- CHAPTER 3 -
A Visitor in the Night
Nytaea, city of mage soldiers, was given over to a tyrant known as Lord Edrius Kalceron. The proud city was known for its wondrous architecture, a city of alabaster and silver marvels, but its future is dark as long as Lord Kalceron remains governor. Even in Archlord Domon’s new empire of Kystrea, Nytaea stands to experience one of the worst falls from grace—indeed, the difference is already marked. As a High Mage, however, he is extraordinarily long-lived.
— From Secrets of Mani, by Sor the Lark
(Fynle 27, 997—Waxing Day)
I froze.
Sharing a look of horror with Kaen, who had come up to stand beside me, I released the pressure from the mage’s chest. She gasped in a couple of breaths, and then spat, “You fools didn’t think I had backup? That I wouldn’t realize two of you were missing?” Then she twisted her neck to the side, shouting, “Hespian! Do you have them?”
“Of course. Easy as catchin’ pigeons!” came a gruff male voice from my far right. I looked and saw the speaker at the head of the alleyway, a tall man in silver armor, standing over Phoebe’s unconscious body with Mandrie in his tight grip. The decorations on his shoulder plates seemed to indicate a very high-ranking mage soldier. He picked up both girls and began hauling their limp forms toward us.
The woman smirked at us. “Might want to let me up. I can’t say what the captain might do to your little friends. We knew we may not be able to bring you in, but Lord Kalceron wants his target.”
I rose to my feet, withdrawing my knee from the woman’s chest. I kept my knife out, unsure what she would try next. “What target?” I demanded. “What do you want with me? Let our friends go already.”
“Oh, his little white-haired wench,” replied the captain with a grin. “Can’t say why, but he’s been looking for you. Oddities like you are growing quite popular these days, apparently, and it’s not our job to ask questions. But I’m sure you could be coaxed into coming on your own if it meant saving your pretty friends here.”
Kaen growled from beside me. “Fiends. How could you stoop that low?”
“Well, when you want to cage a wild beast, you have to be cunning,” Hespian reasoned. “Come, Lorta! Let us be away. He didn’t exactly give us a time limit. Don’t worry, friends, we’ll keep the wenches in . . . possibly good accommodation, and we’ll wait as long as we have to for you to show up.”
The woman, Lorta, limped down the alleyway to her captain, who handed Mandrie over to her while he hoisted Phoebe’s limp body up onto his shoulder. She struggled with the girl’s weight, grunting at the wounds I’d given her.
“We won’t let you get away with this!” I hissed through gritted teeth.
“Ah, but you have no choice,” purred Lorta with a snarl clearly meant to mask her pain. And then she vanished, along with Mandrie.
Hespian waved his hand, preparing to perform the same trick of magic. “See you at the Palace, friends.”
He vanished, leaving only Kaen and me standing there in the alley. Looking back, I saw that the third mage soldier was gone now as well. My elbow still throbbed from where I’d struck him.
Kaen clenched his hands into fists, stamping his boot on the stone pavement. “Curse those low-down wolves!” After a moment of heavy breathing, he asked, “What now? They just . . . made off with them.” He made a frustrated hand gesture, as though admitting how obvious his comment was.
I stared at the ground, shrugging my shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know. I . . .” I swayed weakly, suddenly overcome with an immense tiredness. I felt myself fall toward the ground as my vision went black.
“Lyn! Lyn!”
Someone was slapping me, shouting for me to wake up, but I didn’t know who it was. I mumbled something incoherent and then snapped my eyes open with a start, finding Kaen bending over me, face directly in front of mine and hand raised as though to slap me again if needed.
“Huh?” I groaned heavily. “Kaen?”
He lowered his hand, taking a half step backward. “You scared me for a minute there, Lyn. You suddenly lost consciousness, and I had to carry you here. It’s . . . you know, at least a little more out of the way.”
I looked about myself, realizing that I lay slumped against the stone wall of a building in a back alleyway. I groaned, sitting up slowly and squinting against the bright, white sunlight that shone from the east. It had faded from soft orange to its natural white over the last day. The cloud coverage was already rolling in for the day, building in layers. I stretched my hand, which still tingled from the shock of Lorta’s lightning magic. “How long was I out?” I couldn’t recall ever blacking out before.
“Just a couple of minutes. You hungry?”
My stomach growled. “Yes. Very.”
Kaen handed me some bread, which I wolfed down in a few heartbeats. I took a shaky breath. “All right. I feel . . . a bit better now.” I stood up hesitantly, and Kaen took a few steps back to give me space to stretch out, but he looked ready to jump in and catch me should I tumble again. “Really, Kaen,” I assured him. “I’m fine.”
“If you say so.” He took a deep breath, pausing for a moment before letting it back out. “But we need to figure out what to do now.”
I nodded numbly. “I know . . .” I held a hand to my head. Ugh, what a nightmare. Not only Lentha and all the little ones—now Mandrie and Phoebe are gone too.
“Lyn, let’s just worry about finding someplace to lie low for the night. It’s going to be dusk soon.”
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I looked up at the sky above the buildings once more. With the day’s clouds streaming in, the auroras began to glimmer, a mirage of blue and green playing off of the thickening layer. “You’re right. I . . . I could use some sleep, I think.”
We ended up taking refuge behind the back of an old shop in a dead-end alley, where an overhang provided shelter from any forthcoming rain. I told Kaen to let me take the first watch, but he refused, insisting that he would stay up himself before waking me for the second watch. I was more exhausted than I could ever remember being, so I didn’t put up much fuss over it. I soon fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep.
꧁꧂
I saw a young girl’s face fading in and out of focus. I didn’t know where I was or who was bugging me, but she was speaking my name.
“Lyn! Hello, Lyn.” Her voice was young and childlike.
She was shaking me. “Stop,” I moaned, squeezing my eyes shut tighter. “Please just let me sleep. . . .”
“But Lyn, you need to wake up! There are things I want to show you.”
I shook my head slowly, feebly. “More sleep. . . .”
“Sleep?” the girl repeated. “Come on, just wake up! It’s been ages, and all you can say is you want to sleep longer?”
“What did you just say?” I asked. I opened my eyes to see who it was, but the girl was already fading away. I caught only the faintest trace of her childlike appearance, complete with white hair, before my dream changed.
꧁꧂
It felt like no time had passed when Kaen woke me gently, whispering, “Your watch now.”
I roused myself with an effort and rubbed my eyes. I nodded numbly, visions of the little girl fading as I glanced around for the first time. I still felt tired, and the wall of any building was no comfortable place to sleep against. I let my friend lie down to sleep and forced myself to focus on not drifting off.
Looking upward, I saw the last vestiges of the auroras twinkling through the thinner parts of the clouds. This was how every night of the Sunlit Cycle went—the clouds rolled in, heavily dampening Sol’s white light until morning, and the auroras began to twinkle within them. In the morning, the clouds would roll by once more, taking the auroras with them and revealing the white sun again. It was a beautiful display, though my favorite season of the Sol Cycle was still the Sunless Cycle, when the auroras became the world’s light in place of Sol.
Another phenomenon that accompanied each Cycle was what we called constellations: star-like patterns that appeared on the cloud layer as Sol’s light struck the Energy Field that surrounded Mani. At least, that’s how I’d heard it explained. There were a few that appeared in the Sunlit Cycle, and a few others in the Night Season. Right now, the Sun Dancer constellation was glowing its brightest in Mani’s night sky. It was vaguely shaped like a dancing girl, but I certainly wouldn’t have thought of that on my—
A sound came from farther down the street. I tensed, suddenly on the alert. I glanced back at where Kaen slept, debating whether to wake him. If it was just a dog roaming around, however, I would feel bad. . . .
Slowly, I crept toward the noise. It was footsteps; I could distinguish that now. Soft footsteps, heading across our alleyway. I moved forward quietly until I could just make out the figure in the starlight.
It was a young woman, not even my age from what I could tell. Shocked, I stepped forward and said, “Excuse me—are you lost?” I could have kicked myself for my stupidity, but pity and instinct led me to say it. What if she was an orphan like me? Like all the others who had died in the last day? What if she needed help?
The girl gasped, nearly tripping in fright as she scurried back from me. “You . . . w-who are you? Get away from me!” She spoke in a hushed whisper that said she was still afraid to catch attention. It proved to not be loud enough to wake Kaen.
“I-I’m sorry,” I said, stepping backward as well. “I should not have . . .” I didn’t know what to say.
“Oh.” The girl seemed to truly see me for the first time. “I shouldn’t be wandering around this late. I didn’t . . . Are you—do you live near here?” She stared at me warily, and I caught a better look at her face. It was youthful in appearance, but in reality, she was probably the same age as me. Maybe fourteen or fifteen. She was very pretty, with dainty, refined features and thin, dark eyebrows over scared blue eyes. Her shoulder-length hair was a glossy black, surely washed every morning . . .
I gasped. “You’re . . .” She was clearly of noble blood. Of all the luck. I didn’t know what to say now. I was about to speak when I caught sounds of movement from the way she had come. I groaned inwardly at the thought that this young lady of the court had brought footpads or worse to our hiding place. “Quick—go!” I hissed.
“Huh? What?” She looked confused, almost hurt, until I clarified:
“Thieves! You have to get back to the Palace!”
She followed my gaze, nodding nervously. “G-goodbye, then. Forgive me.” She ran off the other way, back towards the center of the city where the Palace lay—confirming my assumptions of her nobility—and I found myself wondering why I was helping this girl. Without a word, I spun to face the thieves, belt knife out and in hand.
There were only two of them, tall but scrawny men with unkempt beards and a knife and a cudgel between them. Not much of a threat, yet my hands still shook from nerves. I’d had enough fighting for one day, so I determined to try and scare them off instead of engaging. If I had any of my freakish strength left . . . I didn’t need to use it now.
“Don’t come any closer!” I snapped at them, slicing the air in front of me, and leaped at one of them, pushing him back with moderation so as to only knock him backward. The other one I threatened with my naked blade, and he fled with a curse, along with his companion. Never had I known how easy it was to scare off thieves.
It was at this moment that Kaen came up to me, having been awakened by the brief scuffle. “Lyn, what was that all about?”
“Footpads,” I answered him. “I was careless and made too much noise sneaking about. You can go back to sleep.”
Surprisingly, he did so, wandering back to his perch against the alley wall and slumping with his back to the bricks.
I spent the rest of the night awake on watch. I couldn’t help but wonder if I could have helped to somehow scare off the bandits from the previous day. . . . But that man had been a fire mage, and had a half-dozen companions, not one or two; I knew that I could do nothing for my dead family now, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.
The tears came now, and I huddled up to cry to myself, silent tears that wouldn’t wake Kaen up. When I was done, I wiped my face off and tried to take my mind off of Lentha’s beaten face by running through possible options Kaen and I could take this day, ways to get Mandrie and Phoebe back. I could only think of two possibilities. . . .
Finally, I deemed it close enough to cloudbreak to wake him from his sleep. “Kaen, get up!” I said, nudging him with my foot. “Kaen!”
“All right, all right,” he mumbled, getting up and stretching. Our situation seemed to come back to him. “Oh, great auroras. We need a plan.”
“I know.” I shook my head in despair. “We will get them back, Kaen. But . . . should I just give myself up? What else is there to do?”
“I-I don’t know,” he replied. “We can’t just turn you in! I won’t allow that.”
“But Mandrie is your little sister. You’ve always—”
“I know!” Kaen stamped his foot to emphasize his words. “I swore I’d always take care of her, and I’ll go to any lengths to get her back. But if there’s any way of avoiding just marching you up to the Palace gates and turning you in . . . we can find that way. I know it.”
I bit my lip, trying to hold back the surge of emotions from the past day. “I’m sorry. We’ll figure something out.” I sighed, gazing down at the grey cobblestones of the Nytaean street. “Well . . . what if we break in and try to free them somehow?”
Kaen shook his head. “Won’t work. We’d need a disguise, a ruse . . .” He frowned for a moment and then snapped his fingers. “Wait, that’s it!”