89. Chapter 89
CHAPTER 89
L ucenna locked her gaze on the straw target set out in the open field not far from the Norrlen Estate. A sheen of sweat coated her forehead as she drew on her Essence again. A crackle of purple light gathered between her hands, and she winced. The light winked out.
Lucenna groaned up at the sky.
“Do they still hurt?” Dyna asked from where she was seated on a blanket in the grass, Azeran’s journal on her lap.
To her utter embarrassment, Lucenna had broken both her arm and leg during the battle at the Blood Keep. Elvish medicine had mended her well in Avandia, then Dyna mended her bones once they reunited. It had been a week since they arrived in Sellav, but they still ached.
“It’s becoming a nuisance now.” Lucenna scowled at herself. She stretched her arms, then bent to touch her toes.
“It will take some time for your body to fully heal. It’s fortunate you weren’t left with a limp.”
They had a lot a healing to do.
Dyna looked up at the estate, a forlorn look on her face.
“He still hasn’t woken?” Lucenna sat beside her.
Dyna shook her head. “I think after living for more than three months carrying the weight in his heart and the illusion in his mind, his body is forcing him to rest.”
But Lucenna could tell that was what Dyna had to tell herself. The truth was, Cassiel may never wake.
“And his wounds?”
“They have finished mending.” Dyna took a breath and stared down at the journal. She wanted to be strong for him because if Cassiel woke, he would have to deal with the loss of his wing.
He would never fly again.
“Perhaps I did something wrong when I dream walked into his memories. The place I crossed through … it was something different. Has Lucien discovered anything yet?”
It was a mystery she and her brother had spent many nights discussing since Dyna described it to them.
“Not yet. You dreamed walked into his past life, Dyna, which has never been done before. Lucien’s theory is that you may have crossed into another level of the Essentia Dimensio . It’s already a subconscious dimension we know very little about. He will continue researching.”
But she was excited about what this discovery could mean.
Dyna nodded thoughtfully, frowning at the journal. “Lucenna, what does ianua mean?”
She perked up at the old tongue of Magos and scooted closer to her, observing the faded script written by Azeran’s hand. “ Ianua means door.”
“I read this before, but I didn’t understand what Azeran meant because I was wrong in my translations. I thought he meant a vault or gate, but he was talking about a locked doorway!” Her wide green eyes met hers. “He saw the door to the In Between, Lucenna. I think Leoake wants to leave this world.”
Lucenna’s mind spun at the concept of other worlds. “But then why did he leave the key with you?”
Dyna looked away. “Perhaps he forgot to ask for it.”
“Hmm.” Unlikely. That Druid schemed as much as Tarn. They were all devastated to learn of his survival. But while they were in Greenwood, they wouldn’t worry about him yet.
Dyna handed her the journal. “These lines here, I can’t make sense of them. They almost seem like incantations.”
“What?” Lucenna studied the words on the page and they did seem like spoken spells. “That can’t be right. Mages don’t use incantations.”
“Except I use one to unlock the journal,” Dyna reminded her. “Tellūs, lūnam, sōlis.”
“That’s a passphrase, not an incantation.”
“I spoke an elf incantation on Tarn’s the boat when I fought Lumina.”
Lucenna gaped at her. “Dyna … we can’t wield elf magic. That could have been dangerous.”
She shrugged. “It could have been, but my Essence was locked away. Even if it was free, there was no intent behind the words, and as you said, we cannot cast incantations. But I do wonder then what these are.” She tapped on the page.
Lucenna frowned. “I will speak to Lucien about this as well.”
A new orb had arrived yesterday for her, one made of the highest quality crystal. Instead of transparent crystal, it matched the purple of her eyes.
Lucenna cleared her throat and brushed her silver hair away from her face. “Azeran filled these pages with many learnings and secrets. I suppose it may be difficult to decipher what it means.” She flipped through the journal. “Where is the map?”
She had passed it on to Zev then lost track of who held it now.
“Klyde has it.”
Lucenna gaped at her. “What?”
Dyna shrugged with a short chuckle. “Von had it for a time, and well, you told Klyde about Mount Ida, so it seemed fitting. I think after all he has done he has earned our trust.”
Lucenna fleeting glanced at the estate. Klyde had taken care of her when she had fallen unconscious at the Blood Keep. He was there every day of her recovery and helped her learn how to walk again even when she yelled at him and told him to leave her alone. She later learned when the spell hit, he had shielding her with his body. The only reason Klyde survived it was due to the four-leaf clover in his pocket.
“I think he feels guilty,” Lucenna muttered. “I keep finding that clover everywhere, no matter how many times I return it.”
A teasing smile rose to Dyna’s face. “I think he feels more than that, Lucenna. And so do you.”
It would be a lie to say she had not imagined kissing him again, but it was pointless. They couldn’t together for many reasons. Even if she propositioned a tryst with no commitment, and he willingly came to her bed, she would be in denial to believe it didn’t mean anything.
“How long are you going to keep avoiding him?” Dyna asked.
“For as long as Raiden keeps avoiding Rawn.”
They exchanged a frown and Dyna sighed.
“Have you spoke to him?” Lucenna asked.
Dyna looked down at her hands, empty of any rings. “He hasn’t been around, and well, I have been busy as well.” She looked up at the Estate. “I must go check on him.”
She never left Cassiel alone for too long.
Dyna got to her feet and tucked the journal back into her satchel. She took a step to go but paused. “Lucenna, I lent Klyde the map because he wanted to mark a path for us to best to reach the train in Ledoga.” Dyna hesitated, biting her lip. “He’s leaving.”
Lucenna inhaled a faint breath.
Of course he was.
When they had all reunited again, Dyna told them Tarn was alive. Klyde had to take Tavin back to Skelling Rise for his protection. She didn’t expect him to stay as long as he did, yet the news settled like stones in her stomach.
“Good,” Lucenna retorted, as she looked away. “Now I will no longer have to suffer his countenance and crude jests.”
But the statement sounded flat even to her own ears. Dyna said nothing more and her soft steps faded away.
Getting back to her feet, Lucenna stretched as she eyed the targets again. She tried and failed to push Klyde from her mind. Who cared that he was leaving?
Her veins hummed with her pent-up Essence and her hands flared purple with coils of electricity. She was glad he was leaving. He would only get in her way.
Lucenna cast out the spell and obliterated the target, scorching a large hole in the field. She cringed. Oops.
“Was that intended to be a spell?”
Lucenna rolled her eyes and glowered at Eldred standing behind her. She was surprised to find two little elven boys with dark hair holding his hands. Sylar’s children. She recognized them from Dwarf Shoe. The grumpy old mage looked happy for once.
“Oh, you’re back.”
“Yes.” He smiled down at his grandsons. “Go on and return to your father. I have a lesson to teach.”
They boys ran off giggling toward the estate. She spotted Sylar and Elon and Geraea speaking to the Norrlen’s. Rawn had invited them to live in Sellav.
Lucenna crossed her arms. “I told you. I already know how to use magic.”
“Wielding magic is not what makes you powerful. True power lies in mastering yourself.” Eldred came to stand beside her. “I have observed you since your arrival, Lady Lucenna. Yes, you are quite strong, but what you lack is finesse.”
Gray light spiraled around his hand as he pointed it at the next target, and he murmured soft words under his breath. Lightning speared out like a rapid snake and pierced the target perfectly. He had burned a hole clean through it without destroying the target or the field.
Such a simple but effective example of what he had been trying to tell her before. Lucenna was used to casting her magic in a raw, uncontrolled blast. Powerful, yes, but compared to him, clearly untrained. She’d been fortunate to win her battles by sheer power alone.
“How much you despise your enemy does not make you stronger or them weaker, for a battle is not only won by strength but by strategy,” Eldred said. “When you are to attack or defend, one must consider the induvial elements of the spell and your intent. Something yet to be learned.” He folded his arms behind his back as he canted his head, studying her pensively. “Have you considered speaking your spells?”
“I’m not an elf, Eldred. We do not cast incantations.” Lucenna crossed her arms. “Whatever spells you’ve mastered are elven spells I cannot wield. Mage magic and elf magic is different. You know this.”
Eldred chuckled. “It is different and yet the same. We draw Essence from nature, and your kind draw it from yourselves. Our magic cannot mix, for energies change once it passes through them. Yet it is created by the same type of power: life force. Which is found in all living things.”
Her frown deepened.
Eldred murmured a word in elvish and a handful of leaves at his feet fluttered up into the air, leisurely spinning above his palm. “Have you wondered why mages can levitate with a thought and elves with a word?”
“Our intent is spoken in our minds,” Lucenna said. “Elves speak their spells to direct their intent.”
“Yes, to direct it precisely . To build the spell with one finite purpose with word and rune, and to execute this purpose without mistake.” Turning away from her, she felt the pull of power as Eldred chanted, “Sajoh noi'cativel, es'recah sadapes yat'roc.”
A hexagon built around his hand blazing with runes. Instead of aiming at the target, he aimed at a boulder. The leaves shot forth, piercing stone.
Lucenna gaped at the small green blades and imagined them in a body. He had done that with leaves .
That presence. His power was on a different level she never felt before.
“There was a time when your kind once did the same,” Eldred said.
“Mages?” she asked in bewilderment.
“ Sorceresses .”
Lucenna’s breath caught. No one outside of Magos used that word. “When?”
“Before Magos relied solely on thought and the crutch of crystals, before the spoken spell was reduced to only the use of enchanted artifacts.” He glanced at her right hand. “Before the women of Magos were bound.”
Lucenna’s eyes widened, her heart racing. “How do you know this?”
“For a long time ago, when the Vale of the Elves was under one kingdom, your people used to come here to study incantations. It was organized, structured magic. Not spells thrown at a whim like a child splashing in a pool. This was a discipline lost to your people when they lost their way.”
“Why did we stop?”
The mages could have kept coming even if women were no longer allowed to study magic.
“It took many rigorous years of study to master such complicated magic, but never could a mage hold to the caliber of a sorceresses. They were talented in this somehow, surpassing to a level mages could not reach. Combining words and runes was easy for them, most never needing to ever use a staff.”
Then Lucenna understood.
Mages removed the practice of incantations because then they would have indeed never gained control of them if sorceresses could fight back with a single word.
Her pulse was drumming in her ears, her veins heating with rage. Electricity sparked around her clenched fists.
“Merely speaking a spell is not enough. You must learn to form the array in your mind and the carefully placed runes. Not one can be out of place, or the spell will falter. Perhaps this is the most difficult to master.”
She swallowed. “Why are you telling me this?”
Eldred turned to her with a smile. “It has been quite some time since I have had the opportunity to teach a student with the means to surpass their potential. You have the makings to become a great sorceress, Lucenna. I would be honored to teach to you.”