41. Joy
JOY
“He was bright and lively. Almost like a lightning storm.”
- ERIN.
The moon was tired as we ascended land, using all its strength just to stay in the sky. It must’ve been close to midnight and fatigue weighed heavy upon us all. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten a proper meal. All I wanted now was a place to rest my head, but we didn’t have the time.
By now, The Temple would know Raya and Khol were missing, and that they had taken Rafael and Jameson with them.
Small huts were stacked around the river’s edge, with bellowing gray smoke puffing from their chimneys. We stopped, staring at the houses ahead of us, pulling our cloaks tighter, attempting to beat the cold.
Rafael strode forward toward the closest house and rapped his knuckles on the wooden door.
“What are you doing?” Khol hissed. “Ezra has spies everywhere.” He half stepped in front of Raya, as though to block her from the conversation. She tsked, moving out from behind him.
The door swung open, and a round woman stood with a quill in her hand, ink dripping down her wrist slowly.
“Yes?” she asked, ignoring the deep blue staining her dress. I looked down at my soft tunic and trousers and then over to Raya in her slightly dusty, but entirely beautiful, ball gown and wool cloak.
“Do you know where I can find Elian?” Raf cleared his throat, allowing a small smile to grace his face. The woman rolled her eyes.
“You’re not bringing more trouble to him are ya?” she asked, wiping her dripping wrists against her thigh. Rafael shook his head. “Goddess knows he finds enough trouble on his own,” she rolled her eyes.
“I just need his help.” Rafael stared down at his shoes, before looking back at the woman. She smiled softly letting out a breath.
“His family home is two doors down, if he’s not there, perhaps check the well.” She smiled again sweetly, despite her maturity, she must have only been a few years older than us.
“May the Goddess bless you,” she said softly before shutting the door.
We stared at Raf, unsure of what was going on inside his head.
“Care to explain?” Khol asked. Rafael began walking to the hut two doors down.
“Not really, no,” he stated before hitting his knuckles against the wood.
The door swung open.
“Raf?” A tall, pale boy stood at the threshold. His golden hair swishing with his movements.
“Elian!” Rafael laughed before throwing his arms around the man.
“I see you finally escape from your wretched mother?” Elian teased as the men pulled out of their embrace.
“Yes, with no help from you!” Raf laughed, Khol cleared his throat. I watched him carefully, his brown skin stretched taut over his tense features.
“Elian?” Jameson chirped up, striding over to the door.
“Jameson?” Elian pulled both the boys into a hug. “What are you both doing here?”
I cleared my throat, my mouth a flatline. Jameson glanced at me, as though just remembering I was here.
“Elian was in the cell next to us, he managed to escape a week or two ago.”
“Wow the security is seriously slack in The Church,” I whispered under my breath.
“The Temple,” Khol and Raya corrected at the same time.
Jameson looked back at Elian, ignoring the interruption.
“He tried to break us out, but he couldn’t get our bars to shift,” a cloud passed over Elian’s face. “We didn’t want him to waste his shot at freedom.”
“He’s a FireBringer, and so was his father,” Rafael spoke, looking straight at Khol. I heard a delighted gasp from Jodie. Khol stared back in disbelief, his gaze shifting between his brother, Elian, and Raya.
“I’ve never heard of Sorcerers living outside of The Temple? Why would you live without the protection?” His voice was pained and soft.
“We learned long ago that The Temple did not protect us. Ezra, she was stealing our power, keeping it for herself,” Elian spoke softly.
“We?” Jodie asked, looking at all the houses around us. Elian looked up and down the dusty road, from the river.
“You’d better come inside,” he said quickly, ushering us all in. He ducked beneath the doorframe, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the low ceilings. A fire roared in the heath, casting a faint orange glow on the yellow walls. A single armchair sat in front of the flames; a bowl of half-eaten stew balancing on the arm. It was warm and cozy and homely, but also incredibly lonely.
“You live here, alone?” Raya asked, taking the thought from my mind. Elian turned to the fire, staring at the dancing flames. Moments stretched.
“Yes, I live alone.” He strode over to the wonky cupboard, barely hanging on to the wall. “My mother died a few winters ago and I haven’t seen my father since last summer, I believed him to be at The Temple but…” He grabbed mugs from the cupboard and set them on the small table next to the fire. “Well, we all know how that turned out.” He choked on a fake laugh as he began pouring out the liquid warming above the fire.
“It’s hot chocolate.” He smiled.
“You’re not the only Sorcerer here, are you?” Jodie asked, setting her mug down.
“No, I’m not.”
“Where are the others?” Khol asked impatiently, confusion and frustration practically leaking from his pores.
“They’re not here,” Elian spoke softly. “But I can take you to them?”
Damp water dripped slowly as we descended a set of twisted stairs. I felt as though we must be close to the center of the earth, we had been walking for almost an hour in darkness, burning handfuls of fire from Jodie, Raya, and Elian our only light. Elian had taken us to a well an hour’s walk away from his home, before leading us down a secret tunnel buried beneath the earth. My legs shook with fatigue. I still didn’t understand where we were going, was there an underground cave or something? Did a handful of Sorcerer’s live down there? Elian had not revealed anything.
“Elian?” Raf whispered. “Are we close?”
Light finally found us as Elian rolled a huge bolder to reveal a hole in the wall at the bottom of the staircase, the rising sound of voices and laughter filled the air. Light seeped through the cracks, all of us wincing at the brightness and the dust that surrounded us.
“Oh yeah, we’re close.” Elian flashed a grin before slipping through the hole in the stone. Nervous excitement thrummed through my body as each of us stepped through the gap in the wall. Color and light exploded in my vision.
“Welcome to The Circle,” he heaved a deep breath, smudging dirt on his brow when wiping his sweat, his sculpted body moving swiftly beneath his white tunic. Erin coughed next to me.
“Careful, Joy, or you’ll get drool on your shoes.” She drifted by, a swing in her step.
“With my luck he’ll probably end up dead or betraying me,” I whispered after her, but she wasn’t listening. No one was, they all stared ahead.
A cavernous room opened around us, it was as though they had carved a huge hole out of the earth and decided to call it home. All kinds of people milled around the space, some in balconies higher up in the stone and others deeper in the room. Big boulders lay in random spots and tunnels zigzagged in every direction; stone and people as far as the eye could see. Light from the moon filtered in through hundreds of small holes and cracks in the ceiling.
My gaze caught on what looked like a training ring, two fighters stalking each other, gaging when to attack.
“How many live here?” I asked softly.
“Around two thousand,” Elian stated proudly, watching the fighter intensely. My eyes widened in the darkness.
“Two thousand people live here?” I asked, my mouth hanging open.
“No, Joy, two thousand Sorcerers live here.” He winked at me quickly. Raya gasped next to me but I couldn’t take my eyes off the Sorcerers that battled ruthlessly ahead of us.
“What are they training for?” Khol asked, following my gaze.
“They’re preparing, readying for war,” Elian spoke, his gaze hard, almost metallic.
My brain moved a hundred miles an hour. War?
In the Southern Continent we tended to shy away from the conflict in the Northern Continent, pretending it did not exist. The Southern Continent did not have an army, only pirates and thieves. We hid on our islands, kept our families safe and our livelihood protected.
We tried not to think of the war. Of Northerner against Northerner, villages against villages, family against family.
No one truly knew how the war began in Zetka, we were told a hundred different stories over the years. But most originated with one family.
A wealthy family living in the heart of Zetka. When the lands were plentiful and unmarred by war. But one day, sister turned on sister, the family split in two and a war began. First it was just the family and then the surrounding villages got involved, and now the Northern Continent is divided.
The Sage Guard fighting on one side and…
I wasn’t sure who fought on the other.
“They’re going to Zetka? To fight with the Sage Guard?” Raya stepped forward, waking me from my mind, something like pleading in her eyes. The Sage Guard were once her people, she had spoken of grueling training and then being taken from her home, she told stories of Alias, the mysterious man I had met at the night market.
“Zetka?” Elian asked, his head whipped around our entire group. When our confused faces met his, he softened.
For the first time he seemed unsure of himself.
He cleared his throat.
“Raya.” His voice turned slow and tired, as though he was trying to calm a wild animal. “There is no war in Zetka.”