Alistar felt as if his soul had just slipped out of his body. One didn’t simply study at an arcannia for a year or two. Traditionally, they would never be allowed to return to the institution if they left before achieving the rank of a tier-three mage. This usually took many years, and from what Alistar knew Lessa was still an apprentice mage.
“I’m heading home.” It was likely that Lessa was still at the estate, so he wanted to go confront her about the important secret that she had evidently been keeping from most of her friends. Picking up the broken practice swords, he turned to Zech and Jaden and said, “I’ll have Teacher fix these for you. I’ll bring them back tomorrow around the usual time, good as new. See you all later!”
Sprinting as fast as he could, he caught up to Emely and then walked her home before resuming his run and returning to the manor house. Unfortunately, Lessa and Anice were nowhere in sight, and it wasn’t until he bumped into a kind-faced Madeline that he learned that they had gone to the Silvus family estate a short while ago.
Alistar hadn’t been so restless in a long while. Suffering from an odd sensation that seemed to be eating away at his stomach, he retired to the central courtyard with his sword in hand where he began a long stint of thoughtless, ceaseless training. Before he knew it, nighttime had rolled around, at which point he went right to his room without any thoughts of dinner.
While it wasn’t nearly as severe, he felt similar to the time when he’d learned that only he and his uncle Raidon had been freed from the mines.
Not all goodbyes are forever…
It wasn’t until his mother’s voice surfaced in his memory that he wiped an unsuspecting tear from his cheek and extinguished all of the candles within his room with a slight thought. Fully clothed and very anxious, Alistar fell sleep thanks to the exhaustion of the intense training session that he’d just poured all of his focus into, his heart uneasy beneath the warm touch of his mother’s locket.
***
“Are you really going to study in Valay?”
Lessa’s pupils contracted, a light gasp escaping her rosy lips as she faced Alistar with guilty eyes.
“What’s he talking about, Lessa?”
Anice stood nearby, the flames in front of her hands disappearing as she dispersed the spell that she had been trying to cast. They were standing along the fringes of the little forest on the western side of the estate, where Alistar and Mr. Albeck had reviewed his spellwork just a short while ago.
“I… Emely told you?”
“It was an accident, but she said it in front of everyone.”
“Wait, you all hung out without us?”
“That’s not the point, Anne.”
“Wait, wait, did you just say she’s going to Valay?” Turning around and putting her hands on the slender shoulders of her blue-coated friend, Anice gave her a rough, unladylike shake. “It’s a lie, right? You’re not really leaving, are you?”
After hesitating for a moment, Lessa began to cry. “I don’t want to go either. Priscilla’s going to study at the arcannia so she can spend time with Johan, so Papa signed her up to attend. He also…he also registered me, and he’s already paid the registration fees.”
“When do you go?” asked Alistar, disheartened tone betraying his feelings. “You don’t want to go, do you?”
A harsh wind blew by, cold and unforgiving.
“Of course I don’t,” sniffled the girl, wiping at the frozen streams that traced down her cheeks. “I want to stay here with my friends.”
Anice rolled her silver eyes, fiery brows undulating. “Why are you crying, then? Just don’t go.”
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She shook her head, blonde hair bobbing like chimes in the wind. “I don’t have a choice.”
“Why though?”
“Because…because Father found me a suitor. The grandson of one of the king’s cousins.”
Alistar’s heart felt colder than the afternoon breeze. He had just returned from Mr. Herst’s house after a brief lesson at Tramon’s, having confided in both of the men about the news that he had recently heard. Tramon hadn’t been of any help, simply telling him that he’d never raised such a weak disciple that would let matters of the heart distract from his training, while his Drunish friend had taken great care with an explanation that essentially amounted to a simple bit of advice. If he was bothered by the fact that his friend might soon leave the county, then it was important that he spoke with her about it. Everyone had their own circumstances in life, Mr. Herst had said, so the best course would be to try to find out why she had decided to leave in the first place.
“What’s a suitor?”
Alistar hardly heard his own voice. “The man that will become her husband.”
“H—husband? What’s his name?”
“It’s Edgar. Edgar Toulun Silverkin.”
Alistar recognized the name from The Regions of Mais and Its Noble Inhabitants. Toulun was a barony within the duchy of Vern, meaning that the man in question was a landholding noble that resided within his uncle Antoine’s territory. More accurately, the barony in question was very close to the territorial capital of Valay.
“Him? But he’s older than my papa!” Turning to Alistar, Anice said, “He came to visit once when we were little, I think to buy a painting from us. Half of his hair was already grey by then.”
Lessa’s cries transitioned into a sob. Seeing this, Anice put on a complicated frown and pulled her friend into an uneasy hug.
After remaining quiet for a while, Alistar said, “So you can’t decline?”
Not meeting his eyes, Lessa shook her head and began to talk to her thick leather boots. “Father’s worried that if one of your cousins inherits Distan, that we’ll lose our place here. Apparently it happens often when new lords are sworn into power.”
Thinking of Mr. Silvus, Alistar felt a bubbling sense of anger. Never in his life would he have thought that he’d one day come to hate this man.
“When do you go?” he asked.
“Once I become a first-tier mage. Father doesn’t want me to be bullied while I’m away, so he wants to be sure that I can take care of myself first.”
“When do you think that’ll be?”
“A year, two at most.”
“Is there any way you can prolong it?”
“Mrs. Jadestone already promised my father that it wouldn’t take any longer than that. If it does, he’ll know what I’m up to.”
“I don’t like your teacher anymore,” growled Anice, still hugging her friend. “She should know that you don’t want to go.”
“Don’t be angry with her, Anne. She’s only doing as she’s told.”
Not knowing what to say, Alistar stood in silence while the girls continued to embrace one another for a time. All the while, Anice did her best to blink away tears of her own.
“Come off it, now,” said his cousin in a soft voice that rarely left her lips. “It’s still two years away. Anything can happen between now and then. Right, Alie?”
Suppressing his sadness, he tried to put on a smile and mirrored her soft tone. “Anne’s right. Let’s not talk about this anymore. It’s almost time for supper, so why don’t you join us?”
Wiping moisture from her long lashes, Lessa shook her head. “I’m going to go home. I don’t think I can be around many people right now.”
Not sure of what to say, Alistar put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze. “Anne, why not accompany her to the gates so you can ask Rayson or Harold to walk her back?”
His cousin agreed with a forced smile, encouraging Lessa that things would be fine. The two of them left a moment later, leaving Alistar alone along the treeline where many trunks were charred from Anice’s attempts at increasing the scope of her candle lighting spell.
Five minutes passed, but he didn’t move a single step.
For the first time in a long while, Alistar lost his cool. Taking off two of his limiters, he converted all of the snow within ten paces of him into water, gathered it above his head with a bit of effort and then froze it into a misshapen sphere that was similar in size to a typical carriage. Not caring for the fact that he would be crushed into paste if he were to cancel his control over the spells at play, Alistar took things even further and activated the basic form of Haussen Scuff’s reinforcement spell. This caused the huge hunk of ice to let off a momentary azure glow before responding with a series of crackling sounds similar to what one might hear while standing in the middle of a frozen lake. Alistar had never practiced using such a large amount of ice as a projectile, though with so much of his inner energies unsealed it wasn’t nearly as difficult as he might have imagined.
Fueling his actions with all of the hurt, hatred and helplessness in his heart, Alistar relied on his inner energies to hurl the large mass of ice at the closest tree, a young oak about ten paces tall. An ear-splitting crack preceded a loud sound of impact as the tree was snapped in half at the middle, its body falling to the ground with spindly complaints from its dead limbs. The large ball of ice didn’t break upon contact with the tree and would have gone on to tumble into the ones beyond it had Alistar not quickly reverted its bulk back into a liquid state and allowed it to fall to the ground with a frigid splash.