I was standing on the balcony of the Southern edge of the Villa, my hands resting on an intricately carved banister, the wood sliding smoothly across my palms as my hands moved comfortingly over the familiar surface. I'd just arrived a few minutes ago, having sent one of the other mages to fetch mother while the wind I was heating up whipped through my hair.
"Lyra," my mother said in greeting and I turned my head to the side to offer Sylvren, the Queen Mage a nod and a small smile. The events of last night still hung around her eyes and my heart clenched.
"Good morning, mother," I offered soflty and the queen mage came to stand beside me, joining me in looking out over the expanse of swirling mist that separated the mages island from the mainland.
"I've received a reply from the kingdom of Scepterfall," my mother began. Straight to business, like always. There was no need to fill time with small talk whenever Sylvren Belle was involved.
"Kingdom?" I asked, shooting her a glance. "I didn't even know that you had reached out to any of the kingdoms."
"I reached out to every Kingdom, Duke-dom, Lord-dom and every other family of power that our couriers could reach. And I only sent word to the Lords and Dukes as a kind of fall back. My plan had always been to create an alliance with a king or queen, somebody who could actually get us results." The Mage Queen said, matter of factly.
I was stunned and continued to stare at my mother. "So what are the terms of this alliance then? What do we have to offer a King? Surely my hand in marriage isn't worth as much to a king as it would have been to a Lord or lesser noble."
"It's not," my mother said and I felt a small weight lift off my shoulders. I had been prepared to fill the role of dutiful wife if necessary to secure the future of my people, but I would be lying if I said I had been hoping to avoid such an outcome. "He also requires loyal fighters to help secure his own lands. We create an alliance through a marriage, our royal blood joins lines with his bloodline, as a symbolic gesture to the people that mages and humans can coexist."
My shoulders sagged ever so slightly again. I'd always known my life would never belong to me. My people were my life. And within the last two years, I had come to terms with the fact that I would probably end up having to marry a stranger in order to secure a future for my people. But it didn't make it any easier to deal with when faced with the reality of it actually being set into motion.
"The King will be sending out a representative to speak with us, they should be arriving later today or tomorrow morning at the latest. To go over the contract between our people among other things. Once that is signed we'll make the announcement to our people."
"Today? How long have you known that the King was interested?" I asked, trying to keep my temper in check. I didn't like being left out of these schemes.
"I just got word from their messenger this morning. I believe it was the King's way of ensuring that we didn't have time to prepare a trap for his people. He's still not entirely sure we're trustworthy and won't trust us until we hold up our side of the contract." She said.
"I see," I sighed and looked back out over the abyss.
"Lyra, our people need this. We're too secluded out here. This island was only made to support around 50 or 60 mages. It's not large enough to support the few hundred we have living here. With us not having enough nature elementals left to speed up the growth of plants and food, we can't continue to support such numbers. As it stands, we only have about 20 strong elemental mages left in our ranks, only four of which are nature-based ones. They're running themselves ragged to keep the rest of us alive. Aside from our twenty generals, the rest are all mediocre. I hate to say that, but it's true, we cannot rely on them to keep us alive. We, as the Royals need to do what needs to be done to keep our people alive. To ensure that they have a future, that their children have a future.
"This king, he isn't as conservative in his beliefs as the other kingdoms are. He's willing to work with us, Hells he is even willing to have a mage marry into his family... into his bloodline. There aren't many humans that would even consider allowing us a place in their court, let alone their royal line these days." My mother said softly, placing a hand on my shoulder.
"But he's only willing to do so, so long as we pay with our lives," I shot back at her. I wasn't sure I wanted to send any of my people, let alone my best soldiers into a war waged by humans, for humans.
"Have you seen the state of our aisle? Lyra, have you really gone out and seen the state of our people? I'm sure going to war to secure a better life for their families, for their children is a price any of them would be willing to pay. There's nowhere else for us to turn. There is war and bias on all sides of us. King Turrent is offering food, medicine and any other supplies our people will need to survive throughout the war. And until we can reclaim our lands on the mainland, which he also mentioned in his letter that he would be willing to help with once the wars on his border have been taken care of, we're lost. This is our answer, and it's a better offer than I was expecting."
"So, this is a goodbye to the way of our lives, then," I said, my voice quiet.
"You'll still be queen, I'm sure you'll be able to-"
"Mother, I know you're not that naive. Even though I'll be queen, I'll still belong to the King. We all will."
"You, my daughter, have never, and will never, belong to anyone but your people," My mother said, holding out the letter to me.
I gave my mother a quick forced grin before taking the letter and looking down at it, my eyes skimmed it quickly. "So, these men will be here later today or tomorrow morning, and then what? If this guy decides that I'm," I quickly found the part I was referring to in the letter again, narrowed my eyes at the wording and read straight from the paper, "found to be favorable" I glared at my mother, "then what? He goes back to his King and reports that I'm good enough for the royal line and then I just pack my bags, wait for them to come and load me up and go live in a kingdom full of humans?" My mother took the letter back and put it in her pocket. "You'd be leaving with the King's men when they leave tomorrow," she said softly, looking away from me. My chest tightened. "I didn't see that in the letter," I said, unable to grasp the idea of leaving my home, the only home I had known my whole life so soon. "It was in the other letter. Your father and I thought that one was a little too
The small island that we mages called home, floated in the middle of a giant crater that held nothing but water below. It was connected to the mainland by a single land bridge that was just big enough for three horses to walk side by side comfortably. There weren't many people that dared to bring a wagon over it. I had lived my entire life in this magical place. Our ancestors, while trying to avoid persecution, were searching for a way to keep their people safe. They had found this small chunk of land in the bottom of the chasm and lifted the Little Haven up and held it there with some of the most powerful magic ever wielded. Magic that was long ago lost to the mages of our time. By doing this, they'd effectively made an impenetrable stronghold for their people to find refuge from the prejudices of their time. I reflected for a moment how I was similarly working on a way to free my people from the oppression that after centuries of peace had resurfaced over the past few decades. Only
Why did the day have to start off so early? I thought annoyedly to myself. I had barely gotten more than two hours of sleep by the time Lilly had woken me up from my night terror. I sighed, thinking about everything else that still needed to be taken care of. There was the council meeting that mother was supposed to be letting everyone know about right now. There was the possible meeting with the man from Scepterfall, if he decided to show up today, that was. And I still needed to find Gil and break the news to him, hopefully before the time of the actual meeting. I yawned, figuring I should probably get started on that first one and pushed myself off the banister. My mother had told me I should get more rest, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. I headed out to the training field, where I figured I'd probably find Gil, but only Lorna, one of the oldest mages on the island who lived in and worked for her room in the Villa was there, fixing some of the leather pieces on the training
"Lyra!" My father hissed behind me, as he thundered through the trees on my heels. Branches whipped past me as I ran, stinging my cheeks and bared arms whenever I failed to block them. "We need to save her, dad." I shot back in a loud whisper. "We can't lose another one," I said, feeling panicky. The thought of us losing another life, just a single one if I could possibly stop it was too much. I pushed my legs to move faster. We paused, listening for Carmella's call for help again. "Carm?" I asked, tentatively and keeping my voice just above a whisper so as not to alert the nearby humans. I was hoping we could find her fast enough. Find her before they did. "Help!" Another scream, she still sounded far enough off that I knew she hadn't heard me call for her. "I don't think she knows a hunting party is nearby," my father rushed out as we took off again. I nodded in response, not wasting my breath with more words. I was already pulling my fire forward when we broke into a clearing,
I froze, my hands stilling where they were, I could feel a drip of blood escape my nose, a telltale sign that my power was waning. It was taking a lot to keep those walls burning. To keep them hot enough to hold the beast, thick enough and high enough that it wouldn't just rush through the flames or jump over them was taking an immense amount of power. "Girl, turn around. Let me see your face," the man commanded. "Man stays put and doesn't move or girl gets throat slit, do I make myself clear?" "Why are you talking like a caveman?" I asked, forcing calm into my voice as I turned around to face my attacker. He stood there, legs apart in an attacking stance, his sword pressed to my neck. Was he alone or were the rest of the hunting party hiding somewhere? If he was alone, that was incredibly stupid of him. Stupid to take on multiple mages single-handedly. Though, I guess the Blood Beasts kind would have evened up the score, normally. If he was dealing with weaker mages, that was. "S
I gasped and sat bolt upright. My eyes looking around frantically, trying to figure out where I was. Ellis swam into view, relief and awe both written on her face. Then I felt it. Like dark tethers that rooted out from me, connecting me to every life force around me. I looked up into Ellis's face and could feel her life force pulsing in front of me. I could feel all their life forces throbbing around me. One of them was so weak already... I flinched, pulling back the magic and slamming it down far inside me. Soon as I had, Ellis took a deep breath like she suddenly felt better. She shook her head as if she were confused by the feeling but offered me a small smile. "You know, a normal mage would've been out cold for days," she mused, pressing the back of her palm to my forhead. I waved her off, watching her face closely for signs of supsicion or something like it. "How long was I out?" I asked, throwing the blanket off, ignoring Ellis's attempts to get me to lay back down. I couldn't
"So, what's this meeting about?" A familiar voice asked and I turned to see Gil walking into the Council room. Apprehension rushed through me. How was he feeling about Wulfrud? How was I going to tell him about the alliance? How would he take it? He froze as he saw me, "You're up already? You used so much energy, Lyra. Are you sure you're ok to be here?" He asked, concern dripping from his voice. My mother had pushed the meeting back by a few hours while I slept, but after my father and I had found her, she had made sure to let me know exactly how displeased she was with how reckless I had been. How happy she was that I wasn't dead. And then, once again how angry she was that I wasn't still resting and recuperating after my ordeal. Once she was done ranting, we had come to the council room to wait for everyone else to arrive. I had avoided telling her or anyone else exactly how I had recovered so quickly. I didn't need my people looking at me like I was a monster. The Queen mage and
I could feel my mother preparing to jump in when finally, Triguni spoke up. "We've been waiting a long time for your birth. You'll accomplish much in your lifetime. As you've already shown, you understand the importance of calculated action rather than just relying on magic. Aeon would be proud of the woman you've become, Princess." She leaned back in her chair and resumed her silence. I swallowed back the lump that Triguni's words caused to form in my throat, my eyes once again flicking over to Aeon's empty seat. No one else said anything for a moment until Perrin, a little tentatively spoke up, "Yes, I see the appeal," the potioneer mused. "With those added supplies, we wouldn't have to keep stretching Kiell, Liza, Terra and Enid to their breaking points. The workload those four have been having to take on the last few months is beyond that which I thought they could even handle at first. But I do believe they're a little too willing to sacrifice some things for our future." "What