Chapter 173: Without Question
Loh walked into Elzri’s office with a spring in her step. She sat in the chair across from him and propped her feet on top of his desk.
“Good evening, old man,” Loh grinned.
Elzri flicked his finger, a gust of wind pushed her feet off the desk. “You seem cheerful, odd.”
“Eating a delicious steak will do that to you. So what’s all the fuss about? Did you finally decide on the backup team for the final exam?”
“Yes, you will be in charge of the team of ten magi, all masters, excluding high-master Vayu. He personally requested to be a part of your team.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“You disagree?”
“Not at all. It couldn’t hurt to have a fellow high-master in the team. Besides, Vayu and I have always worked well together.”
“Excellent, I am glad you two are getting along.”
“I am not going to marry him.”
“So you say.”
Loh rolled her eyes, “Whatever. Did you take care of my personal request?”
“I added Tauri Katag to your team, yes.”
“...Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you. Tauri is an excellent dual-manifold mage and a weapon-master of the flail. I would have placed her in the team with or without your opinion.”
“You really have a beautiful way with words don’t you?”
Elzri slid a large sheet of paper across the desk, “Here is a map of the trail the students will be taking. You will take your team and move ahead of the students, ensuring their safety.”
Loh looked over the map with a frown, “This leads to Widow’s Crag along the Dire River. Why are we going down South? I thought we were heading to the East?”
“Change of plans. Hollow Shade’s soldiers have had various encounters with savage tribes recently. Dusk Valley is not as safe as it once was. It is best if the students travel closer to the Dire River. The valley raiders tend to stay away from the river on account of the extra soldiers patrolling the maritime towns.”
“You really are being cautious about all of this. Is that why you assigned ten master magi to this mission?”
“It may seem excessive and it most likely is, but I am not taking any chances. There are too many promising young magi in that class, including your apprentice.”
“I’ll keep Stryg safe, even if it means giving up my life,” Loh said in a somber voice.
“...Yes, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Elzri clasped his hands together.
“What do you mean?” She sent him a skeptic glare.
“After Aizel died-”
Loh shot to her feet, “Don’t fucking say his name! Someone like you doesn’t deserve to say his name… Neither of us do.”
“You may not like to be reminded of the past, but when it affects your future, our future, then you will sit down and listen.”
“...Fuck you, old man,” Loh went for the door.
“If you leave now I will tell Tauri exactly what happened that night six years ago.”
Loh spun around her, face alight with anger, “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me, child. Unlike you, my will is unwavering, I won’t hesitate. Now. Sit. Down.”
Loh took her hand off the doorknob and slowly walked back to her seat. She sat down with stiff movements, all the while glaring at her grandfather.
Elzri met her gaze without hesitation, “As I was saying, after you abandoned your brother to die, you ran away from everything; the army, Vayu, Tauri, even this family. Despite the colossal mess you created, I let you go because I understood you needed time to reconcile your mind with what you had done. That time is past and here you are sitting in front of me. There is only one problem.”
“And what’s that?” Loh asked coldly.
“You believe you can make amends.”
“What?”
“Do you know what the word amend means? It means to correct something, righting a wrong. What you have failed to understand is that death is immutable. Listen very carefully to me, Aizel is dead. Nothing you do or say will bring him back. You cannot absolve yourself of his death.”
“I know that,” Loh’s voice cracked. “...I know that.”
“I don’t think you do. It seems to me that you are still trying to make amends. In the past year, you have almost died twice. Both times were deliberately instigated by you.”
“What are you talking about?” Loh swallowed.
“The night when the frost wolves attacked.”
“Stryg was in danger, there was no escape.”
“Really? Did you try to escape? Did you run out of options? Or did you simply throw your life away for your apprentice?”
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“...I was trying to save Stryg.”
“I don’t doubt it. Sacrificing yourself for your apprentice, instead of sacrificing your apprentice for yourself, how noble.”
“Now you’re just making conjectures,” she crossed her arms.
“What about the attack on Castle Mora?”
“Stryg was in danger, again.”
“You could have run away with him. You had your own centaur with you, did you not? You are a high-master mage with access to shadow and curse spells. Do you really expect me to believe you had no possible way to slow down your enemies long enough to escape?”
“You weren’t there, you don’t know what happened,” Loh seethed.
“But I know you. I know what you're capable of. The old Loh would have fought till her very last breath to survive. I have placed you in countless tests where success seemed impossible and still you persevered. What happened to that woman, that dauntless drow?”
“Are you finished?”
Elzri’s lips grew thin, “...We all must accept the weight of the lives we have taken, not go seek a glorious death in the hopes that it will somehow redeem us.”
Loh closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. “The day I returned to Hollow Shade after my brother’s death I thought things would change. I thought that the people around me would finally see me. Instead, I was forgotten. Tauri shut herself in her home for months. My mother suffered a mental break and my father spent all his time drinking and whoring.”
Loh’s hands began to tremble, “It was then that I realized what I had actually done. I hadn’t fixed anything... I had murdered my brother. I destroyed everyone’s lives. I came to you, alone and guilt-ridden. Of course, you immediately realized what had actually happened that night in Dusk Valley. Do you remember what happened next?”
“You tossed away the silver bracelet I gifted you on your 15th birthday and renounced the name of Noir. It was quite the tantrum, one I did not expect from my protégé,” Elzri said calmly.
Loh chuckled wryly, “Heh, no. That came a bit after. No, what happened next was what you did. You looked me straight in the eyes and with the most tired voice I had ever heard from the Great Elzri Noir, you said, ‘Dammit.’”
Loh leaned forward in her chair, “A single word, that was it. That was all you had to say when you realized your granddaughter had killed your grandson. Then you turned your back and began muttering about how you would cover up my crime, bribe any soldiers that asked questions, and murder the ones who refused to look the other away.”
Loh’s eyes burned, tears slipped down her grey cheeks, “I respected you more than anyone, I wanted to be like you, but you didn’t care that my brother was dead. All you cared about was protecting the family’s name. Protecting your legacy, protecting me, not because you cared about me, but because I was your precious link to the future of this House.”
Loh stood to her feet, “I left this family because I didn’t want to become like you. A cold frigid old man who didn’t care about anyone, only a name. If that is Noir’s legacy then I want nothing of it.”
Elzri’s eyes narrowed, “Loh-”
“And yeah, I can’t change the past. I will have to live knowing for the rest of my life that the reason Aizel isn’t here is because of me. But I will try to make things right. I will be the master to Stryg that I failed to be with Aizel. I will find the warlord Marek and the rest of his Cairn Tribe and burn them all to the ground, no matter the cost.”
“Even if it costs you your life?” Elzri asked quietly.
Loh looked him in the eyes, “...If you could go back, change the past, would you have still killed your siblings?”
“Yes, without question.”
She nodded stiffly, “I thought you might have understood an inkling of what I was going through. Clearly, I was wrong.”
She left without another word.
Elzri leaned back in his chair and sighed.
~~~
Blue mana coursed through Stryg’s veins as he pulled a glob of cold water from below the steel grates of the Frost Pool Chamber. The water hovered below his left hand.
Ismene sat on a large pillow a few paces away. “Very good, now cast a second torrent spell, Simple Water Whip.”
Stryg nodded and curled the fingers of his right hand inward. He stared past his feet and at the rushing water underneath. He willed the water to take shape and form a whip. The water shivered and began to float. The water ball in his left hand burst.
“Ah, fuck!” Stryg threw his hands apart.
“Anger will not help you achieve your goal,” Ismene took a sip of tea.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. We’ve been at this for weeks. Every time I try to cast a second spell, the first one collapses.”
“Yes, that is the difficulty of multicasting.”
“I should be better than this,” he muttered.
“For someone who believes himself to be so talented, you sure have a funny way of showing it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Stryg frowned.
“If someone is born the most talented runner in the world, does that mean they will be able to outrun everyone as a baby?”
“Obviously not.”
“Obviously. That baby needs to grow and train before they ever have a chance at competing against the best runners out there. Because the undeniable truth is that talent is nothing without practice.”
“Right…” Stryg mumbled.
“Multicasting is no easy feat, boy. Even casting two spells at once is considered a great accomplishment for a master mage. While there may be exceptions, it usually takes a vast amount of training before even the most talented of magi can manage their first dual spellcast.”
Ismene continued, “When you asked me to teach you how to multicast, I did not agree because it would be easy, I agreed because I believed in your talent and your sheer determination to achieve beyond the limits others had set for you. That’s why we’re down here. To train, not to listen to you complain like a spoiled noble brat.”
Stryg bowed his head, “Yes, Professor.”
“Look at me, boy.”
Stryg looked up at the old woman. She wore the usual black robes of a mage, with a sapphire hanging from her silver necklace, the mark of a blue mage. She wore her grey hair in a single braid that rested over her shoulder.
The wrinkles on her skin did nothing to hide her piercing beige eyes. The human known as Ismene had clearly been touched by the passage of time, yet she still seemed full of life and power, one could easily forget she needed the cane beside her.
Ismene pointed a gnarled finger at him, “You and I come from no prestigious background, we have no long legacy of heroes, generals, or arch-magi. Even if we have been given the chance to train at this academy of magic, we are not seen as equals, we do not have access to the same resources as the children of Houses. What we have, all we have ever had, is ourselves. And that is the greatest opportunity of all, the ability to mold oneself into whatever we choose, free from the influence of a family leader.”
“Whatever I choose?” Stryg tilted his head.
“Yes. You could choose, for instance, to hide in the shadow of the lie the people of this city have told you, that you don’t belong. I suspect the people of the Blood Fang Tribe told you something similar.”
Stryg bit his lip and looked away in shame. Ismene grabbed her cane and pushed herself to her feet.
She walked over to Stryg and raised his chin, “Or you can ignore those petty voices that make all those people so very small and choose to believe in yourself. You want to be strong? Then choose to be. Don’t let the words of others decide your worth. Only you get to decide that.”
Stryg felt his eyes burn, he swallowed and rubbed his eyes.
Ismene smiled gently, “So, what is your choice, Stryg of Ebon Hollow?”
Stryg stared at his hands, “...I choose to be strong.”
“Then show me the torrent spell, Simple Water Whip.”
Stryg nodded, “Yes, Professor!”