Looking over at the only house servant in the room, Alistar asked the young woman if she could fetch them some fresh leaves for their tea. The moment she left, he spoke to his friend in a quiet voice.
“Okay, don’t tell anyone, but I found an old grimoire at the collegia’s library a while back. It was written over a century ago, and it belonged to a very talented arcanite who mainly used ice magic. Based on the spellwork that he left behind, I think he was a high arcanite.”
“You have a grimoire?” said Anice, her voice painfully loud. “Alie, that’s so cool! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I was worried Uncle would get mad if he found it. After what happened, though, I don’t think he’d mind.”
Corrie didn’t remove his gaze from the still surface of his drink. “Is that how you killed him, then? The man that tried to murder you.”
Anice recoiled under Alistar’s glare, pulling her silver shawl tighter around her shoulders as if in the hopes of warding off his exasperation.
“Who didn’t you tell, Anne?”
“A lot of people. Only our friends know about it.”
Suppressing an eye roll, he returned his focus to Corrie and spoke in a slightly sombre tone. “It played a big role in keeping me alive. Luckily it was raining, so I had plenty of water to work with.”
“You’re going to lend me that book?”
“For a couple of weeks, if you want. I’ve already memorized everything inside, so I can always make another copy if I really need to.”
“Grimoires are priceless treasures, especially ones that old. Are you really okay with lending it to me?”
“Of course I am. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Corrie put on a rare smile, scratching at his head in silent appreciation. These days, his dark hair was the same length as Alistar’s and was no longer as greasy as it had been in the past. Just as Alistar had made a habit of relying on water magics to clean himself each morning—both for convenience and to sneak in some practice at his spellwork—so too had Corrie.
“I owe you a great debt. I promise that one day I’ll repay it, and these aren’t just empty words.”
“It’s only natural to help each other out. I know you’d do the same if our positions were reversed.” Standing as he sensed the house servant from earlier making her way back to the dining hall, he beckoned for Corrie to follow him. “Come on, it’s in my room. I’ve read a few books recently that I think you’d enjoy, so you might as well take a look at them while you’re here.”
Seeing the subtle glimmer of excitement in his friend’s cool, observant eyes, Alistar led the way to the basement, not surprised when Anice branched off with a sigh of boredom and disappeared down one of the hallways near the descending staircase. While she was interested in seeing the grimoire firsthand, the thought of sitting around, reading and exchanging opinions on various written works was evidently enough to steer her clear from their company.
Coming out at the bottom of the stairs, Alistar frowned as he passed his old room, images of Janine’s energetic smile flashing through his mind. He could no longer look at this area of the house in the same manner as he used to, for he was almost always reminded of the terrible tragedy that had taken place down here. Still, he felt more at ease when surrounded by the stone walls that only the basement offered, and found a fair deal of comfort in the cool, windowless setup that was slightly reminiscent of the earthen, rocky tunnels that had raised him.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Once in his room, Alistar fished out the grimoire and handed it to his friend. Corrie accepted it after a moment’s hesitation, his hands eagerly flipping to the first page.
“Haussen Scuff?”
Alistar nodded, noting the interest in the other boy’s eyes. “Whether he was a bastard or an orphan, it’s quite a feat that he managed to become a high arcanite. You’ll see why when you get further into the book.”
“Water gathering, water manipulation, dry-drowning, instant freezing, ice manipulation… How can there be so many spells on just the first few pages?”
“Those are the easier ones. He references them about thirty pages ahead and describes how to use the advanced equivalents of those spells and then again near the end of the book for the high magic versions.”
“Even high magic? Surely he was famous in his time.”
“You would think, but I couldn’t find any information on him at the collegia. Strange, considering that that’s where I found the grimoire.”
“What page is the reinforcement spell on?”
Alistar grabbed the book and then flipped to the appropriate part. “He describes it so well that I figured it would be easier for you to just read this. I suggest you practice using it on little bits of ice at first, and then try experimenting with different shapes and sizes.”
“Is the process the same all around, or different for specific things?”
“It’s easier to use on smaller things, but no, the process doesn’t change much. Usually, you just need to go by intuition.”
“Maybe for you,” said Corrie, eyes not leaving the pages as he continued to flip through them. After a moment, he lowered the book and fixed Alistar with a sympathetic expression. “Hey, about everything that’s going on with Lessa. There’s a way that you can break off the engagement, but it’s a bit drastic.”
“What is it?”
“She can’t marry him if he’s dead.”
Seeing the casual nature in which his friend made mention of murder, Alistar couldn’t help but frown. “I can’t kill someone over something like this. That’s obviously wrong.”
“It’s also wrong to blackmail a girl thirty-something years younger than you into intercourse so that she can bear your children.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “it’s not just you, you know. None of us want this for her. If it comes to it, a few of us were thinking of—”
“I’m surprised you would say something so foolish.”
“How is it foolish? Silverkins kill one another over lesser things, as you should know.”
“Yes, and my uncle Caedmon isn’t like most lords from our house. Anne’s been to both duchies, Vern and Calei, and has seen both of our uncles’ homes. From what she could remember there were more guards than house servants, and even a lot of the servants were armed. Apparently, Uncle Caedmon’s the only one in the family that isn’t obsessed with strength and figuring out the best ways to show it off.”
“What then? Are we just going to let her go off to live the miserable life that we know awaits her?”
“I love her, Corrie. I’m not going to let that happen.”
Corrie made to say something else, but faltered in the face of whatever look had taken hold of Alistar’s expression. “I’m just saying,” he eventually muttered, “we’re all friends here. Just as you feel the need to lend me things like this”—he hefted up the grimoire—“we also want to help each other whenever we can. Even if you’d never moved here, we’d still try to do something about the engagement.”
Realizing that more emotion was visible on his face than he preferred to allow, Alistar took his friend’s words to heart and calmed himself down.
“I don’t like the idea of you all sticking your necks out in a situation like this.” Lightening the tone of his voice, he continued. “You’re right, though. I shouldn’t ignore how you lot feel, even if it’s out of worry. We’ve still got time before she has to leave, so let’s put this topic off for another day.”
The more he dwelt on the matter, the more it affected his behavior. Be it his lessons on history, numerals, geography or what have you, the constant anxieties in his mind had been obstructing his studies as his absentmindedness forced him to reread the same sentences and paragraphs more often than not. It was difficult to retain new information when he was constantly aggrieved by his mounting hatred for Lord Edgar and the growing sense of forlornness that settled in at the thought of Lessa leaving Distan for quite possibly the rest of her life.
Sensing that he didn’t want to discuss things any further, Corrie tactfully walked over to Alistar’s work desk and picked up one of the three books that were stacked at its centre. “These are the books you mentioned earlier, I take it?”
“Ah, yes. The one with the green cover details the poisonous plants that can be found in the area. I think it’ll be useful for any tasks you guys might take up that require going off into the forests.”