Sean Brynor
The water floating just above my hand started to crystalize, diamond like shapes forming over the surface of my creation. I tried to condense the ice in certain areas, making it a deeper blue color rather than the clear white it normally turned into. Within a minute I had a frozen mathear statue in my hands, its freezing temperature stinging my hands. I didn’t care about the pain anymore. After all, other things hurt far worse. I set the statue on my nightstand, staring at it for a long while. I was just watching it melt, as I had for many of my other creations. Soon, all that would be left of it is a small puddle, and I would start the process over again.
It had been two months since my fight with the mathear and meeting Nayu, and I hadn’t been out of my house since. Taking my eyes off the statue, I looked down at the foot of my bed where my leg was propped up and covered in bandages. It didn’t bleed anymore, but it was better to cover it than let people see what laid beneath. I was an idiot. I had charged into the woods towards a terrifying enemy, ignoring what my father had told me. Now, because of that choice, I was bedridden.
My wounds had been far worse than I realized. The many doctors my family had managed to check on me had claimed several times that it was a miracle I survived and made it down the mountain. To me, it didn’t feel like a miracle. The wound at my side had left a giant red scar, likely from the poisonous spell I had managed to remove from my body. I thought it would go away with time, but it remained, reminding me of how stupid I’d been. Then, there was my leg. That was the biggest issue. I couldn’t see what had actually happened to it when I was bandaging it in Nayu’s cave as it was covered by blood, but now I didn’t want to look at it at all. My calf had been raked by the mathear’s claws, ripping off so much muscle and tissue that a giant chunk was now missing from my leg like it had been bitten off.
A quiet flapping noise to my side made me turn, and I stared up at Winter, who had been built a wooden stand to sleep on by Baird. She wasn’t allowed within the city, so I had to hide her within my pack when we managed to get to the city gates that day. By that time, Father was carrying me on his back, so the guards quickly let us inside without checking any of our bags for illegal items like they usually did. Since then, Winter has been keeping me company inside my room, her wing still partially damaged from the fight.
A knock at my door came and soon after Father walked in. I tried to smile when he entered, but my face didn’t move. His face was thinner, and the long beard he’d begun wearing as a sort of contest against Baird had been completely shaved off. His one good eye looked hollow, seeming to sink into his skull as he stared off into the distance. The brown hair he normally wore in a bun was down, flowing past his shoulders and down to his chest. I reached up and touched my own white blond hair. Mine had been cut recently by Mother, something I protested heavily against, and was fairly short now, nothing like Father’s. He smiled at me, but it felt empty.
“Come on. It’s time to get up,” he said.
I nodded, and lifted the bedsheet off of myself. Father reached down, placing his hands under my arms, and hoisted me up. His loose hair brushed against my face, and I had to blow it away. He set me on my legs, and jolts of pain rose from my right calf and up my body. Father held me firmly up, allowing me to keep most of the pressure off my injured leg. With a heavy breath, I started to walk. Each step was mind numbing, and any pressure I put on my injured leg caused me to stagger and almost fall over. The only reason I remained upright at all was because of Father holding me up. After every step I needed to take a break, causing the exercise to take several minutes, and all I had done was walk across my small room. It took twice as long to walk back to my bed and fall back into it. I oriented myself the best I could, laying on my back and lifting my leg back on top of the pillows at the foot of my bed. Father had to help me with most of it.
After placing my leg in the proper position, each slight movement causing me pain, Father spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I looked him in the eye, but he turned away and walked out of the room before I could respond. Mother had not taken my injury well, and Father had to take most of the blame. I felt that wasn’t fair. After all, it was my decision to turn back despite all of his warnings. None of that mattered to Mother, though. I was Father’s responsibility, and he was the one who pushed me to go hunting with him. It made me angry that she was so hard on him, but there was nothing I could do.
Mother had worked hard to put me back together. She begged every doctor in the city to come see me. She hoped that one of them would be able to tell her something different, to tell her that I would be able to walk properly again. Some of them did say I may be able to get around with a cane, but that wasn’t good enough for her. She even managed to convince some priests to come, friends of hers from the church, to give me a blessing of healing from God. Those were far worse than the actual doctors. I’d actually gotten my hopes up that something might come from a blessing from God, but I felt nothing when the priests began their chants. Each one of them failed, and my feelings on Mother’s religion only grew worse.
My surroundings started to feel smothering the longer I waited in this room, hoping that some miracle would come. It reminded me all too well of my previous life, and the few memories I’d regained. I’d worked so hard to push them down, to forget about them, but they had begun to resurface. Those memories felt at home in this place, and it took just as much effort to force them back down as it did to walk.
The best thing I could do to keep those memories away was to remember that this world was different. They’re were forces here that were much stranger and more powerful than in my previous one. Magic was once a distant dream, but now it is firmly within my grasp. If only I could grow a new limb with it. Perhaps I could construct one of ice, like I did with my training sculptures. That thought turned me back to the mathear figure that sat on my nightstand. It had begun melting, its fangs and claws half the size they once were. I wondered if my leg would have been fine if the real claws were actually that much smaller.
“Sean,” a rough voice said behind my door.
“Come in,” I responded, recognizing it.
Baird walked in, looking just like his usual self. His beard had more gray hairs in it than when I last saw him, but other than that he looked completely normal. He carried something in his arms, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Winter chirped at the sight of him, for some reason she had taken a liking to him, and flew over to the short man, landing on the thing he carried in his hands.
“Yes girl, exactly!” Baird exclaimed, but then shooed Winter gently away. The owl complied, and landed back on her post, Baird taking a seat on the floor beside it. He placed what was in his hands down in front of him and began tinkering with what looked to be some kind of thick leather armor. “How are you feeling?” he asked, not looking up from his work.
“I’m… fine,” I lied.
Baird paused and looked up at me for a moment, but then quickly returned to what he was tinkering with. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks,” I said, wondering if I should kick him out or not, but my curiosity about what he was working on made me want him to stay.
Baird noticed me leaning over my bed, trying to get a better look, and said, “It’s a gift. For you. I think you and winter will like it a lot. Give me your arm.”
I raised my right arm towards him, avoiding looking at the same leg that was propped up in front of me, and watched as Baird began strapping the armor piece to my arm. It was a leather, fingerless gauntlet that stretched all the way down my forearm, and connected to a separate piece that covered my shoulder. My upper arm was left bare except for the two leather straps that crossed over one another in an ‘X’ pattern, connecting the two pieces together. “What is this for?” I asked.
Baird didn’t look up from the leather armor, “When I saw Winter, I wondered how she was going to be able to follow you around. Surely she wouldn’t want to fly all the time, which meant she would want to ride on your shoulder or arm. With those big claws of hers, I have no doubt she might accidentally hurt you, so I made you some protection. This armor will make it easy for her to land on you without worrying about getting scratched up.”
I looked at the armor, my first thoughts of how I might make it look better than the dull brown coloration it had now, but then I remembered the truth. None of this mattered anymore. I couldn’t go outside for anyone else to see, or for Winter to have to follow me anywhere. “Thanks Baird, but I don’t think I’ll be able to use this much.”
Baird stared at me, his eyes sincere and brow furrowed. He kept tinkering with the armor when he spoke, only glancing down at when he needed to, but keeping his eyes locked on me for most of the time. “Sean, I’ve known you for a long time now. You get angry easily, you get annoyed easily, and your impatience is stronger than some of Lord Malcom’s top guards. Even so, you’ve been able to achieve so much. You made friends with a little Lord, caught the attention of a Lady, a powerful one at that, and have grown into such a strong mage, one that a kid your age has no business being. Sometimes I wonder how you have accomplished so much at a young age, but that’s a discredit to you. You’re smart, smarter than you should be, and even stronger than that. When we first met I saw more of your mother in you than your father. You were quiet, and kept to yourself. You preferred to stay inside and do small projects with the magic your mother showed you. However, as time went on, I saw more of your father in you, and what you did that day proved to me that you're just like him. You turned back to fight an enemy you had no business fighting, just because you didn’t want your father to fight alone. Plus, you saved this one,” Baird reached up and scratched the bottom of Winter’s beak. “If you hadn’t gone back, she’d probably be dead. This injury, it’s a roadblock, but I have no doubt you’ll overcome it. I’ve seen you do crazier things, like bringing one of the most powerful women of Dousin into my shop. I miss those days, you know? I expect you to be walking with me back there like the old days pretty soon. Hell, I’ll build you a new leg if I have to,” Baird ended with a laugh.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I chuckled alongside him, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore. I was surprised at what he’d said. Was that really what he thought of me? Did others see me that way? Did my parents? It was true that Winter wouldn’t be around anymore if I hadn’t turned back, but was that enough to make me okay with never walking again? I felt conflicted that I didn’t immediately say yes. She was important to me, but so was my leg. Then I remembered that saving Winter wasn’t the only thing I had managed to do. I’d also met Nayu, a treasure trove of information that I could use once I could walk again, and Ialso managed to kill a mathear, though the glory of that had waned with time. I jumped for a second, realizing what I had just thought. I still thought I would be able to walk again. I still hoped that it would one day be true. Even in the deepest part of my thoughts, I hadn’t given up.
“Baird,” I started, trying to keep the tears from flowing down my cheeks, “Thank you.”
Baird simply smiled and kept adjusting my new armor.
*****
“That’s it Sean! That’s it!” Father yelled from behind me.
I stood for the first time on my own two legs just a meter in front of him, though I had a cane to support most of the weight on my right side. I took a step, then another, and another. Each one was excruciating, but the cane alleviated a lot of the pain I once felt. When I reached the wall of my room, I threw my head backwards and stared up at the ceiling, letting out a long, heavy sigh of relief. I could feel my eyes watering, but I forced the tears back down. I could cry tears of joy when I could walk properly again. For now, I had to work.
I turned back around to face Father, but found him on his knees, his head in his hands. He was sobbing, tears pouring out of his eyes so fast that I could see them dripping off of his hands. I could even feel them with my sixth sense, like little droplets of power falling off of him. “I thought… I… my fault…” he tried to say, but most of the words were unintelligible.
I wanted to walk over and comfort him. I wanted to wrap my arms round him and assure him that everything was going to be okay, but I couldn’t. My leg was throbbing and I had to take a break before I could continue, and even if I could keep walking it would take several minutes to get to him. So instead, I simply said, “It’s okay. I’m fine.”
It took a long while before Father collected himself, and soon after, Mother walked in. She had grown just as sickly looking as Father, with most of her time dedicated to finding a way to make me better and nursing me back to health, but she still retained most of her beauty. Her long hair, the same color as mine, was tied back behind her head, and she held a large wooden spoon in her hand, likely in the middle of cooking dinner. When she saw me standing, her face brightened, but then it darkened when she turned to Father. Over the past few weeks she had started to forgive him, so I figured she was worried about his red eyes from all the crying. She turned to me and said, “You have some visitors. Your father will help you back to bed, but then I want to have a word with him. Is that okay?”
I nodded, and made my way to bed. I expected Hector and Lennox to rush in and begin telling me all that happened to them the past week. The two of them regularly came to visit, Hector informing me on everything he learned, and Lennox explaining how terrible he was at all of it. Lennox still seemed angry at me for some reason, but my injury made it hard for her to stay mad for long. So when Morrison walked into the room rather than one of the two of them, I was a bit confused. He ran into the room, his sword clanking at his side, and knelt in front of my leg. He reached out to touch it, but paused and looked up at me. “Can I?” he asked, but began to examine it before I responded. “Did they find any of its poison on you?”
“It— it did get me on my side, but I removed it quickly,” I said, still confused.
“Good. Good.”
“Will you leave him alone already,” an older voice came from the doorway. It was Cade, his beard longer than I remembered. He smiled at me and moved Morrison across the room. “It’s really good to see you again, Sean. It's been far too long.”
It had been a long time. The last time I’d seen them was this year's Frost Feast, and the year was almost over. “I’ve been a bit busy, unfortunately. Lennox has made it clear she’s been upset about me not being around lately, but now I think I have a pretty good reason,” I said, gesturing to my legs.
I expected Morrison to let out a snort or some kind of laugh, but he didn’t. Instead, he stared at the mathear statue on my nightstand I’d constructed that morning. I’d been making them everyday ever since I perfected them, unable to get the beast out of mind and start a new project.
“You’ve got a lot better,” Morrison said. “You should make something a bit nicer, though. You think you could make one of me?”
I laughed. “Why would I want something like that on my nightstand? You know I have to look at that all day, right?”
Morrison finally smiled, seeming to return to his normal self. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Though, it’s still better than if you made one of yourself.”
I wanted to ask them why they were here, but I already knew. If both of them were together, then someone else had to be here. One of them had to be at his side at all times. “You can come in,” I said out towards the hallway.
Blair walked in, his clothes much more suitable to that of a noble’s son than the training outfit I normally saw him in. It reminded me of what he wore at the Frost Feast. I assumed that this is what he wore all the time when he wasn’t training, which was rare. “How are you doing?” He asked, and I told them all about me managing to walk again.
Cade brightened when he heard that, but Morrison and Blair’s mood seemed to fall as I explained how I was walking. “I’m really doing a lot better, everyone. I have no doubt that I’ll be able to join you back at the training yard come spring.” Spring was still a few months away, but it was better than never walking again, like most of the doctors assumed. Plus, I had begun working on a new project that might help speed that process up.
“Actually,” Blair began, “I was only able to come here today because I have something to tell you. I would have come sooner, the day I found out in fact, but you know how Lady Mairead is.”
I really didn’t. I’d only met with Blair’s mother twice, when she invaded Baird’s shop and at my first Frost Feast. Everything else I knew about her came from Blair himself, and most of it wasn’t very pleasant. I took him at his word, of course, but I always remembered her as sweet, yet intimidating.
Blair took his time explaining. He was leaving. “Three years?” I asked again, still processing it all.
“If I don’t pass the final test, it could be longer. Every student gets a chance once a year to graduate after they’re an adult at fifteen, so it could be longer.”
I stared at him, unable to come up with any words. I was furious. He was the only one I could discuss our reincarnation with. The only one that understood what it was like to deal with the reamerging memories. Not only that, but he was throwing away the magic I had helped him get. I had to take a few deep breaths to stop myself from kicking him out and to think more clearly.
“You really want to spend all your life swinging a sword?” I asked.
Blair smiled. “They teach combining magical techniques with sword techniques. It was actually pretty interesting.”
“And this is all to become your father’s successor. Is that really what you want? To be a great Lord?”
Blair flinched, but responded calmly, “Yes. I need to become his successor.”
“That’s not what I asked,” I said, but didn’t press him anymore. I knew it was a difficult subject for him. So instead, I tried to cheer my friend up a bit. “You’re leaving tomorrow, you said? You’ll be back in three years. I have no doubt you’ll walk into that school and show all of those masters what a real swordsman can do.”
Blair looked surprised, and responded, “Thank you. You’re my best friend, you know that Sean? Without you I’d probably still be stuck in that training yard.”
I wanted to tell him he seemed to still be there, but I kept my mouth shut. Blair then forced the two guards out of the room, saying he had something important to tell me before he left. Cad gave me a wave and Morrison gave me a nod before they left.
“It’s about our reincarnation. I know we don’t really share memories, but this one is pretty important, I think.”
“Actually, I have something to tell you as well,” I said, thinking about the girl in the forest, “But you go first.”
“Okay. I didn’t think I’d ever know this again, but I remembered my name from my past life. Before I was Blair, I was named Levi.”
A shiver ran down my spine and through all of my limbs, passing through my injured leg and returning with a river of pain. My head felt fuzzy, and suddenly my vision began to blur. Blair’s face seemed to shift, changing from the familiar face I’d gotten used to over the past few years into a different one. His new face wasn’t strange, but even more recognizable than the one of my friend. This was Levi, and I knew Levi. He was the one in the rain. The one that drove fear through my body.
“You— you—“ I tried to speak, but my voice barely came out. “Get away!”
Levi looked confused, a look I’d never seen him wear before, but it only made me more afraid. Anything new from him was terrifying.
“Sean,” Levi said, “What’s wrong?”
I didn’t understand him. That wasn’t my name, so why did he call me that? What was my name? “Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!” I yelled.
Levi looked like he still didn’t understand, but he quickly stood and left the room. He was gone, but still out there. He was always out there. He was outside.