Days Past
Though Caspian continued to sleep in the hayloft (considerably more comfortable accommodations were made for him there), his presence was felt all over life within the tower.
Ignatius continued to spend much of the day in his own company, which had once meant that Keira was left to do the same.
She had grown used to quiet hours reading or exploring the natural qualities of the grasslands and occasionally the bordering woods as well.
It was not until Caspian’s arrival that she realized how lonely those hours had been.
In the days after, Ignatius had tasked Keira with teaching Caspian how to read.
That process took the summer, hours spent in the sun, reading in the fields.
When he could read well enough on his own with little need of her assistance, Keira returned to her own studies, but still they spent the morning hours together.
Sometimes he would sit with her while she read aloud.
He would ask her questions about her studies, and she would explain.
Keira enjoyed teaching, and Caspian was a bright student.
She began bringing her books to read in the stables as Caspian groomed the horses or outside as he split logs for the fire.
Soon she wasn’t reading at all. They were simply talking together and laughing.
Keira took him out into the fields and showed him how many animals hid within the grass without anyone really realizing it.
She named the flowers and the birds for him.
The days passed until they formed into months and then into years.
Their affection for one another grew subtly, not like a great flood of swelling love, but as the tides.
One day they regarded each other as the best of friends and realized that perhaps for some time they had been becoming something more.
There was a time when they both felt it within, but could not guess if the other felt the same and so kept it to themselves.
However, such things cannot truly be contained.
So naturally, those days stretched into many more where they said it, without words at first. They said it with their lingering eyes, with gentle touches and small kindnesses.
By the time Keira was seventeen years old, they didn’t need to say it at all, because they both felt it in their bones.
There was a year of wandering into the forest to indulge in hungry kisses.
Hours spent in the meadows lying in each other’s arms. These stolen moments were just so.
Keira refused to show their love within the tower, because through his magics Ignatius would know.
She could not deny the chance that he would send Caspian away at once if he knew how they truly felt for one another.
Yet her secrecy also stemmed from something deep and undeniable within herself: the desire to have something entirely her own.
Caspian perhaps did not understand her reasons in fullness, though still he accepted them.
But one can only be content with living in the dark for so long.
Caspian was thinking this very thought as he polished one of the saddles.
Keira was sitting on a nearby stool, hunched over a massive book, the Toxinomicon, he supposed from the greenish tint of the leather cover.
She’d been poring over its contents for days, the latest in a seemingly endless list. At times it seemed like she planned to read through Ignatius’s entire library before the end of the summer.
But the source of her urgency was clear.
It was only a matter of weeks until she’d be leaving to secure her place in the Arcanum.
“Do you ever think about what’s next?” Caspian asked.
Keira looked up at him as if she had forgotten that he was there. “You mean after my exams?”
Caspian sighed. That was exactly what he meant.
When she reached Silverfell, the archwizards would test her on her arcane talents as well as knowledge.
As much as Keira had stressed over their results for the past months, Caspian knew they would admit her…
Then she would take her place there, at the Arcanum, a week’s journey away (without aid of magic) to complete her education, to finally become a titled wizard. It would take years…
Keira closed her book. “You could come with me, to Silverfell. I’m sure you could find work there.”
He nodded, watching the trail of his brush down the horse’s back.
This was not the first time she had offered such a solution.
He didn’t doubt that he could find something to do in the city, but it would also mean finding his own lodging there.
Apprentices were required to stay within the Arcanum during the course term.
There would be days free of lessons, to be sure, but for months as the exams approached she had fallen further and further into her studies.
He often had to coax her to put her work away just so that she could sleep.
Caspian couldn’t imagine that she would be any less burdened once she was a fully fledged apprentice. How much would he really see her?
“Even if you stay, I’ll come back for breaks at the end of term.” It was a halfhearted reassurance, but Caspian smiled back at her, setting down the brush and wiping his hands.
“We’ll think of something.”
Keira nodded, not meeting his eye. Her shoulders grew lax until she finally let her head fall into her hands with a groan.
“Keira,” Caspian soothed.
She looked up at him suddenly, setting the book down with a thud. “What if I didn’t go?”
His brows raised. “But you’ve been working so hard.”
“And it won’t get any easier!” she said, arms raising in exasperation. “It will be three years at least, and for what? A title?” Keira shook her head.
Caspian stepped closer, his voice soft. “I thought that was your dream?”
She sighed. “It is, but-” Her voice lowered, wavering. “But leaving you…”
He felt the anticipation of separation spear painfully through him as well.
The idea of going three years hardly seeing her…
He could do it, if he must. But how much would that time change them?
After being surrounded by others like herself, brilliant wizards in a beautiful city, would she even still want him when she returned?
Caspian had tried to push aside these jealous sparks, but they lingered in his mind like splinters.
“We could travel,” Keira said. “I’ve always wanted to see more of the realm, maybe even cross the channel.”
Though he’d never thought of doing such a thing himself, he quite liked the idea of exploring the Bronze Coast with her. “We don’t have any money,” he posed.
Keira scoffed. “I’ve heard stories that some ships will barter free passage to those who will lend a hand on the voyage. Plus, no captain would say no to a mage who could sway the winds”
Caspian paused. She made a fair point. They could go. He was sure that they could make their way together. With her magic, they would never go hungry, at least. Even so… asking her to give up such an opportunity just to be with him, even though he stood only to gain. It didn’t sit right.
“Maybe once this is over-”
“I don’t want to wait three years,” she said, exhaustion and desperation clear in her eyes. “I want to be with you. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Of course it is,” Caspian whispered, pulling her into his arms. His mind spun as she held him back tightly, as if he might disappear at any moment.
She relaxed slowly until he felt her gently pull away. “Not here,” Keira whispered.
Caspian sighed as he released her.
Her bond with her guardian was so strange.
Caspian had never seen him offer praise nor affection as a father might, but he could not deny that the wizard cared for her, often more than was even necessary.
Though there was no doubt his expectations of her were high, he had spent hours seeing to her education.
It was clear they had formed some sort of bond, however unusual the circumstances.
He knew Keira did not want to disappoint him, and even more, that she did care for him.
It was no surprise, seeing as they had spent so many years in the tower, with only each other for companionship.
Yet she did not trust him, especially not with the knowledge of what they had become to one another.
That night, they dreamed as one of a future where they could love openly, travel widely, live freely. A future filled with hope and wonder and each other.
That night, Ignatius did not sleep at all.
He had heard every word spoken in the stables that day.
Being inexperienced in love and parentage, he had been entirely unaware that they had grown to love one another as anything more than a brother or sister might.
Though he thought about the matter for the rest of the afternoon and the evening, by the time both Keira and Caspian were asleep, his mind was very well made up.
As he left the tower under the cover of darkness, Ignatius was firm in his resolve that he could not let these events carry on.
He had not raised his ward for all these years, teaching her his ways, only for her to abandon all his efforts, her own future, when she was barely more than a child.
Perhaps she would be more fortunate than himself and would find love one day.
In fact, he wished her such happiness. But what did a child know about such things? What had he known all those years ago?
Caspian woke the next morning, early as always, but he sat up with a start.
Every one of his belongings was missing.
No, he realized, not missing. They had been packed away into a single bag sitting in the center of the frayed rug.
Resting on the top was a piece of parchment.
Dread pooled in his stomach as his feet touched the ground. He took the paper and read.