the leaders controlled their people. The elves considered themselves a separate entity from the Ones of Within, and they didn’t want to be grouped as the same thing. Also, they wanted their city to become isolated from the other races to dispel its ‘impurities’. None of the Ones of Within members had been killed yet, but one of them had been publicly attacked here a few weeks ago, hence the secret mission.
“James doesn’t know of the Creed?” The elf laughed again. “I guess the Ones of Within aren’t as well informed as they pretend to be… I don’t give the Creed enough credit.”
With a fluid motion, Lyte tore the hood from the elf's head in rage. To her disbelief, the figure in front of her had ghastly pale skin with an oval-shaped head and menacing silver eyes. The figure was not an elf and, somehow, didn’t seem entirely human; the shape of the eyes and face wasn’t right, and the ears were curved like a human’s. Under her fingertips, the skin started to crumble into dusty chalk the color of a light tan. The chalk filled the air in fumes that stung Lyte’s eyes and made her cough. She stumbled away from the crumbling figure, a hand over her eyes and mouth. The man’s laughter resounded in Lyte’s ears. Finally, by the time her eyes had stopped streaming, and she was in taking fresh breaths of air, the figure appeared again from behind her. Lyte pivoted as she heard the quiet sound and kicked the figure hard in the kidneys, but the man didn’t even seem fazed by the action.
“What are you?” Lyte demanded, fists clenched in frustration; most elves would have bowed over from the strength of that blow.
“I go by the name Felix.” The man said, his pale hands reaching his hood and throwing it off behind him theatrically. When Lyte had first seen the man’s face, she had only noticed his piercing pale skin and eyes. Now, she got to admire all t
he details of his fine face. His thin, dark eyebrows that were barely a half-inch away from his long, dark lashes and the protruding, jutting cheekbones and chin. The man’s cheeks were almost completed hollowed out except for the light curve of his cheek near the jawline. His pale, silver eyes regarded her own before he drew the dark locks that were tumbling into her face behind her ear. Lyte pulled her head backward sharply, holding the daggers in her hand. If this man, Felix, got any closer, she would pummel him to death with her daggers.
“What is yours?” Felix asked in a quiet voice. The last thing Lyte needed to do was a hand off her name to some creepy stranger.
“Violet.” Lyte lied carefully, coming up with the first name that came to mind. She could probably pass for a ‘Violet’ anyways; her dark hair and pale skin kind of helped with the image.
“Liar.” Felix hissed, but then broke into a laughter that shook his whole body. Lyte stared at him, mystified. He was laughing at her when she had about ten different weapons in her possession? Then again, Felix had just crumbled into dust. She flicked her eyes to the side, and, sure enough, there was a coating of tan dust on the ground a few feet from her feet.
“Perhaps,” Lyte replied in a calm voice. “But, I have a task, and the last thing I should do is hand over my name to strangers. So, unless you’re going to give me any information, we might as well get started with this.” She flashed one of her daggers towards him as a warning.
“What information would you like?” Felix whispered silkily before opening his mouth and showing off a few, pointed teeth. Now, she was fairly certain he wasn’t nearly as human as his cocky attitude gave and his appearance. There was something about his aura that seemed inhumane, and his aura was strong enough to contend with James’s.
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