Chapter II

Chapter II

Qwandra

Qwandra got off her horse, Aquus, and gave the white horse a pat on the side. She loosened the pack on his back, tied him to a post, and took the pack into the house that she stopped in front of. The house was short and made of red clay, with a flat stone roof. She opened the wooden door and stepped inside, looking around curiously.

The house had a polished wooden table in the center of the stone floor, and two large cabinets. She opened one cabinet, and found different resources: Scrap metal for smithing, gemstones for holding spells, and different corked bottles of herbs and liquids. She smiled, silently thanking Wyrlik for remembering how much she needed her spell items. She checked the other cabinet, and found bread, water, and meat packed in ice. There was paper with information on where to get fresh produce in the marketplace and plates and forks and knives, and Qwandra again thanked Wyrlik for thinking of what she might need.

A staircase led upstairs to a bed with clean white sheets, and a trunk. She sat on the bed and began to unpack her belongings. The first thing she took out was her wand, Notus. It looked pretty much like a shiny black chopstick with 3 gemstones set into the end, except most chopsticks didn't radiate awesome power. She twirled it around a little, then held it steady, and decided to make sure it was still working properly. She imagined an image of Aquus coming out of the wand, waved it, and a moving Aquus appeared on the stone floor in front of her. Satisfied, she released the apparition and returned to unpacking her things, oblivious to two figures with gold earrings watching her through her bedroom window on the roof next to her.

Wolf

Wolf moped all the way back to Citylord headquarters in an abandoned house on the edge of Jihadd. He didn't like the idea of going up against the most powerful spellcaster in the world, much less do it for Sijli. One of the Citylords, a girl named Jaani, caught up to him and batted her eyes.

"Hey, Wolf, Bane asked me to spy on this Qwandra, and he asked me to take someone with. Wanna come with me?" She asked, smiling so her teeth showed. Wolf sighed. He was quite handsome with his long dark hair and tanned skin, but of all the girls he met, Jaani was the most annoying. He nodded grudgingly, knowing that Jaani would never let him say no. Bane stopped them on their way out of headquarters.

"Wolf, try to find out when Qwandra will attack us. I need to know, so we can get ready." Ready for what? And how do we know she's going to attack us? Wondered Wolf. He followed Jaani out of the house, wishing that Bane had never met Sijli. The Citylords had been his family, but now that Sijli was leading them, nobody had the same enthusiasm for crime. It had become a chore. He silently trudged along behind Jaani, who had started to chatter about how cool getting to track Qwandra was. Trying to block the sound out of his ears, he climbed the ladder that led to the rooftop of the house. Since the houses in Hijrel had flat roofs, they formed a type of above-streets highway for thieves and gangs. Jaani was already on the next roof, forcing Wolf to jog to catch up. She kept up her constant stream of chatter, which Wolf had by now completely blocked out; leaving him to dwell on what Sijli asked them to do.

I saw the look on her face when she said 'Wyrlik'…what did he do to her to make her so angry? And why does she want Qwandra stopped when she hasn't done anything yet? His thoughts scintillated between Wyrlik to Qwandra to thinking of hitting Jaani over the head to Wyrlik again.

Suddenly the stream of chatter from Jaani stopped, and she whispered to him, "Look, there she is." and pointed through Qwandra's window. Wolf looked up wearily, and caught his breath.

She's beautiful. Look at her, Wolf! Her hair falls in ripples to her shoulders. Her eyes sparkle like the ocean. She's perfect. She…How long Wolf would've stood there in awe, thinking things of varying mushiness, I don't know, but he was jarred into reality as Qwandra conjured the image of Aquus.

He took a step back. Amazing! He thought. How did she conjure it with so little thought? Normally it would've taken an illusionist mage 5 days to prepare the spell, and then they'd be drained of power afterwards. But when Qwandra put Notus down, she looked perfectly fine. She walked away from the window and kept unpacking. Wolf kept gazing through the window at her, when Jaani talked.

"Pretty cool illusion, but I don't think she's gonna conjure horses when she fights us. Kinda ugly though, don'tcha think?" Wolf didn't know whether she was talking about the horse or Qwandra, so he just shook his head dumbly. She must have meant Qwandra, because she harrumphed and stomped away.

Wolf looked back through the window, and knew that he was hopelessly in love with an enemy. He knew that he might have to meet her in battle one day, but for now, that didn't matter. He knew that he was supposed to be spying and gathering information on her instead of gazing at her through her window, but he didn't care. For now, he was content to listen to Jaani grumbling five feet away, and watch Qwandra unpack her belongings.