2. Chapter 2
Rowan
They crossed the bridge while the little mage oohed and aahed at the rushing water below.
Rowan didn’t expect trouble at this juncture of the journey.
They were still in a major city, and the roads were heavily patrolled in this region.
Really, they shouldn’t have trouble until they were well out of sight of the city, on the highway leading north.
Lots of bandits liked to prey on travelers between Silver Banks and Duskwall, but not many of them dared to attack Rowan.
In fact, though he’d carried obvious loot on the way down, he’d had a peaceful and uneventful trip.
Even alone, the impression he gave off was that’s suicide, let’s not.
By some stroke of luck from the gods themselves, it seemed his worst fears for this trip wouldn’t be realized, as he wasn’t traveling with a man who cowered from him. Rowan would take the win, for sure.
The city of Silver Banks bracketed the bridge, and with all the traffic coming and going, Rowan ended up taking lead.
He could hear Mage Tobitt whistling behind him, a jaunty tune, and it almost brought a smile to Rowan’s lips.
As time trickled by, he strangely found himself lowering his guard, if just a fraction.
It seemed this little mage truly did feel relaxed around him—a rare feeling to experience outside of his family.
Which brought up another thought. Normally, the mages who were assigned to Gravegarde bemoaned their poor luck, often finding reasons to leave before fulfilling their contracts.
Based on his enthusiastic packing, Rowan had the feeling Mage Tobitt wasn’t cut from the same cloth.
If he proved himself handy, maybe they could actually be on friendly terms?
A bold thought, and perhaps a premature hope, but Rowan couldn’t squash the feeling.
It’d be nice to have a friend who wasn’t also a sibling.
Well, Rowan had Troy, but his best friend was often too busy with his own family—not that Rowan blamed him.
He was a good husband to Raina and an excellent father to Rowan’s nieces.
Jarred from his musings, he glanced back to make sure he hadn’t lost Mage Tobitt in the throng of pedestrians, only to find there was no longer a familiar mage and cart behind him.
Rowan’s adrenaline surged hot and fast before he spotted a familiar blond on a cart some twenty yards back. Shit, seemed he had stopped. Didn’t look like it was by choice, either, as a woman had cut him off and was shaking a fist at him.
With an internal groan, Rowan turned Stan around, generating his own grumblings from pedestrians. That is, until they glanced up, eyes going wide as they shut their mouths and scrambled back, giving him a wider berth.
At a glance, Mage Tobitt didn’t seem to know how to handle the disgruntled woman, and Rowan didn’t want to be stopped here. It was a busy street, to start with, and they were already throwing off the flow of traffic.
With all the traffic noise and overlapping conversations, Rowan couldn’t hear the matron’s words until he was almost on top of them. Even when he could hear her, it didn’t make much sense.
“—made a hash of it and now I’m stuck reporting the problem again!” With both hands planted on her hips, the woman scowled up at the mage. Her tone was somewhere between irate and accusatory. “So why didn’t you come with him? If you’d been there, the job would have been done right!”
What was this?
As if the overly perky version of the mage had been a mirage, the tense man before Rowan didn’t look abashed, but he appeared done.
Just utterly done. With the reins still held in one hand, Mage Tobitt rubbed his temples with the other for a long moment.
When he spoke, his expression seemed conflicted.
“First, I’m so sorry he’s not done the job right, Miss Collins.
However, we’re no longer dating. I wasn’t aware he’d taken on the assignment. ”
The matron froze, mouth agape. “Oh… Oh.” The first oh was surprise, the second resigned understanding.
Rowan didn’t know the particulars, but he got the gist. Was this woman really haranguing him because some other mage hadn’t done a job right? Why was that Mage Tobitt’s responsibility? Wouldn’t this be an issue to take up with the Magic Council, who handled all internal matters?
Her accusation struck Rowan as all wrong and he fixed a glare on her, his voice clipped. “You should be complaining to the man who botched the job. Or take this matter to the Council. Mage Tobitt is not responsible for another man’s actions.”
A flush raced up the woman’s neck, face, and ears, and she muttered something while looking away from him. Rowan also clocked her small step back.
The mage shot him a look of such gratitude, it was Rowan’s turn to flush. Was someone coming to his defense so remarkable? Rowan’s ire at the situation rose a notch. Why wasn’t he defending himself?
Instead, the mage pulled a book out of the black satchel on the bench beside him, along with a quill, and wrote something out.
Then he drew a magic circle in the air, the light a bright white even in this strong sunlight, and pressed it against the page.
The paper immediately folded up with a mage’s seal embossed on the front.
“Here.” Mage Tobitt extended the letter to her. “Take that into any magic branch and explain. I’ve written out a strongly worded request to investigate your case. You should be able to get a proper resolution now.”
Still embarrassed, but pleased, she took the letter with a confused smile. “Thank you. And, um, sorry.”
“I totally get why you’re mad at him. I’m mad at him too, hence me leaving for a year to get space from the asshole.”
Her nose wrinkled in aggravation. “Yes, he is that. Sorry again, Mage Tobitt. And thank you.”
Satisfied, she walked off.
Rowan bent a look on him. “What was that about?”
“Used to work with an Advocate on a regular basis,” Mage Tobitt explained on a long groan.
“But after we split up a few months ago, I’ve avoided working with him.
He’s apparently floundering and making a mess of things in my absence.
This isn’t the first time someone’s stopped to yell at me.
Miss Collins was a previous client we helped together, and it seems she paid him for another job and, well, you heard the result. ”
“But it’s not a mess of your making.”
“Well, true, but I do feel bad for these clients. They went to get help, after all, not a bigger mess.”
Still, it wasn’t his fault nor his responsibility. Rowan barely knew his new colleague, but he didn’t like Mage Tobitt being caught in the fallout of someone else’s idiocy. It didn’t seem at all fair.
The mage sighed dramatically and listed to one side of the bench seat, smoothly returning to the eccentric man Rowan had first met.
“My hero! Thank you for coming to my defense. I don’t always know what to say, and at my core, I’m a people pleaser.
” Mage Tobitt shot him a brilliant smile from his bent position, a vision of pure radiance.
His smile did something funny in Rowan’s chest. The flip-flopping of his heart was something he had never experienced before, not even with past lovers, few as they were.
Then again, he’d never had so beautiful a smile directed at him before.
Gods, this was a powerful feeling, having someone happy with him.
Some primal part of his hindbrain started plotting how to elicit this pleased reaction more often.
Shaking off the thought, he suggested, “Let’s continue. Before someone else recognizes you.”
“Great idea. The sooner I can leave this mess behind, the better.” Mage Tobitt sat up straight once more and got the cart in motion.
Rowan went back to leading them—the only sensible way to handle the uptick in traffic—but he kept a much sharper eye on the man following along behind him.
Just in case. In the meantime, the little mage busied himself by whistling once more.
Eventually they were away from the main throng, the crowd drastically thinning as they reached the outer city limits.
Once they reached the hard-packed earth that formed the wide northern highway, Mage Tobitt smoothly maneuvered the cart alongside the warhorse and began chattering away.
“So tell me about yourself, about Gravegarde, all of that. I don’t know a lot, other then you’re one of the areas frequently needing mages? For some reason?”
Hadn’t anyone properly briefed him? “We are. Gravegarde is one of the Bastions of Ascos.”
“I’m not following.”
Rowan glanced at him in surprise, but the mage seemed genuinely confused.
“Haven’t you heard tell of the Bastions of the north?” Rowan asked in disbelief.
Mage Tobitt shrugged, hands fiddling with the reins. “I knew there were more fortresses up north, and they once had some kind of man-eating creature problem, but I’ve always lived in the southern part of Ascos, so I don’t know much.”
The gap in his knowledge surprised Rowan. All the other assigned mages, inept as they were, seemed at least aware of the Drachifel.
“Mage Tobitt—”
“Pshhh. You can drop the formalities. Call me Milo.”
“Milo”—Rowan’s tongue wanted to savor each syllable, but he pressed on—“were you not briefed on this assignment?”
“I maaaay or may not have tuned them out.”