Quinten dodged around a quartet of horses rushing past. The cart they pulled was heavily loaded with supplies, stacked to the brim in a way that would have been dangerous if they weren’t strapped down.

Weaving their way through the hive of activity. They navigated around groomsmen, soldiers, and laborers as they went about their duties, the entire staging ground a flurry of movement as the workers completed preparations for the supply train’s departure.

Catching a glimpse of an increasingly familiar brown, Quinten indicated their destination with a nod of his head.

In one corner of the oversized courtyard, a cluster of Core mages stood together. Wary of obstacles, the trio made their way over, but a stern-looking woman at the front of the group saw them coming. Breaking away, she approached, stopping them several feet from the edge of the gathered mages. Her demeanor and the captain’s rank stitched to the breast of her robe, the only thing differentiating her from the young women behind her.

The woman eyed each of them thoroughly, the scowl never leaving her face. “I am Captain Blackwell. And you Academy failures have now become my problem.”

Quinten didn’t know what Cedric or Ronan were feeling at that moment, but he could guess it was similar to his own annoyance. It hadn’t escaped him that she’d chosen to berate them well within hearing distance of the other mages. The slight breeze tickling the back of his neck told him it was likely intentional.

“It’s because of you that the Council decided it needed to pull a Captain from their posting here in the Capital to manage this group. I hope you enjoy night watches and sentry duty.” She said, her irritation clear.

Quinten sighed internally. It must have been one cushy posting to get a reaction like this.

Tuning back into the woman, he heard, “I don’t have the time, nor the desire, to babysit you three. I’ve been tasked with teaching you how the Mage Core works, so here it is. Shut your mouths and follow my orders until we get to Avoncross. Then I can hand you off and you become someone else’s problem. Now, are there any questions—No? Great.” Captain Blackwell said, spinning on her heel and walking away.

“I am absolutely going to shit in that woman’s bedding.” Cedric grumbled. Watching her walk away, angry with himself for enjoying the view.

Quinten barked a laugh while Ronan’s face pinched in disgust. “I’m actually impressed that she hates us before you opened your mouth,” he said, side-eying his friend.

Grinning, Cedric shrugged and took the lead as they joined the nearby gaggle of chattering brown robes. A few moments later, Captain Blackwell addressed the assembly.

“Listen up, Mage Core!” Her augmented voice pushing back the chaotic sounds of horses, men, and loading wagons. “As you know, we’re heading west to join with our brothers and sisters in magic to defend our realm against the Drakovian Warlord and his hoard.” Her words were obvious, but hearing them spoken in such a fashion, with those they would be fighting beside all around them, had an effect all its own. “It will take us several weeks to reach the frontier, and we have been tasked with providing aid where we can to the towns and villages along the way. There will be long days, and I’m sorry to tell you, even longer nights. We will be covering the current battle strategies and tactics being employed by the Mage Commander to ensure you are prepared for when we arrive. Get yourselves sorted. We leave shortly.” She snapped a fist to her chest in salute, dismissing them, before turning and heading through the door behind her.

A heavy silence hung over the group of mages as the gravity of where they were going and what lay before them set in. When the moment broke, it was like a newborn bird’s first chirping after a long winter. More voices followed the first until the noise washed out everything around it like a forest full of wildlife. Unfortunately for Quinten, Cedric, and Ronan, hidden within that dark forest were predators, and as were their ways, they descended on the trio like a pack of hungry wolves.

Quinten felt his hackles rise when a tall woman, who appeared a few years older than him, with brown hair that matched her Core robes, moved forward, getting close enough to make him uncomfortable.

“Are you him?” She asked, her long eyelashes fluttering as her wide brown eyes looked up at him.

Taking a step back, he raised a brow. “Him, who…?”

Another woman, this one with long black hair that reached just above the curve of her back, stepped forward on his other side. “Are you the one that knocked out the Archmage’s son?”

They were boxing him in, and Quinten felt a surge of danger. Not physical, but a fear of a different nature entirely. Taking another step backwards, he bumped into Cedric. Pulling his friend in front of him, he said. “Uh… no. He’s the one that knocked him out.”

A number of hungry eyes turned in Cedric’s direction, and Quinten felt him stiffen through his hand on his friend’s arm.

“I just punched him.” He said quickly. Trying to pull away from Quinten, he added. “Q, here—is the one who beat him in a duel.”

Their focus shifted back, and Quinten could feel himself start to sweat under the collar of his outer robe. Pulling it open slightly, he drew on a little air to cool himself off.

“Stars above.” Someone yelled as they saw what lay beneath, their voice carrying over the giggling. “Look at his sword.”

Gasps rang out and the brown-haired girl exclaimed, “That’s the prince’s blade!” Her eyes somehow growing even larger.

Quinten groaned, Master Zekial, you star-cursed—you knew this would happen.

Much to his annoyance, and the enjoyment of his friends. Quinten spent the next several minutes fielding questions as he tried to find a polite way to disengage from those surrounding him. Knowing he and these mages would be fighting side-by-side and relying on each other in the near future had him doing his best to remain polite.

Patience worn thin, he grit his teeth and said. “Excuse me, ladies, but I need to see a man about a horse before we depart.”

Without waiting for a reply, he stepped away, pretending that he didn’t see their frowns at his obvious excuse. Skirting the gathered women, he grabbed his two friends by their robes and forcibly steered them toward the front gates of the staging area.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Cedric stifled a laugh and Ronan grinned, asking. “What man and what horse? You picked yours out yesterday.”

Quinten chose to ignore the question, instead, focusing on the fastest path out of the courtyard and away from the nightmare of sirens behind him. He would never admit using his Gift to speed them along, but the pair’s laughter let him know they already knew.

*****

On the March, West of Gremelda

The road stretched before them, a winding ribbon of dirt and dust. Except for when it was a pit of mud and muck, forcing the train of supply wagons to slow to a miserable crawl. Luck was on their side today. The rhythmic clop of horse hooves mixed with the clatter of the wagons as they rolled steadily along, each laden with crates of provisions, weapons, and miscellaneous equipment.

Quinten rode in the center of the caravan, his horse’s hooves kicking up soft earth in its wake. He reached down and pat the young mare, rubbing its neck just the way it liked. Something he’d learned over the last several weeks as he cared for the beautiful beast. At two years old, she was lean and still growing into her full frame. Her coat was all black, sleek and shiny except for a white star-shaped patch along her muzzle that’d earned her the name Starbrite, or Star, as he’d taken to calling her. With a thick mane and tail that was just beginning to flow. Her eyes were expressive, wide, and curious. And she moved with a grace that had instantly drawn him to her the first time he’d seen her in the stockyards. Her playful nature coming out as she trotted around the enclosure.

Gazing about, Quinten considered his fellow mages.

Twenty-three of us, and the only boys being Cedric, Ronan, and I.

They were currently riding in silence. Each enjoying the clear skies and bright sun during their brief break from Captain Blackwell’s lectures, or as she kept referring to them, “Treatise on the war in the West”.

As questionable as the actual information was, one service it did provide was as a distraction. Without something the focus on, the faces of the young mages were drawn. A combination of road weariness and the quiet tension of those contemplating their fates. The three young men were not exempt from those thoughts. It was one thing to hear about war, and even Quinten, having experienced it before, wasn’t sure he was entirely prepared for what was to come.

Another thing he hadn’t been ready for was the game of “catch the male mage’s eye” his fellow mages decided to play. It was barely an hour into the first day’s march that a blond with too many teeth rode up beside Quinten. He’d gently shot her down, but the advances continued to come.

The fact that none of their efforts bore fruit had led to some interesting rumors. The one he thought the funniest, being that they simply enjoyed each other’s company more than they should.

Quinten had to admit. It was mostly bad timing on their part. Other than Ronan, who simply wasn’t interested. At any other time, Cedric and Quinten may have been. The former had admitted one night around their fire, after those still willing to make an attempt had left, that he still felt a little raw after Celeste. Quinten, while not scarred like his friend, was confused in his own right. His brief relationship with Izzy had been amazing and although no promises had ever been made. He could admit to still thinking of her at night in his tent. It would have felt wrong to encourage any of the Core mages traveling with him, even if his swiftly improving empathic ability to sense other’s feelings didn’t clue him into their motivations.

The long hours in the saddle provided him with plenty of time to experiment with Empathy, something he found surprisingly difficult to convince himself to do. The idea of knowing what everyone around him was feeling sounded great, but he’d come to discover that wasn’t always the case. More than once, an accidental reading, what he’d come to think of the emotional flare-ups he sensed from others, had changed the way he viewed someone after experiencing what they were feeling.

He started slow, experimenting through trial and error to figure out how Empathy worked. Unlike his other Gifts, he had no guidance on where to begin. His first success came while meditating in the saddle during the second week of their journey. He felt a shift in his perceptions just before a wave of restlessness surged from his left and shattering his concentration. It slammed into him and made him sway unsteadily in the saddle.

When Quinten opened his eyes, he turned to see Cedric practically dancing on his horse as he shifted from side-to-side. It was confirmation enough for Quinten that what he was feeling was real. He closed his eyes once more and focused on chasing down that same sensation. Hoping that the next emotion would reach him a little more controlled.

As they traveled, Quinten continued to practice. Meditation helped him sense the presence of those around him. From there, he could reach out mentally and establish a link between the other person and himself. At first, the connection was unstable. The emotions he sensed were hard to understand, or so overpowering he couldn’t tell which emotion was foreign or his own.

The last several weeks of effort resulted in a number of findings involving Empathy. Like his other Gifts, once he began to use and understand it, the ability would laid dormant until he actively reached for it. It was only when emotions spiked—anger, fear, sadness—that the ability tried to push its way to his senses unbidden. His current focus involved maintaining a light use of the ability to control the intensity of what he felt in an attempt to keep the emotions from overwhelming him.

His desire for control was born out of his most recent discovery, that physical contact created an empathic link far stronger than any he’d experienced to that point.

Mage Lastrel found Quinten in his tent a couple of nights earlier as he prepared for that evening’s watch shift. True to her word, Captain Blackwell scheduled Ronan, Cedric, and himself for nearly a third-again as many night watches as the other mages. The rotation schedule was posted publicly, and the captain made no attempt to hide her displeasure with the three.

“It’s not fair what she’s doing to you.” Said Lastrel as she leaned against the pole supporting the door flap.

Striking in her appearance, she had her sleek black hair cut short, just past her jaw line. Contrasting the normal trend of women keeping their hair long. Her pale blue eyes were as piercing as they were memorable. Quinten remembered looking up several times from a task to find her watching him. She’d made no qualms about her interest thus far and he was unsurprised by her presence in his tent.

“Life is rarely fair,” he replied as he arranged his gear.

Lastrel grunted in agreement, eyes tracking him as he moved around his small tent. “You aren’t married yet.” It wasn’t a question.

Meeting her gaze, he paused in tying his waterskin to his pack. “You know I’m not.”

“Betrothed?” She asked, her eyes gleaming with hunger.

Sighing, having weathered enough comments of a similar nature that he no longer felt uncomfortable with this level of forwardness, he shook his head.

“Neither am I—and we’re going to be traveling together for another month. That’s a long time to spend alone when you don’t need to be.”

Seeing this as another opportunity to practice, Quinten tried to create a link between them. But what he sensed came back garbled and unreadable. Distracted, he missed it as she stepped away from the pole and further into his tent, taking his lack of response as permission.

When she reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, the connection he’d been struggling with snapped into place. Her emotions crashing into Quinten's mind. Desire—curiosity… and interest. He slammed the connection shut, reeling, as he stumbled backwards and fell on his ass.

Momentarily stunned, Lastrel stared at him with wide eyes before she knelt before him. The playfulness and desire she’d let show was gone, behind a look of genuine concern that he could feel radiating through the closed but not severed link.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he grunted, thinking quickly. “I think you may be right. Too many night watches and not enough sleep.”

Frowning, she rose to her feet. “Look, I’m not on for a few days. I’ll take your watch tonight. You probably want your Healer friend to take a look at you too.”

Slowly climbing back to his feet, he smiled and inclined his head. “I will. Thank you.”

“With a smile like that, just remember that you owe me.” She said with a wink as she backed out of his tent.

Quinten had been grateful for the night off and appreciated her willingness to help. The fact that his read on her emotions told him that she was only interested in him, and not for anything political, reawakened a bit of that nervousness he’d had when the trip started. He wasn’t sure he’d take her up on her offer, but he would find some way to repay her for the kindness and for teaching him something new about his Gift.