29. Faylinn
Chapter 29
Faylinn
T he Librarian, as everyone in town called him, wasn’t from here originally, that much was certain. With his extremely pale complexion, ice-white hair, and eyes that matched both, he was a stark contrast to the people from the Southern Territories. Though I supposed that’s why he settled in a border territory, since we were a motley bunch—some of us looked like Southerners, some like Northerners, and every mix in between. He wasn’t an actual Librarian, but that was what we all called him since he knew so much about, well, everything.
Come to think of it, I didn’t think I even knew his real name.
He was simply the Librarian.
The Librarian owned a little shop called The Curious, and he sold all sorts of peculiar items—from books about far off places, to jars full of fingers or eyes, to a deck of cards that seemed to both eat the light and glow with it. If you needed something odd, you went to The Curious. People from surrounding villages, even some farther to the north, knew of his little shop.
It was the primary attraction in Isrun.
My feet easily followed the path I had taken so many times before, and within minutes I stood outside The Curious. It was near the end of the street, sandwiched between the only tailor in town and the only tavern, aptly named The Corner. Where The Corner was loud and boisterous at all times, The Curious was quiet. I opened the door and was instantly smothered by the unrelenting smell of sage, jasmine, and old parchment. The Librarian had apparently been burning sage recently and tried to cover it up with jasmine spray. The smell wasn’t the only thing that hit me immediately, as all sound seemed to be sucked away once I entered. It was quiet, almost eerily so, and I couldn’t even hear the sounds of The Corner next door while inside.
Contrary to the outside of the shop, everything in here was white—the walls, the floors, the shelves. The only contrast in color was present in the objects scattered about the room haphazardly. All of it, and none of it, junk.
“Hello?” I called tentatively. “It’s Faylinn, I’m here for another book? Holt said you got some new ones in.” I set my box down on the floor and waited for the Librarian to find me. He always did and I could never tell how he snuck up on me so easily.
“Faylinn,” his voice was a purr in my ear. I jumped three feet in the air and screamed a bit. He only stared at me in response. The Librarian was one of the tallest men I had ever met, towering over even Holt and Ben, but was extremely willowy. He wore a dress-like garment that hung down his arms and to the floor, belted by some sort of contraption that had multiple pockets. It looked extremely useful, and I made a mental note to make myself one soon—the belt, not the dress.
“I have a book for you,” he said as he glided away from me toward the back of the shop. “Come.”
I shook my head to clear it of the odd greeting and the smell of jasmine and sage before following him into the shop. That was the other thing about the Librarian. You didn’t tell him what you needed; he told you what you needed.
Like I said, odd.
We made no small talk as I followed him through winding shelves stacked with oddities, simultaneously confused and in awe of how much this shop could hold. I always tried to figure out how he made it seem so big but could never come up with the answer. It was slightly maddening.
“Here.” He stopped abruptly and held a book out to me. It was old and worn, the cover falling off and the corners bent and torn.
“What happened? Did it lose a fight with a bear?” The book was crumbling in my hands, and I didn’t know if it would survive the walk home .
“And this one,” he said, completely ignoring my comment about the bear fight and placing a second book on top of the first. It was small and thin, more like the size of a pocketbook than anything. “That is it for today,” he said and started to walk back to the front of the store.
Something caught my eye though, and I itched to reach out and touch it. It was a book, of course, but it was beautiful. Gilded edges and set with gems. It was gaudy, but something from that book spoke to me. “What about that one?” I called, pointing at the book.
“Not yet,” he said from right next to me.
“Gods! Warn a girl, would you?” I jumped back, almost dropping my books in the process and had to scramble to keep them from hitting the floor. The bear-fight book lost a few more pieces of its cover before I got everything under control.
The Librarian simply stared at me, unblinkingly.
“Not yet, but soon,” he said, his eyes pure white. They turned back to their milky light blue before he turned on his heel and whisked away to the front of the shop. I shook my head and stuck my tongue out at his retreating back.
The walk to the front of the store was quicker than the walk to the back, and I was soon placing the two books carefully in my box. I went to stand, but a pale hand over my own stopped me. I looked up, crouched on the floor, to see the Librarian staring intently at me.
“Much will happen, child. You will need to decide where you stand.”
Where I stand? What in the fuck?
“Oookayy, thanks for that cryptic message,” I said as I tried to stand again, but the Librarian gently pushed me back down once more.
“Keep them hidden,” his eyes glanced to my books. “You’ll be back, but I won’t be. Get them out and keep them safe.” His head shot up like he heard something outside the shop, but there was no one standing there. “It is time for you to go, child. You’ll look back, but don’t come back. Everything changes if you do.”
With that, he released me, and I scampered out of the store as quickly as I could without disturbing the books in my box. As I left, I felt a presence to my right. A wall of black-clad Mages moved in unison down Market Street, the two on each end barking at citizens to get into their shops or homes and lock up .
What in the realms?
This type of forced curfew had never happened before, there hadn’t even been an attack near here in weeks!
The line of Mages moved quickly and efficiently, effectively shutting down any commerce for an unknown amount of time. Jani threw some angry sounding words at one of the passing Mages, and the air was quickly stolen from her lungs as her body rose in the air, likely suspended by the same Mage’s magic. The vendor’s hands clasped open and shut, vainly scratching at her throat, trying to dislodge the magic and allow air to flow into her lungs again. I sucked in a breath as Jani’s movements grew jerkier and slower, her hands eventually sagging to the side and her head lolling onto her shoulder. She stayed suspended in the air for a moment longer before her body abruptly fell from the sky and crumpled to the ground, unmoving. I didn’t have to check her pulse to know her fate, and my blood ran hot in anger at the audacity of these Mages.
The line of Mages had moved farther down the street during the exchange, but the Air Mage took a moment to address the whole of Isrun. “Any who dares to interfere with the business of Lord d’Refan will face the same fate. That stands for those who deign to help those who get in the way,” his voice rang through the nearly empty streets, the echo hanging in the air. The Mage surveyed the area once more before turning and jogging to catch up to his compatriots. The line of Mages grew ever closer, and I had moments to make a decision.
Do I stay here and hole up in The Corner? Or do I chance it and try to make it across the street to the inn before the Mages reach me?
The Corner was loud and boisterous, the sounds of drunk patrons bleeding into the silent street. I knew that I’d be safe there, but I wasn’t particularly sure that I wanted to spend potentially hours in the company of drunk people who only got progressively more drunk. The only other option nearby was the village’s only inn, which stood across the street. It was probably empty, I reasoned, or at least mostly unoccupied, and I could get a meal or two to make up for the lack of sustenance I had today. I turned from looking at the Mages to the inn across the street before darting my gaze behind me to The Corner and, subsequently, The Curious next door.
Could I just go back inside there?
But something niggled in the back of my brain, telling me that the Librarian didn’t want me, or the books, in the shop right now. So, I took a chance and darted across the street, my bare feet slapping the cobblestones and my purchases rattling around the box, until I reached the door of the inn and pulled it open, panting and out of breath.
I took a quick glance over my shoulder and saw the line of Mages approach The Curious and, consequently, the inn. I expected them to keep going and clear out the rest of the town, but they came to an abrupt halt, their movements completely synchronized as they stopped walking as one.
The lack of sound on the normally busy street was eerie, even the wind was subdued. It took a second for the lack of noise to register, but I eventually realized that the normally rowdy patrons at The Corner were quiet, watching through the windows. I was frozen in the entryway to the inn, half-inside and half-outside, unable to move in either direction. It felt as if the town held a collective breath as we waited for the Mages’ next move, and I briefly wondered if one of the Mages froze us all with air or ice.
But the lack of ice and my ability to still breathe—I checked just to make sure—made both of those options impossible. No, we were just anxiously watching and waiting to see what tragedy would befall our little community next.
It wasn’t enough that they started policing Holt and watching the store, now they had to terrorize someone else’s business .
The Mage in the middle—a woman with severe cheekbones and black hair pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, the combination of which gave her a birdlike appearance that was simultaneously enthralling and terrifying—moved from the center of the line with clipped assured steps, her boots tapping against the stone street. Her Vessel followed a few steps behind, a younger man with his face downcast, ready should his Mage need him. The Mage’s hands were loose at her sides, but didn’t swing, and she quickly made her way to the front door of The Curious.
What did they want with the Librarian?
The Mage stopped abruptly outside the door, almost as if she couldn’t actually approach or enter the shop. The remainder of the Mages and their Vessels stood at loose attention, eyes focused forward, but bodies coiled and ready to strike if chaos ensued.
“KEEPER!” the Mage’s voice boomed. “Come out and face your reckoning. ”
Keeper?! I shook my head. There was no way the Librarian was a Keeper . . . was there?
I had read all about them, or as much as I could anyway, but most of the books about their particular brand of magic were either destroyed or redacted by Lord d’Refan’s scholars. Any information seemed to be obviously biased, especially when the Keepers were referred to as “frauds” or that they “incited violence against the people of Elyria with their false prophecies.” The Librarian, if he really was a Keeper, had never given me a prophecy or tried to sway my actions.
Although, as I listened to the Mage continue to bellow for the Librarian, I realized that wasn’t fully true.
He gave me a warning today. Was that a prophecy? Some short look into the future? My heart skipped in excitement and fear. What would happen if I went over there?
My curious mind got the better of me, and I started to move as if in a trance out of the doorway of the inn and toward the street. As soon as I moved my foot down a step, the door to The Curious flew open, the Librarian wearing a look of malice and wrath. But his gaze wasn’t directed at the red-faced Mage standing and shouting on his doorstep.
His eyes were unnervingly connected to my own.
He’s angry at me . It really was a prophecy . A feeling of awe came over me as I stared at the Librarian. A Keeper! An actual Keeper had lived here the whole time! How did we never know?
I frowned a bit at the thought and filed the information away for me to dissect later.
But before my thoughts could continue to run away, the Librarian spoke.
“There is nothing for you here, turn and go.” His words were seemingly directed at the Mages and their Vessels, but his eyes were still fixed on me.
The Mage in front of him scoffed.
“Nothing for us here? You are here. Illegally. All Keepers are required to report to an office to register their location and their business. You have not done so. Lord d’Refan requires that for such a breach of law, you are to be taken back to Vespera.” She was practically spitting at the end of her rant.
The Librarian said nothing else for a minute, but he pushed his head forward toward me, as if telling me to go inside. I quickly shook myself out of my stupor and backtracked the few steps into the inn, shutting the door as I went. I didn’t turn around to greet Sharol, the innkeeper and my mentor, or even set my box down. Instead, I walked a few paces to my right where a large section of iron framed windows looked out onto Market Street.
The inside of the inn was just as quiet as the street outside, and although I could see the Librarian’s mouth moving and the Mage’s angry posture, I couldn’t hear anything.
Damn Air spelled windows .
“You might want to look away, Fay.” Sharol’s soft voice startled me and the purchases in my box rattled around as I jumped. I turned slightly to my right and saw the innkeeper, not much older than me, standing like a sentinel at the same window, hand pressed to the glass. Her eyes held a faraway look, like she wasn’t focused fully on the scene outside, and her mouth turned down slightly at the edges.
I shook myself and cleared my throat.
“No but thank you. I think I’ll watch.”
Her gaze turned to me then, briefly, before she shrugged her shoulders and turned back to the window. “Suit yourself.”
“You’re standing here watching, I don’t see why I’m any different,” I grumbled.
“Because I’ve seen it before. And it’s not something you ever forget.” Her voice was even quieter, if possible, and my stomach sank like a rock.
Sharol knew a Keeper before, and something happened to them. Something she saw and can’t forget. For all the time we’d spent together, she’d never once brought something like this up.
Though much of her story was still a mystery, come to think of it.
The Mages and their Vessels suddenly gathered around the steps to The Curious, their movements purposeful and coordinated, designed to intimidate. But the Librarian never faltered, he simply stood in the doorway, waiting for something. He went eerily still for a moment, and I thought I saw his eyes take on that milky-white appearance, but I strained to see them through the distorted glass. I blinked and it was gone.
All at once, the Mages started channeling, their Vessels’ hands pressed firmly to their Mage’s back, arms, or neck—anywhere within reach. My eyes scanned the line of Mages, quickly taking stock. There were at least four Elemental Mages—a dominant for each element—and at least two Pain Mages, if the contorted grimaces of their Vessels were anything to go by. What remained a mystery was the affinity of the leader.
A Destruction Mage? Surely not.
Suddenly, the Elementals attacked as one, the Air Mage sent a blast at the Librarian, trying to knock him off the top step, but his attack seemed to melt around its recipient. It gusted around, ripping the sign from The Curious and flinging it down the street. At the same time, the Fire Mage threw small balls of fire to rain down on the roof of The Curious in an attempt to burn the Librarian out, but she didn’t factor in the Air Mage’s diverted attack and suddenly small fireballs were blown from their intended target and began to land on the surrounding buildings.
I gasped as the fire landed and the thatched roofs of nearby businesses lit up immediately, their occupants pouring out onto the street, forgetting or ignoring the Mage’s threat from earlier. A few other people exited the safety of their hiding spots inside to help put out the rapidly spreading fires. Steam and smoke rose, tangled together from the roof of the building after a few Water Mages used their power to subdue the flames.
While the townspeople were occupied, the two Pain Mages left their post by The Curious. The Earth Mage was now doing his best to move the steps where the Librarian was standing, with little success, and strode toward the commotion. I saw an elderly woman raise her hands and frantically wave them at the building on fire, but her motions quickly turned into a jerky seizure when one of the Pain Mages turned his power on her. Seeing the woman convulsing on the ground, villagers rushed about, some back to the safety of their stores, others to try and help the woman. Those who came close were ultimately caught up in the net of power the Pain Mage had cast. I watched in fascinated horror as the elderly woman slowly stopped convulsing, her limbs twitching every so often until she lay perfectly still. The others who had tried to help her soon followed suit.
I couldn’t look away, but out of the corner of my eye I saw the Elemental Mages stop their attack on The Curious, and I ripped my gaze away from the dead and dying to focus on the Librarian. His eyes were glued to the bodies scattered on the ground surrounding the feet of the Pain Mages, and he quickly took assured steps down from the doorway, saying something to the first Mage that caused her to back out of his way, until he was standing on the street .
No one moved, it seemed like no one breathed, then everyone reacted at once. The Air Mage coiled a whip of air, stealing the breath from the Librarian’s lungs while the Earth Mage called vines from below the street to protrude forth and wrap around the Librarian’s ankles and wrists, binding him to the ground. The Fire Mage quickly made a ring of fire around the stuck Librarian and what I assumed was a Destruction Mage.
The Destruction Mage waved her hand at the Air Mage, and the Librarian gasped for breath. He spat words at the Destruction Mage, which earned him a sharp fist to the mouth. I sucked in a breath, thankful I couldn’t hear the sound of her fist hitting flesh.
The Librarian shook his head for a moment before spitting a few bloody teeth down at the feet of the Destruction Mage. She squatted down until her face was level with his, as a Pain Mage who had just entered the circle through a gap in the flames, pulled his head back roughly by his hair. The female Mage traced a finger along the column of the Librarian’s throat before squeezing tightly. Restrained as he was, all the Librarian could do was try and gasp breaths through her grip, but his face quickly turned a shade of red, then purple, as he slowly suffocated, bubbles of spit, tinged pink with blood, gurgling out of his mouth. The Destruction Mage abruptly ripped her grip from his throat, but the Pain Mage never released his grasp on the Librarian’s hair, which forced the Librarian’s breaths to come shallower and slower than they normally would.
My assumption of the female Mage’s affinity was confirmed when I saw her dark grey, almost black wisps of magic flecked with what looked like embers, pool in her hands.
How do I know what Destruction Magic looks like? And why do I know it’s Destruction Magic? I’ve never seen that type of magic used before, it was incredibly rare, yet somehow, I could see it, and I knew exactly what the female Mage was before she revealed her power.
I set those thoughts aside to catalogue and dissect them later as well.
It looks like it’s going to be a long night of investigating . Hopefully the books the Librarian gave me will have answers to at least one of my questions .
I shook myself from my thoughts as the Destruction Mage edged closer to the Librarian. She bent and whispered something in his ear before kneeling and grasping his left hand. To my horror, his hand, usually pale white, started to turn grey, then black, with flecks of embers embedded within—almost as if the magic itself was consuming his flesh. I blinked and his hand was gone, a jagged stump and ashes slowly floating into the air all that was left behind.
My mouth gaped open in shock.
“It only gets worse,” Sharol whispered brokenly.
And she was right. It did get worse. With the methodical precision of a Healer, the female Mage used her Destruction Magic on various body parts—a few fingers on his other hand, his right ear, his left eye, half his nose. I was sickeningly drawn to the spectacle before me, simultaneously disgusted with the obvious torture of someone I considered, not necessarily a friend, but at least a close community member, and morbidly curious and appallingly impressed with the utter magical control she exhibited.
Sometimes she let the area bleed before the Fire Mage came and cauterized the flesh. Other times she simply destroyed so many of the blood vessels beneath the skin that there was no blood to effuse from the wound. And she never rushed, every move was thought out beforehand; what would cause the most harm or the most pain as she slowly disintegrated the Librarian. Time passed slowly and too fast, the sun descended toward the line where the sky met the earth, and still the Destruction Mage worked.
How large were her Vessel’s reserves? Did some Vessels have larger reserves than others?
Immediately I felt guilty over the thought. The Librarian, who had only ever been kind to me, was dying in the street at the hands of this woman, and I was fascinated by her power. Shame like I had never felt started to coil throughout my body and I felt like I was going to be sick.
“It’s almost over now. Her reserves are close to depleted,” Sharol said as if she had read my mind.
“H-how do you know that?” My voice was raspy from disuse over the last few hours.
She shrugged. “I just do.” Her tone didn’t invite a response, so I left it in the air as I turned back to the scene on the streets.
Sure enough, as the sky started to darken to a deep pink scattered with brilliant purple, the Destruction Mage finally halted her assault on the Librarian’s body. At some point she had removed his clothes, leaving him naked and missing his manhood. There were fist-sized chunks of flesh missing on his torso as well, and his breathing was labored through his mouth. I snuck a glance at the other Elemental Mages, noticing sweat beading on their brows, their skin clammy, and faces tight from exhaustion. The vines holding the Librarian up started to wilt, and the fire creating the circle waned.
All their reserves are depleting .
More concerning was the look on the faces of the Vessels—they looked positively exhausted, dark circles under their eyes contrasted against nearly translucent skin, their breaths coming in pants. Some even had their eyes closed, fighting against the bone-deep exhaustion that was written clearly in their body language. One had even collapsed to the ground in a puddle of her own vomit, the Air Mage completely unconcerned with her collapse and clear need for medical attention.
“I don’t know who I feel worse for, the Librarian for what he had to endure, or the Vessels attached to these Mages.” I looked at Sharol and noticed tears streaking silently down her face. “At least the Librarian will be free soon. Those Vessels ,” she spat the word like it was dirty, “will just be used again and again and again until they’re burned-out husks and unusable. Then they’ll be tossed in some backwater village, or worse, forced to figure out life once all their magic is gone.”
“I-I didn’t know that could happen,” I stammered.
Sharol turned her sad brown eyes to mine and held my gaze. “It can. It does. More often than you would think.”
“What could possibly be worse for a Vessel than being, what did you call it? Burned out and separated from their Mage?” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the answer.
Sharol ground her lips together before turning back to watch the macabre display.
“Nothing, forget I said it.”
I dropped the subject, fully intending to revisit it later, and watched as the Destruction Mage approached the Librarian again, the last of her magic pooling in her hands. She bent to say something in his remaining ear before plunging her right hand into his chest and returning with his still-beating heart. Blood gushed from his chest cavity and his eyes rolled in his head. The Destruction Mage held the heart aloft, the blood dripping down her arm and saturating her tunic. Whatever wasn’t absorbed by her sleeve dripped down and pooled against the stone street. Slowly, whether due to control or her waning magic, the Librarian’s heart was overcome by the weird ember-laced grey magic. Once the heart was gone, the Librarian’s body slumped to the ground, and I was extremely grateful for the strong Air Wards that blocked the sound from outside.
There is no way I would’ve hung on to what little food was in my belly if I heard half of what happened to the Librarian.
I felt a hand on my shoulder as the Mages gathered their Vessels, quite literally in the case of the Air Mage’s Vessel, and started to march back down the street, stepping over the fallen bodies from their earlier power display. Thankfully, all the residents chose to heed the Mage’s earlier warning and stayed in their shops and businesses.
“Let’s go sit. I’ll get you a cup of tea, maybe some food if you can stomach it. You can stay here for the night; I don’t suggest leaving town,” Sharol said firmly but kindly. I just nodded my head.
“They just left his body,” I said woodenly.
Sharol squeezed her hand on my shoulder before releasing it. “As a warning.”
“To whom? We just watched the whole thing happen. We don’t need any more warning.”
“They’re hoping to draw out the rebellion. The Last Keeper would have felt the Librarian’s death and will inevitably send some of her followers here to collect his body. I’m sure the Warlord is hoping this will be a way to trap them,” she said. “He’s getting desperate,” she mused under her breath before turning fully away from the window and heading farther into the common space that made up the first floor of the inn.
She bent and stoked the fire before calling over her shoulder, “Come, sit. Enjoy the tea.”
So, I gathered up my box and shuffled my feet across the floor before collapsing into one of the chairs by the fire.
“It’s okay to sleep as well. You’re safe here.” Her words were like lead to my eyes and I felt them closing long before I could stop them.