“Behind you!”

As soon as Dorvo’s shout of warning reached Garban’s ears, he reacted. The dwarf threw himself forward, diving onto the ground just as he felt a disturbance of air on his back. Turning himself over, Garban was stunned to see the bandit leader standing behind him, completely unharmed.

“How in the…?” Garban sputtered. “Who are you?”

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” asked the bandit leader. “I was shamed and I was exiled. I was branded, and I will never see the next world. There’s nothing more to it. So now I’m just a simple bandit; nothing more and nothing less.”

He raised his weapon in preparation for another strike against Garban, when suddenly Dorvo was between them.

Howling with the indignant fury of the young, the lad slashed at the bandit leader with a flaming sword. He moved so swiftly and with such ferocity that the bandit was driven back, put on the defensive, so focused on parrying Dorvo’s furious blows that he couldn’t even summon up his magic to defend himself.

Garban climbed to his feet. His entire body pulsed with ache. He was bruised and tired, and his mind seemed slow and sluggish with exhaustion. Even so, it puzzled over what had just happened.

Everyone, at the age of fourteen, swore an oath to either Elyran, goddess of light, or Veshara, goddess of dark. Each of the Twin Goddesses held sway over nine domains, recovered from deities lost in the Godswar. When one swore allegiance to a goddess, he gained access to two of those nine domains.

Garban was darksworn, and could wield the magic of Earth and Ice. Dorvo was lightsworn, and could wield the magic of Fire and Air. This bandit they were fighting, he had shown himself to be able to wield Magma and Illusion, which were domains of Elyran, marking him as lightsworn.

And yet, what he just did… Garban had felt him through the Earth Magic. He knew that the trick this man had just pulled was no illusion. It was the result of neither domain.

That should not be possible.

The bandit leader had been pushed back four paces now, having lost ground in the wake of Dorvo’s furious assault. Garban has to hand it to the lad: regardless of his inexperience, Dorvo was a true prodigy with the blade. Yet even on the defensive, the bandit leader was still able to match him blow for blow. It was only a matter of time before one slipped up and the other gained the upper hand.

Hefting his hammer, Garban took a deep breath and centered himself. Connected to his Earth Magic as he was, Garban didn’t need to look at his opponent to know where he stood. He could feel his feet against the earth, and so he knew that the bandit Dorvo fought was no illusion. It was how he’d been able to pick out the two real bandits in the false mob the chief had conjured.

But Garban was not just feeling for enemies. The pulse of magic converged on a point just behind the bandit leader, and a spear of stone—a long and thin stalagmite—burst from the dirt at an angle. It moved so quickly that it had already pierced its way through the back of the bandit leader before the man had even realized it was there.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The tip burst from his chest in a spray of deep red. The bandit leader stared at it for an instant, as though trying to puzzle out what it was and what had just happened, and then the light left his eyes and his body went slack.

The stalagmite spear remained standing, propping up the corpse. It hung there limply, dripping blood, unmoving.

“Is he truly dead?” asked Dorvo. “It’s not another illusion, like when we had him before?”

“I don’t think that was an illusion, lad,” said Garban. He stepped forward toward the body, then stumbled. All at once, his fatigue crashed down upon him in a powerful wave. He’d fought dearly for his life, and had called upon much of his magic, and now his reserves ran nearly empty.

“What else could it have been?” Dorvo asked. “He was lying on the ground, and then he wasn’t. It must have been an illusion.”

Garban steadied himself and cast his eyes about, looking for any other bandits. But if any had survived, they had long since fled. He stepped closer to the body.

The amulet was still there, hanging from the bandit chief’s neck. It was a disc, with a single blue gem in its center, surrounded on all sides by various symbols etched into the metal. Garban cradled the amulet with an unsteady hand and frowned as he inspected it.

“That was Time Magic,” he said.

He heard Dorvo scoff behind him. “That’s impossible. Time is one of Veshara’s domains, and this man was lightsworn.”

“Indeed,” Garban agreed. “It should be impossible.” His eyes traveled up the length of the thin chain which held the amulet, and they settled on the burned and scarred face of the dead man. What had he done in Keening to anger the Heralds of Demise so? How had he earned the Lifebrand of Neverdeath? It was the darkest punishment the death priests could administer, a mark of exile not just from the city, but from what they believed awaited all souls that passed on.

He looked once more to the amulet. Did it have something to do with this? It had to. Had this man stolen it? Hidden it away from the Heralds even as he was branded? Or had he stolen it after the fact, as some form of retaliation?

Garban pulled, and the thin chain snapped. He held the amulet in his hand. There, above the gem, was the largest glyph: the mark of Time.

“I think he used this,” said Garban. “I think this amulet somehow allowed him to tap into another domain and wield Time Magic.”

Dorvo approached. He looked down at the amulet in the dwarf’s hand, a deep frown on his face. “But how is that possible?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, where could he have gotten something like this?”

Garban sighed. “I don’t know,” he said again. He could guess, however. It might have been something studied by the scholars at Academos Vynte… or it could have been an artifact held in the vaults of Keening.

It seemed that Dorvo was about to say something else, but Garban cut him off. “We won’t find any answers here,” he said. “We’ll make some inquiries in Dralif Cor—after we collect the salamander bounty. And bathe. And rest.”

The lad had the good sense not to argue, so Garban nodded in the direction of their thankfully unstolen horses. The two adventurers prepared for their journey back to the goblin city.