Chapter 14 The Magicsmith #2
To be sure, there had been the occasional flare up with cultists acting out in Havensreach, skirmishes arising and damage done within their own borders.
Issues that Cedric himself had often been commanded to deal with.
But they were treated as little more than a nuisance.
Collateral damage. Easy enough to snuff out and clean up.
Cedric hadn’t thought much about it before. He hadn’t thought about a lot of things before he took on the Crucible.
If Malchior succeeded, if he reunited and claimed the Crown of Concord, it would be the Arcanians—the fae—who suffered.
Not Havensreach. And if Elyria succeeded instead, if she tracked him down, if she got to the crown first, what incentive would King Lachlandris have to adhere to the accords?
To continue granting Havensreach access to the mana of the Midlands?
Cedric did not believe the fae king would renege on his promises, but there was no way to be certain.
And if even Cedric was uncertain, King Callum and Lord Church would surely be doubly, triply suspicious.
So why would they risk ushering Elyria and the Arcanians closer to the very thing that could jeopardize the very good deal they had going for them?
They already had what they wanted.
Which meant all of this—putting Cedric and Elyria on display, the boasts of peace, of needing to wait and be prudent and be purposeful—truly was simply for show.
A spectacle.
They didn’t want Elyria to find Malchior. Because if she did, if she recovered the crown, what would become of the power they held? Finding out wasn’t a risk King Callum was willing to take, clearly.
Cedric’s fists tightened, fingers coiling so hard his nails bit into his palms as he thudded toward the Walk.
All this newly acquired mana, the magic of the Midlands now within the kingdom’s reach, and yet it was still being used to power noblemen’s tokens and polish the already pristine accoutrements of the palace, rather than helping those who needed it most.
He saw it everywhere now. How deep the imbalance in the city went.
How broken it was. In the bright, gleaming heart of Kingshelm, magic was everywhere.
Lighting the many lamps that lined the grand avenues.
Shining the windows of shops and powering the runes carved into doorways.
Heating homes and keeping children fed and happy.
But here, on the Walk, with pathways made of crumbling stone and lit only by spluttering oil lamps, there was none of that.
Children with hollow cheeks and wide eyes wove between the legs of vendors that lined street after street.
Doors and shutters hung at crooked angles, repaired not by small magics but with nails and grit and perseverance.
And it was only getting worse.
Despite the flare of heat he could feel building in his chest, Cedric shivered as he stepped onto the Walk’s main street.
He pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders, drawing his hood over his face.
The familiar streets brought a sense of calm, of belonging, despite the dilapidated state of them.
He’d spent more time down here than any knight of Kingshelm ever had, he was sure of it.
Well, outside those who found their pleasure in the more affordable brothels dotted sparingly throughout, he supposed.
While he certainly didn’t judge or begrudge either the patrons or the workers within, they had never held much appeal for him.
Rather, Cedric felt himself drawn to the Walk for other reasons. Less a sense of duty than a curiosity, a hunger for understanding that had always driven him to want to explore the world outside the shiniest parts of the city.
Perhaps it was that he felt a kinship with the children here. He, too, had been orphaned. He, too, experienced loss of the most acute and unfairest kind, at an age all too young.
Cedric passed a group of ragged children playing with a wooden hoop, laughter and excitement palpable in the air.
Farther on, he saw an elderly man huddled by a firepit, the flames pale and weak—no doubt coaxed to life through painstaking effort, given the unlikelihood of even a flicker of magic to sustain it.
If King Lachlandris did rescind his bargain, would more of Kingshelm end up like this? Would the Arcanians drive the humans out of the Midlands by force, as they had before?
But no.
A flicker of memory danced in Cedric’s mind. Elyria’s voice, fierce, uncompromising, echoing through the darkness of the Sanctum.
“With the crown, bolstered with that kind of power . . . I think I could fill the Chasms and bridge the realms.”
He knew without a single doubt she had spoken true. That, if given the opportunity, she would heal the rifts that had been torn through the earth and give Havensreach and Nyrundelle a chance at true unity.
Without the physical separation of the Chasms, without the limitations that came with them, expansion into the Midlands was a real possibility for the humans.
Not just for the sake of mining mana, but for lessening the burden on these crowded streets.
For remedying the issues of overpopulation and lack of resources that plagued Havensreach from Silverbrook to Dawnspire, mana be damned.
Another voice, layered with ancient power, cut through Cedric’s thoughts.
“In the twilight of Arcanis’ strife, long past a luminous fall,
Visions pierce the veil of time, foretelling the stars’ plan for all.
A shattered crown shall be united, a sundered land restored.
A severed people shall be made whole or fall to darkness once more.”
The prophecy, falling from Aurelia’s own lips, was more than a prediction. It was a map. It showed what might happen if the crown could be united. If Elyria succeeded.
By keeping her here, clipping her metaphorical wings, King Callum and Lord Church weren’t holding onto the Midlands. They were actively preventing better access to them.
The real problem was that they simply did not know that.
Because no one knew of Elyria’s true motivations for seeking the crown. Not only for revenge against Malchior—revenge she rightly deserved—but to heal the whole of Arcanis.
And once she wielded the crown’s celestial-given power, she would destroy it. She would ensure it could never be abused again.
Which was something neither kingdom could know.
Cedric’s pulse quickened, his hands growing hot where they rested against his hips as he reached his destination—the orphanage deep in the belly of the Walk where he was to report for today’s charitable victor appearance.
He still believed her. Believed in her.
The question then became: would Elyria ever trust him enough to let him help her fulfill that promise?