Chapter 17 Uneducated Guesswork and Magical Tomfoolery
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
UNEDUCATED GUESSWORK AND MAGICAL TOMFOOLERY
The final torch lit as easily as the three before them. While not bright, it was easy enough to see what they were doing by the flames casting flickering shadows on the tent walls. Corric settled the torch into place before resuming his seat beside his brother.
With all the fire, the room was warm, but Corric dare not open the flap for some relief. While his own skin was damp with sweat, Schok’s was not. He remained dry and asleep, eyes occasionally flickering behind lids so thin Corric could count the blue veins crossing them.
Buzzard was curled beside the tent flap, back to Corric.
He was awake, but didn’t feel the need to stir.
Not even when Jonen brought them some dinner.
The heavenly smell of Sehleh’s cooking couldn’t rouse the harpy.
Not that Corric was much better. He’d picked at the food.
It settled in his stomach like a rock, making him feel greasy and sluggish.
Buzzard would never admit it, but Corric thought he was nervous.
His whole life he’d been used for his magic, nothing more than an object.
And now, when he most needed the magic he’d never been taught to use, he worried he would not know how.
Halm reassured them all that she, at the very least, was confident in her ability to summon the magic from Buzzard. How she knew, no one dared ask. Some things were safer not knowing.
It also seemed to go unsaid that if this didn’t work, Schok would be lost. Forever doomed to sit in a hole in the earth. Buried, but not dead.
Corric had gone many, many years without thinking about his father.
In truth, he hardly knew the man. Once it was discovered that Corric was not only unable to use magic but also an omega, he was cast aside.
Not worth his father’s time. So while his childhood had been lonely, it had been largely free of abuse.
But to see Schok, to hear what Buzzard had to say, and to know that it was his father who was responsible?
He didn’t know how to process it. One moment, he hated him.
He would strike him down if he could but reach him, carve his spine out and leave him bleeding at his feet.
It was no less than he deserved. But another part of him, one who was still the doe eyed omega he had been when he first left Kaldonea, thought of Krait Tylock as the only family he had left in this world.
His mother was…somewhere. He did not know where or if she even lived.
Corric could still hear his father berating her.
Once, when she’d allowed him to play outside in the dirt, he had been so angry Corric thought he’d summoned thunder.
His voice shook the plaster loose around the stone walls.
Why were you in the garden? That’s what the servants are for! Now look at him!
Hate was easy. But hate must be borne from something. No one hates the table they stub their toe on. Or the rain that inconveniences their day. No. True hate, the kind that throbs in the chest, that has to be transformed. It starts as love. As hope. As something beautiful turned ugly.
And so to hate Krait, he surely must love him. Or at least love the idea of him. Of a father who could eventually change. Become the man Corric wanted him to be.
But how could he ever forgive the man who left these burns on his brother? Who would slaughter thousands—not out of hate—but out of something far viler. Greed.
He couldn’t. And so Corric didn’t know how to feel. And that made him feel worse. It was an endless cycle he couldn’t seem to snap out of.
Corric looked up when Jonen entered the tent again. He glanced at the two plates of untouched food before frowning slightly.
“Would you like something else?” he asked Corric, but the question was for the room. Buzzard didn’t stir.
“No,” Corric rasped, his voice rough from disuse. “Not very hungry.”
Jonen didn’t comment on that, lifting his broadsword so he could sit beside Corric.
He’d been quiet since their argument. That was Jonen’s way.
He always needed a day or two to sort through his protective urges.
Jonen wasn’t a particularly aggressive alpha, but he was still an alpha.
They were thick headed and slow at the best of times.
Jonen had been with Ridan most of the last two days.
While Halm avoided Iylah and went about arranging whatever it was she needed, Ridan had been busy preparing for Kaldoneas inevitable attack.
He’s sent out messengers to the other clans, brought their farmers in from the edges of Stone Blade territory, and had Gustall send out his best scouts.
Ridan and Jonen had been running themselves ragged.
“Corric, I wanted to say I was sorry.” Jonen wasn’t looking at him, staring down at his gnarled fingers. “I was wrong to imply you couldn’t do something. Yo-you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met. I know you can do anything.”
His big eyes were bright with sincerity when he did finally look up. “I was just worried. I don’t think I could—I mean, if something happened, I wouldn’t know how to…” he swallowed, his black tea scent curdling with nerves.
Corric reached out and took his hand. He smoothed the crooked fingers between his palms, tracing along the ridges of thickened knuckles. They were good hands, even if they weren’t perfect.
“I understand, Jonen. I do. But if I don’t do this…I won’t be able to live with myself.”
He nodded, curls bouncing. “Then I’ll be here the whole time.” There was a pale pink dusting across his cheeks. It made him look young. Corric wanted to kiss his cheeks.
They stared at each other until the tent flap opened and Halm, Ridan, and Brune ducked in. Exhaustion hung over them like a shadow, but they stepped into the tent with eyes bright and hands on their weapons.
Buzzard pushed himself from where he had been resting. He didn’t look at Jonen or Corric, giving them the illusion of privacy. He plucked at one of his feathers, pulling it loose. Holding it between his hands, he rolled the quill between his fingers.
“Well?”
Halm pushed her sleeves up. “I think I’m ready.”
“Such confidence,” Buzzard said wryly, his tone belying the tightness in his shoulders.
“Hey, I’ve said from the beginning that this is just guess—”
“Enough.” Ridan stepped between them and glared. “No one knows what the fuck they’re doing. What else is new? We’ll just do what we always do.”
“Our best?” Jonen asked hopefully.
Ridan snorted. “We’re Stone Blade. We do whatever it takes to win.”
Brune smiled at the back of his head with such joy, Corric had to blink from the sheer brightness of it.
Halm instructed Corric to lie beside Schok while Buzzard sat at his head. Jonen took a position beside Corric, while Ridan and Brune stood with arms crossed.
Corric tried to ignore whatever Halm was doing.
She seemed to be largely concentrated on herself—legs crossed and eyes closed.
Growing up in Kaldonea, Corric and Brune had both seen their fair share of minor magic.
Quick tricks and illusions. Some conjuring, perhaps.
Brune said he saw one or two magic users as a soldier, but they were kept separate from the infantry and those of lower ranks.
Despite growing up in the center of it all, Corric remembered very little of magic.
They tried to use it to heal his father once.
He could remember that, but the user was too weak or not knowledgeable enough.
Magic had infinite properties, but healing was still beyond most people’s skills. Weaponizing it was easier.
His nose tickled as Halm’s mouth twisted in concentration.
It wasn’t quite like the urge to sneeze, more like a fuzzy caterpillar crawling up his nose.
He resisted the urge to rub it, clenching his hands in the dirt beneath him.
As the feeling ascended his nose, his eyes watered, thick tears trailing down his cheeks to pool into his hair.
Jonen made to reach for him, but Buzzard chirped at him, shaking his head. The longer Halm stayed quiet, the more Buzzard's eyes seemed to glow. Always bright, tonight they shone like they were molten gold, and he was certain it had nothing to do with the torches he’d lit.
Corric’s teeth began to tingle. Like he’d swallowed soap and it was foaming between his molars, sparking as if ignited. It nearly hurt, and he clenched his jaw.
“Grab Schok,” Halm gritted out, eyes still closed.
Corric blindly reached into the pit his brother was lying in, fingers trailing until they caught on his wrist. The moment his fingers clamped down on clammy skin, the feeling in his teeth intensified.
Crying out, Corric tried to stop the tears from falling, but there were too many.
His vision watered. Flame, tent, and person losing definition behind the onslaught of tears.
And then he saw it. Between the thick droplets clinging to his lashes. It was a streak of something stretching from Buzzard to Halm. Almost indefinable, it was color. But it wasn’t tangible. Like the iridescence on a bird’s feathers—colors changing and swirling with movement.
He tracked it, occasionally losing the glimmer of what must be magic. Slowly it looped through the air, dipping and lifting as if tasting, looking for something or gathering strength. Finally, it stretched across to Schok.
The moment it connected with him, it changed again, blasting upward like a fire with too much to feed it and nowhere to go.
The colors shifted wildly and Halm groaned, as if she was having difficulty controlling it before the magic swung out, tendrils loosening to stretch towards Corric.
He gasped, breath shaking as he watched a tendril slide around Schok’s arm and crawl towards his.