Chapter 9--Food-for-Thought
“Your majesty! Your majesty!”
Queen Serenitatis halted her steps, the icy expression on her face giving way to one of annoyance at the audacity of the page. How dare he shout after her in such an impertinent manner? She turned around slowly, her demeanor haughty and disapproving.
The young boy gulped, sketched a quick bow, and lowered his voice from his previous loud tone to say, “Your majesty, one of the prisoners in the dungeon requires your attention.”
There was only one prisoner the queen would bother with. She gave the page a scathing glance and proceeded towards the dungeons at a rapid pace.
When she reached her destination, she saw two men standing before Kentan’s cell: one was the land nymph who served as her advisor; the other was her captain of the palace guard. The latter man appeared to be ill-at-ease, clearly uncomfortable with the situation at hand. His companion was sweating profusely; he was clearly doing magik, as his hands were outstretched towards the prince with gray streamers issuing forth, but he did not seem to be succeeding at whatever he was trying to do. He turned as the queen entered but did not bow as rapidly as the captain did. “Your majesty, your son–he appears to be hallucinating. Roughly half an hour ago, he began talking to people we could not see. He recognized the captain here for a few minutes, but all recognition soon faded. It’s as if his mind is elsewhere, my lady.”
“And your magik–it has done nothing?” she demanded.
“No, your majesty.” He sounded unusually subdued.
Queen Serenitatis watched her son for a few minutes in silence. He walked repeatedly into the bars, as if he didn’t know they were there. He was muttering under his breath, but his gray eyes were clear and unclouded. Looking at the captain, she ordered, “Beat him. Perhaps that will bring him out of his trance.”
The man looked horrified. “Your majesty–I couldn’t possibly. He’s your son, the prince!”
She tapped her foot impatiently. “You did not hesitate to throw him in the cell, did you?”
“If I may speak, my queen...this magik is a deep, old, extremely powerful sort. I must admit that I cannot counter it. Its hold over Prince Kentan is unexpectedly strong. I don’t know if it’s possible to break it.”
Her brows drew together, but she did not reply. Very soon, Kentan lapsed into a deep slumber. When he did so, she spun on her heel and left, the pet mage and the captain trailing behind nervously. The queen entered her chamber and paced for a while, thinking about what the land nymph had told her. She didn’t like the sound of this powerful magik that could not be defeated. Everything, in her opinion, could be bested if one had the right tools. Perhaps she should replace the captain, whose constitution was too weak to allow him to cane a royal prince, even though said prince was supposedly dead and currently in very ill favor with the queen, who had ordered the action done herself.
At long last, she noticed the note resting on her desk. She tore open the envelope carelessly, and the storminess in her eyes deepened when she read the note: Artemis and his fiancee Luna had withdrawn to his home for an indefinite period of time. Ordinarily, she would have been displeased at their leaving on such short notice, but the brewing storm grated on her nerves. Mere displeasure was no match for her fury.
It was a time of great political and economical instability. The post-war deflation had ruined even her private finances. She needed Artemis’s and Luna’s presences at court. Although they were young, they were quite popular among the upper and lower nobility, and she required their influence for the time being.
The low murmur of rebellion was rising from the streets, and one of her best slaving crews had reported a delay a few days ago. No further word had been disclosed since.
Artemis and Luna had been close to the prince and princess; Artemis had trained Kentan in the proper usage of the sword, and Luna had always spent a large amount of her time with the young princess. The most pressing matter for Queen Serenitatis was the fact that her daughter was still missing; the entire continent had been thrown into a state of frenzy when they had learned that they no longer had any heirs to the throne. The only good that came of that was that everyone would be on the lookout for the princess, and the sooner Serenitatis returned, the better.
The queen needed to make sure that no dangerous ideas had been put into her daughter’s empty head. She had carefully shaped Seren’s personality, and as a result, the princess was genuinely innocent, very obedient, and also extremely lazy when it came to doing her own work. She would help anyone else, from her mother to the lowest scullery maid, but she had had no personal motivation. Her mother could only hope that Darrian McKellan, a very dangerous character, was not the member of the underground resistance that had stolen away Serenitatis. It was rumored–but there was no guarantee...
****~**~****
Lita and Nath had been in the best condition when they had stolen the ship, and Lita had capably ordered those injured to be put to bed with those who had the aptitude to care for them. She had also put those still standing to work right away. The brown-haired man had stood by to watch quietly with a queer smile on his face.
When she was done putting things in order, Lita dusted her hands off in satisfaction and then darted a glance at her silent watcher. “Well, what are you standing there for? There’s plenty to do.”
He smiled. “Your pardon, my lady. I didn’t think you were the type to take charge like that. You seemed content to yield control to Mina before.”
She shrugged and began bustling about again; he trailed after her. “First off, I’m not a lady. You’ve spent most of your life at the nymphal court, I hear. Dryads don’t hold with such formality. Secondly, I don’t like being bossy and domineering. We can’t all be leaders in the world, but if no one else is going to step forward, why shouldn’t I?”
Nathair stepped into her path unexpectedly. Softly, he said, “I wasn’t trying to criticize, Lita. Forgive me. I think you’re doing a fine job; I was merely...curious.”
As she looked into his deep, dark blue eyes, she felt herself blushing pink. Clearing her throat, she changed the subject swiftly by saying, “I hope you know how to sail this thing, because I surely don’t. I only know how ships are made and why they float.”
The brunet man grinned and swept her an elegant bow, much to her annoyance. “At your service. Almost all my ancestors have been merchants. I’m the family disappointment, since I ran off with Mina at a young age away from school. You see, there was a school for the young, aspiring offspring of the merchants houses, and it was quite awful. I was apprenticed to a woodworker at the Palace of the Land Nymphs one summer, and I met Malina there. As you can tell, she’s quite the inspirer and freedom-lover. It’s because of her that I hang around the palace, studying old scrolls, the stars, and...well, other such pursuits. I’m thinking of taking up gardening–if we ever go back, that is. The palace gardens are very well cultivated.”
Lirita’s head was spinning from exhaustion, so she just nodded. “But–you can steer the ship, right?”
“Oh yes. It’s a popular joke among the young courtiers that I have saltwater in my veins, you know. I may not have liked school, but sailing and the sea are still my secret passions.”
He winked at her, and her flush deepened. It receded only when she reminded herself that this enigmatic, charming man had “run off” with Mina. They were probably lovers of some sort. Only a lover would be crazy enough to follow a land nymph who had left her betrothed–a prince, no less!–at the altar. Tartly, Lita asked, “Well, if you’re the only one aboard who knows how to sail the ship, why aren’t you doing so?”
He smiled and departed swiftly, leaving her to seek out the kitchens, her third concern after the wounded and who would be taking the wheel of the ship. Under his breath, Nath muttered, “She’s definitely like Mina, in too many ways to count. And yet..” He cast a backwards look at her retreating form, a speculative look in his eyes.
****~**~****
Reisha was trembling both outwardly and inwardly, but she was doing her best not to show it. Taking a seat on the ground next to Jalen, she grumbled, “Are you absolutely sure this has to be done?”
He gave her a look reminiscent of her teacher at the warriors’ retreat, and she subsided slightly. “No, it’s not absolutely necessary–if you’re willing to be surprised by whatever fires you set whenever you’re feeling particularly temperamental.”
She glared at him, but they soon got started. She found herself enthralled by the power.
After a few hours, she began to identify her own magik, purple and lit with reddish sparks, and explore it. Rei was also able to see Jalen’s magik, which was blue and gold, a great contrast to hers. Grudgingly, she admitted to herself that he was being very patient with her–more than he needed to be.
Speaking softly into her left ear, which made her shiver and duck away from him until he convinced her to stay still, Jalen directed her through the process–many, many times. There were so many distractions, and her mind was shying away from the task at hand. Several times, just when they thought she’d gotten it, she would flinch, and the fire would erupt or be extinguished.
It took several nights and afternoons during their breaks until she was able to control the strength, size, and intensity of the fire she was creating, and during that time, their magik became used to mingling. Rei, who had no knowledge of magikal affairs except what he had told her, thought that the process was going as it should and that nothing unnatural was occurring.
Jalen, on the other hand, was unnerved by the way their respective powers blended almost naturally. He had never been so intimate in his magik usage with another person, not even with Zacch or Ami. At times, he began to suspect that they were speaking mind-to-mind in brief flashes. Nevertheless, he was determined to unearth her true potential and moved on to other useful abilities.
“I was planning to start slow,” he admitted to her one windy afternoon, “and fire is not a beginner’s trick. The circumstances were uncontrollable that time, but now we’re going to start with easier things and then move on to bigger works of magik. How does that sound?”
She looked relieved as she replied, “As long as nothing shocks me again.”
“Now that I can’t promise you. I also won’t be your teacher forever, you know. My prowess at magik usage isn’t the best, as I told you. You’ll need someone to teach you more powerful things.” Although Jalen was privately uneasy about handing her instruction over to someone else, he was considering the interesting prospect of asking Ami to take over Rei’s magikal learning–once they reached Arcelia, of course.
Rei, on the other hand, was startled. She had been expecting him to continue teaching her, despite her initial reluctance, and she was becoming much more comfortable around him. She’d also decided that she had been mistaken in characterizing him as a womanizer. There was an aura of natural charm around him, and if even she could be taken in by it, a little, then it would be hypocritical of her to blame the girls at the temple.
But Jalen not being her teacher? The thought both saddened and scared her. She trusted him now, and he knew her well enough to tell when he should and shouldn’t push her to do more. Would a new teacher, a stranger, be able to do the same? Were those great powers worth losing him as her teacher?
And yet, as Rei looked into those warm, azure blue eyes, she saw his desire for her to realize her true potential. It fired up a similar desire in her, akin to the one that had made her push so hard to become a warrior. “All right,” she acquiesced softly, “but let’s just work on today’s lesson for now.”
It was his turn to look relieved, and the blond-haired scholar smiled as they took up their usual sitting position on the ground. “I figured we’d work off fire, since your power seems to be based on that. It should be easy enough for you to learn to cast light. That’s a very useful talent. You should be able to work with most of the colors of the spectrum, definitely red, yellow, orange, and perhaps white and blue.”
Curiously, she asked, “What color light do you cast?”
He grinned wryly, and she felt her traitorous heart leap. “Can you believe that I only emit blue light?” he asked ruefully.
She smiled back. “Well, I don’t know much about light-casting. Your light–is it the same blue as your eyes, then?”
For answer, Jalen held out his hand, and a perfectly-rounded globe appeared. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it much, whether this blue is the same color as my eyes. Why don’t you tell me?”
Rei blushed scarlet, and the thought that he was flirting with her–in a way–loomed in her mind. Instantly, the blush was dispelled, and she glowered at him. “Are you ever going to get around to teaching?” she demanded.
Jalen chided himself inwardly, instantly banishing any and all inappropriate thoughts from his mind. He was taking her along with him because his magik had demanded it. She was testy, troublesome, and seemingly ungrateful...and she was unlike any other woman he had ever met before. But women always meant trouble; the best thing to do was to stay away from them. The most unique ones provided the most unique problems. “Of course. Now remember to keep your objective firmly in mind, and close your ears to everything around you.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Rei was unused to subduing her warrior instincts, and she liked being on her guard.
He sighed. “These mountains are relatively safe, but I don’t think you’d feel safe anywhere. Where do you suggest we conduct these lessons then, Reisha?”
She blinked. It was the first time in weeks he had called her Reisha instead of just plain Rei, so he must be getting annoyed at her. “Sorry,” she muttered. And so they went on with the lesson...
By the day’s end, it was discovered that Rei’s talents were odder than they’d suspected in the first place. She couldn’t bring a sphere of light into existence like Jalen. Instead, it looked as if she was holding a ball of fire in her hand, with a burning-white core surrounded by leaping orange-red flames. The light it gave off was strong, but the flaming orb’s reliability was questionable.
Jalen had discovered, early on, that Rei’s magik was very strongly affected by her emotions. When she grew less confident of herself, its physical shape wavered, and when her temper was provoked, it flared up brightly.
He found himself comparing these astonishing new findings to what he had seen in the kingdom of the elves and at the university. Never had Jalen seen a magik quite like hers; his own tended to be playful and rather disobedient at times, almost as if it had a mind of its own.
Amity’s light balls, which strongly resembled opaque bubbles, had been as steady as her healers’ hands. Her magik was long-lasting and unobtrusive but quite dependable.
Zaccheus’s, on the other hand, was almost the complete opposite: it was flashy and spectacular. Zacch’s will was quite strong, and he could do remarkable things with his magik. Unfortunately, it was not quite as stable as Jalen’s or Ami’s. Sometimes it withstood long workings and was not run low, but a few little workings could exhaust the magik.
There had been a few rough times when he’d needed magik and didn’t have it. Jalen’s memories of those times were not his fondest ones, and he hoped, despite their distance now, that Zacch would be able to find someone who could counter his faults, balance his extremities, and compliment him in every other way.
Jalen had a sneaking suspicion that he wanted the same thing for himself, but the matter didn’t seem too urgent when he met Rei’s luminous purple eyes across the way, glowing with triumph at her achievement and reflected light from her ball of fire.
****~**~****
By the afternoon of the next day, Mina was recovered from her energy drain and running the ship quite capably. Seeing that she would oversee the makeshift crew, Lita was released from her original duties to exercise her control over the kitchen, which was her domain. She was having quite a few struggles, as the galley was small and not well-stocked. One of her first orders, when they’d had the luxury, was to scrub as much of the dingy ship as they could. Some hearty meals and strengthening broth for those injured and confined to their beds had been prepared, and Lirita had some free time on her hands to see how things were going.
When she reached the upper level of the ship, she was surprised to find that almost no one was up there. Wandering over to Nath, she inquired casually about how the sailing was going, and he responded readily, keeping his eyes on the sparkling sea. All was calm now, and while Lita’s passion was for the woods, she began to understand why he liked the ocean as much as he did. “Where’s Mina?” she asked soon afterwards.
Hiding a smile, he replied, “She’s trying to talk sense into Zacch. He seems to have woken up and isn’t quite happy with his predicament or our destination.”
“I see. Well, I should be getting back now...but I wanted to tell you...I understand why, at first, you didn’t want to help me–us. I don’t want you to think that I resent you for it, because I don’t. The odds were awful, and you’re much more logical than either me or Mina, but you stuck by us anyway. Thank you.” With that, Lita brushed aside a stray lock of chestnut colored hair, pushed it behind her ear, and kissed Nath on the cheek. She departed then, to seek out Mina and thank her for her aid while the brown-haired man stared after her, shell-shocked.
He attempted to tell himself that it couldn’t have meant much. ‘Remember, Nath, dryads are very openly affectionate. She probably kisses everyone on the cheek.’ The thought was not a comforting one, for Nath instantly began wondering how many men had been gifted with the honor of her soft lips on their cheeks, and he also wanted to know how many she had kissed on the lips. Shaking himself, Nath concentrated on their course again, setting his mind to a task he was much more comfortable with.
****~**~****
Groggily, Zaccheus tried to focus irate green eyes on his betrothed. She was sitting beside him, going through what appeared to be an inventory of the ship’s stores. He tried to say her name, but his throat was so dry that he merely croaked out something unintelligible.
Malina looked up then, and relief spread over her face like a sunburst at dawn. “It was very unkind of you to scare us like that, Zacch. Here I was, thinking you would have the sense to call off our engagement and return to your kingdom, but instead, you come after us, perform idiotic feats of bravery, and get so badly injured that you sleep for two days!” she remonstrated, lifting a cup of water to his lips.
He glowered severely at her, but when he spoke again, he was relieved to find that his voice, although hoarse, worked just fine. “I didn’t exactly do all that on purpose. How did you manage to find a healer?”
She smiled brightly, setting the cup back down. “Oh, she came with the ship. We were lucky enough to have a naiad on board with us–otherwise, your jaw would have stayed crushed, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?”
“Are you always this cheerful?” he demanded, trying to sit up.
Her tone was friendly as she replied, “But of course. You should know me by now,” but her eyes were steely blue as she put a hand on his shoulder, forcing him down again. “Stay still. Do you want to reopen your wounds? Kolina–the naiad–is drained of energy as it is, and then you’d have to stay put even longer.”
His furious expression intensified, but he slid down into the blankets again. “I assume this is the slavers’ ship? Where are we headed? Back to the Palace of the Land Nymphs?”
Mina’s cornflower blue eyes were wide and perfectly innocent as she replied, “No, of course not! We are not returning to the palace. I’m never going back there, Zaccheus.” Her chin lifted firmly, and her mind was set. Their wills clashed, as did their combating gazes.
“You call me idiotic, but you yourself are incredibly foolish! What do you think your kinsman, the king, and your parents will think of you? The entire court thinks you eloped with Nathair!”
“That’s ridiculous. They can think what they like, then.”
“Fine. Where do you think you’re going, then?” he inquired all too patiently, a tick going in his clenched jaw–which was still quite sore.
“Well, as you suggested, we stole the ship, and Nath is steering quite capably. Lita’s cooking up a storm in the kitchen, and she’s agreed to come to Amaranth with us to look for the scrolls!”
“Scrolls?” Zacch asked, instantly suspicious. His past experience with scrolls had soured his views on them.
She took a seat on a nearby stool and flipped back the strands of shimmering blond hair that had come down from her bun, which she had originally put her hair into for convenience. Its length kept getting in her way. “When Nath first came to stay at the palace, he became interested a copy of a scroll he found in the library and the legend behind it. You must know this scroll–every child in the kingdom can recite it. It’s the one entitled ‘The Chosen,’ and it describes five pairs of soulmates.” When he remained silent, Mina took it as sign of his inability to remember what she was talking about. “You know, it starts out talking about royalty and eventually ends describing an elfin prince and his naiad.”
The thunderous expression on his face warned her of the impending storm just as it broke. “I know that prophecy, Malina. I know it all too well, and I’m warning you now, if you go looking for that scroll, it’ll ruin your life!”
She didn’t even flinch away from his wrath, but she was looking quite puzzled now. “What? How?”
He ran a hand through his already rumpled hair and resisted the urge to leap up and shake some sense into the maddening land nymph. Attempting to remain calm, he said, “You seem to be the kind of person who likes touching, fairytale legends. It starts with an elfin prince who had all the weights and doubts of his nation on his shoulders, and the only person who could lessen that burden was half-human, half-elf. He was named Jalen Eridian, this friend of the prince, and he, too, was all too interested in that prophecy. He found the first half of it, you know, in a secret passage of sorts, located in the library of the underwater naiad palace. It’s the beginning of the entire damned thing, and it’s merely entitled ‘A Prophecy.’”
“So...where is it now?” she asked eagerly.
He scowled darkly at her. It figured that most of her focus was on the scroll. “In the Palace of the Naiads, of course. He has a copy on him, I suspect, and there’s one in my library. The important thing is the havoc it wreaks on perfectly good lives. Jalen, when he returned to the elves after a brief diplomatic visit to the naiads, brought back a young naiad with him named Amity. He was half in love with her, but he didn’t speak up! So no one knew, the idiot!”
Mina, who had a faint inkling that she knew who the prince was, could tell he was cursing himself more than his friend. “So what happened?”
“The elf fell in love with the naiad, and she with him, and all was good and happy until strange things began happening. They began to hear each others’ voices–thoughts–in their heads, and they shared a mind-link.”
“But no one–no two people–have established a mind link since the times of the great sorcerers!” Mina protested.
Zaccheus glared at her. “It was very hushed up. Anyway, the naiad, who had never been very open with people, grew more withdrawn. She didn’t trust the prince as much as she should have, and while she loved him–I suppose–she didn’t share all of herself with him. The prince, on the other hand, was as much a fool as his friend. He was caught off-guard by the mind-link, and he was unused to feeling another person’s sensations.
They began arguing because of his insensitivity and her doubt, and he began to draw away from her. He was frightened of becoming too close to her, since he’d lost everyone he had ever cared for in his life, you see. His younger brother had been kidnaped when he was very young and later found mutilated in the forest. The queen, who had gone after her son on a rescue mission, was shot to death in a river outside the elves’ wooded domain. The king became an empty shell, and his son was forced to grow up without his guidance and a hundred fussy retainers pulling him in a hundred different ways.
It became worse, these odd happenings concerning the elf and the naiad. Black-outs began occurring. Once the naiad had been accosted by an elfin courtier, and the prince blacked out ten miles away and fell of his horse, breaking his arm and nearly cracking his head open. They had an argument that night, and...the prince, who was not quite in his right mind after his fall, was very cruel with some of the things he said. She said the gods-know-what to Jalen, who of course comforted her and took her side, and she left that night. I–he didn’t even know when she had gone. She didn’t even say farewell. Then, the next morning, Jalen and the prince had their own fight, during which I finally discovered that he also loved her and had given her up to me–and I, of course, had botched the whole thing horribly.” He seemed not to notice that he had forgotten to refer to himself in third person.
Her eyes had grown softer, and she asked gently, “And afterwards?”
He shrugged and then winced when his sore muscles protested. “There’s not much to tell. Jalen went to the university, as he’d been planning to do...Ami–Amity–disappeared from the naiads’ land soon afterwards. And the prince has gone on all alone.” He sighed deeply, and seeing that she knew who the prince was, added, “It’s been three long years, Mina. I suppose, however, you’re more interested in the prophecy. Well, here it is, your first missing piece:
There is foretold a time to come
For ten destinies to become intertwined.
A time of need, an era of pain,
The awakening of truer love than that which has ever been seen before,
And the giving of immeasurable sacrifice.
Five men and five women, each matched to another
Shall find themselves brought togther
Five humans, two half-breeds
Two nymphs, one elf
United by battle, torn by duty, linked by love.
Persecution arises, fear is bred
And the days and nights awash in bloodshed.
The time will come when courage incites rebellion
When the unjustly imprisoned shall break their chains
And when the silenced will speak again.
Five pairs of soulmates formed of those ten
Star-crossed lovers who will be
Connected in life, connected at death, for
When one passes into the spirit world
The other shall follow forever
Each partner will never be completed by one so well
As the one whom they are destined for.
They will be drawn to each other
For all eternity, together apart:
A curse, a blessing, inescapable fate.
The odds of their success are so low
And the potential price so high
That each one of the ten must willingly agree
Through freedom of choice
To fulfill their destiny, to forfeit all other possibilities, and to place the needs of countless others above their own.”
“You and...Amity? Ami? are one of the pairs in the prophecy, aren’t you? The elfin prince and the naiad who teaches him to follow his heart?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
To his surprise, her next words were, “Apparently, she hasn’t taught you to follow your heart yet. Why didn’t you apologize?”
His intense emerald eyes flared up as his head jerked up. Fixing her with a glower, he retorted, “I tried to find her, but as I told you, she’s disappeared! I traveled to see the naiads during an especially busy court season. No one, not even her mother, knew where she was.”
“You make it sound like it was such a sacrifice on your part.”
The fire in his eyes kindled higher. “I realize my stupidity, Mina, and you don’t need to lecture me on it anymore. I do it fine myself. Jalen was better at making me feel guilty than you are, in any case.”
She ignored his previous comments and urged, “But you must come with us, then! Don’t you see that now is the time to act? If the prophecy was found now, in this generation, it means the time has come for the soulmates to fulfill their destiny!”
“I don’t need to fulfill any destiny written centuries ago! It’s done enough harm, and I have duties and restrictions–unlike you, I don’t forget them so easily.”
The barb stung more than she let on, and Mina stood up as the naiad Kolina came in. “Well, I’m sorry,” she told Zaccheus, “but I’m not returning to the palace, and it appears that you have no choice but to submit to the inevitable. We’re going to Amaranth, and you, your highness, are getting the dressings on your wounds changed.” She nodded cordially enough to Kolina, who was approaching the enraged Zacch with a hesitant look on her face, and disappeared through the open doorway without another word to her disgruntled betrothed.
****~**~****
Nathair checked the angle of their course meticulously, using the stars as his guides. Everything was quiet, as all normal people were sleeping. He sighed and wondered if it would be possible for him to get any sleep. Suddenly, a creaking of the boards alerted him of someone else’s presence, and he turned to see Lita’s tall form, framed by moonbeams.
Sheepishly, she admitted, “I couldn’t fall asleep. Has it ever happened to you, that you’re so very tired but you just can’t get to sleep?”
He smiled and replied, “Of course, but I feel like I could fall asleep on my feet right now. Are you often restless, or are you just unused to being on a ship?”
“Both. At least I don’t get seasickness, though.” Leaning against the side railing, she tilted her face upwards to look at his impassive face and continued, “There are so many stars here. The tree branches in the forest that I live in tend to block out a good deal of sunlight and starlight. Did you say that you liked astronomy before?”
Quite willingly, Nath proceeded to point out several of his favorite constellations to her, and he also recounted the legends behind their shapes for her. She was fascinated, and he found himself talking more freely to his listener than he usually did.
When he ran out of visible constellations to describe, she said, “At the meeting tonight...with Mina and the other leaders that have surfaced from our scanty crew...you had good ideas, but you only shared them with Mina. You don’t speak up for yourself much, and you don’t put yourself forward. Why not?”
Again, he smiled amicably. “Oh, several reasons. I don’t have that same charismatic presence like Mina does. She wants to be a general, you know, and although women have risen high in the army, few have reached that post. She’ll be able to make men listen to her, and they’ll follow her orders because they can tell she’ll lead them right.
Me, now...people don’t listen to what I say. I discovered that at the seafaring school in my youth. There isn’t any point in my sharing what I think if people won’t listen. They can be remarkably pig-headed.”
Judging by the affronted look on her face, Lirita clearly disagreed with him. “Well, that’s not fair. You have important contributions, Nath, and you can’t just keep to the background forever. Do you want to be overlooked your entire life?”
The smile had disappeared now, but Nath merely shrugged and answered, “If I have any suggestions that I feel are worth voicing, I tell Mina. She’ll put forth the ones she supports, and that’s good enough for me. I do some good that way, and even you can’t argue that point, Lita.” Although she opened her mouth to say more, the brown-haired man looked up at the velvety night sky and said, “It’s getting late, and you need to recover your strength. Perhaps, after our lively discourse, you can fall asleep now?”
Sensing that he wanted to be left alone, Lita sighed and bid him farewell. He did not watch her disappear, but her thoughts stayed in his mind. It was not often he was given so much food-for-thought.
****~**~****
“But are you absolutely sure those are the signs?”
The ebony-haired man turned around with a sigh to eye his traveling companion. She was driving him mad, asking repeatedly about magik. Finally, he asked, “Do you want me to do a magikal probe? I’ll search for any trace of magik in you, and then you can stop bothering me once the question’s settled, all right?”
Serenitatis looked at him nervously, shrinking away. “Will that...hurt?”
He gave her a curious look. “No. Or it’s not supposed to.”
“So comforting,” she muttered under her breath.
Ignoring her misgivings, Darrian halted their horses and tied the reins securely. “Sit down,” he commanded, indicating a flat gray stone.
She knelt rather than sat, folding her legs beneath her. “What do I do?”
Readying his magik, he murmured absentmindedly, “Nothing. Actually, close your eyes. Maybe you’ll be more at ease that way. Now, if you feel a tickling sensation, don’t move. It’s perfectly natural.” To his surprise, she quieted down and said nothing further, placing her full trust in him. Darrian neglected to mention that most magik folk and humans who possessed magik, if they were trained in their powers, did not relinquish control of their mind so easily to another. He, too, closed his eyes and reached outwards with his magik...
He seemed to be floating through a world of silvery-white, and everything was lit with such a pearly brilliance that it would have made his eyes hurt had he not been used to such bright light–his own psyche was lustrous gold and lit with hints of blue, green, and brown. For the first couple minutes, he found nothing out of the ordinary, staying carefully away from her private thoughts and emotions.
Then he discovered a strange presence there, an alien magik. It was acting as a sort of lock, and he touched it cautiously. A metaphysical spark transferred to his magikal sense of self, and he drew back and opened his eyes.
Seren was gazing at him, her eyes opened, her form trembling. “What–what happened?”
“You felt that?” he asked dazedly. She nodded, and he answered, “I touched something in your mind...and it...well, I guess you could say it shocked me. Not nice magik. There is magik in your mind, but I don’t think it’s yours.” As her eyes widened, he muttered to himself, “But why should there be magik in your mind?” At last, he came to a conclusion that he felt was probably right. “Seren, I think you do have magik. There’s no logical explanation for why someone would be fooling around with your mind if you didn’t.”
“But Darrian...you said there wasn’t any sign of it.”
“I know, but I’m starting to think that it may have broken out and then been suppressed.”
Her brow creased, and she asked, “What about Kent? His magik wasn’t locked away?”
“No. Like I said, it’s never broken out. It was just sort of...dormant for a while. You, on the other hand...I’ll have to ask you to trust me implicitly, Seren.”
Guileless blue eyes looked into him as if she were seeing his soul. “I do trust you, Darrian.”
He sighed and shifted position atop his own rock. “This goes further than that. To unlock the magik, I may have to find your memory of that event. It’s likely that I’ll see more than I have to while I’m searching. Do you mind?”
She looked down for a moment. There were all sorts of things in her life she wanted to keep private...embarrassing moments...her first, silly crushes...and yet, she felt that there was nothing that she would mind too much if he saw. “No. Do what you have to, Darrian.”
He nodded and swiftly re-entered her essence. The closest of her memories were the most recent ones, so he disregarded them until he caught a sudden glimpse of the time he had nearly kissed her. At least, he thought, she wasn’t repelled by him. Moving on, feeling like he was an intruder, he glanced at memories of the times before Kent had been kept away from his younger sister and later imprisoned. There were also several images of a beautiful, dark-haired woman who looked only a few years older than Seren, as well as a silvery-haired man. They appeared to be a couple. Darrian smiled when he saw Kentan teaching Seren how to ride...when they’d laughed together... At last, he came to a gray, cloudy scene that was misted over. There was a good chance that this was the one he was looking for.
It was easy enough to unblock the memory; the magik would be the hard part. It turned out that he was right: Seren’s magik had broken out in a radiant swirl of pure silver light. Her mother had been furious, and she had ordered her pet mage to deal with it as she ran from what she feared and loathed. Darrian then turned back to the constrained magik, having seen the spell the man had used.
****~**~****
A few hours later, Seren’s eyes opened again, and she tumbled off her rock stiffly. Darrian laughed as he helped her up, and he asked, “Well, do you feel anything different?”
“No–yes–maybe.” Shyly, she went on, “It feels like a missing part of me came back, and...oh!” She cried out in alarm as a silver cloud of light, lit with sparkling colors, appeared around her. “What’s going on?”
He smiled at her, sharing in her joy. “Your magik. It’s influenced by your happiness. I told you it was the flashy kind. That was a tight lock.” He grimaced at the memory of long hours of working away at it. She threw her arms around him in her exuberance, and he flushed and pulled away. “Don’t get all sentimental on me now, princess.” His addressing her that way was a surefire method of riling her.
True to his expectation, the hovering silver cloud turned a sullen red for a moment and then back to its bright cheerfulness. “I wonder what made it break out? How old was I then, Darrian?”
It took a moment’s thought for him to recall. “Ten, I think. The strange thing is...you seemed to go into a trance before, and I could have sworn...”
“When did your magik break out?” she asked, disregarding his confusion.
“When I was thirteen,” he said briefly, “I was being chased by some men, and my grandfather saved me. But...when I was thirteen...I remember this strange vision that came to me just when my magik broke out. I saw a girl with silvery-blond hair dressed in a white gown. She looked...just like you, in your memory of the time your magik broke out.”
“How old were you when I was ten?”
“Thirteen.”
Their eyes met, and Seren breathed, “So–at the exact same moment? Is that–normal?”
He shook his head. “No. No two people are supposed to have their magik break out at the same moment...it has something to do with individuality, timing, dangerous magikal collisions...”
“So if ours did...what does that mean?”
****~**~****
AN: As always, I apologize for the long waits. Hopefully I have elaborated on Lita and Nath as much as possible (very difficult)...I’ve also revealed more prophecy (badly written, sorry), explained the strange sensations everyone’s been feeling (sort of), and brought Rei and Jalen back into the story. Next chapter: Ami and Jalen have an interesting reunion, Rei’s identity, if you haven’t guessed it yet, is revealed, and Darrian and Seren have some trouble finding help...
~Ice
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