"We have barred the gates, but at the cost of many lives. We will not survive the onslaught if these beasts break through," Sir Ulric said.
"Then we must flee," Bahamut said.
Sir Saronian protested mightily. "My noble lord! We cannot abandon your citadel. It is an affront too great to be born."
"Bear it I must," the great king said, "for I will not condone my people's slaughter for the sake of my own pride. Sir Flavien, direct the citizens. They must take the lower passage. There, they will find the narrow path that leads to the hills."
"The hills are treacherous," wise sir Adelbert said doubtfully. "Many of the elders and children would die in their escape."
"They will surely die if they remain," Bahamut said.
But the newly sworn knight Alexander shook his head. "My lord, we must not flee, for our foes would not stop with taking your kingdom. It is your life that they desire, along with all that you hold dear. They would pursue you and our people, relentless to the ends of the world."
"I will hold the passage," Odin said. "Though I know I must die in the attempt."
"No," said Alexander. "There may be another way, for you know the strength of my wards. I have developed a spell that could protect us all. My power alone can hold the gates, but we must all work together to secure the walls. The spell is untested. Should it fail us, all will be lost."
"If we must choose between losing all here or at the ends of the world after dogged pursuit," Bahamut said, "then I will make my stand here. Show us your spell, Alexander, and with it we will protect all we can."
From, "A Spell of Protection," The Ars Paladia, as translated by Melanie the Wise, Queen Consort of King Titus VI of House Plein.
You don't get to yield. He repeated it to himself over and over.
He wanted to pass out right there in the grass. Instead, he rolled onto his side with a grunt. He tasted blood. He raised a hand to his mouth, wincing as he rubbed the site of the punch. The shock was wearing off now, his mind taking it in. Kane had punched him! He was more annoyed than angry, but he shoved the annoyance down as he shoved himself unsteadily to his feet. He shoved down his anger, his fear, his worry - all of it - leaving only a calm determination, cold and quiet as a winter day after a snowfall.
You don't get to yield. He managed to keep his emotions in check through breakfast. Lena sat beside him, her worry for him a palpable thing, but he observed it with a clinical detachment. The others asked him how he was doing; he hardly knew what he was saying, so focused was he on maintaining that fragile equilibrium. He spoke when spoken to. He even managed to eat some of the food.
"Well," Randell said when the breakfast dishes had been cleared away, "we've put this off long enough," and he stood, brushing off his robes.
Orin and Dahlia stood as well, nodding their agreement, and Jack stood with them.
Lena remained seated, but she reached up to squeeze his hand. "You can do this," she said.
"Damn right, he can," Kane muttered.
"It's just a bunch of questions," Thad said.
His knees didn't shake, though part of him knew they wanted to. Lena must have felt it, felt something, for she looked at him with such concern, said his name with such concern. "Jack?" Only that, but he heard the unasked questions in it.
He couldn't answer those questions without losing his already tenuous hold on himself. Instead, he said, "Let's get this over with," hearing how unnatural his voice sounded.
You don't get to yield. He held to those words just as he held to Redden's sword at his hip - his sword now. He let his senses roam over the intricate focus spells woven into the blade, a welcome distraction as they walked into town. Redden walked with them, but he stopped when they reached the library. He faced Jack, hefting the satchel that carried Astos's book and all of Jack's notes for it over his shoulder. "This is where I leave you," he said. "I have my own plans for the day."
Jack nodded. He would rather have had Redden stay with him - Redden and Orin both - but he couldn't say as much without letting his emotions slip free of their prison.
Maybe Redden knew it, for he reached out, squeezing Jack's shoulder in assurance. "You'll be fine," he said before he parted.
Jack and the others crossed the square to the Circle Chamber where his interview would take place. There, Cade and Jasper, the two hulking fellows with their thick staves, guarded the entrance. Orin shuffled up to the doors, but Cade blocked his path.
"He's to go alone," Cade said, his face neutral, though beside him Jasper looked at Jack with open hostility. "Master Myron said-"
"Myron isn't head of this circle," Randell said, stepping forward so that the young guards had to move aside, lest they block him out as well. Orin headed inside, Dahlia following, towing Jack along when he didn't move fast enough for her liking.
Many of the sages were already seated. Those who weren't were clustered together in the center of the room with master Myron, who had been master Randell's bitter rival for as long as Jack could remember. "You're late," Myron said.
He had addressed Jack directly, but it was Randell who answered him. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "How can he be late if he's arriving with me? The meeting starts when I call it." Randell pushed past them, heading toward his seat.
Beside Jack, Orin whispered, "They are trying to put you on the defensive before we have even begun. It is a common tactic in negotiations. Do not fall for this."
You don't get to yield, Jack thought. Aloud, he said, "I wasn't aware this was a negotiation."
"Hmm," Orin said, an amused chuckle. "Everything is a negotiation."
"I expect you to be at least half as obnoxious with this lot as Kane was, do you hear me?" Dahlia said. She chuckled. "I doubt anyone could equal him in that regard." She squeezed Jack's arm in what might have been reassurance before she left his side, heading toward her seat behind her husband's chair. She wasn't a sage, but her power was equal to any of theirs. No one questioned her right to be present at their meetings.
When the rest of the sages were seated, leaving Jack and Orin alone in the center of the room, Orin raised his voice. "Do you expect the two of us to stand all day? Where are the chairs?"
"Must have slipped our minds," Myron said.
"I'm sure it did," Randell said. He waved vaguely. A pair of apprentices - there to act as scribes for their masters - scrambled at the gesture, fetching vacant stools from behind the other sages, carrying them forward.
"What's he doing here?" Mistress Fiona asked, pointing at Orin. She sneered at him as though he were something foul at the bottom of her shoe. Murmurs of agreement echoed around the room.
Randell said, "We agreed each of the Warriors of Light was allowed to have an advocate present during their interviews."
"Yes, and here you are," Master Myron said. "You were the boy's teacher these past five years, were you not? You'll be advocate enough, surely?"
Randell glared at him. "I wasn't present for the events in question."
To Jack's surprise, there were more murmurs in response to this, murmurs of agreement. "Yes, quite!" someone said, while another voice said, "Aye!"
"Do you hear it?" Orin whispered. "They are not all against you as you feared."
He was right, Jack realized, letting a modicum of hope escape his grasp. I can do this, he thought for the first time. I really can do this.
"Well," Randell said. "Shall we begin?"
More murmurs, this time of assent.
"Then I call this meeting of the Circle to order. Let us-"
The doors opened. Cade and Jasper held them, long enough to admit a stooped figure, then closed them again. Lukahn limped across the marble floor, his thin walking stick echoing throughout the broad chamber - clack, clack - as he shuffled to his seat. "Pray, continue," he said, settling into his chair.
Jack's hope transformed to panic - I can't do this! - before he shoved it back down.
"Thank you," Lena said somewhat awkwardly, "for sitting with me. I... I really didn't want to be alone."
"Sure," Kane said, though truthfully he wasn't comfortable with the idea of leaving her alone, not anymore. The people of Crescent Lake were showing their true colors more and more. He thought of what she'd told him earlier, about how she had befriended those jerks at the docks only after the white mages at the clinic had repeatedly turned her away. What kind of a place was this, if even the white mages were intolerant of strangers? He sighed. "I don't know what else I'd be doing, to be honest."
He sat with her on the steps to a small temple across from the Circle Chamber. Well, small by Cornelian standards, he supposed. It was one of the largest buildings in the village, centrally located near the chamber and the library. Kane idly flipped through a book Thad had given him - no doubt stolen from the library - about ancient sword masters, their legendary weapons illustrated in painstaking detail.
Beside him, Lena dug through a basket of orange and yellow flowers from Dahlia's garden, her fingers working nimbly to braid the stems into a crown. She smiled without looking up from her work. "Didn't Dahlia say you could move more rocks for her?"
"Yeah," Kane said. "Yeah, I'll just go do that then, shall I?"
That earned him a laugh, at least. He knew she worried about Jack - he worried himself - but there wasn't much they could do other than wait.
"He waited here for me," she said. "When I had my interview. We had a break in the middle of the day, and here he was. I was so happy to see him."
"Hmm," Kane said. He looked over at the Circle Chamber, its doors guarded by the two men he'd beaten up on the day they arrived in Crescent Lake. The guards watched him warily, as though worried he'd try it again. "I bet Jack's not going to get a break."
Lena sighed. "No, probably not." She twisted around moments before Shipman came out of the temple to sit on the steps between them. The boy moved too silently for Kane to detect, but he knew Lena would have felt him coming. "Done exploring?" she asked, smiling at him.
He nodded, kicking at the dirt beneath his feet. "There's nothing neat in there. Just a boring old church."
"I'd have thought you'd have nicked the candlesticks from the altar at least," Kane said.
Shipman shrugged. "They're not real gold."
Kane chuckled. "Oh, so you checked, then?"
The boy grinned.
"Thadius!" Lena gasped, scandalized.
"What?" Shipman said, spreading his hands in feigned innocence. "They're the ones that left the doors wide open."
Kane laughed at the face Lena made, but then she was laughing too, and Shipman with her. The laughter faded into comfortable silence. Lena busied herself with the basket of flowers once more while Shipman sat behind them in the doorway, his legs across the threshold as he leaned back against the doorpost, idly tossing and catching a rubber ball though Kane had no idea where he'd come up with that.
Kane looked down at the open book in his hands but his heart wasn't in it. He sighed, closing the book and setting it aside before he crossed his arms over his knees. He looked across at the Circle Chamber with its guarded doors. "Do you think he's alright over there?"
Lena nodded, gaze fixed on the flower stems she was braiding. "I know he is."
Kane cocked his head. "Can you feel what he's feeling from here?"
She shook her head. "I just believe in him."
"Fair enough," Kane said.
"Don't you?" she asked. She looked sideways at him, and though her voice was serious, her smile was a small and mischievous thing that dared him to argue with her.
Kane barked a laugh. He put an arm around her shoulders, pulled her against him in a friendly hug. "Of course I do," he said, though he was surprised by how fiercely he meant it. "Yes."
Lena nodded, then she rested her head against his shoulder as her hands kept busy with her flowers. Behind them, Thad's ball made a rhythmic sound - whip pop, whip pop - as he tossed and caught it. None of them spoke after that. Together, they waited.
Jack made it through the first day. He would have been surprised, if he had been capable of feeling anything at all. He answered all of the sages' questions without batting an eye, his voice steady and controlled. Even when Lukahn second-guessed every answer Jack provided, even when the old man tried to argue, Jack didn't take the bait. He sat impassively in his chair, hands resting gently in his lap, hardly moving as the sages questioned him about his journey after leaving the Lake, about his time in Melmond with Lord Unne before he'd moved on to Cornelia.
"Weeks, you say?" Lukahn asked. "Weeks, and in all that time, you never noticed the Rot encroaching on the city? The unrest in the lower town?"
"Honestly, no," Jack said. "The Rot hadn't reached the city. And I was only ever in the company of Seward - Lord Unne - and his household staff, none of whom frequented the lower town."
"You must have heard something," Lukahn pressed. "Some news? Rumors?"
"As I said, no." He had berated himself for that ignorance before - how could he not have known? - but not now. Now, he felt nothing.
They were still asking about Jack's stay in Melmond when the interview concluded that first day. Kane and the others were waiting for Jack outside when he and Orin finally left the chamber late in the evening. Over dinner that night, Orin and Randell recounted the day's events for them as Jack listened impassively. The others smiled and offered encouraging words, but Jack had spent the day shoving his emotions so far down that he had trouble coming back to them.
He should have felt relief, he thought, when Redden stopped him as he stood from the table after dinner to return to Lukahn's with Thad and Lena. "Stay here tonight, lad," Redden said. "I don't like to think of Lukahn tormenting you outside of the Circle Chamber as well as in it."
He should have felt something when Lena hugged him before she left, when she kissed his cheek as she told him good night, but he was numb. He was tired, so tired. You don't get to yield.
"Take the bed," Redden told him, pointing to the room he shared with Kane, the room that had once belonged to Wrede. "You need a good rest."
Jack nodded, leaving them sitting at the table. He could still hear them, the murmur of their voices in the other room, as he crossed to the bed, as his head hit the pillow, but then he didn't hear anything.
It was the best sleep Thad had in days. The bed in Lena's room - Iris's bed - was much better than Jack's. He and Lena had sat up talking half the night about their childhoods. He'd fallen asleep beside her, though he didn't remember doing so, and had dreamed that dream again, the one where he was Saint Ffamran fighting the dragon. He knew he would win because he'd already done it.
He woke with a smile, even with Lena shaking him. "Thad!" she said urgently. "Thadius! You've done it again!" She leaped out of bed, leaving him blinking in the too-bright light from the window as she threw on her white robe. "Oh, quickly! We'll miss seeing Jack before his interview starts!"
"His trial, you mean," Thad said, sitting up, stretching.
"Yes, that!" she said, tying her sandals. "Just get your shoes!" She hurried out the door, down the stairs.
Though Thad could tell by the daylight that they were already too late, he didn't want to tell Lena so. Instead, he Hasted himself, slipped on his boots. He heard Lena running back up again, stopping in the doorway to Iris's room.
"Lukahn's already gone!" she said breathlessly. "And Sarda's not in his room. Come on!" Then she was off again.
Thad sighed. He followed at a leisurely pace, the Haste spell allowing him to catch up with her easily enough despite her light jog. Though they made good time reaching town, it was as Thad had suspected. The Circle Chamber doors were already closed. The big guards stood before them, looking cranky as always. Lena made a sound of dismay, turning to the steps of the little temple where Kane sat waiting for them.
"Hey," he said, waving as they approached. "There you are! You missed breakfast."
Lena nodded. She looked so disappointed.
"My fault," Thad said. "Time still gets away from me in my sleep." Feeling guilty, he gave Lena a hug. "I'm sorry, Lena!"
"It's alright, Thadius," she said. She patted his back, released him, and sat on the steps beside Kane.
Kane seemed to think the missed meal was the cause of Lena's forlorn sigh. "Ms. Dahlia wondered about you this morning. I'm sure there's some leftovers back at the house," he said.
"It's alright," Lena said. "I'm fine without it."
Kane scoffed. "Nonsense! You think Jack cares if we wait for him here all day? You can step away for a meal."
"I'll go!" Thad said, quickly. "It's my fault you didn't get to eat." Or to see Jack, he thought to himself. "Let me make it up to you, Lena!"
She pursed her lips in thought then nodded, a concession, Thad was sure, to how hungry she must actually be. Or that she knew he wasn't really talking about breakfast. One of those.
"I'll be right back!" Thad said as he hurried away, still Hasted while also slowing time around him.
He cut across the square, past the Circle Chamber, past the guards. He saw their eyes widen in slow motion as he zipped past them and he laughed at their surprised faces. Their thick staves wouldn't do them any good in a fight against him, not when he was this quick.
What would they do, he thought as he skirted the chamber, if I forced my way in? He could do it, sure, but to what end? The sages were pretending to be nice right now. Nice enough, anyway. Just asking questions, saying they needed to know these things in order to help them with their quest. But Thad suspected if he forced their hand, just waltzed in there and demanded to watch the proceedings for himself, that the sages would...
Hold on, Thad thought, turning back toward the chamber. Was that a back door?
The airships passed by in droves today. Sarda stood looking up at the sky, watching them come and go, carrying earth mages to the mines, carrying the ores back to the forges, carrying the masterworks of the smith mages back here to Crescent Lake where the port would send them on by both air and sea. They were the Lake's primary exports, the one thing that drew talented mages away from the bustling cities of the Leifenish empire. Crescent Lake was far from the capitol, but the mines kept trade flowing.
No, that was then, Sarda reminded himself. This was now, and now he was hungry. He had to focus on the present long enough to get to breakfast. He looked away from the ships, focusing, focusing, until the path came back into view. There hadn't been a path back then, after all: the Randells' house hadn't been built yet. But here it was: the path, the house just ahead of him. He was nearly there.
The house seemed quiet when he reached it. I suppose I did miss breakfast, Sarda thought - it wouldn't be the first time - but then he saw that Jack was still there, sitting on the doorstep of Master Randell's workshop, the little outbuilding just off to the side of the house. "Ho, there!" Sarda called, raising a hand in greeting. "I was worried you'd all be gone by now!"
He laughed to himself, walking toward Jack, but the young man didn't respond, didn't react at all. It was hard to tell under Jack's coverings - his hat and scarf and coat - but was he thinner than he should have been? More gangling? More youthful?
Sarda sighed. Close to the present, yes, but not quite. When was this? He looked around the yard, which was much the same as it was in the present. The grounds were well kept, all part of Miss Dahlia's gardens. As Sarda watched, the gardener came into view, only slightly less pinched around the eyes as she carried a hoe over her shoulder and a bulging cloth sack in one hand. Not many years ago, Sarda decided.
Like Lukahn's Iris, Dahlia was also named after one of Ramuh's daughters, whose names, in common speech, were those of flowers. Sarda didn't think she resembled the woman in the story at all. That one had been a white mage, famed for her patience. This one stopped when she saw the young Jack sitting outside her husband's workshop, her lips a thin line of displeasure. "How long have you been there?" she demanded.
The young Jack shrugged. "A few hours," he said, in a voice that sounded to Sarda exactly as it did in the present.
Dahlia scoffed. "Didn't my husband send you away?"
Though Jack wore a yellow scarf over his face, his eyes betrayed the smile he hid beneath it. "He tried."
Dahlia snorted, a clear attempt to curtail a laugh. She narrowed her eyes. "Do I need to send you away too?"
Jack shrugged again. "I don't know. Think it'll work?"
Dahlia grunted, shifting the sack she carried. "I suppose you'd just come back?"
Jack nodded.
"Might help your cause, then," she said. "Prove you weren't trying to take up the study of fire on a whim. Prove you meant it."
"I do," he said. "I need this."
Dahlia stared at the young man appraisingly. Finally, she said, "You know my son?"
Jack nodded. "He helped Iris heal me. Back then."
"He did," Dahlia said. "He said you should have died of those wounds. The fact that you didn't says something about your determination. You might make a good fire mage, at that." She cocked her head toward her husband's workshop. "Why do you want him? We've other fire mages in this village. Surely one would take you on."
"Because he's the best," Jack said.
"Hmph," Dahlia said with a decisive nod. "That he is." Swinging her hand, she tossed the lumpy bag toward Jack, who let out an "oof" when it hit him. "I'll not have idle hands sitting around," Dahlia told him. "You can peel those potatoes or you can be off to bother someone else." Jack opened the bag, confused as he looked inside, but Dahlia walked on toward the house. At the door, she looked back, seeing him still on the workshop stoop. "Well?" she said impatiently.
Sarda laughed as Jack scurried up and after her, clumsy on his long legs.
"What's funny?" a voice asked.
Sarda looked to his side, saw the boy there, the pirate boy, the thief, the little black mage. Gods, what was his name again? Sarda looked from the boy back to the house, but the image of Jack was gone. "His face!" Sarda said. "He was so confused. Expected a fight and instead he had to peel potatoes."
"Potatoes?" the boy said. "Are there any left?"
"Any what?" Sarda asked.
The boy sighed. "Never mind. What are you doing here?"
"I was..." Sarda rubbed his forehead. What was he doing here? Surely he had come here for a reason. Focus. "I was..." Focus... Ah, yes! "I was looking for breakfast."
"Oh, good!" the boy said. "Me too. Come on. Probably ought to keep you with me now that Lukahn's too busy to watch you for us, huh?"
"Yes, probably," Sarda agreed, though the boy had already gone into the house. So quick! And time moved differently around that one. What was his name? Sarda looked upward, saw the airships passing by again, and the name struck him like a bolt from the sky: Shipman. An old family name, from back then. That was what the boy called himself, yes. Or, at least, that was what he called himself now. The other name came later, or it had come before. Sarda liked that one better. Well, I would, he thought, if I could remember what it was.
The library was quiet, most of the scholars having called it a day hours ago. Even Pearl had already left. Redden nearly had the place to himself when Orin sat down across from him. "Jack?" Redden asked, looking up from his notes.
"With Kane," Orin said. "He was waiting outside for us, he and Lena."
Redden nodded. He and Orin had agreed Jack shouldn't be left alone. The lad needed support now more than ever. "How was he today?"
"He handled himself well," Orin asked. "Today was much as yesterday."
"The questions?"
Orin shrugged. "They asked him what he did in Melmond, what he was working on, the translation projects he was doing for Unne."
Redden waited, but Orin said nothing more. "And? What else?"
Orin shook his head. "That was as far as their questions went today. Lukahn and his ilk seemed to be looking for an angle they could use to catch Jack in a lie. They do not believe he is innocent of causing the incidents in which he has been involved. Surely he didn't spend the whole time translating, they said. They wanted details on those projects, what precisely Jack was translating and what it said."
"And that lasted all day?"
Orin nodded. "Indeed. I must admit I was surprised at the thoroughness of Jack's answers, the detail of them. Though the sages cross-questioned him for hours, those details remained consistent and unchanged. His memory is remarkable."
Redden hummed, considering. "And that consistency shows he's telling the truth. Did he have any trouble?"
Orin chuckled. "I think he may have let his emotions overcome him there at the end. In the last hour, Master Myron went so far as to suggest that Jack was overstating his abilities as a translator, that perhaps he was making things up. Jack responded by answering their questions in Leifenish thereafter, refusing to go back to common speech unless Myron apologized. Myron, of course, refused, so the other sages, not all of whom are fluent in the ancient tongue, were forced to call the meeting to a close."
Redden frowned, gathering his notes into a pile, their contents far too dangerous to leave where anyone else might read them. "I'll have to talk with him about that," Redden said, placing the pile of loose papers in a satchel along with Astos's book and the ledger that contained Jack's own notes on it. The dictionaries, both standard and high Leifenish, he left on the table. No one would disturb those. "From what I've read here, dark magic is inextricably linked to the dark mage's emotions. If the sages keep poking that behemoth, it's bound to turn on them. He needs to maintain control."
Orin shook his head. "Our Jack is not a wild beast. I do not believe he would lash out against these people in that way."
"There's a prophecy stating otherwise."
"Hmm," Orin said, waving a dismissive hand. "You know my thoughts on this prophecy. It is wrong. As is suppressing one's emotions for such long periods of time. It is meant to be a tool, not a crutch."
"I think you don't give Jack enough credit," Redden said. "Yes, we've seen the boy let his emotions overcome him in the past, but I suspect that's because he's grown used to us. Jack lets himself be unguarded around us in a way he doesn't with other people. I think he's lived most of his life locking his emotions away. It's practically his default state."
"It should not be," Orin said softly. "Surely you can agree? To live without feeling is no life. Have you found nothing in that book that can help him?"
"In two days?" Redden shook his head. "Jack has been studying this thing for weeks. And he's better at the language than I am. If he hasn't found something by now, I don't know that there's any help to be found."
"Jack is too close to the subject," Orin said. "The scope of it clouds his vision. You, Redden, you are impartial. You will see the small things. You are a spy, the king's spymaster. If there is one tiny scrap of information that will take down this enemy, you will find it." The old man stood from the table. "But you will not find it today. It is late, my friend. Go and sleep. Resume with fresh eyes tomorrow."
Redden nodded and followed him out of the library. They parted on the path, with Orin heading toward Pearl's home where he had been staying as Redden continued on to the Randells'. He caught the others still at dinner, all but Jack, who was already passed out in Wrede's old bed, fully clothed. When Redden saw Jack sleeping there, he remembered the day in Melmond when he had learned Jack was a dark mage, how the aether had felt when he had confronted the boy, the scope of what Jack held at bay. It must be exhausting.
Long after the others had gone to bed, Redden sat alone at the Randell's table, surrounded by his notes, reading Jack's ledger by candlelight.
"Where's Thad?" Lena asked.
Kane looked around. "Hmm... Don't know. He was just here."
"Oho!" Sarda laughed, following closely behind them. "Is he off on an adventure?"
Lena tutted, apparently at herself. "I didn't even see him leave!"
Jack, of course, said nothing. It was like he wasn't there.
Doubtless, he wishes that were true, Kane thought. He and Lena walked on either side of their silent companion, escorting him to the Circle Chamber for another round of questions. Three days, Kane thought, and they haven't made it to Cornelia yet. Tedious. His own interview had been three days altogether - well, three and half really, if he counted the time he spent breaking rocks for them. Kane assumed Jack would have to do that part as well. How long were the sages going to drag this out?
"Jack?" Lena said. "Are you sure you're alright?"
Jack was quiet a long time before answering. "As well as I can be," he said evasively.
"Really?" Kane said, elbowing Jack's left arm. "Is that why you're gripping that sword so tightly?"
Jack looked down as though surprised to see Redden's sword on his belt, as though he hadn't realized he'd been holding the hilt in a clenched fist. Jack had been wearing the weapon each day since his interview started. Kane had been surprised to learn his father had given it to Jack, well and truly, and hadn't simply loaned it to him as he had in the past. Jack shrugged, but Kane noticed he didn't release his hold on it. "Well, a focus object does help, I admit."
"Could we find more, perhaps?" Lena suggested.
Jack shook his head. "It's not as if I can focus on several things at one time."
"They focus for you!" Sarda said. "That's what they're for! You have to let them do it." He laughed, his unfocused eyes pointed at something in the underbrush off the path - a lizard, Kane thought - and, sure enough, soon Sarda's feet led him that direction. Kane veered back, grabbing the old man by his shoulders, steering him back into line behind Jack. "Oh, but you have to use the spells!" Sarda said, apropos of nothing. "The others can't see them! The priests made them that way, but they couldn't hide them from the gods!"
"You're creepy when you talk this way, you know that?" Kane told him.
They lapsed into silence once more as they reached the town and, farther on, the square that contained Crescent Lake's most important buildings, including the Circle Chamber. The chamber doors stood wide open as the sages began arriving, though the usual guards stood outside already, chatting amiably with each other as they waited for their services to be needed. Kane saw the way their eyes narrowed when they caught sight of him.
Orin was there, too, having again spent the night in town with his irascible librarian friend. The monk met them halfway across the square, smiling broadly. "Ah, here you are!" he said. "Thank you for coming early, as I requested."
"We're not very early," Kane said. "Master Randell will be along shortly."
"This will not take long," Orin said. "It is a short meditation technique that I believe will help you maintain your focus, young master Jack. Come, come! There is a small antechamber within that will do nicely for this exercise. Master Wrede assures us we will not be disturbed there."
Jack turned to follow Orin inside, but he stopped when Lena tugged his hand. "Wait, Jack!" she said. She reached up, cupping his cheek with her other hand, the glow of a Cure sinking through his scarf and dispersing over him. Jack shuddered as the spell sank in. Her hand lingered a moment after the glow faded. "Take care," she said.
Jack nodded in thanks then stepped away, leaving her outside with Kane still clutching Sarda's shoulder to stop him from following.
Sarda chuckled. Kane looked at Lena, who blushed furiously. "Oh, hush!" she said.
"I didn't say anything!" he protested, though he had to fight to keep from chuckling as well.
"You're thinking it," she said, stepping toward the little temple where they'd spent the past two days.
He and Sarda grinned to each other then followed her. Kane found it entertaining that she blushed so easily; it always put him in mind of a sunburn.
Sarda walked past her, into the temple where his drawing papers waited on one of the pews from the day before. He settled himself cross-legged on the floor, facing the hard seat as a drawing surface. Kane watched to make sure the old man was situated before lowering himself onto the temple steps beside Lena, effectively blocking Sarda's exit - easier to babysit the man when he couldn't wander past them. "What was that spell for?" he asked Lena when he was seated. "Was Jack hurt?"
Lena shook her head. "He just... He needs to keep up his strength."
"He won't yield," Kane said. "I know it." He set down the pack he carried - they had learned they needed supplies to get through a full day of waiting - and rooted around inside for Lena's copy of the Ars Paladia, which they were planning to read together. "Here you are."
She smiled as she took it. "Thank you. Are you sure it won't bore you? I know you're not a fan of Leifenish legends."
He sighed. "Yes, but as we seem to be in one, I should at least brush up on the language."
"I'm afraid I'm not going to be the best teacher in that regard. I'm still learning it myself."
Kane barked a laugh. "Lena, I grew up with the best teachers the palace could provide. You, at least, have one advantage over all of them: I actually like you."
She smiled at that, seeming oddly flattered.
They were distracted by a commotion across the square, raised voices within the Circle Chamber, the doors not yet shut for the day's meeting. A pair of elderly sages filled the doorway, standing on either side of Thad, each gripping him by one arm. With terse words that Kane couldn't hear, they shoved the boy unceremoniously out into the square, though Kane clearly heard one of them shout, "And stay out!" as they turned back inside.
"Thadius!" Lena called in concern. She stood to go to him, but he was already traipsing toward the two of them, his face split by a wide grin. "What happened? Are you alright?"
"I'm fine!" Shipman said, surprisingly cheery for someone who had just been forcibly ejected from a building. He looked down at his tousled appearance and hastily tugged his rumpled shirt back into order.
"What were you up to in there?" Kane asked.
The boy laughed. To Kane's ears, it sounded suspicious. "Oh, you know me. Just exploring!"
Kane exchanged a glance with Lena. Yes, she saw it too. "Exploring?" Kane said.
"Yup!" the boy affirmed.
"In the Circle Chamber?"
"Yup!"
"Why?" Kane asked.
Thad grinned, but he didn't answer as he sat down on the temple steps on Lena's other side.
Slowly, cautiously, she lowered herself back down again to sit beside him. "Yes, why?" she asked.
"So they would catch me," Thad said, smiling wider.
"So they would... catch you?" Lena said, echoing Kane's confusion.
"Yes."
"But... but why?" she asked.
Shipman leaned in, giddy. "So they'd know they already caught me." He laughed as though that were the finest joke he'd ever heard.
Within the temple, Sarda laughed too, boisterously, slapping his knees in unrestrained mirth. "Exploring, he says! Exploring!"
Lena looked at Kane again, but Kane shook his head. "They're both mad, I tell you," he said.
Lena sighed. "You're so odd sometimes, Thadius." The boy made no reply, only kept laughing. Ignoring Thad, Lena opened the Ars Paladia to a page she'd marked with a yellow ribbon. To Kane, she said, "I thought we'd start with the story of Alexander and the knights defending Bahamut's citadel."
"Oh?" Kane cocked his head. "Why that one? Isn't it one of the longest ones?"
"Well, yes, but I thought it would help if we started with one you were more familiar with."
"I'm really not," Kane said. "I mean, I've heard it before, but I wouldn't say I know it well."
Lena frowned. "But aren't you Bahami?"
Kane shrugged. "Sure - well, I was raised that way - but I paid about as much attention to my religious lessons as I did the Leifenish ones."
"Kane!" Lena gasped, her expression horrified.
"Gods, Lena, you make it sound like I just told you I've been drowning kittens in my spare time!"
"Kane, the gods are important! Without our faith, we're little better than animals!"
"I always hated going to church," Shipman said from her other side, still smiling, though his laughter had subsided. Kane hadn't realized he'd even been paying attention.
Lena's eyes widened. "Thadius!" Her voice came out in such a shrill squeak that Kane couldn't help but chuckle. She glared at him. "This isn't funny!"
Inside the temple, Sarda called, "I never liked it either!" which set Thad off again, laughing so hard he fell over, and Kane's chuckling blossomed into a laugh he couldn't contain.
"Oh, you're all terrible!" Lena said, but Kane saw the smile slowly taking over as she covered her face with her hands. She shook with laughter as Kane put his arm around her shoulders.
"That we are," he said. "Come on, Lena. Tell us a story. I promise we'll try to learn from it."
"Well..." she said, rubbing her hands over her face as she lowered them to the book in her lap. "I really do think you'll like this one. It's all battles and bravery."
"Sounds thrilling," he said. "Are there pictures?"
She elbowed him in the ribs, though not as hard as he deserved, then began reading aloud in slow, enunciated Leifenish, pointing out each word as she spoke, translating the sentences for him one by one. Kane did his best to follow along.
There were pictures, of course. The Ars Paladia was known for them. Bahamut and his knights were shown in their glittering armor, the illustrations made bolder and brighter by the spells that preserved the pages, but there were no pictures of their enemy. The beasts of the wild, the story said, jealous of Bahamut's prosperous kingdom, amassed in their numbers to overtake the citadel for themselves. "Impeg", apparently, was the Leifenish word for "beast".
"Jack says that's where imps get their name," Lena told him.
Though the beasts were described as fierce monsters with slavering fangs and wicked claws, Kane couldn't help but imagine a horde of imps like the ones in the hills surrounding Cornelia, which detracted from the tension of the narrative. He almost laughed aloud when Lena described the knights' efforts to bar the doors at great loss of life.
Lena stopped, and Kane worried she had sensed his amusement and found it offensive, but instead found her attention was focused behind them where Sarda was shuffling toward them from the pews.
"Not trying to wander off, are you?" Kane asked.
"No, no! I just thought you'd like to see what it looked like, the battle." He sat down just inside the temple door, laying out three drawings for them.
"Oh, Sarda!" Lena said. "It always surprises me how real your pictures look!" She pointed at the dark-skinned knight, sword held high. "This looks just like the pictures of Alexander in the book! Did he really look like that?"
Sarda shrugged. "I suppose he must have. I only draw what I see."
"The beasts are huge!" Kane said, picking up a picture that showed what must have been their first assault.
"Yes, of course they are!" Lena said, leaning in to look at the picture with him. "The text was very clear on that. What did you expect them to look like?"
"Well, now I'd rather not say."
"Were you even paying attention, Kane? I hope you're not letting your mind wander when I'm working so hard to translate this for you!"
"No! I-"
"Hold on..." Lena said, looking around. "Where's Thad?"
It was a back door. Locked - very locked - both physically and magically.
He'd ignored it the day before - clearly, whoever had closed it had meant it to remain shut - but he couldn't stop thinking about it. He knew the others worried about Jack. Couldn't he just, sort of, watch the interview to make sure they were treating Jack alright?
And so he'd come back in the middle of the night to check the door again, to investigate the locks that held it shut. Obviously, no one had used the door in years. The mechanism had rusted in place, but there were tricks for that sort of thing, oils and tools. He'd had the tools already. The oils had been easy enough to pinch from the clinic, though he'd felt a little bad about that - Moira had been so nice to him, telling him about white magic and all - but, well, if they didn't want anyone to rob the clinic, maybe they shouldn't have left it unguarded at night.
The magical lock had given him more trouble, but he had seen one like it before, one Jack had used. This one was more professional than Jack's had been, but a lock was a lock, and this one had broken under his questing senses just as Jack's had done back on the ship before they reached Melmond. Easier, in fact, after the training he'd had since then. He'd broken the lock, forced the stiff door open, looked inside - a storeroom of some sort, off the main chamber - and then he'd left. He had gone back to bed, Hasting himself so that he would still get a full night's sleep in the time he had available to him, giving himself plenty of time come the morning to sneak back into the Circle Chamber through the front door and make sure he was caught.
The front door was still guarded. Those two fellows Kane had knocked around on their first day in Crescent Lake were there again, with their big sticks - staves - in hand. Thad crept past them, sticking to the morning shadows cast by the other buildings in the square as he worked his way behind them, circling around to come at the Circle Chamber from the other side. He checked the door through his aether sight, but no one else had been near it. After all those years of disuse, Thad wondered, did anyone even remember it was there? These sages acted so wise, so serious, but they hadn't thought to guard this door. Thad took one last look around to be sure no one was watching, then he slipped into the storeroom.
His heart shuddered as he closed the door behind him, leaving himself in darkness, but he forced back his fear. He had his aether sight now. He didn't have to be afraid of the dark anymore. With it, he could see the storeroom's walls, the shelves, the stacks of parchment and clusters of empty inkwells waiting to be used, boxes of who knew what. Even without it, he could see the door ahead of him, outlined by the light of the main chamber beyond. He crept toward that light, flattened himself to the floor where the gap was largest, where he could press his cheek to the floor to see what was happening in the next room.
Jack was talking. Thad had been able to hear him as soon as he entered the storeroom but he hadn't been paying attention to what Jack was saying. Now, seeing Jack out there, seated in the center of the room as Thad had been during his own interview, he heard the words clearly.
"-robbed me," Jack was saying. "So I gave chase."
"And you had never met this Thadius before?" Myron asked.
"Never," Jack said. "I had only just stepped off the ship."
"So we're to believe the four orbs of the prophecy just... just came together?" Lukahn said. Thad could only see the back of Lukahn's throne-like chair from his vantage point, but he recognized that voice.
Jack shrugged. "You would know more about the prophecy than I would."
"Tell us again about the reaction," Myron said. "When you brought the orbs together, what then?"
"I've told you twice already," Jack said calmly, his hands laid idly on his knees.
"We would like to hear it again," Myron said. Thad had a clear view of the man's oily smile.
"This story must be quite the favorite," Orin said from his chair beside Jack's. "For you have heard it as well from Thadius, Lena, and Kane, and yet still you do not tire of it."
Myron nodded. "Those orbs are important. Any detail could be the key to unlocking their use."
"You never thought mine was important before," Jack said, "even when I told you how I acquired it."
Myron waved a hand. "We could hardly have taken your word for what happened back then. You were here nearly three years before you'd regained sense enough to speak of it."
"But you'll take my word now?" Jack said.
"Thus the need for repetition," Myron said, "to be sure-"
"To be sure his version of events matches what you have already heard from our friends?" Orin said. "You know now that it does. Repeating it will not change that. If you need to hear this story again for other reasons, I suggest you talk to your apprentice there." Orin gestured toward the young man on the stool behind Myron's seat. "He appears to have taken very diligent notes."
"For gods' sake, Myron," Wrede Randell, master Randell's white mage son, said from his own chair nearer the chamber's outer doors. "Would you lay off already? He's answered that one! Let's move on!" Other voices murmured in agreement.
Another sage Thad couldn't see from his hiding place, one of the women, said, "You said you knew nothing of Cornelia's ban on black magic before you arrived. How is that possible?"
"Hardly noteworthy," Dahlia said from her stool near her husband's chair. "Not much news from Cornelia in these parts."
"Mistress Randell, I would remind you again not to speak in these meetings," the other woman said.
"And I would remind you that you're a git, Agitha," Dahlia said.
"Darling," Randell said reprovingly, though Thad couldn't see him either. In a more authoritative tone, he said, "Do answer the question, Jack."
"I don't know," Jack said. "Why didn't I know about the ban?" He looked directly at the spot where Lukahn sat.
Lukahn scoffed. "You blame me for your ignorance?"
"You raised me," Jack said. "You sheltered me. You never thought to tell me these things? About the ban? About the Brotherhood?" He didn't move as he spoke, but his voice took on a dangerous edge.
Lukahn waved a dismissive hand. "Why should I tell you anything? It's common knowledge!"
Thad saw Orin reach up to put a steadying hand on Jack's shoulder. Orin was looking at Lukahn now, but for a moment Thad felt sure the old man's eyes had focused right on the storeroom door, as though he could see Thad hiding there.
"Is it?" Jack asked, his voice calm again. "Or is it only common knowledge to those who lived through it? If I bring Tylen Stokely in here, would he know about it?" He turned toward the apprentice Orin had pointed out earlier, a young man who seemed about Kane's age. "What about you, Marcus? Did you know?"
The apprentice, Marcus, dropped his quill pen as all eyes in the room turned toward him. His own eyes widened.
"You may speak, Marcus," Randell said.
"I..." Marcus began, fidgeting. "I, um, yes. I did. About the ban."
"You see?" Lukahn said, as others in the room murmured agreement. "Your ignorance of the Cornelian situation is a-"
"But..." Marcus went on. The room quieted once more. "But, um, I never knew what caused it. And I, uh... I've never heard of the Brotherhood you mentioned." He shrank in his stool as the quiet following this statement stretched on.
At last, Myron turned on the poor apprentice, whispering fervently, angrily. The older man pointed toward the door, the meaning of his whispered words clear enough even if the words themselves were inaudible to Thad, and the hapless Marcus hurried away from his master's sight.
Phin, the only other white mage in the room, spoke. "Well, shall we move on?"
"Not quite," Myron said. "Tell us again about the meeting in the market square."
Wrede groaned. "Myron, enough!"
"I've told you already," Jack said.
"Tell. Us. Again," Myron said. "And as my apprentice is no longer here to take notes for me, I would have you go slowly. Leave nothing out."
A few of the sages protested, but not many. "Majority rules," Randell said, though he sounded sorry about it. "Jack, do as he says."
Jack nodded. "As I said," he began. "I hadn't gone far when I noticed my orb was missing. I could see in my aether sight where the pickpocket had gone, so I gave chase..."
Poor Jack, Thad thought. No wonder Jack was so tired at the end of each day if he had to tell the same stories over and over. Well, there was one thing Thad could do to help. He couldn't make the interview any shorter, but he could make it take less time. Those weren't the same things at all.
"My friend?"
Redden started. No one had ever managed to sneak up on him the way Orin could. Well, Orin and Thad, but it was only the old monk here. Redden looked out the library windows at the sunlight still slanting in from the west. "You're early," he said. "The sages usually keep you until dark, don't they?"
Orin shrugged. "They seemed as surprised as you are to find the day still in progress when they stopped their questions. I suspect our young master Shipman had a hand in this."
"A reckless use of magic," Redden said, frowning.
Orin shook his head. "I will not rebuke him for it. Our Jack will have a full night's sleep for once, and an early one. I suspect he needs this."
Redden saw that for himself when he arrived at the Randells' for their nightly meal. Jack said not a word through dinner; he hardly moved. Dahlia pushed food on him, and the young man ate without complaint, but he did it without enthusiasm either. Redden saw Lena's hand on Jack's glowing as she Cured him, but he didn't seem capable of responding to her.
Like those zombies in Melmond, Redden thought, disturbing himself with the comparison. Redden still wouldn't let Jack go back to Lukahn's. He slept in Wrede's old room with Redden and Kane, and he slept like the dead while Redden stayed up into the wee hours continuing to study Astos's book.
The language was the problem. He knew enough of magic, enough that he was able to understand these spells, these diagrams. The amount of aether reserves they required was impossible for him, of course, but dark mages could use the reserves of other people in addition to their own. That was the key to these spells, the one distasteful fact of them that Jack had never been able to see past. But understanding the diagrams didn't mean he understood the language.
Soul reserves, Redden read, for that was the word this book used, he thought. Not aether reserves, but souls. But again, he couldn't be sure that was the proper translation.
Is it necromancy after all? he wondered. That question led his research the next day, took him back to that section of the library, that one small shelf, that contained the whole of Crescent Lake's collected knowledge on the topic. The findings of the wisest mages in the world were gathered here, and yet the subject was so abhorrent that no single mage had ever written more than a few words on it. Those words agreed on one thing, though: Souls. Necromancy was the breaking of souls.
"This interview," Orin told him when the day's research came to an end. "It has become an interrogation. They are cruel to him. I do my best to keep the sages in line, but I am outnumbered. Even considering those sages who are not against him, we are too few."
"How bad is it?" Redden asked.
"Not as bad as it will be," Orin said. "They have not asked about Astos yet."
"You don't think he can handle it?"
"I do not think he should be forced to," Orin said. "It will not be like Kane's interview was: the sages will not ask Jack about the killing only once and move on. They will dwell on it, forcing Jack to relive an event that we both know was truly disturbing for him. A man can only push such emotions down so far."
"I should be there," Redden said. "Another voice to speak for him."
Orin shook his head. "No. He needs you here. There's something in here," he said, pointing at the book. "Something that will help him. The gods did not put this book in his hands without cause."
"The gods had nothing to do with it," Redden said.
Orin shook his head again. "On this, we will never agree."
In the morning, Redden walked with Jack to the Circle Chamber, though Orin firmly insisted Redden should continue on to the library. He stood with Jack just outside the chamber, and the young black mage - dark mage, Redden corrected himself - looked at him with hollow eyes, emotionless as a snake. When he looks like that, Redden thought, it's no wonder they believe him capable of the things that prophecy says. "Lad," Redden said, feeling awkward beneath that impassive gaze. He cleared his throat before he went on. "How are you, really?"
Jack blinked slowly, in a way Redden found unsettling for some reason. He seemed to be considering the question. "I'm holding on. For now."
"Keep holding on, lad. I'll think of something," Redden told him, though he had no clue what that might be.
He checked Astos's ritual, the one that had backfired on Jack the day he killed the dark elf, the day Jack said he had absorbed the man's soul and thereby lost the ability to suppress his own. It was a complicated ritual, more so than any spell Redden had ever seen, and there was a word in it that, when Redden checked multiple Leifenish dictionaries, he was almost certain meant "forced" or, to a lesser extent, "unwilling". The forced removal of a soul. The word implied there was such a thing as the opposite, a soul willingly given, but the book contained no information on that.
And there it was again: soul reserves. It could be translated as aether reserves, but Redden was almost certain it could equally be read as "soul".
He spent the day browsing the library's religious texts, learning what each of the world's religions had to say on the philosophy of the human soul. Most agreed that one's soul was one's own, separate and distinct from the aether, but that all rejoined the great Lifestream after death. Had the ancient writers of Astos's book, in the time of high Leifenish, shared those beliefs?
He studied prehistory, everything he could find on the days of man before the Leifenish empire, what little was known about it. He read of the religious texts that survived from that time, tales of Bahamut that predated the knights, tales of Titan before the founding of Melmond. Tales of Ramuh... those had been more common back then, before his departure from this world in the wake of his daughters' deaths.
And most scholars believed that had been caused by a fiend. The "Sisters' Bane", they called it, though not much else was known about it. It had destroyed the Magisterium, killing the Sisters who defended it, then vanished never to be seen again. Some said the Bane was Ffamran's dragon, another suspected fiend. Still other scholars, and Redden himself was among them, debated the existence of the Bane at all, saying the Sisters had been mortal priestesses rather than Ramuh's literal daughters, and that they had died natural deaths when Leifen fell and Ramuh's widespread worship had died with them.
But Titus's fiend had been real. Redden had seen the thing, had fought it. Redden spoke with the other scholars of Crescent Lake about what they'd found in the library, spoke with Pearl at great length. It was said that fiends were mortal mages who had transcended the bounds of the Lifestream, freeing themselves from the inevitability of death. Freeing their souls from the aether. According to Pearl and the others, Eldieme had been a necromancer, gaining power by breaking his own soul into pieces. But Eldieme, a fiend, had been cut off from the aetheric cycle. Eldieme's death had freed the aether he'd been hoarding within that soul, causing the aether burst that had been felt by mages the world over.
And there it was again: the soul. He returned to Astos's book again. The soul, the aether, a word that could be translated either way. What did it mean? He went back to Jack's ledger, the notes the young man had made on his own translations of the high Leifenish text. He looked at every place where Jack had translated that word as "aether" and tried substituting in "soul" instead. It made no difference to the meaning of the text at any point.
But... there. One line. One single line where the text changed. Aether, bound to an object. Soul, bound to an object. The latter was necromancy. Jack had translated it as "phylactery," the necromantic term. But the former, that was common. A focus object.
Focus objects... That tickled Redden's brain. Eldieme's death had caused more than the aether burst: it had lit up Kane's sword like a lightning bolt. It wasn't a focus object - the sages agreed - but... what if they were wrong? Souls are aether, he thought. Tied to the aether. Phylactery, a soul bound to an object. Aether bound to an object, a focus object. The soul, the aether, a word that could be translated either way.
"The aether responds to my emotions," Jack had said. Aether. Soul. Of course souls responded to emotions. What was a soul if not a bundle of thoughts and feelings? That was why empaths like Lena were called "soul readers". Yes, she could see other things besides people's emotions, but that was the defining feature of her kind. And Jack... when he couldn't draw from someone - from another soul - he needed a focus object. Aether, bound to an object...
A soul, bound to an object...
He ran from the library. Outside, he found his son and Lena where he'd known they would be, on the steps of the temple nearby, heads bent over a book together as Lena read. "I need your orbs!" he told them.
"Redden!" Lena said, hand to her heart. "Oh! You startled me!"
"Father? What's going on?" Kane asked.
"Your orbs! Give them to me!" He looked around. "Where's Thadius?"
"No idea," Kane said. He hadn't moved.
"You've found something?" Lena asked, obediently untying the little bracelet that held the orb of water.
"No time. Your sword, Kane! Now!"
Kane grumbled, but he stood and began fiddling with his sword belt. "What's this about, father?" he said, passing it over, and then, "Hey!" as Redden snatched it from him and ran.
Two would have to be enough. With the sword and the bracelet in hand, he crossed the square to the Circle Chamber. The two guards on the door held up their staves.
"That's far enough, old man," one said, holding up a hand.
"Old man," Redden muttered, scarcely slowing down as he grabbed that upraised hand and twisted it. The young guard cried out, dropping his staff. Redden pushed him toward the door and through it as the other guard watched, wide-eyed, too stunned to respond in time.
He released the guard as soon as he was inside. The poor man fell whimpering in a heap on the threshold. Redden strode past him, toward the room's center, toward Jack and Orin, as all eyes in the room turned toward him, as the sages began exclaiming in horrified outrage at his unconventional entrance.
Lukahn stood, livid. "What is the meaning of this?" he shouted.
"You need to look at the orbs!" Redden said.
Lukahn scoffed. "We have studied the orbs. They're-"
"I wasn't speaking to you," Redden said. He faced Jack, still in his seat, and shoved the sword and bracelet into his lap. "Look! Look at them! Use your aether sight and really look at them."
Jack cocked his head. "Redden, I've tried that. There's nothing-"
"They're focus objects, Jack," Redden said. "They are. They're keyed to you, the four of you. To your souls. Your souls. I don't know how, but they are. That's why they only work for you, only respond to you. That's why no one else can see anything. But you need to look at them. Look for that."
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" Myron said. "Is such a thing even possible?" He looked about the room; the other sages seemed equally baffled.
"My son can work the aether through that sword," Redden said, pointing. "He's not even a mage! And Jack has done things with that weapon that no earth mage can do!"
"So you say," Lukahn said. "And Jack will tell us his side of it when we get to-"
"You're done talking!" Redden said. "This 'interview' is a farce and you know it!" The sages protested at that, angry murmurs filling the room. "No!" Redden shouted, silencing them again. He pointed at Jack. "These are the Warriors of Light!" Then Redden pointed at Lukahn. "By the parameters of the prophecy that you laid down! Jack is a Warrior of Light! You have to admit-"
"I admit nothing!" Lukahn said, leaping to his feet. "Yes, I predicted the orbs! I predicted they would come together! But I refuse to acknowledge that that monster is meant to be-"
"Redden..." Jack said, his voice a quiet whisper that nevertheless carried in the massive chamber. Lukahn fell silent, mouth gone slack as he stared at Jack in shock and horror. Redden turned, found the lad still in his chair. Orin sat beside him, looking on with a smile as Jack held Lena's bracelet in his outstretched palm. The orb in it glowed a brilliant blue. Jack's eyes glowed with that same blue light. "I see it..."
"What is he-" someone began, but then a hush fell over the chamber. Redden didn't have to see the aether to know why. He felt it. He felt the aether move at Jack's call. He felt the power, the connection between mage and magic, as Jack worked through the orb of water.
There, inside the Circle Chamber, it began to rain.
Author's Note: 1/13/21 - Welcome to the new year, everybody! This chapter is exceedingly late. Did you notice? I know I did. I always do one final edit before I post it on my usual posting day and there was one scene that I just didn't like. In the past, I've usually posted anyway because I'm so sick of editing by then, but this time I said, "You know what? No. It's not getting posted until I'm happy with it." So I'm sorry I made you wait, but I am happy with it now. I hope you enjoy it.
That said, it seems unlikely that February's chapter will post on time, as I spent so much of January finishing this one. But I could be wrong - so far, I'm much happier with 66 in its current state than I was with 65 in the same stage.
Did you notice my Knights of Bahamut are a Knights of the Round reference? Well, they are in my mind, anyway. There are twelve, and I've named them all. One of them is named Thordan, though I don't think I mentioned him in this snippet. Also, is it just me, or were the Kings of Lucis in XV totally a Knights of the Round reference? Talk amongst yourselves.
I hope you're well. Yes, you. Whoever you are, if you're reading these words right now, I hope you're well. Self care, my internet friends! Focus on self care!