Chapter 8-Daring, Foolhardy Heroics
When they stopped to make camp for the night, Seren worked doggedly at any tasks available, determined to prove Darrian's assumptions wrong. Meanwhile, he watched with amusement and a bit of newfound respect. There was also a softness in him as he watched her. She was so willing and so eager to help, even if she had two left feet. He had never met anyone clumsier than her.
He closed his eyes and tried to hold back a wince when she tripped over a twig and landed face first on the ground. Sighing, he walked over, held out a hand, and hoisted her up with ease. She was very light, and when he set her on her feet, a flush had spread over her cheeks. As she looked up at him, so close to him, he reached out to brush a clump of dirt from her cheek, and an incomprehensible desire to kiss her came over him.
Immediately, Darrian retracted his hand and stepped away. He couldn't imagine what he'd been thinking of. This was Serenitatis Divine, he reminded himself. The princess. The annoying little girl who couldn't even build a fire without a mishap, although he supposed that part could have be forgiven–she'd never had to build a fire before. And Kentan...Darrian's expression became even more closed when he thought of his best friend. He had nearly forgotten the looming fact that they were brother and sister...if Kentan ever found out what he had almost done, he would kill him. But he wouldn't find out, Darrian promised himself. Everything would be fine. All he would have to do was keep his hands to himself and repress all sudden, strange urges he felt towards his beautiful traveling companion. It was all very simple, except...
"Darrian? Are you all right?" Seren asked, her brow furrowed delicately with concern.
He nodded brusquely and stepped even further away. "I'm fine. Why don't you...look for the...soap and go wash while I build the fire?"
She looked at him quizzically for a minute, then nodded and ran off to do his bidding. As soon as she was absorbed in her task of rooting through their bags, Darrian let out a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair in a frustrated gesture. Things like this were not supposed to happen. He was not going to think about her in a romantic light, and he was going to focus on the task at hand.
Determination and stubbornness were qualities Darrian possessed in abundance. The problem was, he hadn't expected a princess to be the same way. Spoiled, yes, used to having her will obeyed...from the sound of it, Serenitatis had often been secluded and perhaps even neglected or abandoned in the palace to her own devices. Darrian wondered, suddenly, if she had magik. Kentan did, so his sister might.
"About the magik folk...you started explaining before, but you never finished," she said, interrupting his thoughts, back from a quick rinse of her hands and face at the nearby river. They almost always camped near some kind of water.
He sighed, wondering how much he would have to simplify things. This was partially because of her lack of political and historical understanding, but it was also because the whole explanation was extremely convoluted. "Well...let's talk about older times first. See, this hatred of the magik folk began with the nobility, and they enforced strict measures on their people. So the beginning of the not-quite-declared war the humans have with the magik folk began a long time ago, but war didn't break out until two decades ago. It lasted ten years.
At the start of the war, there had been only two ruling houses left for about a century, and they were rivals, of course, each striving to gain the upper edge. One of them was your house, Seren," he smiled lopsidedly. "You tell me the name of the other."
She made a face at him; she hated it when he tested her. He was genuinely trying to overcome his initial impression of her, she could tell, but Serenitatis wondered if he would ever be able to really see past the title. "The other was House Zurielis," she replied confidently. Her history tutor at the time had made her pay attention by raps on the head, right between the two buns of hair that had been her designated hairstyle.
"Right. Even before war was declared between them, the magik folk were on the side of the Zurielises. This was because House Zurielis was more tolerant of the magik folk, and they had their own special type of magik in the ruling family, which was a result of several of their line marrying folk.
The Divines wished to set themselves apart from their rivals, so they had been denouncing those of their number with magik or those who married those with magik for years. So when they tried to get the folk on their side right before war was declared, you can imagine how their envoy was received.
Needless to say, the reply was not very polite, and it was like a deliberate slap in the face to the Divines. They promptly cut any negotiations they had had with the magikal kingdoms off, and when war was declared, they declared it on both the Zurielises and the folk." Darrian paused to take a sip of water while his listener mulled over his words thoughtfully.
Finally, she asked, "And the Divines declared war because one of their...dukes? was assassinated, didn't they? But they never found out who was the true culprit."
He corrected, "It was a count, not a duke. But he was not that important in their hierarchy, at any rate, and they merely wanted a justified excuse to go to war. And you're right–it never was determined who killed him.
Anyway, onto what happened during the war. If the folk hadn't been involved in the war, the Divines and the Zurielises might have been about matched in numbers and strength. As it was, the Zurielises were great warriors, though. A lot of the famous heroes of the times were on their sides. Remember, Valencia, the patron of House Zurielis, is the goddess of bravery. The patron of House Divine is Lareina, queen of the gods' court. In very, very old times, when there were more houses, Divine ruled over the rest, and the Zurielis fighters protected them and fought alongside them during battle. But of course, it all changed over time.
The Zurielises began winning the war, with the help from the magik folk, and the Divines became desperate when battle after battle was lost. They decided that desperate times called for desperate measures, so they kidnaped any magik folk they could get their hands on. All sorts of horrible tortures were done to them. Several of them died, and many of them chose to join the Divines, simply because they had no other choice. They wanted to live. Some of the queen's–your mother's–pet mages that serve her today are the survivors of the war, the ones who deserted to the Divines' side, or their offspring.
They created potions–poisons–that were specifically designed to work against a certain race of folk. First they would weaken them, cause nausea, dizziness...the symptoms became gradually worse until death came to take the folk that were struck by anything dipped in the poisons. Or the most important magik folk, like the rulers, had their food laced with the poisons–they were very clever when they made them tasteless, colorless, and practically unable to be detected by most magik. The elfin royal family was especially devastated; they lost their queen and the majority of their nobility. As you can imagine, the sole heir to the throne is hard-pressed to marry and produce an heir.
But back to the war–the tide of war changed after those poisons were created; it turned in favor of the Divines. After huge numbers of their people were dying, the magik folk withdrew from the war. The elfin population had been drastically reduced, as had the land nymphs'. The naiads didn't lose too many of their number, because they prefer to stay in water. They aided in naval battles, and the Divines didn't poison the waters, because that would eventually have killed everyone else on the continent as well. The dryads, on the other hand, are a different story. They aren't particularly fond of war and bloodshed, and few of them participated in the war. The rest of them stayed in the forest, and because there were so few of them out in the open, a poison wasn't developed to work against the dryads until recently. They didn't venture forth when the news came that their...cousins, of sorts, were dying by the hundreds. The folk don't like to mix with humans now, and I don't blame them.
At any rate, with so many of their fighters lost, both human and folk, the Divines began to win. The royal family of House Zurielis had to go into hiding, but they were eventually captured and eradicated–every last one of them was wiped out."
"No survivors? None at all?" Seren whispered, horrified. The war had happened under her mother's jurisdiction....Queen Serenitatis had been the one to declare war. She hadn't been born yet, but by the time the war had ended, she had been six years old; Kentan had been eleven. And she hadn't known what was going on outside the palace walls, hadn't understood the littlest bit of it. Serenitatis had learned about the war later, from books, and that had made the war seem surreal and detached from her.
Darrian shrugged. "There are...rumors that a daughter was sent away sometime during the last year of the war. She was eight then. Of course, no one knows if it's true, since no one has come forth. I don't think, in the unlikely event that she's alive, that she would, at any rate. The minute anyone turns up claiming they're the lost heir to House Zurielis, the queen's people will be on her in a second, and there'll be an ‘accident' of sorts."
Her interest was briefly piqued by the little tale. "What was her name?"
"Who, the Zurielis heir?" he asked, confused. When she nodded, he answered, "Princess Reishiara Zurielis."
"One day, if I get the chance, I'd like to find her," Seren resolved softly. "I owe it to her, because it's my mother who did this to her and her family."
"That's all good and noble of you, princess, but have you ever thought that something like that would get you killed? And what would you say? That you're sorry but you hope everything will be okay from now on? Stop dreaming and get your head out of the clouds before someone chops off your neck," Darrian snapped. He couldn't understand why he felt so alarmed and irritable all of a sudden. Why did he care, really, if she wanted to risk her life? The problem was, he cared a lot, and it wasn't just because he had promised Kentan. She was turning out to be more interesting than he had thought she would be.
She glared at him. "Didn't I tell you not to call me ‘princess'?" she asked.
He glared back. "You're acting like one now. A very empty-headed one. Something in this world exists: it's called reality. It's time you adjusted and realized that the dreamworld you lived in just doesn't work, Seren. You have potential. You just have to work towards it."
For a few minutes, she brooded in silence, while he turned to poke at the fire. Finally, she said, "I don't understand the whole thing, the enmity between the people and the magik folk."
Darrian sighed. He'd been hoping she wouldn't ask this question; the problem was, he couldn't really grasp the whole thing himself. He should have figured that someone as compassionate and good-hearted as she was wouldn't be able to grasp the illogical hate and prejudice in the world. "Well...things were encouraged by the nobility, and commoners who married the folk, traded with them, or had any sort of communication with them were scorned, exiled, or even killed. Most of the common people didn't agree with the policies, but over time–this started a very long time ago, way before the war–they became very separate from the magik folk. Distance made the folk regarded as strange, fey, and just, well, oddities.
Then, the tension built up until war came, and the frightening things that can be done with magik are enough to make the bravest of men scared. People came to distrust and the magik folk, even if they were fighting on their side. The atrocities committed on both sides were horrible. It made a lasting impression; after the war, the people themselves began to turn away from the magik folk. It'll take a long time and a lot of hard work before they begin to accept each other again. It's not just the humans who have to make peace, either. Plenty of the folk regard the humans as lower than themselves because they don't have magik, or they're angry and bitter over the loss of their kin. Thousands and thousands of folk or humans with magik died in the fighting. War does this to people, Seren. People will do anything to survive when they're faced with the terrifying opponents that war creates.
And there's one last thing I want you to understand, Serenitatis Divine. Things like war, like the slavers capturing magik folk to bind them into service or kill them, result from misuse of power. Too much power of any kind corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is what I think happened to your mother. There are more rumors, of course, that she had some secret romance with a magik folk who left her, and then she turned her hatred and bitterness upon the folk, but personally, I think that's rubbish. She controlled your father, and when he started trying to regain the power he'd lost to her from the day he'd proposed to her, she had him killed. Kentan found proof, Seren, and because he discovered one of her secrets, the queen had him locked up. He became too dangerous, because he started to spur on the underground resistance."
Seren looked puzzled, losing the frightened expression that had come over her features when he had stated raving about power and its influence on people. "Underground resistance?" she repeated.
Darrian groaned. He hadn't meant to expose her to this part of his life, either. "Never mind," he ordered, but it was too late; he recognized that spark in her eyes that meant she wouldn't stop badgering him until he told her...and he settled himself in for a long night. He'd consider himself lucky if he still had his voice the next day.
****~**~****
Zaccheus would have cursed his luck just then if he'd thought he had any. ‘Silvana Green-Mage, how much trouble can one nymph get into?' he thought, then sighed. Knowing Malina, the amount of mischief–or damage–she could do was immeasurable. He had meant to go as far as this dingy port town and then admit defeat, returning to his safe, comfortable green woods and then sending his condolences to the land nymphs. If Malina wanted to risk her life by running around the continent senselessly, he'd let her: at home, at least, he knew who he was. Things were becoming difficult again, and he was needed at home. Unfortunately, it didn't look like he was going to get home any time soon.
His betrothed was perched atop a tree, whose branches looked sturdy enough to support her....but the problem was, a group of sailors ringed the tree and seemed bent on shaking her down. Zacch guessed that she had melted their weapons, eyeing the pool of metallic liquid with odd bits poking out at erratic intervals, but they still had their bare hands. Nathair Sidereal, who had also been reported missing and was assumed to have accompanied the now-disgraced land nymph, appeared to be busy with his own combatants and thus currently indisposed. The elfin prince shook his head. Night fighting was all well and good when done in the forest...but sailors, particularly ones that looked well-battered, weathered fighters, and very muscular tended to be more than he wanted to handle.
Sighing deeply, he tied his horse a safe distance away and stepped out of biting range: dryads tended to be better with animals, domesticated or not, than their elvish cousins, and Zaccheus had never been good around animals. Plants he could work with just fine, and he also had a strange affinity for crystals. Stepping into the shadowy shelter of a nearby pine, he let streamers of green magik, lit with golden sparks, drift into the ground. The magik moved towards the tree Mina was in, and he worked on strengthening the tree's foundation. The sailors were appalled when they suddenly realized that tree was no longer moving; they couldn't budge it the slightest inch. Zacch frowned. He wasn't one for the wild, headlong rush into battle. He preferred to keep his emotions firmly in check, and command was not one of his favorite things in the world.
Mina, meanwhile, had regained her ability to shoot accurately once she had stopped being shaken, and she was currently disabling several of the men beneath her. As they tried to run away or climb the tree, Zacch made the surrounding trees and creeper vines grab the sailors and hold them hostage. The nymph's magik combined with his to give them a strength akin to steel, and Mina climbed carefully out of the tree. Her booted foot slipped on one of the last branches, and she landed hard on top of Zaccheus.
He hadn't quite been prepared for her sudden descent, and he let out a surprised grunt as her momentum carried both of them rolling down the hill towards Nathair. The elf closed his eyes, trying to harness his power so he could reach out and ask some of the plants to stop their fall. It didn't help that her quiver was restricting his ability to breathe or that her bow was jammed into his ribs. Finally, the plants responded and caught them just before they impacted the knot of fighters that held a much-beaten Nath at their center.
Instantly, Mina got to her feet and began melting into the trees for camouflage, picking her targets. When Zacch joined her, wincing, she asked coolly, "What are you doing here?"
Even though she couldn't see him, he glowered at her. At least she was keeping her head; he didn't think he could have dealt with a female in hysterics at the moment. He also noticed that she was shooting more to disarm than to kill and approved. "Nice to see you again, too. In case you couldn't tell, I'm chasing after my renegade betrothed," he drawled, as if stating the obvious. "I should ask the same of you." More vines snaked to do his bidding, but this time, all he could find were thorny brambles. The yelps from the sailors below raised his spirits slightly.
She blushed slightly but did not reply.
At last, he asked, "What are you two doing, anyway?"
"Three," she corrected, "we met up with a runaway dryad. The slavers had caught her and administered some type of poisonous substance to her, but they had to give her some antidote because of some delay they had setting off. We ran into her in the woods when she was trying to escape them."
"So where is she now?"
"On board, trying to free the other magik people."
Zaccheus nodded silently and said nothing more until another thought occurred to him when some shiny, brass-colored objects on a ring caught his eye. It was quite sad how humans couldn't hang onto their possessions. He promptly scooped and held them up for his companion to see. "And exactly how do you expect her to do that if she doesn't have any keys?" he inquired, his tone overly-patient.
"Oops. So I forgot about one thing."
He resisted the urge to press his fingers to his temples. "And after this noble act is achieved, exactly how were you planning to get away with all those injured magik folk? I don't know about you, but my magik can't tie up all those sailors. It must have been quite a strain to melt all their weapons at once without enough time to fully concentrate."
Mina turned to scowl darkly at him. "So I missed that part, too. Do you have any suggestions?"
"As a matter of fact, I do. Why not steal the ship?"
She paused to consider for a few minutes, all out of arrows. Nath, for his part, seemed to be back on his feet and holding his own with the sailors left. Unfortunately, reinforcements appeared to be on the way. "Steal the ship...what kind of hare-brained idea is that? It's perfect! You're a genius!" She laughed gaily, more out of relief than anything else. When the expected, dry response was not heard, Mina turned to look at Zaccheus and discovered that he had disappeared into the fray below, going to rescue Nath, who appeared to have a deep gash along the upper arm and one along his side.
Mina stood still for a few minutes, considering. She hadn't been trained in any usage of weapons; she and Nath had only been able to convince her parents to let him teach her hand-to-hand fighting. The excuse they had used was that she needed to learn self-defense if she was ever being attacked by men whose intentions were to defile her. Against the brawny sailors, she doubted that she would be able to do much good.
Racing through the cover of the trees, she stopped right across from the battle and shouted, "Zaccheus! Throw me the keys!" Then she winced: her shout had promptly attracted the attention of the sailors, and when they saw the keys he held up in preparation to throw, they leaped on him as one.
He managed to toss them a short distance away, and she reached them just before the closest seaman did. Unfortunately, a nasty gleam appeared in his eyes as he zeroed in on her, and she gulped and backed away. He reached out a beefy fist to hit her across the face, but instead of contacting her face, it caught Zaccheus right in the jaw. It appeared that he had escaped his previous besiegers only to be attacked by this burly seafarer. Mina winced but did the logical thing, as he shouted (she saw his split lip open as he did so) for her to "Hurry up and run already, Malina!!"
And so she did. Nath had dispatched the other sailors, come up behind the one who had just about dislocated the elf's jaw, and knocked him unconscious. He leapt nimbly out of the way as the man toppled backwards, landing with a heavy thud. As he helped Zaccheus up, his eyebrows rose at the sight of the injuries Zacch had received. "That's one hell of a blow you took there, your highness."
Zaccheus's response was to spit out a mouthful of blood. Speaking was difficult for him, but he mumbled, "Better catch up to Mina before she gets her silly head chopped off."
"That's the spirit," Nath said, helping him stumble towards the ship, his slashes aching more than he cared to admit. The next time Mina went off adventuring, he resolved, he was going to stay home.
****~**~****
Lita slammed her palm against the locked door angrily. The folk inside were milling about–those that were healthy enough to mill about, at least. The naiad looked dehydrated and very weak, and one of the elves was hurt badly. The plan had gone fine. She hadn't been able to stay and watch, but Mina was very accomplished at her magik. Lita had almost forgotten about the metallic aspect of her magik. It had been interesting to see the iron and steel weapons start melting away. Then again, they had charged at the source of the magik even though they no longer had their weapons, and Nath had been greatly outnumbered. Mina had been shooting to defend him from the trees. Lita could only hope that she hadn't run out of arrows and that Nath was still alive. She liked him, for all that he had almost not agreed to help them.
So the beginning of the plan had worked...sort of. Except that she had forgotten to find the keys! They were probably on one of the men...one of the sailors who would be fighting Mina and Nath. Lita glared at the stubborn lock. She could work with wood, even dead wood. The problem was, she didn't know how the lock mechanism worked, and she didn't have Mina's control over metals.
Her green eyes were lit with a fierce, inner light as she cursed her own stupidity. All of a sudden, a noise from the corridor attracted her attention, and she spun around to meet the surprised face of a sailor that had been about to hit her over the head with a chair.
****~**~****
Mina managed to infiltrate the ship with fairly few problems. Slavers usually didn't have large crews; the ships were small and tight as it was, and they didn't want to attract attention. The majority of them were outside, tied up or unconscious. She'd been just about to round a corner when a flash of auburn-brown hair had caught her eye, and she ducked back to see Lita pounding on a door angrily. She'd also seen the sailor grinning foolishly, about to knock the living daylights out of her. However, Malina performed the honors first, thereby saving the dryad. She smiled at her newly-made friend and handed over the keys.
When the door was opened, they were nearly trampled by the magik folk stampeding out. Lirita handed them the little vials of antidotes on their way out, having already taken the appropriate dose for herself.
Mina told her, "There's a change of plans. Zaccheus–an elf–just happened by the struggle outside, and he suggested stealing the ship. We've just got to kick the remaining sailors off board first, then sail as far away as possible."
The eight land nymphs and six elves listened intently, then grabbed nearby weapons and disappeared to clear the upper and lower levels of the ship. The single naiad was too weak to do more than lie there, even after she drank the antidote.
Lita turned her attention back to Mina then. "Zaccheus? As in the elfin prince?"
"Unfortunately."
The brunette raised her eyebrows. "And that would be because...? What's he doing around here, anyway?"
The blonde grimaced. "I can answer both those questions in three words. He's my betrothed."
"Um...should I wish you a happy marriage then?"
"Please don't. It was scheduled for this morning, but I wasn't exactly present to partake in the ceremony."
Lita's eyes widened. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you're going to be in when you get home?"
She smiled, showing almost all of her pearly-white teeth. "Yes, but the thing is, I'm–we're–not going home. We're going to Amaranth. Nath and I are on a prophecy hunt."
"You're crazy!" the dryad breathed.
"I know. Are you coming with us?" Mina offered generously as they sped through the corridors, keeping an eye out for any adversaries.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Lita replied, smiling hugely. She was up for adventure any day, and this one was a particularly good one.
****~**~****
Amity had been shopping in the marketplace, picking through the bottles of dried herbs, roots, and flowers in hopes of replenishing her stores, when another one of the hallucination-type spells had hit her. So had the pain. Her entire left side felt like it was on fire, while her right arm felt numb. When she looked down, her vision graying, all she saw was a gory mess of blood. It was lucky that she was used to all sorts of things now, having been a healer for the past three years. A person of lesser constitution would have fainted merely from the sight the injuries. Above all, she felt like she would never be able to move the lower half of her face again. Her jaw felt stiff, numb, and immovable, and there was a deep ache in the bones.
Trying to regain her sense of orientation, Ami put her hand out to touch...roughly-sanded wood. She blinked, and for a minute, she was back in the marketplace, touching the edge of a shelf. The next minute, she was leaning heavily on an exquisitely-featured blonde. From her looks, Ami guessed that she was a land nymph. Unfortunately, she couldn't focus on much else around her, but she had the strange sensation that there was a large amount of magik in the air and several folk around her. Then her boots–except she hadn't been wearing boots that morning–bumped into something hard, and she was being helped up a gangplank hurriedly.
"Zacch, hurry," the beautiful woman helping urged, "before they come after us. We have to stop the blood flow before you die, too."
Somehow, she managed to get out, despite the injury done to her jaw, "Nice to know that's your second priority." Ami nearly had a heart-attack when the voice that issued forth from her lips wasn't hers. It was male and all too familiar.
Suddenly, two other unfamiliar people came into her line of sight: one she identified as a dryad, the other she thought was plain human. The dryad was very pretty as dryads went, with thick, flowing chestnut hair and sparkling green eyes. She was very tall, as well as strongly-built, but she looked shaken and as if she'd seen much better days. The brunet man hovering beside her was also quite tall as males went, and his eyes were a dark navy blue. Judging by his manner and the worry in his eyes, he was very protective of her.
Unfortunately, she didn't get to see much more of the scene, because the intensifying pain swept her away until all she caught was a split-second glimpse of deep, merciful darkness. When she returned to the marketplace, everything seemed surreal, somehow, and Ami saw that the people around her were staring at her oddly. Without buying anything, she left and returned to her house.
Once there, she packed quickly and efficiently, then dropped a note off with one of the temple priestesses who was too busy to ask any questions in case they needed to find her. The chance of that happening was slim: several of the priestesses initiated in the temples knew healing lore, and not many knew of the exact location–or even the existence–of her mountainous retreat. Along the way, as she made for the little cottage she stayed in when she needed to gather herbs that grew only in the mountains that the little house was nestled in, Ami tried to clear her mind. She knew very well that she was fleeing to a solace of quiet and safety, where she could find herself again and try to understand the things that were happening her; she just didn't want to admit to herself that the situation was getting out of her control. The last time that had happened...well, Ami wasn't sure she would make it out of the whole tangle intact this time around, considering the heavy emotional baggage she had been carrying around since then.
Little did she know that a prisoner in the capital had seen almost exactly the same thing that she had...but felt very different emotions.
****~**~****
"About the magik folk...you explained them before, Darrian, but you never told me exactly why Mother–the queen–doesn't like them," she said, interrupting his thoughts. "You just said she became corrupted by her power."
"Oh. Right." Dragging up a log and seating himself opposite to her, he kept a wary eye on their quiet surroundings. "Rumor has it, besides that silly nonsense about forbidden love, that she has magik herself, but she doesn't use it. She sees magik more as a tool to be used, but for some reason, she won't use it herself. It's as if she thinks it's dirty, or it corrupts, or it's beneath her. She has pet mages–magik folk who agree to carry out her will against their own people. You have to remember not all magik folk are good and not all of them are evil. They're like humans."
Thoughtfully, with her chin in her hand, Seren said, "Whenever I saw them around the palace...well, that was rare, because their quarters were all the way on the other side, as far away from me as possible–but that must have been a coincidence... The–the pet mages always seemed very sad. Their eyes were haunted, and they looked weary. Some of them were greedy and ambitious...and others, others didn't even have any emotion. They looked almost soulless."
Darrian nodded, but he was more interested in perusing another topic. "How did she treat them? The queen?"
She shrugged pensively. "Well, it depended. Sometimes they were lower than servants, other times they seemed indispensable. I guess how Mother–the queen–treated them at a certain time depended on their usefulness in the situation at hand. There was one of the magik folk, a land nymph, I think, who she saw almost as a councillor. He was the only one out of all of them that ever went into her rooms. He had dead-looking eyes, and they were so cold. Mother doesn't tell many things to people; she doesn't trust anyone. She keeps everything she needs to run the kingdom either in her head or locked up in safe places.
After Kent disappeared, I kept pestering her, asking why he'd died, how when, and why there wasn't a proper burial ceremony. She was especially angered by my questions–she usually doesn't like my questions–and ordered me to go back my rooms. I walked away so they would hear my footsteps, but I snuck back to her door and listened while she talked to him, the magik folk she gets advice from. She told him that I was getting nosy, and he told her... he told her not to worry, because I was too stupid to understand anything. She said she wanted to make me her heir, and he said it was a good idea, because I would be completely under their control, easy to order around, and too brainless to ever escape." During her long speech, Serenitatis's eyes had narrowed angrily, and there was bitterness in her voice that he had never identified there before.
Darrian could identify the fury she felt at being so underestimated and disrespected. He saw the pain she felt because her mother hadn't loved her and had lied to her about her brother's death. He himself felt incensed at how a perfectly good life had been wasted. So much of her life–nineteen years–had been spent locked up in a jewel box, and she had been like the jewel that was only taken out occasionally to be displayed. There was too much of the world that Seren had missed out on, and someone like her deserved to feel all the joy, some of the pain, and above all, that feeling of being alive. He wanted to show her how people were meant to live, but he didn't know if he would ever get the chance.
While he was thinking, Serenitatis had been watching him, and she'd been alarmed by the storminess in his sapphire blue eyes. She hadn't wanted to distress him with her problems. It was part of her nature to keep the peace. Perhaps it was why she had never broken out of her restraints before, not wanting to burden others or cause a fuss. She wanted people to be happy. She liked seeing them smile. There had been no point in her being unhappy, because people didn't like being around others when they were unhappy. It was just a basic fact of life, and she had, at least, learned that one. To get his attention, Seren called his name softly.
When he looked up, he was surprised by the triumphant smile on her face.
"Don't be upset, Darrian. I broke free, didn't I? They must be furious now."
He nodded absentmindedly, perplexed by her sudden change in mood. "There'll be unrest in the cities. We better stay away unless we absolutely have to get supplies. They might recognize you, and they're desperate to recover who they think is their only heir now."
"I wonder if they know Kentan's alive." Seren grew sad for a brief moment, thinking about her brother. She hoped their mother hadn't done anything horrible to him and that he knew she was trying to get help. Seren remained quiet for some time after that.
She was silent during dinner and didn't speak again until she crawled into her bedroll. "Darrian?"
"Yes?" he asked tiredly.
"Are there many humans who have magik?"
He rolled over and looked at her intently. "It's quite likely. See, a while back, things weren't this way. People were more reasonable, and they lived in harmony with the magik folk. They married each other, had children together, etc. Sometimes magik will skip through a few generations and show up later, especially if people with small amounts of undiscovered magik keep marrying each other. It grows stronger that way. And like I said before, it's only a slight possibility that your mother has powerful magik. But she must have some tiny amount in her blood, and so did your father, because Kentan has magik."
She took a few minutes to digest this astonishing revelation. "Do you think I have magik?" she asked tentatively.
He sighed and put his hands underneath his head, transferring his gaze to the star-filled sky above them. It was funny how comfortable they had gotten with each other. He supposed it had something to do with the fact that they'd been each other's only companions for the past week or so. Then again, the opposite result had also occurred: despite the fact that they were becoming increasingly personal with each other, they also had had several fights. They were mostly caused by Darrian's impatience and quick temper versus her stubbornness and defensiveness. "Well...if you do, it should have made itself known by now. Mine broke out when I was thirteen. Then again, Kentan's has never broke out, but by examining it, you can tell that it just isn't the type to do so."
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and saw that she looked puzzled. "What I mean is, Kent has very strong control over everything about himself–his emotions, how much he expresses them...and his magik. It's very subtle. You, on the other hand.."
He scrutinized her closely. "Your magik, if you had it, would be the type that would be more flamboyant, I'm guessing. Very flashy, very strong. Not that Kent's isn't strong in its own way. What I mean is, yours is–would be–the type of magik that gets people killed."
"Thanks ever so," she said dryly.
"You wanted me to tell you truth, didn't you?" He got no reply, but then again, he hadn't expected one. "What I mean is, you'd be capable of doing monumental things, but it's likely that they would drain your energy and overload your senses. You wouldn't even realize it until you were buried ten feet under. Ending on that cheerful note... ‘Night."
"You're awful," she accused, a smile in her voice. She knew he didn't really mean to scare her...or he did, but it was for her own good. It irked her that he knew her too well at times. But there were those times when he seemed completely baffled about her.
"Yes, I know," he mumbled through a sleepy yawn. "One of my many magnetic charms. I find it useful in attracting women."
"Oh, hush up."
"That was my intention," he quipped.
"Good night."
****~**~****
AN: Well now. Lots of dialogue, and lots of Serenitatis and Darrian. I hope no one minds. But I am careful about how much time I dedicate to a character. And if you're tired of history, please forgive. There's no more long-winded explanations of wars or magik folk that I know of...
The prisoner in the capital was (just in case it was too hard to figure out) Kentan. I was originally going to switch part of it to his POV, but then it became too confusing. If this chapter seems a bit choppy, it's because I had an original version almost done and then, with the help of Yoshi ^^ discovered that it was too confusing and had awkward flow and conversation. Hopefully, this rewrite is better.
More things I have to apologize for now: number one, the noticeable lack of screen time dedicated to Jalen and Reisha in this chapter. Number two, the fact that Lita shows up so little in my writing. She's the hardest character for me to write, but if you guys can wait until the next chapter, I promise she'll have a much bigger role. I fully intend to further explore her character. Let's see...what else...well, I can't put in too much romance yet, but there are some sparks between Darrian and Serenitatis. (Thanks, Aylee ^^ at least I know one person won't get angry at me if the romantic aspect is being very slow. But it'll develop...sometime...I promise.)
I'm so happy the part with Rei and Jalen was liked last chapter ^^ (I went back and reread what I wrote when I read the reviews)! Thanks for the praise, minna! (Thank you again, Cherrystarr and Isis Aurora Tomoe.)
~Ice
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