8 - The Eastern Lake #3
He didn’t represent his people. He’d never claimed to.
Sure, he was probably one of the most brilliant mages in Caelendor…
but that didn’t justify treating him like an outcast simply because he’d been born there.
The idea of having a target on his back for a crime he’d never committed made his stomach clench.
He had lost himself in his thoughts, pondering the horror of what was being done to his people: cutting off their ears…
An act of pure, barbaric, symbolic hatred.
It didn’t concern him yet, but he knew that if he were to fall into the hands of certain people, that fate would await him.
And he didn’t even know why that thought had struck him so violently at that precise moment.
Perhaps because he felt the mercenary’s fingers brush against that sensitive area. That contact, though brief, sent a strange, indefinable shiver through him. His gaze fell on Cassian, and he was no longer quite sure what he was feeling.
“You’d be glad not to see them anymore, since you don’t like elves either.
You, whose family served the dragons, should be one of the first in line to want to cut them off.
” His voice trembled with a mixture of disappointment, worry, and pent-up anger.
He was proud to be an elf, despite everything.
Despite his people’s mistakes, despite the scars left by history.
Every race had blood on its hands, so why did his people bear all the blame?
Yet it was Cassian’s curt reply— “You’re wrong”—that made him withdraw into himself. The elf didn’t answer. He could have. He’d wanted to. But something in the way the man had said it…disarmed him.
The mercenary then turned away, kneeling in the mud to pick up a plain, flat, rough piece of black rock.
With the tip of his dagger, he briefly cut his palm, and a few drops of his warm blood spilled onto the stone, mingling with the abstract symbols he began to trace with his fingertips directly on the ground.
Before Tariel’s eyes, the material began to react: a golden glow enveloped the rock, and the rough stone seemed to liquefy, twist, and purify itself, expelling its impurities to reshape itself as if it possessed a consciousness of its own.
Within seconds, the rock solidified once more, taking the form of a small, smooth, elongated, egg-shaped instrument carved from dark, polished stone.
Its surface was pierced with perfect, barely visible micro-channels.
Cassian picked up the still-warm object. Without a word, he brought it to his lips and blew into it.
No sound came out of it. At least, no sound the elf could perceive, but he could feel the air vibrating around them. Something was happening—he was certain of it, for his own magic was responding, while goosebumps rose on his skin.
Tariel forgot his doubts, his anger, his questions.
An almost physical vibration settled in the air, a resonance between this magic and something within him that he couldn’t quite identify, as he watched, fascinated.
He knew the forms of magic; he had read about dozens of them and practiced several: elemental, natural, shamanic, psychic, temporal, of the mind, of the blood, of energy… but what he was seeing there… was none of those.
Then he asked, almost in a whisper, “Is this… alchemy?”
He knew the answer. It resonated deep within his bones.
A magic that had vanished, lost along with the dragons.
A magic that the books described as too unstable, too powerful, too dangerous.
Something forbidden, associated with an extinct people. And yet… Cassian wielded it with disconcerting ease.
Suddenly, a crystalline whistle pierced the clouds, echoing the stone’s vibration.
High in the sky, an elegant silhouette cut through the clouds.
It was the storm bird.
A majestic falcon whose silvery feathers caught the light of the setting sun as it circled widely overhead. Then, diving slightly toward them, the bird let out a series of sharp, high-pitched cries, causing the elf to take a step back.
Tariel watched it for a long moment, his face turned toward the sky, completely stunned. The bird was mesmerizing, almost unreal.
When he turned his gaze back to the mercenary, Cassian seemed to be observing the celestial creature as well, before he declared in a calm voice, “There’s no need to fear it. It will guide us to an old friend.”
Tariel let out a joyless laugh, masking his unease, and approached his own mount—his loyal, massive mare he’d just summoned again. He mounted in a fluid motion, running his hand through her thick mane in an attempt to regain his composure.
But his irritation lingered.
“I’ve read that alchemy disappeared along with the dragons.
I practice many forms of magic, but this one has always been out of my reach—forbidden, taboo, and little-known…
Did you have any idea how difficult it is to find a book on alchemy?
So please forgive my surprise when a ‘mercenary’ uses it as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. ”
He almost regretted using that mocking tone.
Almost.
Rolling his eyes, Cassian took hold of Tariel’s arm to help himself into the saddle behind him—even though the elf was suspicious, he wasn’t about to let his… new traveling companion walk when danger lurked on all sides.
But he couldn’t help himself; he couldn’t rein in his swirling thoughts as he set off with a gentle tap of his heels. He was seething with a complex mix of emotions: curiosity, frustration, admiration, and jealousy.
This magic, the kind that belonged to the dragons, wasn’t common knowledge. Not today, not after the war. What if there was more than what met the eye? His stomach twisted in knots at the thought.
The dragon he was supposed to hunt.
The one everyone believed dead.
The one whose location no one knew.
The one they said mastered alchemy.
He couldn’t help but wonder...
Who was Cassian really?
The mercenary, for his part, spoke calmly into his ear, completely ignoring his questions as his arms brushed the elf’s waist. “We’re going to have to cross a plain. We’ll be out in the open.”
Tariel didn’t answer. Not right away. As he tightened his grip on the reins, he could sense that something had shifted. Maybe he wasn’t just a mercenary. Maybe he was much more than that.
Who on earth was that man?