“Yes! Just like that,” Colette said excitedly.
The exclamation caused Malori’s concentration to falter slightly, but she managed to surprise herself by catching it. The two of them were at the very top of one of the castle’s towers, in a large, domed room with a center entirely dedicated to a massive telescope. Scattered along the shelves that lined the wall were glass containers of various plants, miniature figurines of a multitude of creatures, and even floating bits of magic that Malori didn’t quite recognize. There was an enormous shelf filled with books, but despite their number, it paled in comparison to what Ivar’s study contained.
Both espers were huddled around a table as a small puzzle box floated above it. Bit by bit, the latches and locks would click in and out of place as it was nearly opened. After discussing more logistics of supplies and travel routes, as well as the numerous dangers the other four members of her group could face aside from the Dark Zones, Malori had acted upon a strange surge of bravery that she hadn’t thought herself capable of. As the group was being led to their cells (They were still prisoners after all) Malori linked her mind to Colette’s, and asked if she could show her how to better use some of her psychic abilities. The Archmage was happy to request Ivar let her bring Malori to her own study, chatting along the way there.
According to Colette, their telekinesis was a strange inverse of learning how to use their hands. Rather than first learning to exert force, the first step was fine tuning her movements and manipulating objects. Malori furrowed her brow as she continued to adjust the parts of the puzzle box, until finally, a small hole opened in the bottom, releasing a little blue marble onto the table.
“Excellent! You’re a natural, Malori,” she said proudly, picking up the marble before it fell to the floor.
“W-Wouldn’t we all be naturals? This is supposed to be something we can just d-do, right?” she said sheepishly, blushing at the praise. “Y-You opened those massive gates with yours earlier. It took me almost three hours to open a puzzle box.”
Colette scooted her chair closer to Malori, leaning on the table once she was in place. “Well, yes and no. It’s something we’re capable of, but it isn’t a given. Espers are meant to be taught things like this over the course of their entire youth. My mother started teaching me when I was about three years old,” she explained, a fond smile on her face as she rolled the marble around on its surface. “That box took you almost three hours? It took me almost three weeks. It’s incredible what you’ve taught yourself on your own.”
Malori’s blush deepened. What was she even supposed to say to such genuine sounding praise? The assuredness it was spoken with made her almost certain that Colette was simply lying to her, but she hadn’t a clue what could be gained from doing such a thing. It made her all the more conflicted about being around her.
“It’s been… A b-bit of a struggle at times…” she murmured. The memories of her attempting to lift various things with her mind at night were an unwelcome flood of nostalgia. She’d rather they–and the screams and bullying that they caused–be left in the past.
Colette looked at her with a gentle smile. “I can imagine,” her voice was soft and kind. It reminded Malori a bit of Ingrid. More conflicting thoughts. “Malori, if it’s alright of me to ask, are you nervous about your friends leaving?”
The anxious thoughts managed to stop at the question. Was that one she had thought about yet? There were so many it was hard to keep track. She wanted to say yes, but stopped herself. Her stupid brain got anxious or nervous about more things than she could count, but when a new one popped up, it was sure to make itself known. When she told Ingrid she wanted to come with her, it terrified her. When Alice gave a fake name and she realized she’d need to make one as well, it terrified her. When she saw Kallen getting hurt so much to keep her safe, it terrified her. Those all had their varying degrees of importance, but surely this did too. She was going to be alone in a hostile castle filled with people who would probably end her if they figured out her group was from Cordelia, as opposed to being back on the road with her friends. That should’ve been a horrifying prospect. Why did she feel something akin to relief? Everything that she thought she understood about herself and her feelings had suddenly become so much more confusing on the journey.
“I-I’ll manage,” she said, stammering through the non-answer. “It shouldn’t be t-too long, just two or three weeks, Ivar said.”
“Ivar also said… other things. He’s far too brutal at times.”
“H-He was also respectful,” Malori said quickly. “H-He asked if I was okay with things before doing them. He didn’t h-have to do that.”
“It’s an odd mix isn’t it?” Colette mused, laying her head on the table as she looked at Malori. “Treating your friends like an afterthought one moment, then speaking of them with the utmost care another. I hope it didn’t grate on you too much.”
While his demeanor didn’t bother Malori in the slightest, the same couldn’t be said for her companions. Alice had clearly been furious at him for reasons that likely wouldn’t be clear until someone forced them out of her. Ingrid was anxious, but that was understandable. Natalia was respectful of royalty, but annoyed. Kallen was, of course, as neutral as ever. The thought made Malori’s shoulders sag. The human had seemed so charming when she saved her from Zelzar. The way she carried her to safety, both there and during the battle with Berith and his troops, she was like a dream come true. It was quickly becoming apparent that maybe she wasn’t, despite the hope Malori still held out that maybe there was a place in the woman’s heart for her. Maybe that hope was foolish.
A part of her hoped she’d be able to talk to the Prince more during her time here. She wanted to know why he treated her with respect when he clearly didn’t seem to have much of it for her companions. If she was lucky, maybe she’d even get something akin to a straight answer.
“I-It didn’t. He seemed rather p-polite, in his own strange way,” she explained.
“Well I’m happy to hear that. Believe it or not, I’m actually quite close with him. I have been for a long time,” Colette said wistfully.
A crimson blush came to Malori’s face, “C-Close? Is he your…” she glanced at Colette’s left hand, noticing the distinct lack of a ring. “Is he your lover?”
Colette’s eyes went wide as she looked at Malori like she had just suggested one of the most disgusting things imaginable. “Oh gods no!” she laughed, “Though, that’s my fault for phrasing it like that. If anything, he’s more like a brother to me.”
Malori froze, her heart skipping a beat as the Archmage laughed at the comment. She pulled her hands close to her chest, like she was instinctively trying to become smaller after saying something embarrassing.
“I-I-I’m sorry, Alice always berates me for thinking about r-romance too much. She says I need to read other books,” she whimpered, trying to avoid eye contact.
“Oh dear, Malori, I’m not laughing at you,” Colette assured her, calming herself down. “I was just surprised is all. You don’t need to apologize.”
“O-Oh, I’m sorry…”
Colette tilted her head, still smiling. “We’ll work on it. You said you like to read though? Lots of romance novels?”
“Um, yes? I-It’s a lot of what I do in my free time. Why do you ask?”
“Well, there’s a great book store in the city proper that I go to sometimes. Maybe you could give me some recommendations?” she offered.
Malori’s eyes went wide with surprise. Was she being serious? What did she gain from that? Maybe she was trying to get a better grasp on how her mind worked? Or maybe books that she had read in Cordelia never came to Amalthea, and that would give away that she wasn’t from here. She had avoided wearing anything denoting Carys or the fact that she was a cleric, so she didn’t have to explain that away. She hadn’t considered something as mundane as book choices.
“Malori? Are you alright?”
She shook her head, snapping back out of her own thoughts to see Colette giving her a concerned look.
“You seem very anxious, did I say something wrong?”
“N-No! No, you’re fine, I just, um, thought of something. Um…” she trailed off, trying to think of a way to actually answer the original question without being suspicious. Reaching into her robes, she took out the one book she always kept on her. “Th-This one is my favorite. It’s called ‘A Drop in the Ocean.’”
Colette looked at the well worn cover and pages curiously. “I don’t think I’m familiar with this one, what’s it about?”
“Well… It’s a l-love story about a pirate queen and a princess named Cornelia and Cassandra,” she started. She didn’t even realize that she was beginning to lean forward, less huddled into herself. “I-It starts with Cornelia going out to sea to attack another pirate group who didn’t pay their tithe, and comes across them attacking a noble ship, so she decides…”
Malori continued to talk about the book, gradually getting more and more excited as she did so. Before long, she was smiling. She didn’t notice most of it. The way she began moving her hands around to illustrate ideas better, or the way she didn’t stutter as much. She certainly didn’t notice the fond look in Colette’s eyes as she smiled and listened to every word.
“So… We hard committing to Reach?”
“I don’t think we really have many options right now. I think it may be a decent lead though.”
“I’m getting very tired of lacking options.”
“But we’re getting a quicker ride up there! That’s good, right?”
“Kallen I’ll give you half my dinner if it means you don’t speak until tomorrow.”
Things could have been better as the four women were shown to their cells. That said, they also weren’t as bad as they could have been. They’d been split into two groups of two, with Ingrid and Alice in one cell, and Kallen and Natalia in the other across from them. Ingrid gave a sigh of relief at the realization. She was already happy to be sharing her space with Alice, but if her lover was forced into a living space with Kallen, she was fairly certain Reach would be the least of their problems.
The cell they were in was a simple dark gray room with metal bars separating them from the hallway. Two cots were on the walls, with a small chamberpot and amenities in the corner. It was a little nicer than what Berith had set up, but still felt oppressive and uncomfortable. That was likely the point.
“We don’t really know if he’s still in Reach, but assuming he’s there, and maybe in one of those Dark Zones, divination magic wouldn’t have worked to find him anyways, right? Maybe that’s why Malori’s spell didn’t work?” she suggested.
Alice looked like she was about to say something, then shook her head. “They are kinda the big unknown up there. If we’re lookin’ for leads, I’d say the stuff that’s weird as all hell is probably the best place to start, right?”
“Are you two just looking for silver linings? Don’t forget we’re being actively forced into this,” Natalia huffed.
Ingrid winced. She wasn’t wrong, but she wanted to hold out hope that whatever they were doing wasn’t a complete and utter waste of time. Maybe the Dark Zones were actually massive balls of shadow. That would definitely be a good place to find Mattias. It sounded like a dream come true for him. She clicked her tongue. What else would even be there?
“Kallen, could I ask you something?” she called out, deliberately not answering Natalia.
“Hm? Sure, what’s up?”
“You mentioned growing up near Reach, correct?”
“Oh yeah! It was a real big city. Not as big as the capital, but this big place called Assyrna–”
“Um, excellent,” Ingrid said quickly, trying to catch the woman before she started on a tangent about something unrelated. She got up off the cot and leaned against the bars of the cell, looking towards the other pair. “Were there ever any stories you heard about things up there? I know there are giants, but is there anything else?”
“Hmmm…” Kallen tapped the wall absentmindedly as she thought about it. “There were plenty of things I heard. Old Khealaen ruins, yetis, Lady Felmere, giants, ice worms, blazipedes, you know, mountain stuff.”
“Wait, there are Khealaen ruins there?” Ingrid asked. She’d read all the texts she could speculating on Khealae from before tensions had risen between Amalthea and Cordelia, but what few she could find were never very substantial. What little information she knew was that they were a race of humanoids that had occupied Amalthea ages before humans ever set foot in the mountains. They were a highly magical society, but with a focus on magecraft. While Cordelia spent its time advancing its relationship with nature and druidic magic, the Khealae had long since created magic almost as powerful. Some scholars even asserted that Amalthean mages and their ingenuity was directly influenced by Khealaen magic texts. She wished Malori had been able to come down with them, she would have absolutely loved to hear such a thing from Kallen of all people.
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“Okay so you’re gonna focus on the old dead people instead of whoever or whatever the hell Lady Felmere is? I’m all for walking magic ice people, but they’re kinda melted,” Alice huffed in amusement.
“Oh! Lady Felmere was a story my dad used to tell me about. He mentioned how up in Reach, there was a big ice dragon that flew around, hunting like a wild beast. Even giants weren’t safe from it! It only wakes up once every few years though,” Kallen said excitedly, not noticing Ingrid’s pout.
“Oh cool, there’s a fucking dragon. Incredible. Absolutely phenomenal,” Alice deadpanned. Despite her neutral tone, it was clear that she was beyond angry. “You didn’t want to mention that this entire time?”
“Alice! She didn’t know it would be relevant like this–”
“We were going, to Reach. In what way, shape, or form is a dragon, that is in Reach, not relevant?” she hissed in annoyance.
“If there really was a dragon, I’m sure Prince Ivar would have–”
“Would’ve what, told us about it? Princess, he was straight up laughing at the thought that he was sending us to our deaths. I do not think he gives a shit about the dragon,” she continued, slapping the back of her hand into her palm to emphasize her point. “You know what would’ve been nice? Being told about it when he mentioned sending us to Reach because someone apparently knew about it! Wouldn’t that have been just swell?”
“Why, so he could have us executed on the spot instead?” Ingrid shot back, clenching her fists. “Natalia was right. This is our only option. Stop pretending like it’s Kallen’s fault that we’re stuck in this terrible situation when you were the one who got cau–”
Ingrid’s eyes went wide as she realized what she was about to say. She stopped short of it, throwing a hand over her mouth. A look of shock was on Alice’s face. The anger had left it, thankfully, having been abandoned by sheer bewilderment. Ingrid rushed over to Alice’s cot, taking her hand.
“I’m so, so sorry. I-I-I don’t know what came over me, that was completely uncalled for!” she apologized profusely, praying that Alice wouldn’t be angry with her.
The dark elf seemed to take a moment to zone back in from the situation, blinking and shaking her head like she had just been woken up. “No, yeah. It’s, yeah, you’re fine, Princess,” she said, putting her other hand on top of Ingrid’s. “It’s fine. We’re both stressed about this, we’re saying things we shouldn’t. Let’s take a breath and try to rest up before we leave.”
“We’ve been resting up for the past week.”
“Feathers I will fucking pluck you do not test me.”
As aggressive as the statement was, a laugh escaped Ingrid as she heard it. She took a breath. Still the same Alice. Leaning over, she rested her head on Alice’s shoulder. She hoped they wouldn’t get in another spat like that one. It may have been short, but saying such things made Ingrid feel sick to her stomach. She loved Alice with all her heart. How could she possibly reprimand her like that for trying her best? It just wasn’t fair.
“Well, shouldn’t be too long til dinner at least,” Alice sighed. “Least Ivar was thorough about everything else. Even if he didn’t mention certain pressing things–Shit, right, sorry, dropping it.”
Ingrid giggled again, scooting closer to the woman. “It’s okay. We’re going to get through this like we always do. Maybe it will be hard, but it will pass.”
Alice smiled down at her. “Where’d you hear that one?”
“What, do you not trust me to come up with things like that on my own?” she teased.
“I do, I do! That one just doesn’t have your usual tone. You use more words than you need, usually.”
“Oh, are you saying that I talk too much?”
“Oh for the love–Is that your quote?” Alice chuckled, rolling her eyes.
Ingrid tried to remember where she had heard it. She knew it was from years ago, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It wasn’t said to her, it was a conversation between two others that she had overheard.
“Ealadha,” she said quietly, opening her eyes.
“Hm?”
“Ealadha said it… To Cecilia, one time,” she murmured.
Alice looked down at her for a moment, then leaned back against the wall. “Sounds like Ealadha knew his stuff,” she said fondly. “Woulda loved to meet the guy.”
Ingrid nodded, letting her eyes close again. What was Cecilia doing now? They had been gone for over a month. Was there a search? Did she simply not care? Was she going outside more? How were Chimsley and Dervla doing? The thoughts made her feel tired. She squeezed Alice’s hand. They had to find Mattias. They would find Mattias. They’d find him and they’d bring him home, and they could make a nice, big dinner for everyone. She could even invite Kallen, Malori, and Natalia too. The thought made her smile.
Not much talking happened for the rest of the night. Eventually, the guards brought their food, they ate in what was mostly silence aside from some annoying flirting from Ingrid and Alice, then they went to sleep. Well, the lovebirds went to sleep. Natalia lay on her cot, awake and on her side as she stared at the wall. She sighed in annoyance. This was the only semi comfortable position for laying down. Laying on her back just made her wings hurt, and if she tried to switch sides, they’d just be cramped against the wall. Now her left wing was splayed out and hanging over the filthy ground. This place sucked. Not the worst she’d experienced, but it sucked.
Grunting, she forced herself up, staring across at where the other two cellmates had fallen asleep on the same cot. She wasn’t necessarily opposed to their relationship, but she really wished this honeymoon phase would end and they could stop flaunting it about. She could only deal with so much PDA.
Things could always be worse. She could have been stuck listening to them moaning and whining about being kept in different cells. For now she got to at least be around the only member of their little group that didn’t get on her nerves.
She glanced over at Kallen, who had been doing push ups for the last… too long. Was she taking breaks? Natalia would have loved to learn where that absurd strength and endurance came from, but the woman could barely remember where she was at times. She was more likely to get a straight answer about something out of Alice.
Strangely enough, Malori was still yet to return. Natalia furrowed her brow. She had been gone for hours. Was she really still working on things with Colette? If that girl was getting actual quarters while they were stuck in cells, again, she was going to lose it.
She looked again at Kallen. Sweat beaded on her forehead, but there was no sign of her stopping as she faced forward, either counting in her head or not at all. They were good push ups too, her form would have made Lewin proud.
“You don’t seem to be too bothered by this whole situation,” Natalia said absentmindedly. “Any thoughts on it now that Alice won’t shut down everything out of your mouth?”
Honestly, Natalia was surprised Alice didn’t stay awake to make sure everyone else was asleep first. She seemed paranoid enough for that. Well, she may have tried, but the second her arms wrapped around Ingrid she was out like a light.
“Should I be? It’s the one we’re in. There’s not much I can do to change it, so I shouldn’t stress,” she grunted cheerfully. Natalia was impressed that she was able to say all that without even flinching in her exercise.
Natalia smiled. “That’s an optimistic way of looking at it. I know I can be fairly doom and gloom. It’s sobering to have someone more down to earth around.”
“Oh, I’m glad you think so!” she said happily. She gave a much harder shove to the ground, sending herself upright. Wiping the sweat off of her forehead, she plopped down onto her cot. “You’re pretty good to have around too. You flying everywhere makes it way easier to travel. Ingrid can check with plants and stuff to see what’s ahead, but having someone actually see it is a little different, in a good way.”
“Am I the scout then?” Natalia mused. “I can’t say it’s what I thought my role would be, but I suppose it works.”
“I mean, it doesn’t have to be your role. It can just be something you’re good at. Like, Alice is good at cooking, that doesn’t necessarily make her a chef. Plus, Ingrid mentioned being a good cook too! I hope I can try some of her food sometime.”
“Honestly, getting to eat something other than hardtack and dried meat is worthy of praise for me,” she muttered, brushing some of the dust and dirt off of her left wing. “I’ve been meaning to ask, but never got around to it. What are your thoughts on them?”
Kallen tilted her head. “Ingrid and Alice?”
Natalia nodded.
“Hmm,” the human laid back on her bed, staring at the ceiling. “I think I’m happy for them.”
“Is that all?”
“Well, I think it’s one of the more important things. They care about each other. That’s pretty obvious. It seems kind of strained sometimes though.”
Natalia raised an eyebrow. “Really? What do you mean?”
“Like,” she threw her arms forward, bringing herself upright once more. “Malori said that Alice hides things a lot. I don’t really know what she’s hiding, but isn’t honesty something important in a relationship like that? I’ve never really been concerned with them, so I’m not super sure.”
It wasn’t a false statement. Any of it, really. If Natalia’s mothers taught her anything in both their interactions with each other, and what they taught her and her siblings, it was that honesty was important in everything. It was always clear from the moment she understood it that the lie they lived with weighed heavily on them every day. All they could do was try to help each other shoulder that burden. She knew most of what Alice was hiding, and had inklings on other lies. She understood why the dark elf lied, but it didn’t seem to weigh on her the same way it did her parents. Maybe it was a symptom of her line of work. Maybe it was just part of who she had to be to survive. Even so, shouldn’t Ingrid have been the person she opens those doors to? Wasn’t Ingrid meant to be the one helping her shoulder that burden the same way Natalia’s mothers helped each other? It all seemed very one-sided. She wondered if it was sustainable.
“You’re more worldly than you are booksmart, huh,” she mused. It was a painfully obvious statement. From what little she knew about the woman, it was that she traveled all over the place. Maybe she couldn’t tell types of magic apart, but she’d seen quite a lot. Maybe that was why Natalia felt so drawn to her. It reminded her of someone.
“Probably. I think Alice just sees me as an idiot though.”
“Mm, you’re probably right. She seems to carry around a hefty amount of hatred towards everyone but the people it should be directed towards.”
“What about you? You get along with her, right?”
Natalia furrowed her brow, resting her chin on her fist. “‘Get along’ is certainly a term for it. We have an understanding with each other that she doesn’t seem to have with either you or Malori.”
“Speaking of which, where do you think Malori is? Shouldn’t she have been back by now?” Kallen looked around, slightly confused.
“Not a clue,” she shrugged. “Maybe her and Colette started talking about magic and got caught up in it. It wouldn’t be the most shocking thing I’ve heard.”
Kallen stared straight ahead for a moment, like she was deep in thought. Natalia didn’t particularly mind. Eventually, she turned her head with a quizzical look. “Hey Nat, mind if I ask you a question?”
If Natalia had liquid in her mouth she would have spit it out. That was a nickname she hadn’t heard in a decade. She quickly gathered herself, hoping that Kallen didn’t notice. She definitely noticed. “What kind of question?” she asked, clearing her throat.
While the human had definitely noticed, given the appraising look and biting the inside of her cheek as she thought, she didn’t call attention to it. “Well, it’s about your magic,” she started, twisting around to sit cross-legged and face the illian. “Malori went through a bunch of different types of magic and mentioned something. You’re a sorcerer, right? The kind who are born with their magic?”
Natalia nodded, mentally amending the thought that Kallen wouldn’t be able to remember things like that. “Yes. I didn’t figure it out for quite a while though. It wasn’t until I was about fifteen,” she sighed. It was quite a horrendous way to figure it out as well.
“Okay, then you use, um, lumis? Lume–, lumy–”
“Lumikinesis,” she said, slightly amused by the confusion.
“Yeah, that!” Kallen snapped her fingers happily. “But yeah, Malori mentioned that Lumikinesis used light, and that it was usually used for healing. When we fought Berith though, I… don’t really think that was healing. I also saw you kill a bunch of people but that wasn’t really up close.”
Natalia frowned. A similar comment was made by the Stowaways when they first saw her magic. It felt strange, however. Was a specific type of magic meant to do a specific type of task? When she had discovered her magic, when that man grabbed her… she had just felt so angry. She didn’t want to heal. She thought of her family, cut down one by one by people meant to protect them. Even as her mother tried her damndest, and her mom tried to get the children away, none of them were shown mercy. When the man pulled the spear out of her brother and went to thrust it into her… all she wanted was to hurt him.
After that was a blur. She remembered closing her eyes and screaming. Everything around her felt hot. When she opened her eyes, the only reason she could even recognize the fact that the charred black mass had once been a person was the melted armor around it. She remembered a horrible pain in her back, near her shoulder blades, and then running. Running as far as she could.
“I’m not sure what I can say to that, but I’d love to give you an answer, truly,” she muttered as those awful memories ran through her head. “My magic has always manifested this way. I don’t know anything else. If it has any correlation that you know of though, my wings first began growing after I used it for the first time.”
Kallen tilted her head, looking like curiosity incarnate. Unfortunately, there was very little satisfaction to revive this cat. “Well, I guess if you don’t know, you don’t know. I’m not really sure about illians and how they grow wings, but I guess I kinda thought you were just born with them, you know?”
“It would make sense wouldn’t it?” she chuckled. “It happened with my eyes too. When I was a girl, they were green. They started fading to white when my wings started growing.”
“That’s so cool! Was it scary then? Learning to fly and stuff?”
“Oh, terrifying. I at least had the solace of doing it over water, so it didn’t matter too much if I fell. It was quite annoying trying to dry them off until I had a better grasp on my magic though,” she laughed. “I remember staying up at night trying to practice as much as I could. I even strapped pillows to myself when I didn’t want to fall into the cold water!”
Before long, both women were laughing and exchanging stories. Natalia kept hers much more vague, but no matter how many questions they might have brought up, Kallen never asked them. Strangely enough, the act of not telling her made her feel even more heard. She wasn’t sure how to describe that feeling though, or why it comforted her. As it had been mentioned so many times before though, gift horses were a wonderful thing. For the first time in years, a genuine smile was on her face. If Kallen was confused at Natalia randomly telling her ‘thank you,’ she certainly didn’t show it. She simply smiled and launched into her next story.