Chapter Twenty-one: The Sun Arcanum

The pleasant warmth Callum felt was short lived. Far too quickly, the heat rose to blistering levels. He looked around for some shade, but there wasn't so much as a bush to be seen. The sun was blazing in the sky, everything was bright. He didn't feel thirsty, just very, very hot. A sudden noise exploded in Callum's ears, forcing him to cover them protectively. He knelt down, the heat beating down on his back.

When he opened his eyes, Callum found himself back at the gorge that marked the border between Xadia and the human kingdoms. Before him was Sol Regem, his face unmarred by whatever had happened to blind him. Since their initial meeting, Callum had seen pictures of the old dragon in his prime. His heart pounded as Sol Regem sniffed around, looking for him. Minutes seemed like hours.

He wasn't sure why he was hiding; he wasn't that afraid. He felt nervous at the very most, but he wasn't the same novice mage he had been then, nor was he a boy anymore. As he took in the imposing being, he couldn't help but compare him to the charred remains that, in the waking world, now lay in the center of the wastelands.

"Show yourself, mage." the dragon demanded in a low growl. "Nothing will be accomplished by hiding. I will find you."

Callum gathered his courage. Or was it anger? The kingdom that had been his first home. From age fifteen, he had come to consider Xadia his home and truth be told, he had felt more at home there than he ever had in the palace, but Katolis was where he was born and where he grew up. Yep, he was definitely angry. Emboldened by the adrenaline coursing through him, Callum emerged, a look of fury on his face. Let the dragon do his worst.

"Sol Regem!" His shout echoed through the canyon, gaining Sol Regem's attention. The last thing Callum saw was a blast of fire coming his way, an unimaginable heat washing over him before the blast had even reached him.

The echo of Sol Regem's roar rang in Callum's ears as the noise and the intense heat suddenly disappeared. The darkness was becoming familiar to him by now, though he wondered who'd be here to greet him this time.

While Viren and Claudia were searching for creatures to use for dark magic, Aaravos contemplated Callum. If the boy truly was of his own blood, it made more sense that he should be at his side, not fighting a pointless battle. It was an even greater point of pride to him that a human, the first he had ever actually seen with his own eyes, had learned primal magic. He and his companions were on their way to that mountain range Callum and Rayla were near, and should they cross paths with the pair, there was a concealment spell that would hide them. Aaravos was personally not in the mood for a fight.

Callum was surprised to see Soren, who in turn looked equally surprised to be there. "Callum?" he asked. "I thought you and Rayla took off."

"We did." He said. "I'm supposed to be connecting to the sun arcanum. Every time, so far, I've had someone help me realize something huge that changed how I saw the world."

"Oh, well then, you picked the wrong guy for that." Soren raised his hands and shook his head. Even as he said his next words, though, he didn't seem especially upset. "Even if I were a mage, I know I'm not the sharpest sword on the battlefield."

"Don't be so hard on yourself." Callum said. "You're one of the most honest guys I know, you know what you're about. You saw the truth about your dad before anyone did and you left him. Even if it hurt, you knew it…" Callum stopped and Soren watched as his eyes widened in realization. "was the truth." He finished in a whisper.

"What?" Soren asked, confused at Callum's sudden change in demeanor.

"That's it, that's the sun arcanum!" Callum explained excitedly. "Everything has a truth and without realizing it…without exposing what's hidden, there's no going forward."

"Hold on," Soren said. "I thought the whole point of the moon arc-thingy was illusions and appearances and stuff. How they're inevitable or something."

Callum considered this for a moment. "Maybe it's…on a case-by-case basis?" he questioned. He looked away in thought for a moment, thinking that it was actually a pretty basic concept; some things were as they seemed like the sun, ground and stone, while others weren't, like the moon, the eye of a storm, or the sour taste of something that looked sweet. Somehow, there was a strange harmony between sun and moon, light and dark, that he had never noticed before; they weren't exactly opposites, their relationship was more complicated than that. When he looked back, Callum found that Soren had disappeared. He supposed he should have been thankful that he wasn't forced to see another person be overtaken by stone and crumble in a grizzly display.

In a sharp contrast to the rest of this dream, the scene changed to a cloudy, cool day, offering instant relief from the heat. Callum was in a grassy field and he didn't need his connection to the sky arcanum to know that a storm was brewing; the wind was wild, and the air had a crisp scent. There was one other figure in this field, facing him with his eyes clothed. He could tell it was an elf by his horns and light blue skin, but…maybe he wasn't. He lacked any markings on his face and more importantly, his hands sported a full five fingers. Part of Callum wanted to speak, but he found himself voiceless. His heartbeat picked up when the figure opened his eyes to look at him, and Callum found himself staring into his own eyes.

Callum awoke with a start. It was brief, though, as the brisk smell of the air, the warmth of Rayla snuggled up to him and the peace of the morning calmed him. It was daybreak. Yes, he now understood the sun arcanum, but acknowledging its relationship to the moon… This itself was an example of something the two shared, the idea of illusion versus illumination. Callum found himself wondering if there were such relationships between the remaining four primal sources, and if so, how the four divided. Rayla awoke and smiled lovingly at Callum. The next half-hour would be a slow, lazy rise for both of them, filled with whispers of sweet nothings and light kisses. It would have been utter bliss if not for an unspoken truth that they both knew; this couldn't last.

Soren had always been an early riser. Back in Katolis, he had prided himself on it as a means of getting an early start on training. Having been as sickly as he was as a child, he now did everything he could to avoid slipping back into that frailty. He now kept the habit in Novus, partly due to the lingering threat of Viren and the elf Aaravos, and partly because he enjoyed the peace before the rest of the village awoke.

He was outside in the square, just in the middle of his stretching, when a pair of shadows overtook him. He looked up and beheld a pair of Skywing elves flying overhead. One he recognized as Ibis, and the other he had never seen before. He called up to them, waving. He was glad when they descended to meet him, but he seemed to lose his breath as he watched the new Skywing elf.

She was a petite thing, with skin the same lavender as the sky during sunset that faded into a darker purple down her arms in the same way Ibis's coloration did. Her hair, which was done up in a long braid, was white that faded into blue in the same way as it descended down her back. The tips of three sharp, dark purple stripes on her upper forehead were partially hidden by her hair. Her low, black horns were slimmer than most Skywing elves he'd seen and her large eyes were the same light blue as Ibis's.

"Ibis," Soren greeted. "Who's…your friend?"

"Good morning, Soren." Ibis greeted with a curt nod and gestured to the female as their wings – his black and her gray – disappeared. "This is my daughter, Zephyr. Zephyr, this is Soren; he was of great help to us in the Battle of the Storm Spire."

"Hello Soren." She said, politely. As cheesy as it sounded, Soren quite liked the sound of his name from her mouth. Her voice was calm, like her fathers, but also had a wispiness to it. "Callum's told me about you."

"You know Callum?" Soren knew this shouldn't have bothered him, Callum was obviously devoted to Rayla in full, but all the same he couldn't help but remember bits of conversations he'd overheard from young women in the village fawning over Callum, giggling as he walked by and cursing the annoying fact that Rayla was just too likable to hate. It had bothered him then, and it continued to do so now.

"He was my father's student for a year." Zephyr explained. "Of course, we met and became friends in that time. They came to Aviana once a month to visit my brother and I. We talked about all kinds of things."

"Zephyr is very interested in Novus." Ibis explained. "She's considering moving here full time."

A wave of joy overtook Soren and he smiled widely. "Well, I…I'm free, I can show her around town if you want."

"That'd be great, thanks." Zephyr smiled back at him. For her part, she found this human quite charming and decided that if there were more like him in the village, she could be very happy here. She turned to Ibis. "Uh, you don't mind, do you Dad?"

Ibis smiled at her, and to Soren's amazement, the look didn't falter at all when the older elf's eyes flitted to him and back to his daughter. What did change, Soren saw, was knowing. Ibis knew what Soren was trying to do, but for some reason he didn't seem upset. In his experience, fathers had always been dangerously protective of their daughters. Even Lain, perhaps the most laid-back parent Soren had ever met, followed Callum with suspicious eyes. It was strange, but Soren decided not to question a good thing. Ibis just smiled at them as they walked off, saying something about fair skies, and Zephyr happily listening to Soren as he talked about this and that.

It seemed that Soren hadn't been the only one who had thought the quiet morning was too lovely to waste, as Lain and Tiadrin came strolling up to Ibis, also taking a moment to register the two walking off together. The two Moonshadow elves looked bewildered at the sight. Ibis looked at them and sighed.

"You Moonshadow elves and your honor." Ibis shook his head and, although he truly meant no offense, neither Lain nor Tiadrin seemed to appreciate the comment. Although the elves as a collective considered themselves above humans, Ibis was open enough to admit that there was a deep divide between the races. Many negative stereotypes. Maybe because of these radically different lifestyles leading each kind to see the others as too different to get along with. Moonshadow elves valued honor above their own lives, so others saw them as cold and almost suicidal, Skywing elves like himself were known to come and go and perhaps had earned their reputation as being cowardly and disloyal. Earthblood elves were stubborn and narrow-minded and Sunfire elves were violent and prideful.

"You actually condone this?" Lain frowned. He had protested when Rayla had chosen to go off alone with that mage of hers, only stopped by Queen Zubeia. He certainly wasn't happy.

"I do." Ibis told them, and the couple exchanged a surprised look; such a blunt admission was unexpected. Did those Skywing elves have no shame? "I realize you Moonshadow elves hold your honor as first priority, even above your own lives. We Skywing elves, on the other hand, value our freedom. I know Soren is a good boy, and human or not, it's up to Zephyr whether or not she wants to pursue him in that sense. Besides that, she's grown; I can't make the decision for her, I can only trust that I have raised a smart, kind, capable young woman who can look after herself." As his spoke this last sentence, he looked at them each in turn.

Tiadrin watched with sympathy as her husband sighed and seemed to deflate. "Ibis…" he stated, looking tired, and it was clear from his tone that they were no longer talking about Soren and Zephyr. "It's not only that he's a human. What do we know about him? He's the son, by blood or not, of the man who slew the Dragon King."

Ibis could have pointed out the hypocrisy here; after all, the couple seemed fine with Soren, who they knew was the birth son of the dark mage who had imprisoned them, threatened their daughter and nearly killed their prince. On the other hand, he knew quite well that Soren wasn't the one who held Rayla's heart in his hands. In the end, who was related to who didn't truly matter, it was about the investment in the mage that Rayla presented; it was a bigger deal to them because it was their child, not another's.

"Must I remind you that he is one of them?" Lain said at last.

"Do you know how much torture Rayla went through to free the two of you?" Ibis said, his voice somehow avoiding a sharp edge. "She wanted you back so badly. She's also very stubborn and she doesn't seem to be in any hurry to leave him." Lain looked away with a scowl and Tiadrin huffed. Ibis sighed; he'd hoped he wouldn't have to pull this sort of card. "What if they did stay together, and their union were to produce children?" That certainly got the couple's attention. They looked stunned at the prospect. "Would you reject your own grandchildren for being halflings?"

Ibis knew he was playing with fire, as it were; Moonshadow elves, along with honor, had this idea of purity. While there were no records of a Moonshadow elf falling in love with a human, even before the Judgment of the Half-Moon, even finding mates in other elven races was a heavy stigma and was liable to result in being made a ghost. In short, Moonshadow elves did not typically tolerate hybrids. But…Lain and Tiadrin looked at each other. After all she'd done to save them, could they really do such a thing to their sweet little girl?

Author's Notes: I think every time Callum connects to an arcanum, we'll have ourselves a small timeskip, like a month, for him to learn the basic spells off-screen (off-page?), but not exactly master the magic. As is to be stated, the priority is to acquire the basic powers and he can fine-tune his craft later, when the danger has passed. So, lets say a month takes place between now and the next chapter. That cool with you guys? Review.