Chapter 19: Compromise

The dark smear seeping through the bandage told her the wound had started to bleed again.

After delivering their prophecy, the gods had disappeared from Orenleaf as quickly as they had arrived, leaving the two of them alone to figure out how to handle their new situation. Sir Themur had done his best to help her stop the bleeding. He had dressed the wound and carried her to the other Knights Eternal, who were waiting outside the village, hidden by darkness.

For Relaila, the whole thing had been awkward, to say the least. One minute, they were quite sincerely doing what they could to kill each other, and the next, they were ordained by the gods to work together as a team.

Of course, it would have been too much to ask for better circumstances.

That said, she didn’t have anything personal against him. They had fought because he had interrupted her sacrifice, and that was really all there was to it. If anything, he should be the one holding a grudge against her, given how intent she had been on burning his descendants alive. Then again, Relaila had been doing so on Remura’s orders, so if the Knight Eternal had a grievance with anyone, it should be with the gods.

But once he had accepted Mardocar’s orders, Sir Themur seemed to have mostly forgotten their previous animosity, completely dedicating himself to the mission his patron had given him. Or at the very least, he had buried it somewhere beneath that thick, black armor of his, she thought. She’d better be careful in case it resurfaced in the future.

“We need to find a healer,” she said, groaning in pain.

Every step the horse took now made her feel as if someone were driving a nail the length of a hand through her side.

After resting in his camp for the night, Sir Themur had requisitioned a horse for her from one of his Knights. Since then, the two of them had been riding westward toward Terynia, but the pace had been plodding. The Knight Eternal had insisted that they ride only during the day and use the night to sleep and, in her case, to recover. But even the daytime progress had been slow, their horses mostly trotting rather than galloping.

The first two days of their journey had been fine, for the most part. Her wound had stopped bleeding after a couple of hours, and she had thought it had begun to heal. There was no sign of infection.

Between them, not much had been said. Sir Themur didn’t seem to be the talkative type, Relaila concluded. But perhaps he just needed to relax a bit before opening up. If so, Remura’s Blood Sister was there to help.

On the morning of the third day, a couple of hours into their ride, she had first begun to notice the pain. It started as a pinprick, barely noticeable—a rhythmic, piercing pain synchronized with the horse’s movements. Gradually, it had sharpened into the nail that now seemed to cut through her flesh, as if someone were doing surgery on her while she was still awake. Which, she supposed, wasn’t a completely inaccurate description of what Sir Themur had done to her back in Orenleaf.

The Knight stopped his horse and dismounted methodically. Walking over to where Relaila sat, he lifted her coat without saying a word and inspected the bloodied bandage.

“We’ll stop in Stonewall,” he finally said, after pulling it back to get a better look at the wound beneath. “There’s a Flow Walker there who could help us. She’s good.”

Relaila spat on the ground in disgust.

“I don’t want any of those amateurs touching me,” she said vehemently, not quite knowing if the disdain she felt was her own or Remura’s. “Let’s find a Dark Flame instead. I want someone with real power from the gods, not a Deepwell user.”

“I doubt one will be there when we arrive,” Sir Themur said gruffly. “But we’ll see.”

“It’ll be more efficient that way, too,” she explained, or at least tried to. The Knight Eternal didn’t seem very open to her ideas. Not that she could blame him.

“We can bring her with us to Terynia,” Relaila continued. “That way, we already have our Dark Flame when we get there. Quick and easy.”

Sir Themur just looked at her as if she were a little child who needed things spelled out for her. Given that he was something like five times her age, she supposed she sort of was.

“That’s not how prophecy works,” he told her. “Mardocar said we’d meet the Dark Flame in Terynia in five days. Not meet her in Stonewall in three days or Lahaya in six. Terynia. Five days from when he told us. That’s three days from now. The gods have spoken.”

Indeed they had, she thought. And if so…

“You know what?” she said, playfully. “We should just rent a room at the next good inn we find, order ten bottles of their best wine, and indulge ourselves for a couple of days. Since Mardocar has prophesied we’ll be in Terynia three days from now, he’ll get us there somehow, without us even having to ride there. Nice and effortless.”

“Or,” the Knight Eternal said, his voice completely devoid of humor, “we could just visit the Flow Walker, get you healed up, and be in Terynia to meet the Dark Flame on the exact day Mardocar prophesied we would.”

Relaila sighed, but the motion caused a sharp spike of pain to drill into her side.

Maybe, she thought, maybe the Knight was right. How bad would it really be to be healed by a Flow Walker, anyway?

* * *

Fire roared from his hands, violent and glorious, like the roiling breath of a dragon writhing through the air, hitting its target with impeccable precision.

Or, if Larean was perfectly honest with himself, it was more like it sputtered. Though he did hit his target this time, assuming you were willing to accept a somewhat broader definition of the word “target” than most people commonly used.

But hey, at least it’s working now!

The problem wasn’t with his strength, it was with his control. Not only did he have to transmute the air into tiny oil droplets, but he also had to move them at high speed toward his intended target and ignite them simultaneously. Soria had been right all along.

He shouldn’t think such thoughts. Before he knew it, he might accidentally say them out loud.

Those steps he could manage, but not precisely enough. If he conjured too much—or too little—oil in the air, it wouldn’t ignite properly. If he moved the oil particles too fast, the flame would die before the fire had time to spread from one end of the stream to the other, unless he increased the amount of oil in the air to compensate.

It was all very complicated. All very confusing. And just like Soria had told him, it had nothing to do with strength and everything to do with precision.

“Hey, cut it out!” the fisherman’s mate shouted, patting down a flame emerging from the crate he was carrying. Pelam, his name was, Larean thought. Or Buzzkill. He wasn’t sure which. They both sounded so similar he kept confusing them.

Pelam. Buzzkill.

You really couldn’t tell the difference.

“Sorry!” he said to the Agerian. “I’ve got to get this working before we get to Terynia.”

Soria paused her shield practice to turn around and glare at him. What had he done now?

“Do you have to go around telling everyone where we’re going, Larean?” she asked. Her voice was just a tad less upset than her scowl suggested. He wasn’t surprised. He knew she couldn’t stay mad at him for long.

Still, he had to defend his honor. “It’s just Pelam,” Larean said. “He’s not going to tell anyone.”

He paused for a second, mulling it over.

“You aren’t, are you?”

They had arrived in Slackwater three hours prior. The fisherman and his helper apparently had some sort of business here. What it was, Larean didn’t know. He expected it had something to do with fish.

Soria and Larean had stayed below deck for the first part of the journey, but once the River Rax diverted north from the border, they had felt safe enough to escape their confinement and enjoy the sun and wind. On the whole, the voyage had been quite pleasant. A little more wine, a little less Pelam, and everything would have been just perfect, he thought.

Well, maybe with the exception of the smell. Although wine went quite well with fish, this wasn’t exactly the way Larean preferred to combine them.

The young crewman walked over to where the two runaways were training. For a moment, he just stood there, as if sizing them up.

He’d better be impressed, Larean thought. As far as he knew, Pelam didn’t have the slightest inclination toward magic.

“So you’re going to Terynia?” the red-haired boy eventually asked. “Why?”

“We’re going to rescue—”

Soria cut him off. “We’re going to rescue my father’s business by finding new trading partners there.”

Oh, that’s right. She didn’t want him going around telling people what they were actually doing.

Pelam just laughed.

“All right,” he said. “Sure. And you’re both mages?”

Yes, indeed, sir! Larean the Magnificent, at your service!

“Well, we’re… getting there,” he said. “She’s the real mage. I’m just trying to learn things on my own. It’s kind of new to me, but I think I can do it. Soria’s teaching me.”

She smiled at him, clearly not quite as upset with his transgressions as she pretended to be. Finally, the Onyx charm was back and working. Of course, anything else would be unthinkable.

“You can do it, Larean.”

Turning back to Pelam, she continued, “Actually, I’m new at this too. It’s just that I’ve had some training. He hasn’t—yet.”

“So, what are you really doing?” Pelam asked, clearly hoping for an honest answer this time.

Larean started to reply but quickly thought better of it and closed his mouth again.

“We really are going to the capital,” Soria told him after a moment’s silence. Finally deciding to trust the Agerian, she lowered her voice when she told him their story. After all, it wasn’t the Empire that was after them, though that could change in a heartbeat.

“I’m going there to rescue my brother from prison,” she explained. She tilted her head slightly toward Larean. “He’s just sort of tagging along. He had some trouble with the law back in the Compact.”

Pelam looked at Soria’s blonde hair, finally putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

“You’re Derimar,” he concluded. “Your brother was captured in the war?”

There was both anger and sadness in the girl’s voice when she answered, not to mention resolve.

“He’s being held by the Empire. I… left the Derimar Deepwell academy to get him back.”

Pelam nodded slowly, sadness evident in his eyes. “I get it. There’s nothing more important than family.”

The crewman sighed. For a moment, he looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Actually, that’d probably get messy real quick, Larean thought. Alright, so maybe Pelam was just carrying a really heavy sack of grain. But still, no man should have to do that. That’s what you had servants for.

The young Agerian hesitated, seemingly thinking things over. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he finally asked what had clearly been weighing on him.

“Can I come with you?”

Oh, that was a good one. Soria was going to shut him down so hard Larean could practically hear him sizzle already. The boy couldn’t even do parlor tricks. They had absolutely no use for him, unless they needed someone to carry their baggage. Though he had to admit the fisherman’s helper did appear to have some experience with that.

“Of course!” she answered, beaming. “That’d be great! Neither of us has ever been there before, but you know the Empire. And we already know you.”

That’s right. Take that, Buzzkill!

Oh.

“But why do you want to come with us?” Larean asked the boy. Apparently, they were three now.

“I have business to take care of in Terynia,” he said. “And I don’t think I can do it alone.”

When Pelam raised his eyes to look straight into Larean’s, they were filled with hatred as cold as steel.

“I have gods to destroy there.”

Author's Note

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