42. Caspyn
Chapter 42
It felt good to be in my leathers again, to be clad in the heavy fabrics of my tunic and breeches, for the long cape to be flowing behind me. I was little more than a shadow as I stalked through the meadow, growing closer and closer to the camp where all of that warm heat and tingling sensations were pulling me forward, where the tents were popping in jewel bright color against the pitch.
The magic of fíra. Or so I had been told when I was a boy working in the Runturin a lifetime ago, training my magic in secret and preparing to end the queen. My fire had never acted the way those who held fíra had, however. Fíra wielders could be destructive, yes, but when I saw fíra used by a Requisite, through a Catalyst, it was always muted, slower. My fire had never been the calm that so many fíra welders in the Ramal’s army had.
Possibly because I used mine for more than lighting lanterns and the occasional sparring match.
Those bright pops of colors grew more vibrant the closer I stalked toward the camp, the voices from the army that had been stationed at intervals around the camp carrying over to me.
Clusters of soldiers crowded around tiny fires in the perimeter of the camp, the flickering flames showing me enough to know that they weren’t armed. In fact, many of their weapons were lying carelessly nearby.
Fools.
I crouched low, moving through the tall grasses alongside a tumbling wind, letting it carry me right between two of the guard’s camps where I wouldn’t be noticed.
“How much longer do we have to wait,” a voice drifted over from a guard in the camp to my left, the bulky man poking his fire with his sword.
“Not long. We are at the temple tomorrow.” One of the other guards responded with a yawn, his face contorting awkwardly.
“Eh, but then we have to go all the way back, don’t we?” the first replied, now drawing in the dirt with the tip of his sword. I had never seen anyone misuse a weapon so carelessly. It was almost as if he didn’t care for it, or didn’t need it. Perhaps he didn't, most in the King’s army were Requisites so I would assume these to be. Although, I didn’t see the red robes of the Catalysts anywhere close.
Just a boy with no regard for his weapon.
Scowling, I continued forward, darting behind one wagon and then another as I snuck through their shadows. Unlike the Lightens camp, these wagons had been placed haphazardly through the meadow, the tents as misplaced as the carriages and wagons that transported royal asses and supplies alike. There was no wall of safety, unless you counted the guard camps. Which I didn’t.
Moving through the night as I was, I could not tell which tent was whose, thankfully I had a map of my own, built from the throbbing burn that was pulling me in the direction I needed to go.
I had always disregarded the sensation, even though I recognized the magic, could sense each holder of power and who they were bonded to.
Now, I knew what it was, because I knew who I was.
A Sypher.
A hunter and devourer of magic.
Now I felt them all.
They were all there, but mixed among them was something else, something that reminded me of the pull of the caspyn lilies. Something that there was only one of.
I turned, keeping my cape close as I peered through the dark to the large golden canvas tent, looming like a castle over everything. It was the only one that glowed that color, the only tent that looked as though it had swallowed the sun.
I didn’t need that strong pull to tell me who was there. The power of L?t was only found in the Ramal and his family, after all.
Dalyah.
She was there. She was close. Her chilled soul only steps away from me, no longer hidden behind the high walls of the Runturin. She was not protected behind dozens of guards. There was nothing to shield her but canvas.
I could finish this now. My magic was strong and healed from my injury. I had no time stored, but that could be solved easily enough. There were enough mindless guards milling about that picking one off and draining a bit of life and time from him would be nothing.
My hands went to my blades, my fingers unlatching them for easy access before I darted forward, moving between tent after tent and wagon after wagon like the wraith that I was. I focused on that tent, on that feeling of bright warm sun that was coming from it. The sensation drowned out all of the sparks from the Requisites that were coming from every angle.
The sun pulled me forward, until one tent away from the golden monstrosity everything changed, and that bright light within me shifted to something different. Something cold. I had never been so cold in my life. I had never felt icy fingers rake over my spine like that, almost as though I was dying. No, as though I was dead.
It took me a moment to realize that the sensation of death was not a part of the ice, but rather was simply near it. Attached perhaps.
Still following that light, I took the last few steps toward the tent, flattening myself to the ground in such a way that anyone looking twice would think me nothing more than a pile of rags.
It was risky to do this, if something was to go wrong I would lose my chance to end her. Ryndle had clearly sent me for a reason, however, and this was it. If I could end her before anything reached that altar, then I would take my chance. The magic that I stored within me screamed as though it was telling me it was ready, too.
Gripping the side of the tent, I lifted it enough that I could peer inside. A slice of light bathed over me, one sliver of vision that was like looking into a different world.
Ornate chairs, rugs, lanterns, and a massive mahogany desk were situated around the tent in such a way that it didn’t appear to be part of a caravan, but rather a room that had been transported from the Runturin itself.
Fucking royals. They were traversing through Okivo to a wedding and they had brought the entire castle with them.
I felt sorry for the servants that would have to lug all this around for no other reason than to serve a woman’s vanity. Well, after I was done perhaps they could bury her with it all.
“Took you long enough,” a male voice snapped, white boots walking mere inches away from where I was peering through the gap in the canvas. As he moved, that bright spark of light I had felt before moved with him.
The Sun Prince and the power of L?t. Although, his power seemed brighter, it wasn’t that muted sensation I had felt from all the other Requisites. It was bright, and somehow tasted of blood.
Odd.
“Do not speak to me with such irreverence, boy. You are not Ramal, yet and even then it is only by my good graces that you will be so.” A voice like ice slithered through the tent as two shapes came into view, the sharp feeling of ice and death following right behind.
The first I knew even before I saw her face, the pale skin and icy blonde hair matching the feel of her. Dalyah.
But the other, the other was pure death. Whoever the queen had towed into the tent was bent over, their body covered in filthy rags and blankets. I only knew they were a female from the bits of red hair that fell around a soft jaw, from the delicate bow of a lip that turned up as I watched.
Nothing about this person matched the sensation of rotten endings that was rattling its way through me. The sensation was familiar, but in a way I could not place, as though it was lingering in a memory I had long forgotten.
“You sent for me, mother,” Bastian snarled as I continued to stare at the woman, trying to get a look at her and figure out what exactly I was feeling, and what was so familiar about it. “I left Father alone with that thief, but when I got here you were gone. I do not want to know what they will do without me there to guard them.”
“You left Silas?” Dalyah asked, dragging the woman behind her before throwing her into a chair behind the desk.
“I did.”
“Then I wouldn’t worry, he is my most loyal snake. This one on the other hand.” Dalyah rounded on the woman, pulling back the blankets to reveal what once had been a beautiful woman. She still was stunning, even with the long deep scars that covered one side of her face, her left eye milky and lifeless beneath the zig zagged marks that looked as though someone had cut out lines of flesh and refused to let them heal. She looked at Dalyah with her good eye, her jaw set in fury even as The Queen grabbed her head and pulled her toward the desk, forcing her to look at the surface.
“I found her sulking about in the dark. Looking for him, most likely.” Dalyah bent over her, hissing in her face in disgust before shoving her closer to the surface of the desk.
“I can paint his back again if needs be, make her watch if you would think it would teach her a lesson.” Batian laughed, flexing his fingers as though he was longing to do just that. It made my skin crawl.
I was no stranger to violence, but there was something about deliberately bringing someone to pain, in taking a person to the edge of life simply for the sake of seeing them hurt that was beyond even my depravities. Not for this man, however.
Not this Prince.
So, he was the same as his mother then. Made sense seeing as she was the one to raise him.
“No. I have something better planned. But first.” Dalyah was grinning as she held the woman over the table, her nose less than a hair from the surface of that desk that I could not see from where I lay. “Draw.”
At first, the woman did nothing, she glared at the surface of the table, her eyes darting from Batian to Dalyah, and then, suddenly, to me. Those eyes, one milky, one a blazing green stared right at me, at the sliver of a gap between dirt and canvas where I hid.
My muscles tightened, my magic roaring to the surface as my fingers burned for a different reason. She had seen me, she had looked right at me. But how? I made no noise, I was barely breathing, I had been trained in stealth, but she saw.
Almost as though she knew I was there.
The corner of her lips curled, that slithering hand of death winding its way over my shoulders. My hands dragged forward, almost as though she was controlling it. I nearly recoiled, ran from the tent and back to the Lightens, but there was something in that gaze, something that froze me more than the sensation of the queen’s magic. More than the death that was holding me there.
“Your skills answer to me, you old bat. Draw.” Dalyah snarled, pushing the woman even closer to the table.
She didn’t look away from me.
My arms curled and bent as though they were being forced forward under that gaze. The scarred woman made a sound near a croak as her hands moved over the table in frantic motions. Her fingers twisted and bent, moving something over the surface of the table, an odd hissing exploding from her before Dalyah stepped back in shock at something I couldn’t see, her dress pooling around her ankles and pulling my focus back to the unguarded Queen that was my target, not that old woman.
I needed to focus.
Dalyah carried no weapon, she had no guard, save her son. She stood there, in a tent. She was fully exposed. I hadn’t stolen time yet, but no matter, I could take some from her precious son.
It was now.
I would end her now.
“Show me where,” Dalyah said, any trace of her earlier shock swallowed by the ice in her voice.
My arms moved freely as I shifted to grip my blades, slowly pulling one from the sheathe, the leather silent after so many years of use. The woman began her furious movements again, even as the queen turned, all of their eyes going right to me.
Shit.
I dropped the canvas back to the ground, only to have it lift on invisible hands as I gazed into the face of the queen for the first time.
Well, damn, so much for the element of surprise. I pulled at my magic, the ground shaking ominously as that magic fought its way out before my eyes shifted to that deep blue, fire rumbling from my skin as I brought my flame to my fingertips, the red tongue licking in the air above my hand. The sparks were volatile, as dangerous as the magic of vio that lived inside of me. I realized too late it was not the flame that was causing her to look with a mixture of fear and greed.
“A Sypher.” Her voice dropped into a haunting desire I had never heard before as she stepped closer, her focus darting from the flame to where the ground had rattled. Two brands of magic, impossible for any other. The air grew impossibly cold as sharp barbs of ice grew from her fingers, long knives protruding dangerously that only when she lifted did I realize she was about to throw.
Double shit.
I shifted, brightening my flame as I lifted my blade to face her, only to realize the reason everything had gone so cold. I was surrounded by ice.
Well, at least this I could counter. I let all that flame explode, melting all of the ice in an inferno that most definitely did not go unnoticed. I didn’t need the screams and thunderous sound of boots heading our way to know that I was about to be seriously outnumbered.
“Nice to meet you, Dalyah. But I really must be going.” I sent a bright stretch of flame right to her, if only to see how she would react, to know if I had any chance of taking her right then. My power fell away before it could even reach her, swallowed by what I could only explain as a wall of light, and orb of sun that consumed the last slivers of fire whole.
That wasn’t normal.
I looked from the covetous Queen to the arrogant Prince and took a step back. If I was to face either of them, I would need to have time to play with, and I had none in my stores. I had planned to take some life from the Prince, but seeing him and his power now I knew that wasn’t possible.
So much for ending this today.
I turned and ran before either of them could react.
“Take him. I need him alive.” Dalyah’s voice was a firm roar as I pulled the muddy strings of the vio magic back up, sending the ground rumbling and splitting behind me with each step I took. I doubted it would do more than shift some tents and send a few bed rolls through shallow fissures, but it would slow them down, and that was all that I needed.
I didn’t leave more than a few tents between me and the queen before a sensation I had never felt before emerged from nowhere, a wave of magic that washed through the camp in a ripple as though it was searching for something. No, I realized as something pulled through me, tugging me back as though some hidden leash inside of me had awoken, it was calling for it.
The waves of power deposited throughout the camp; dots of power erupting around me in a dangerous garden. Each of them were Fae, I knew that without question, I had tracked enough of them. There was something else there, however, something as ghastly as what I had felt from that scarred woman. The smothering pitch raked over the buzzing energy of the Fae that were damn near everywhere, each and every one of them an inky splotch against my soul that was heading right to me.
Dalyah hadn’t spoken in more than her usual voice, but it didn’t matter, she seemed to have called an entire army right to me.
Alright, so I had made the right choice to run.
I had never run from a battle, but after dozens of years of planning, I would not die unless I was taking Dalyah with me. Turning, however, I came face to face with two carriers of that twisted power. I recognized them instantly as the guards I had seen before, the white snakes emblazoned on their tunics flashing in the night. They looked exactly the same, except for their eyes, eyes like spilled ink. Eyes the same as the Fae I had grown with, as Vaelar, when he had come to Qit on that first day. Pools of ink. Rage boiled through me as I gaped at those inky eyes, at the single word that glowed on their necks as though it had been written there in blood.
Ohrya.
Hide.
It was the same word Ryndle had shown me before when he had revealed his ears, and there it was again, another word directly below it, the red and black making it look as though it had been carved there. ‘Kinz’.
I didn’t know what that one meant, but it didn’t matter. It was the same magic. The same words emblazoned on a Fae in the Queen’s army, although these ones didn’t glow with the gold light of a sunrise, they were red and black like the coals in a dying fire.
“Our Queen would like a word,” one of them snarled as they lifted their hand, magic like lightning sparking between their fingers.
I had never seen that power on a Fae, or anywhere, before. I had no interest in seeing what it would do. Swinging my blade up and around, I spun the weapon in a move that I had used time and time again and quickly severed their hands from their bodies. Blood went everywhere as the appendages dropped to the ground with a soft thud. They screamed, the queen roaring in fury from somewhere behind me as something popped in a light so bright it nearly blinded me.
I didn’t bother turning around to see what had happened as more Fae were already heading my way, their magic burning through me as they grew closer. The boiling feel of ice and light that drifted from the queen and the prince rushed toward me as I ran into the consuming shadows, disappearing before any of them could reach me.
Where before the camp was devoid of all but a few bumbling guards, now every inch was swarming with the powerful magic of the Fae. Dozens of men and women, all clad in black, their chests emblazoned with that wicked white snake.
I kept to the shadows as well as I could, but I had only moments before there would be too many of these monsters to evade, and far too many to take down on my own. Darting between tents and around wagons, I faced only a few lingering pack wagons, and one dirty carriage which looked to have blood splattered over the door. Beyond that was nothing but the tall grasses and the few specks of light from the Lightens in the distance.
Home.
Well, not home, I shouldn't call it that. But refuge. That was what I needed now.
Moving as quickly as I could, I darted between each of the old pack wagons, boots and cloak silent as I raced toward the blood stained carriage only to freeze behind it as boots ran toward the wagons, voices overlapping as the Fae charged right toward where I was now hidden.
“Try there.”
“Have you searched toward the mountains?”
“Go there, I’ll go this way.”
The rushed voices faded as they ran back toward the heart of the camp, leaving me with my back to the blood covered carriage and my focus toward the endless tall grass and those lights off in the distance. They were calling to me, pulling with nearly as much force of the Fae.
I couldn’t move, however, not with the sensations that were now rumbling through me. The feeling of air, of light, of everything. It was the open wonderful vastness of the world flooding into me.
It was as though the world was made of light. The stars and moon that hung high in the sky made of nothing but suns for how bright the world grew, for how much all of the heat and bright fury ran through my skin.
The light exploded in a blaze I was sure would not go unnoticed. I should run, run from whatever beacon I had set into motion, but I couldn’t move. I was trapped as I faced the carriage, that gold light blasting through drapery covered windows before it all faded into nothing but a few stars and embers floating in the ebony night.
Something inside the old carriage shifted, the whole thing rocking before hushed voices seeped through the wood.
As they spoke the flood of glowing, burning, energy faded away, leaving me staring as I felt something that could not be.
Everything.
I felt everything.
Every branch of magic. Requisite, Catalyst, Fae, and twisted amongst them that same dense darkness that I could not place.
“Shhh. I’ll make it go away. Everything is alright,” a male voice hissed through the wood and I stepped closer, wishing there was a way to see through the wood, to see how eight people could fit into such a tiny carriage. But there was only one voice, one man speaking to someone who never answered.
“I will keep you safe. I promise. I’ve always promised. I’ll find a way, even if I have to kill her myself. I can’t let her stop me anymore. I can’t leave you. Please don’t go, not yet, not until I can follow.”
The words were pained, full of longing and heartbreak that I think I was only truly starting to understand. I stood there, trying to pick apart all of the magic that appeared to be so perfectly interwoven I couldn’t tell where one ended and one began. I waited for a response as I was sure the man inside did, but none came, there were no more whispered words, only silence that was carried away by the wind in the tall grass.
I stood, letting that magic twist around me, letting that feeling that I had heard in each of those words connect itself to something deep inside of me. Some kind of longing I had been refusing to accept. To understand.
I stood for too long.
The sound of steps returned, the pull of the Fae racing back toward me. This time they knew exactly where I was.
I needed to go.
Pulling myself away from the carriage, I ran, racing back to those tiny specks of light and the woman who I realized was filling me with as much longing as I heard in that man's voice. The woman who I prayed to the Goddess would have answers to what I had seen. To the tattoos, and to how I could use them… or stop them.
If I was going to face the queen, if I was going to survive this, I was going to need more help.
For the first time, I think I wanted to survive this.
I think I wanted to see what came after.