CHAPTER FIVE: REUNION

The pain wracked my body, racing its way down my sides and up my back, leaving me to spasm on the floor uncontrollably. The Rada-Han burned white hot, and I knew that if I survived this, I would have burn scars traveling round my neck.

Barton, the innkeeper, bursts into my room; he'd heard my screams. He took one look at me, saw the Rada-Han, and ran out, leaving the door wide open. Meanwhile, I lay there, cursing my existence, and the burden of being a wizard.

I hear noise outside, the thump of feet as they made their way up the stairs. Through the haze of pain, I was able to make out four pairs of legs. There were four men standing in my doorway.

"Well, what have we here?" Said a voice to my left in a sneer. "A boy wizard, far from home."

"D'Haran filth!" another said viciously.

They enter the room. I didn't like where this was going.

"You are an abomination," said the man who had spoken earlier. He was less than a foot away from me now, his rigid countenance towering over my pain-riddled form. "This world has no need for more of your kind. One demon is enough."

He raised his arm, I manage to catch the glint of a dagger he held in his fist.

"Coward."

I send up a silent prayer of thanks to the good spirits. I knew that voice. I knew I was saved. The man above me, for his part, had frozen.

"You should direct your hate against the man for whom you harbor it, not against a defenseless child," my savior spoke, the anger evident in his voice. I felt a bit slighted at that. I may be young, and I might be defenseless at the moment, but I am not a child. He and I were going to have a serious talk.

The Father Confessor strides into the room, the others giving him a wide berth. He comes to a stop in front of me, next to the man who had just been about to kill me.

"Give me your weapon, and step away from the boy."

My would-be assailant seems to deliberate for a moment, and his arms falters. Then he twists on his heel, and screaming "Die Demon!" lunges at the Father Confessor.

The man is thrown across the room, and he crashes into the wall with a sickening crack. He has definitely broken something.

"Ahh!" He screams in pain. Through my blurred vision, I see that his arm is burning: it is enflamed with Wizard's Fire.

A small shiver of fear ran down my spine. As far as I knew, The Father Confessor had not moved a muscle. At the moment, he stood still as stone as he watched the arcane fire consume its target. How much power did my cousin possess, that he could fling a man across a room and set him on fire, without moving a muscle!

The Wizard's Fire burned out, leaving a charred corpse in its wake. The other three ran from the Father Confessor.

"Cowards," Vincent muttered. He looks down at me. "And what, exactly are you doing here?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. Vincent seemed to realize this, and snapped his fingers. The Rada-Han snapped and fell from my neck. I shivered again: Vincent should not have been able to do that.

"I came looking for you," I said, standing up and rubbing my neck. "I want to help you find what you're looking for."

Vincent raised one of his eyebrows. "Why?"

What am I supposed to say to that? That I hate living with this constant fear of myself? That I was hoping, once we found this miraculous counter to the confessor power, to use it on myself?

Just then, Barton came back.

"Is it done, my lord?" he asked out of breath. "The boy is safe?" Vincent nodded.

"I have pleased you?"

"Yes, Barton, you have done well. You can go home now."

Barton bowed. "Yes, Master." Then he left.

"Why did my Rada-Han bring me such pain?"

"The Rada-Han is a tool for training wizards. Their final test is the test of pain," Vincent told me. "Richard must have tracked you, and had Zedd initiate the test of pain to keep you here until they arrived."

I felt a bit of anger at that. My father had allowed this? He had ordered it!

To clear my head, I asked another question.

"Why did those men want to kill me?"

Vincent laughed. But it wasn't a good laugh. It was one filled with bitterness and anger.

"You have never left the People's Palace, where you are tended to by fawning servants and respectful D'Harans. But outside of D'Hara, the world fears our kind, the male Confessors. And we are Wizard-Confessors. There are many who would love to see us dead."

I let that sink in for a moment, processed it, and filed it away. I would be more careful in the future.

I nod my head in the corpse's direction. "We should leave before his friends have a few rinks and decide to come after us again."

"Fair enough." And we left.

As we make our way out of Aydindril, I ask Vincent another question.

"What were you doing at The Dancing Dragon?"

"I've stayed there before. I decided to do so again while I continued my search. Plus, the innkeeper and I share… a bond."

I nod, remembering. Vincent mentioned a Barton in his journal. The one he writes in blood. Then a thought hit me, and I had to voice it.

"Barton is confessed?"

Vincent nodded. "For many years now. He was my first my confession."

He'd said so nonchalantly. I stared at his back as he walked. This was the first time I was afraid of my cousin in a long time.

Vincent and I headed into a small hamlet a few miles from Aydindril. Vincent stopped at vendor's shop, bought an apple, and asked the merchant where Lucinda lives. The merchant pointed, and Vincent thanked him.

We arrive at a small cottage. Vincent knocks, and the door is opened by a woman, a small child trailing behind her. She steps back at the sight of my cousin's eyes.

Without waiting for an invitation, Vincent enters the woman's home, which I assume is Lucinda, and I follow.

Vincent stares at her for a moment, with an expression I couldn't quite place.

"Hello, Mother," Vincent whispered quietly.