Chapter 4 #2
And just like that, the air around him turned frigid, raising goosebumps along my arms. Like kindling catching fire in a frozen hearth, a dangerous spark flared between us as soon as our magic brushed.
The connection was unexpected, intense, and humming with fiery potential. My power surged toward his like it was greeting an old friend, not the soul of a killer. His magic slammed into mine and wrapped around it like it was holding something it wanted to guard, claws out, fangs bared.
Where mine flowed like water, his raged like wildfire. So balanced were they that neither could stifle the other.
His eyes calmed to a warmer shade of blue that tried to pull me in. Even as I resisted, the invisible extensions of our souls coiled around each other tighter. And tighter. And tighter.
Their hold on one another became so taut that the walls he’d built—those impenetrable barriers that kept his emotions hidden from my magic—cracked. For an immortal moment, he only stared at me as I became caught up in his undertow.
I saw his bone-deep weariness, an all-consuming sorrow underneath his falsely arrogant exterior. His rage was armor, a shield to keep everyone away, to keep the grieving in.
But his sorrow wasn’t alone.
Behind it lurked something colder and yet blazing with intensity—a dark thing that was rage given a heartbeat, drumming in time with his own, though slightly out of sync. Where his emotions bent toward misery, the thing inside him was a force of destruction, a ravenous beast fed by impulses.
Like a jealous twin, it tore at the last vestiges of his humanity. Restless in its cage, it pressed against me. For a breath, I didn’t know which of them was staring out at me through his eyes.
My weak mental defenses offered little resistance against his onslaught of emotions. They hit me so hard I had to grip the edge of the stall to steady myself. I dropped my gaze, trying to mask my reaction, and forced my breaths to slow.
It was too easy for me to get lost in someone else’s storm of emotions. I could already tell that it would be nearly impossible to find my way back from the eye of his tempest. I had to put distance between us, or my magic’s constant strain would cause me to faint, or worse.
“Please,” I said, forcing the word past the tightness in my chest. “Just take the tincture.” Anything to make his emotional storm, his overwhelming magic, go away. I shoved the tiny bottle closer to him. “No charge.”
His stare was so intense it felt as if he were burning holes through me. In a flash, the torrent of emotions rolling off him vanished. He slammed a mental door in my face, returning to the impenetrable fortress of stone once more.
He knows. Or he suspected my ability to read emotions, at the very least. He’d looked at my lowly iron mage’s pendant like it was a joke. And now…
Gods help me if my secret gets out. Mama had warned me that the powerful would chain us to their service if they knew we were strong enough to see through lies and empty words, not just project emotions.
Still, with him closed off, I breathed easily once more. And yet…the world felt strangely imbalanced after our connection was cut.
I dragged air into my lungs, steadying myself before daring to meet his eyes again. The sneer was back in place, sharp as the blade on his hip. His blatant disdain of my meekness was clear. So I straightened my spine, a surge of defiance coursing through me even as my body threatened to quake.
People tended to react poorly to having their innermost selves exposed the moment they met you, so I usually kept my magic carefully hidden. But this, and yesterday, had been beyond my control. My magic seemed to have a will of its own, drawn to something it sensed in this man.
For a heartbeat, he only stared. The silence coiled tighter and tighter—until his gruff voice gritted out, “What are you? Playing at being a mage merchant?”
If he could act like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened between us, so could I.
“Isca is my name,” I said, forcing a calmness into my voice that didn’t match the tremor in my hands. Concealing them behind my back, I feigned a confidence I didn’t naturally possess. “Not that you asked. I’m registered with the Mage Assembly.”
“Isca?” With a derisive snort, he said, “Your parents either named you after a fortress or fish… Both are…interesting choices.”
Before I could correct his mischaracterization of my parents, he snatched up the tincture in one gloved hand and a bundle of lavender in the other. He flicked his wrist, sending a heavy coin flying at me—hard, but not hard enough to hurt.
It hit the rough fabric of the apron I wore to protect my threadbare dress with a small, dull thud. I hated how desperately I scrambled to catch it before it rolled away. When I looked back up, he was already turning toward the road beyond.
I shouted after him, “Most people use words for ‘thank you,’ but I suppose pelting someone with money works too!”
By the gods, I’d said too much, but something about that man made me irrational. A powerful, rich mage like him could end me and my family for the small slight without facing any consequences.
He’d obviously heard me, because he turned his head in my direction, that same smirk playing on his scarred face. I hated the flutter it set off in my belly.
The wind tugged at his cloak as he disappeared, leaving me frowning and clutching a gold coin—a fortune compared to my usual earnings. It was a clear reminder of what I was: beneath him.
I tucked the coin away and returned to my quiet world of herbs and tinctures, telling myself it was better this way.
Tonight, I could buy meat—even butter, if I didn’t worry about stretching this coin for too long.
Along with yesterday’s purchases for my brother, these would be welcome luxuries for my family.
I told myself to forget the executioner. To leave his contempt behind and lose myself in work. But empaths never got the luxury of indifference. And that man’s soul had screamed like it didn’t want salve or salvation—it had begged to bleed.
He’d shouldered the kind of weight I’d only sensed in men and women very near the end of a long, bitter life. His body was young, hardened by battle, but his soul was tormented by multiple lifetimes’ worth of agony.
I wouldn’t see him again. And yet the wild scent he’d trailed in his wake had somehow overwhelmed the lingering metallic smell of blood, making me think of nothing but him for the rest of the day.
Worst of all, his sorrow still pressed like a dull, aching bruise beneath my ribs, a throbbing pain around my heart I couldn’t ignore.
As I packed up my wares that evening, I kept glancing at the road he’d vanished down. I told myself I wasn’t watching for him. But some foolish, stubborn part of me still expected him to come back, asking for another bottle of hope.
The chill spring wind that day had carried more than just the echoes of winter and old memories. It had carried change. I didn’t know it yet, but a stranger’s sorrow had already begun to rewrite my future.