Disclaimer: I obviously don't own anything that's M.L.'s
A/R: Thank you for your patience while waiting for me to update this fic. Some things will be explained in this part, but not all so bear with me some more. I am making a goal to update this thing once or twice a week, and since Swift Shadows is around to bug me about it, you can be sure to get something out of that promise!
Also: Aura Kage: Like I said before, this story takes place chronologically between books one and two of The Last Herald Mage trilogy, on one of those short visits home that Van describes in Magic's Promise…. By the way, I think I might include Liss somewhere along the line if I want.
Chapter Four
Charis knocked on the hollow wooden door of the twins' house, announcing her presence. The place that was so familiar in its stench of her former husband and the life she left behind remained eerily silent. The rap-rap of her knuckles sounded exceedingly loud in the quiet night, and she couldn't help feeling that it was wrong to disturb the peace. Normally Charis would not have come back here, not to the place that made her feel uneasy and sick inside, even though with a thought she could, if she chose, level the entire property and the beast of a man within it. Given, the idea was tempting but that was not why she was here. She was here to claim her children. Afterwards, though, that held possibilities. Dismissing her fantasies when there was no answer to the knocks, Charis rang the doorbell once, then twice more in annoyance. Still silence.
Perhaps he is ignoring me, Charis thought angrily, letting emotions get the better of her. He has no power over me anymore! Not any longer, not when I've finished my training. I refuse to play his games. If he will insist on being rude then I'll give him an eye for an eye. He deserves it. With that in mind she found no reason to restrain herself from entering by force. Focusing her strength she delivered a kick with enough force to hear the hinges complain loudly as the cheap door split down the middle. Another strike finished the job. Breaking and entering into my own house. The things that change.
Stepping over the debris, Charis made her way in, taking notice of the silence that surrounded her. A quick check told her she was alone in the building and that worried her. Harold's car was in the front, and she didn't credit him to walking anywhere, especially so far out in the woods. Making her way into the shabby living room she was not surprised to find that the man had seemingly gambled his inheritance money away, and left him and the children in a dump. Raging wordlessly she cursed at the state she had left Chris and Monica in. Charis promised then to be a real mother to them, reminded of her desertion when she stepped over the unconscious puppet she had left in her place long ago.
Pretending to go mad, she created the illusion to cover for her, so that no one could suspect her disappearance when she finally left to complete the rest of her Training. And it was still here, on the floor and looking as much like her as it had the day she conjured it. But there was no need for a puppet now. Sighing she reached down and dispelled the magic, watching her old spell shimmer away.
Charis was a mage, third degree as she was pleased to say. Unlike many Talented, her power only manifested a couple of years ago at the age of twenty-six. And what was still more unusual, her teachers claimed, was that it matured at an incredible speed, allowing her to complete complicated spells that took years to acquire the control for when normal mages entered the Training like she did. Having graduated recently, when her personal mentor told her she had learned all she could that would not be acquired in experience, she immediately took off intending to destroy her old ghosts. Ghosts like Harold, ghosts like her over-bearing parents. And so now she was here to take back her children, no matter if she had to kill him to get them. She would gladly.
Making her way to the bedroom the twins had shared, Charis switched on the hall-light and watched the aged light bulb flicker to life. Failing to see how so much money could disappear as quickly as Harold's had, she felt her disgust for the man raise. Reaching the end of the corridor and entering the black, lightless room, she reached in past the door and flicked up the near by light-switch. The florescent lamp immediately came to life, revealing an empty room, like she predicted. There was something in it that caught her attention though, an abused looking dresser pulled away from the wall. Circling it she saw from a different angle that there was a roughly carved hole leading outside and a discarded panel that must have covered it.
They ran away! Good God, I didn't think it was that bad. Now it will be even harder to find them and I'm no good at tracking…. So magic will have to serve the purpose, although I didn't want to drain myself so early. I just hope they aren't far. Sitting on the floor for comfort, she reached her hands out, and focused inwardly.
* * *
Chris sat down on the bench that lay on a secretly hidden porch, enjoying the outdoors and cool breezes. His sister took a seat next to him and Vanyel leaned against the railing across from them. After getting their food from the kitchen all three of them decided they would rather eat privately and not with the servants that were taking their lunch at the same time. So Vanyel showed them this little-used hideaway. It was private enough to count on being left alone, but still had a fair view of the keep land and a good position to hear the birds from. Monica ate hastily, not bothering with small talk because she was so hungry. Chris merely picked at his food, having lost his appetite when he started brooding about what was really going to happen to them after their welcome here had worn out. He would go to Haven, Kyril told had him that before, but Monica had no-where to stay after this.
So Chris sat and twirled his noodles around his fork, staring at the plate and spacing while his mind went around in dead end circles, trying to figure our what to do. But there was nothing he could think of, because while he enjoyed being in this place, he realized that he knew next to nothing about it.
"So, tell me about what happened when you were Chosen," Monica asked Chris when she stopped for breath of air, "You never explained that."
Chris temporary halted from his lunch at the request and paused before answering. Vanyel looked up in surprise.
"I didn't know you were Chosen," he said, "Although I might have guessed, since you seem to gaze at nothing often enough. Like you were talking to someone, right?" Chris nodded, take aback that Vanyel seemed to know these things.
"How did you guess?"
Vanyel chuckled. "I am a Herald you know, I do have a companion myself."
Chris felt himself blush, embarrassed. "Oh, course." He still was looking at his feet when Monica elbowed him in the side.
"You still haven't told your story, silly," she reminded him.
He smiled at her and smoothed his hair back, as it was becoming a nervous habit of his.
"Right, sorry. Well, if you don't know yet, her name is Kyril… My Companion I mean. She's really nice of course, but she frightened the pants off me last night, or morning, which ever, when she practically ran me down in the fields over there," he pointed past Vanyel, vaguely identifying the pastures out yonder. "I mean, so there I was standing lost in the middle of a strange forest when it started raining. I had been walking aimlessly for a while and, quite frankly, was coming to the end of my rope if you take my meaning. I had no idea where I was and was completely and utterly exhausted. So then I feel this prickling in the back of my mind. Since I was already slightly panicked, and I couldn't tell if I was making up the sensation or not, I though I was going made. Then I see this flash of white, just outside my line of sight. I had no idea what it was, so you can imagine my reaction. I lost my nerve. I started running, just running really with no direction in mind, but I can guess that Kyril was herding me in this direction, towards here." Chris stopped for a moment to make sure that his audience was still following. When they both nodded their heads to reassure him, he continued.
"I just kept seeing these flashes of white, always behind or beside of me, driving me forward. At one point I turned around, and thought I saw a shape that looked like a horse, just before it disappeared again. An then I tripped over the fence out there," he made a vague gesture to indicate where had he pointed before. "I wasn't concentrating at all on what was ahead of me, and I was going fairly fast, so I actually flipped over it. Lying dazed on the ground, I finally came around to see this pair of big, blue eyes staring at me, right close to my face. And the feeling, I can't describe it; it was almost as if I was part of something else, or that something was a part of me. It was a good feeling. Like nothing I've ever felt before"
Vanyel nodded in understanding, "That's what it's like for all of us. A bonding takes place, a soul and mind melding. It's really something indescribable."
Monica sighed jealously. "That sounds wonderful."
Then it was Chris's turn to sigh, in mock annoyance. "You know what she did then?" he said, "She laughed at me, then snorted and nibbled on my hair."
:Beast: He though at her teasingly. Kyril laughed silently in his head.
: Monkey: She thought back.
