“Your majesty,” Carthel genuflected as he stood before the ostentatious hall, the voice in his head telling him to sleep. “This humble servant greets you.”
His voice reverberated in the large hallway as the king, draped in crimson robes, stared at him from atop the grand stairs that led to the throne. Pillars, erected from colossal marble blocks, ran parallel to the throne’s ascent, each separated by four girths of a man, draped in a handwoven tapestry of unmatched skills and expertise. Faint, eerie light filtered through the dim mana lamps hanging at every pillar, casting an atmosphere of uneasiness that didn’t quite sit well with Carthel.
“A hound can recognize its master with eyes closed, but what about you?” the voice was deep and cracked as if Tyrane hadn’t spoken in a while, but Carthel knew better. That lazy-ass, deranged fanatic was just furious. Carthel didn’t have the patience to deal with this man, and sleep was eating him inside out. For the lord he was, restraint was his forte, and he shut his mouth and let the man drunk in power continue.
“This servant doesn’t understand, Your Majesty,” Carthel didn’t dare raise his head.
“Do you know why we whip the hounds, Carthel?” Tyrane asked, and Carthel heard a grating sound. “Do you know why we tie a leash around them and don’t let them wander around aimlessly?”
Carthel didn’t reply and closed his eyes with his forehead still on the ground. Maybe he could catch a quick nap and reinvigorate himself while this deranged king mumbled his drunken stupor.
“Carthel!”
“It’s to keep them disciplined and obedient, Your Majesty,” Carthel shook himself awake.
“And what have you been doing?” Tyrane asked, the grating sound reappearing. “Why is it only now that you have returned to the capital? Was my favor of sparing your life in the past not a generous enough gesture of kindness?”
Carthel cleansed his first and held back the fuming rage that was bound to erupt one day. “This servant understands his mistake, Your Majesty.”
“No, you don’t,” the king said, and Carthel heard footsteps reverberating from behind him. “Look, Carthel.”
There was a pause before he heard Tyrane’s thunderous roar. “Look at me, you wench!”
Carthel slowly raised his eyes to meet the King’s fuming eyes. “I need absolute obedience from my retainers. And I don’t expect you to be led astray like that bitch. Morrow, you’ll head for Berbaba and station yourself in the fortress until further orders. Gunargat Empire's activity is suspicious, so we are fortifying the borders.”
He waved his hand, and the guards held him by both arms and straightened him. Maybe he should sleep now. “I want to see the throbbing flesh on his back by morrow. Hounds should know of their master’s wrath ever so often; else disobedience grates the ingrained lessons.”
Carthel signed. Another sleepless night awaited him.
–
“Brother, do you know him?” Laura asked as she watched her brother intently reading some documents on his table.
“Hardly,” Byrak said in a daze.
She was sitting on his hard bed, the fabric much different from her own in her room. There was nothing of ornamental value in his room except for some books on military and magic. Candles were lit all around the room, and Laura got distracted by her hazy shadow at the door.
“There are some things you shouldn’t pry about, Laura,” Byrak rolled the scroll and turned his chair to face her. “Things in life are not always straightforward. Gossip can taint your reputation before you know it, so it is best you stay away from him. Not to say he’s a bad guy… but there’s too much bad blood between his family and the royals.”
“He saved us today,” Laura said, puffing her cheeks.
“And he would have gladly let you die,” Byrak said with an edge. “There are no emotions behind his actions, so you shouldn’t attach any importance either. Stay away from him until Harvestmoon. Once your classes start, there’ll be too much to learn anyway."
Laura didn’t find the answers she needed, and Byrak chased her out of his room. Despite that, she managed to ascertain that her brother had misgivings about the man, and the human relationships seemed much more troublesome than she initially thought. With a forlorn face, she made it back to the room and retired for the night.
Sleep didn't come easy, though, her thoughts constantly fluttering between her near-death experience with the Daem. Carthel, too, but he was gradually fading into the back of her mind.
Strange dreams troubled her in her sleep. She saw the familiar woman on the streets this time, her weird clothes stained with the wet mud, and three other women towering over her. They were searching for a pochette of some sort, flapping rectangular papers before her, their expression filled with amusement. Laura watched her run away, the pitter-patter of the rain resounding in monotone around her.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
[Memory Unlocked: A Desperate Escape]
[Memory Loss: Cured 9%]
–
The morn marked the beginning of the new day, and Laura rushed to her usual training ground soon after a light breakfast. Byrak was already waiting for her with two practice swords and a large cauldron beside him.There was a mischievous grin plastered across his face as he watched her run toward him, almost out of breath.
“You are late!” He smacked her head with the sword and threw the smaller one at her feet.
Laura glared at him, aggrieved, and picked up the sword.
“Let me talk about magic today,” Byrak said as he opened his palm and gathered a glowing ball of light over his calloused skin. “Do you feel something brimming around us? Anything at all?”
Laura closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Well, that’s because mana cannot be discerned from air even with all your senses combined. If there were a way to isolate a room from the air completely, you could feel a tingling sensation similar to the one you feel in your core as you accumulate the mana. The lore, you’ll learn in the Academy, but I’ll teach you practical knowledge that we learn in the army,” Byrak closed his palm, making the shimmering ball of mana disappear.
“There are three steps to casting. Accumulation involves gathering the scattered mana and filling up our mana core, or Komar, as high priests call it. Most people fail this step because they don’t have mana conduits in their bodies. Transduction involves injecting your processed mana into a medium or artifact with a matching mana circuit with that of your body. Till here, the mana is just an assemblage of Una, something like fodder or food. Casting is where things start taking defined form, say a ball of fire or a shield of water frozen to perfection, or raising the bones from a dead mortal and giving them a mana core. The spells a mage can cast entirely depend on the magic artifact they use. I stopped at-”
“Transduction,” Laura completed for him. “I’ve done that before, but I can hardly sustain it to make anything meaningful.”
“That’s called Regutition,” Byrak showed her another glowing ball over his palms, which immediately dispersed into nothingness. “When the mana doesn’t take a complete cycle through your Komar, it can’t be materialized to enter the Transduction phase. This means you have blockage in your conduits or ruptured conduits, as they are commonly called. It's easy to cure once we open up the mana pores in your body, but it’s an excruciating process. We’ll boil you in this cauldron,” Byrak said, his lips curving to a smile when he watched Laura’s horrified face.
“Don’t worry,” Byrak ruffled her head. “At most, you’ll suffer burns all over your body and no other side effects.”
“Brother…,” Laura stared at him, eyes pleading. “You aren’t serious, right?”
“Of course, I’m not,” Byrak laughed, pinching her cheeks hard. “But you do have to stay in a cauldron filled with Serpentgrub; sleek and slender worms known to leach out the impurities and mana from the conduits. For over half a day if you want to get it done in a sitting. Then you need to let the mana conduits recover for the rest of Solsticea until we enter into the harvest season. Of course, that’ll be Harvestmoon, marking the beginning of your Academy life.”
Laura hated the thought of worms crawling over her body. And stay in that grotesque cauldron for over half a day? She had second thoughts about learning magic now, but the glowing mana ball was too enticing to give up.
“Did you have ruptured conduits too?” Laura asked.
“Yeah,” Byrak frowned. “Father threw me into a large ditch filled with those crawling worms for three days and two nights when I was five. I had to feast on them two days straight as if they were the best delicacy I had ever had in my entire life—healthy enough to skip a few meals with absolutely atrocious taste. He’s too easy on you,” his frown turned to a scowl and back to a frown. “Mother’s loss hit him much harder than us.”
After debating her choices for a while, she glanced at Byrak resolutely.
“I will do it.”
“Nothing less from my student,” Byrak nodded proudly. “I have sent some guards to gather Serpentgrub from Porwelle woods, so they should reach here by evenfall. Do you have any questions before we get back to swinging swords?”
“I don’t. But-”
“No buts if you don’t have questions,” Byrak said. “Get in position! I’m going to break your bones otherwise.”
Laura pouted and raised her sword. She wanted to prepare herself for the worm bath mentally. Didn’t seem like it would happen anytime soon, given her brother’s enthusiasm.
For the next hour, Laura repeatedly swung the sword, and the action had already become a muscle memory for her. She side-stepped ever so often and continued, combining the strikes with a jab. Sweat tumbled down like water from her forehead as the sun reached overhead, and she took a breather, watching Byrak tending to his horse within the paddock. He walked toward her soon, sword in his hand, and struck her head.
Laura parried and executed a riposte that took Byrak by surprise. The woods clashed, the thrum weakening her hands, but Laura sidestepped and lunged at him with the sword. Byrak’s sword traced an arc as he struck his blade before she could stabilize herself after the lunge. The sword in her hand whipped into the air, tracing a few circles before falling slightly away.
“Not good,” Byrak scoffed. “That lunge was unwarranted. Never engage in a fight if you don’t have a way to retreat. A lunge is meant to kill your opponent, use their out-of-balance form to your advantage, or, in the worst-case scenario, land a hard enough strike to make it impossible to retaliate. I was neither, and you couldn’t afford the last strike, so all you did was dash toward a sword pointing at you and die in vain. Temper your mind; don’t aim to end every fight in a strike or two. It's the same for magic. Watch your surroundings, use them to your advantage, and prepare for a prolonged battle by capitalizing on your opponent’s mistakes. It is our way of fighting, resilience, and persistence our forte rather than the flowery sword techniques that nobles learn to impress those in power.”
Laura nodded and picked up her sword. “I can’t beat you if we fight the same way, brother.”
“That’s the whole point,” Byrak wiped her forehead with a chuckle. “If you perfect your form, you won’t ever lose either. Though, that’s still some years away.”