Ezo spent two nights sleeping next to the rushing waters of the Sanguine River and he felt revived. The river fork was deep and wide, a natural border between three countries. He could see the ruins of two outposts on the other sides. They had long been abandoned and reclaimed by nature.
Ezo needed the quiet and peace of the river after seeing the burnt-out ruins of Fire Born Castle.
He’d spent the last two days at the castle but retreated to the river at night. The castle was the stuff of nightmares but not for ghosts that the old peddler feared. Even now, Ezo could feel the pain that echoed along the walls. He didn’t know how no one else sensed it, but this was no battle. The castle had been brought down by grief and suffering. A razing all right, but not of armies.
He wouldn’t go back, except that the book had brought him there and he kept searching for more. It was hard to imagine anything survived the fire when stone had melted, but he would turn the place upside down until he was certain there was no great treasure still hidden amidst the ash.
Ezo touched the pack on his back, feeling the weight of the book pull at his shoulders. He hadn’t finished reading it yet. It was a dense tome and he wanted to take his time, but he’d sped through the pages, looking for key words that would help him in his search for specific knowledge. It was a true history of elemental magic and not one edited and whittled down by lesser men who wished to keep the secrets of magic to themselves.
He’d found what he wanted, but it wasn’t at all what he thought it would be.
Kammon. The bastard knew and he’d run so damn hard. He had no idea how persistent Ezo could be, though, but he’d find out soon enough.
Right now, there was another call.
Ezo pulled himself up onto Rile’s back and the horse neighed softly to him. The horse wasn’t spooked by the ruined castle. When Ezo had gone to buy a horse the man had sized him up and pointed him to Rile. Mild temperament, steady and easy. Rile could be fast when called upon for short bursts but Rile was meant for long trails and wasn’t likely to scare easily. It had been a good call. Probably the only reason Ezo was still on horseback.
It was a twenty-minute ride and Ezo felt a chill as he watched the Fire Born Castle appear around the trees as if it had been waiting. In some ways, he felt it had. There was a story there that no one was telling. Ezo wasn’t sure he was the one who would figure it out, but it was a mystery he wanted to understand.
Not as much as he hoped to find more books though.
When he arrived, he set Rile to a rocky enclosure that was overgrown and full of greenery for the beast to eat, then headed in toward the back of the house.
He’d been systematically working room by room, trying to find anything that would help him understand the elements better. This had become Ezo’s true quest. His uncle had given him knowledge, but not truth. He helped him grasp his magic, but not see the wider scope of it. Ezo’s journey away from home had become a need to know the details that had been lost to him. And not just about magic.
If Jacob knew Kammon, how could Jacob not believe in effigies? Why would he lie about it? Why hadn’t he taught Ezo about sharing his magic with another elemental? About the bond? He had so many questions but one drove all the others from his head. What had his uncle really died from?
Kammon had the answer to at least one of the questions that ran through Ezo’s head on a continual loop.
The back room of the house had been a study or family room. There was more left of this room than any other. Was it the furthest from the source of the fire? Saved by some purpose Ezo didn’t know? Or was it simple luck?
A tattered, smoke-stained curtain hung over a window and Ezo pulled it back to expose the area to sunlight. When he turned around, an old woman crept through the room, covered in ash and dust as if she’d spent days rolling in it. He let out a startled noise and the woman turned wide eyes to look at him.
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“It was beautiful, once,” she confessed as she ran her fingers over the blackened furniture.
He was afraid to scare her off, though she showed no signs of fear. There was something vulnerable about the way she looked at the castle around her.
“You knew it well?”
“It had its secrets. What castle in Distria doesn’t?” she asked. “But the family was strong and served and took care of the people. The castle stood as long as it could.”
“Do you know what happened here?”
She shook her head. “No one lives when stones burn.”
Ezo watched her wandering the room. She might have been graceful once, but whenever she touched stone, her body trembled and she flinched away, sometimes stumbling before she recovered herself enough to continue.
As she walked around the room an eerie silence settled around them. Her eyes were glazed over like she was in a dream, but she knew her steps and only stone deterred her movements.
“I was given a book.” Ezo needed to break the quiet that had fallen. “A peddler told me he found it here. It was a great find, a history book on elemental magic. I came, hoping to find another.”
“An elementalist?” the woman asked him.
“My name is Ezo,” he said. “What is yours?”
“Kaiya. He loved books.”
“Who loved books?”
“The eques. It was my job and mine alone.”
“What was?”
“To protect what must be protected. He said I must protect what must be protected at all costs. I have. All these years. You understand, yes?” she asked. She dashed around the furniture and grabbed his vest, staring up at him with tears in her eyes. “You understand?”
He set a hand on hers and nodded. “You protected what you had to.”
She nodded as she let out a shuddered breath. “You feel …” she looked at him and smiled then. “You feel right.”
She ran to the other side of the room and Ezo watched in surprise as she pressed a dirty finger to her lips, then pushed on a broken stone on the fireplace. Ezo covered his ears as a horrible screech echoed through the room. When it stopped, the woman was gone. He gaped, then realized that something wasn’t right with the fireplace. He moved closer to where she had been and found that the back wall of the fireplace was cracked open to one side.
Ezo carefully pushed at the wall and found himself at the top of a long, narrow stair. Kaiya was smiling up at him a few feet down.
“Only those who seek can find,” she said as she ran down the stairs.
Ezo followed at a much more sedated pace. As excited as he was, he was afraid of falling down the steep stairs. When the stairs ended, Ezo took a tunnel that began to lead up.
He lost track of time in the tunnel and had to call on fire to light the way. Kaiya fled before the flames but stayed close to the circle of light as he followed her.
“They called him Riverkeeper as a joke, but they did not know,” Kaiya said softly. “They could not know the truth.”
Light broke into the tunnel from ahead and Ezo doused his flame. He walked forward, cautiously. Kaiya didn’t seem to want to harm him, but he had no idea what she wanted, or who she was. There was a sad tale to her life and he wanted to help her. For now, all he could do was follow.
The tunnel ended in a door with no lock and no knob. Light came from around it and as he looked at Kaiya she smiled at him.
He leaned closer and touched the door, opening himself to his magic. It poured into him and this far from the castle, the ache and grief of stone were muted. He could feel the door’s secret; one meant only for those who could work magic of more than one element.
There was an insignia for earth on one corner of the door and he placed a hand there. He placed his other hand on air. When he released a gentle flow of each into the insignia, it opened.
Kaiya squealed her happiness and Ezo smiled as he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
There were no outer doors in the room, but a magnificent window showed that the tunnel’s room ended on the backside of a waterfall. Riverkeep was inscribed over the top of the window. “This is beautiful,” he whispered as he looked out.
Kaiya took his hand and pulled him away from the waterfall and to a doorway on the right. It was a hallway and he found three bedrooms and a kitchen. She brought him to the furthest door on the other side of the hallway.
“You will find him. You will bring him,” she said. She pushed the door open and Ezo didn’t have time to contemplate her words. He stepped into the study of Riverkeep.
The room was as large as any common room he’d ever been in. A fireplace sat at one end, giving warmth and light when needed, and tables made a line in the center of the room. On all other sides, the walls were covered with shelves. Some held elemental tools, others books. Some were empty but labeled and must have been lost.
Ezo stepped inside, moving in far enough to brush a hand over the table. This was the secret that had called him here. This is why the eques had died, he was certain. He turned to thank Kaiya for bringing him, but she wasn’t there. When he went back through the other rooms, he saw the door had been closed again, and her footsteps sounded down the darkened tunnel.
It was still early and though he worried about the woman, she obviously knew her way around the castle. He went back to the study of Riverkeep. Shafts of light came from above, but he lit the fireplace as well in case the lights were blocked.
He reached the first shelf and began to systematically explore the hidden space and the amazing things he hoped to find there.