The Coquette and the Thane

A/N: Oh...please don't kill me for this chapter.  x.x

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PART II | Chapter XVI

2:16 | Blood, Magic, Toil, and Trouble

“Nn…yes, just like that…” Valen grunted, his fingers laced just tight enough to hurt into silk soft, white blonde locks, guiding the mouth between his legs from one motion the next.  Then, growing impatient, he stilled his hand, effortlessly holding the soft mouth servicing him in place—despite its owner’s initial protest—and starting to thrust on his own, impervious to the quiet, choked sputtering this induced.  “Ahnn…” He tilted his head back with a groan. 

The whore gave a meek whine, but ceased outwards struggling after a few halfhearted squirms, shaking instead as it fought for air.  Probably crying, too, poor thing; Valen smirked, and abruptly he held off, jerking the head below him back to give it an assessing once over.  Its lashes glistened, but no tears streaked its cheeks—lovely glossy swollen lips though.

“Look at me, human,” he clipped, and the damp lashes lifted, baring wide, ice blue eyes.  “You’re fortunate you’re such a pretty thing, or that look wouldn’t begin to make up for your incompetence…I suppose I was under the false impression that if nothing else, whores were at least skilled at taking a cock to the mouth…” 

He released his grip, and the human more or less crumpled, sinking at his feet to a leafy pile, arms crossed over itself like a child seeking solace in its own embrace. 

“I suppose that’s what I get for dishing out fortunes to reserve virgins,” he mused idly, and started towards the bed, knocking his foot against the whore as he passed.  “Get up.  Arrange yourself on the bed, chest down and legs spread…” A quiet shuffling ensued behind him, “…and be warned that if I get there first, you won’t like the result…”

That put some urgency in the other’s movements, and Valen smiled, slowing his step just enough to allow his terrified recent purchase to make it ahead of him. 

He’d never seen the appeal in inflicting real pain on his bed partners—not to mention, harming whores rarely went down well with brothel matrons—but seeing the knowledge in their eyes that he could hurt them in the blink of an eye if ever he so chose, and their fear that he would.  That got him off like few other things.

He paused by the bedside, raking his eyes over his merchandise.  It was a pretty thing—all soft, unmarked skin, and pale, almost as fair as its hair—and he wondered if it could possibly be as old as the matron promised.  ‘Legal’ she’d said, and Valen snorted.

What ridiculous age was it that humans considered themselves of age?  Sixteen summers? 

Not that it mattered—or that he cared.

Valen reached out, feeling the delicate body quiver as he ran his fingers gently along it, like a young animal already struck too many times, he thought, anticipating a blow long before it landed. 

“What’s it like?” he asked suddenly, off-handedly, as if bringing up the time of day.  “To give something so precious as your body…whatever remains of your innocence…to a complete stranger?” 

The blonde head buried itself deeper into its folded arms, hiding in the false sanctity of the sheets as if they might somehow offer up some protection or semblance of dignity. 

“Do you have any shame left in you, at this point?” Valen continued aloud.  He drew his index finger along the smooth curve of the whore’s ass and down, slowly, along the back of its thigh.  “Any spirit…humanity?”  Finally, its fingers clenched—still in the sheets, but at least it had a spark of fight in it—and Valen chuckled.  “Cute, child…now tell me how this feels…”

The human keened, rocking instinctively forward into the sheets when Valen drew his thumb back up, over the tight pucker nestled in the valley of its ass.

“Ah-ah,” he scolded, catching a pale hip and stilling the retreat, “…you’re here to spread your legs for me, little mortal.  There’s no telling me you don’t want it now…”

“B-nnnh…” The whore’s toes curled and it tensed, but it didn’t pull away again.

“That’s right…now, I want you to tell me that you want this…”

A soft pant sounded, buried in the sheets.  But no words.

Valen rocked his finger, testing the resistance of the tight ring of muscle—dry still, but responsive to the so-far gentle teasing—and he leaned down before he spoke.  “I can be very gracious with my pets, human…but only when they behave to my liking…”

“I-I…mm…”

Without warning, Valen moved, leaning up, flipping the human onto its back as effortlessly as tossing up a coin and earning a quiet yelp of surprise for his efforts.  When he stilled, the other blinked up at him, eyes wide as a baby owl.  “Well?” he prompted, and his companion swallowed.

“I…I-I want this…” it stammered, adding a nervous, “…master…” at the end as a precautionary afterthought.

“Do you?” Valen asked idly, but then reached forward, bringing fingers to the human’s lips when it opened its mouth and stalling any words that might have come.  “We’ll see.  Suck.”

Blue eyes blinked once, twice; then, tentatively, soft lips spread wider, opening up.  The lower lip caught beneath the pads of his fingers, a shy pink tongue flicked out, and-

A sharp rap sounded at his door.

Valen scowled, and a second later, mentally vowing reprisal on whoever failed to adhere to his specific orders not to allow anyone up to disturb him, he pressed his fingers a half-inch deeper.  “Ignore it.”

The human eyed the door warily, but otherwise obeyed, taking the further intrusion without complaint and closing its lips fully around it, suckling. 

The air tingled.  Faint at first, but then gradually picking up, like the barest hints of a warm spring breeze—except that it was winter and the room was sealed up tight—and Valen frowned, suddenly wary himself.  Then the wood of his door crackled, like twigs popping under the heat of a fire, the curtains rustled, a hot gust swirling through the room and stirring the sheets and his hair, and he shut his eyes.  Finally, a sharp, resonating Crack! sounded, and the turbulent air stilled abruptly with the creak and click of the door as it closed back shut.

“As urgent,” Valen started with strained civility, “…as I’m sure this is-”

“If I have to kill the whore to have your full attention immediately, Valen, I will do it,” a very frustratingly familiar female voice clipped without a moment’s hesitation, and, fully aware that she wasn’t bluffing, Valen released a sigh. 

Leaning back onto his haunches on the bed—away from the now literally quivering human in his sheets—Valen shut his eyes and rolled his head to either side, lazily, as if stretching.  When he finished, he slid his legs off the bed, descending easily.  There, with nothing but an open, lightweight button-down on his torso and naked from the waist down, he turned to face his guest, a hint of a lewd smile playing on his features.

“Very well, brood sister,” he said genially, “…you have my complete attention.  What is it you’d like to discuss?”

Sharp, keen green eyes flicked over him, taking him in as if sketching a rough map for future reference before lifting again to meet his.  Her expression remained disappointingly unaffected.  “You sent demons after my son.”

Valen considered a moment.  “No…” he corrected after a moment, “…I sent humans after your son…or…should I say ‘daughter’ now?”  She waited.  “Well…humans possessed by demons, but…” He shrugged, “…details.”

Again, she waited, and he cleared his throat. 

“They did agree to it.  You know, starving families, poor crop yields…I offered them a truly generous reprieve, when you think about it.  Carry out one little assassination mission and I not only make sure that their families don’t starve to death, but also gift them with superhuman powers for the rest of their lives…”  He paused.  “Of course,” he amended, “…they’ll only live for another…few weeks, give or take, what with the corrupted wolf spirits feasting on their life energy from the inside out.  Not that I told them that.”  He smiled.  “On the plus side, their families won’t starve.  I made sure to have them burned to the ground as soon as the men left…”

“You must be proud of yourself…”

“I am-”

“…outsmarting ignorant, desperate humans.”

Valen frowned.

“You promised not to hurt my children.”

“Actually, I believe I agreed not to interfere, so long as none of them got in my way-”

“I kept him out of your way!” Melsinna snapped, abruptly vicious, but Valen only tisked.

“Now, now, there’s no need to blow this out of proportion…I’m sure he died very quickly.  Even if they were extremely messy, it’s my impression that a human that gets its throat ripped out can only possibly live to suffer a minute or less at best before it drowns in its own blood, and even then-”

“If he had died, Valen,” Melsinna clipped out, “…you wouldn’t be breathing right now.”

Valen blinked.  “He’s still alive?”

“That would be the implication behind that statement, yes,” his guest responded dryly.

Valen frowned.  “You know…” He took a step forward, “…for such a small…” He continued forward as he spoke, “…pretty little…” approaching until he stood but a foot from her and looming over her like a beast over prey, “…woman…” She didn’t budge, “…you’re quite sure of yourself.”

When she said nothing, he tilted his head, drawing his eyes over her—a slaver inspecting merchandise—before at last reaching up, slowly, to ghost his fingers appraisingly along the perfect, porcelain smooth line of her jaw.  He watched as he touched, keenly anticipating any hint of change in her glacial expression, but she held her ground: frigid and beautiful as an ice swan. 

“It’s a cruel trick that the gods play,” he said after a time, “…to gift such a perilous, versatile, and subtle weapon as beauty to the vilest…and most wicked of this earth’s creatures…”  He let his fingers slide down, along the column of her neck, “…but, I’m afraid even beauty so treacherous as yours won’t save you in this case,” he continued quietly, coming to rest at the base of her throat and relishing in the soft, alluring warmth of her skin despite her deceptively cold demeanor. 

“You’re pitifully, hopelessly out of your league here, Melsinna…like a dragonfly, trying to tame a pride of wild lions.  The red members of the council don’t trust you, and the black are waiting as patiently as hyenas by a tottering gazelle for your brood to bare a vulnerable patch.  Your son will die…whether by finding a mate and in his own hubris attempting to seize your reigns when he comes of age…or by the hands of someone else with the foresight to finish him now while he’s most exposed.  You’re not fit for the role you’re trying to fill, and you can’t possibly hope to hold it…personally, I see it as a testament to your obstinacy that you’ve held it this long.  When Gaevroc finally passes from this earth…”

Finally, a twitch of expression.  The corner of her lip, as if tugged ever so slightly by a puppeteer’s string, quirked barely perceptibly upwards, and something unreadable glistened in her eyes.  A lethal secret trapped inside green as cold and sharp as a cut emerald.

“Is this how you seduce all your women, Valen?” she asked.  Her eyes flit behind him, to the bed.  “Or haven’t you succeeded yet in bedding anything but prostitutes…”

His hand whipped up, snatching her jaw with sudden, sharp force as if moving with a mind of its own.  “I could have you,” he snarled, “…if I wanted a tainted, muddled blooded whore of a witch screaming in my sheets…”  Her eyes held his, her lips parted and lashes low as her pulse beat fast under his fingers, and Valen felt his heart throw itself against the wall of his chest before he could swallow.  “I could have you,” he repeated, making it a growl, but it lacked the force of the first.

She noticed, and her smile made his blood boil.  “Is that so?” 

“You should watch your tongue-”

“Do you know what I like about human men, Valen…my consort, in particular?” 

When she asked it, she tilted her head in his grip, lashes dipping a fraction lower still as she dragged her eyes over him, and he felt his grip weaken and sink, clutching behind her neck instead. 

“He knows his place,” she answered herself, and Valen fought not to let his eyes shut as she reached out, the soft pads of her fingers tracing shapeless patterns feather gently along his bare abdomen, “…and yet, he still has the courage to throw his heart on a platter, free for me to chew up and spit out if I so chose.”  Her eyes lifted, meeting his, a new, peculiar kind of heat lighting them.  “It’s flattering…and empowering, to know that he loves me that much…that fearlessly and that unreservedly.  Do you know what I like about men like you?”

Valen’s pulse burned hot in his throat.  For a fleeting, fraction of a second, some deeply buried instinct told him to run—as far and as fast as his wings could carry him—but then she leaned in, the heat of her breath climbing up his neck like soft fire and he shut his eyes instead, as netted as an insect in a web.

“You have lived for so long…and slaughtered so many,” she said, “…that you forget, piteously easily…that if you were somehow foolish enough to let someone get close enough to your throat to rip it out…” Her lips came within a quarter inch of where his pulse beat hard in his neck, her fingers on the opposite side, touching like a bird landing on a perch, “…you, too, would choke on your own blood…and die…as surely and as permanently as any mortal…”

He wanted to move.  Desperately.  Why couldn’t he move?

She took a step back, and all hope sank in the face of her expression.  Whatever game they’d been playing, she’d just won it.

“This…” She retraced the pattern on his abdomen, and only this time did he realize the touches were not random, his anxiety spiking as the lines her fingers made lit up with blood red magic like a trail of fire, “…is a binding rune.  Most of your voluntary muscles won’t respond to your order for another two or three hours…not that you’ll be alive that long.”

She had to be bluffing.

“This…” She reached up, and he felt real fear when her touch slid back over the exact place it last sat at his neck, repainting similar such patterns, “…is a silencing rune.  You won’t scream, you won’t speak, and, a pity though it is…” The pad of her thumb traced his lower lip, the tip of her nail grazing his upper one as she did, “…you will not beg…not even for your life.”

He would have spit at her—struck her, strangled her, snapped her neck in an instant—but his body was as unresponsive as a tombstone.

“Never trust a beautiful woman, Valen,” Melsinna advised, and Valen mentally shuddered to feel his skin prickling to attention as she drew her fingers—this time truly aimlessly—down the length of his side, coming to rest low on his hip, “…and certainly not a wronged mother.  Fortunately for me…” Her eyes wandered down, following the path of her fingers, and Valen’s face burned with furious, helpless shame as his body came to attention under her scrutiny alone, “…that was a lesson you learned much too late.”  She smiled, gradually, sweetly, and wickedly, like poisoned honey.  “Does it amuse you, Valen, as much as it does me, that you apparently still want this tainted, muddled blooded whore of a witch begging for you in your sheets?”

If the gods had made a hell, it would be better than this.

Finally, she stepped back again, farther this time, and with a brief snap, his knees gave as if cut at the strings, leaving him to fall limp as a rag to his knees before her. 

“Just be thankful you never fathered children,” she said by way of consolation.  “Thinking of me tracking them down and feeding them each other’s raw hearts as you choke on the scent of your own flesh burning and peeling away wouldn’t have made the experience much more enjoyable.”  She turned, stepping towards the door, and then paused.  “Oh, and if you have anyone amongst the council that you consider a friend, I might suggest spending your last minutes praying that they have the wisdom to take your failures as a lesson…and never touch my sons…”

In a last sweep of the room, her eyes landed on the human still curled on the bed, sheets pulled up over its chest and wrapped messily around its trembling body.  For a moment, Valen felt sure she’d kill it, too, as she’d threatened at the outset.  Then, something in her softened unexpectedly—a look he’d never seen before.

“Girl,” she called out, and the whore’s head jerked up, eyes wide—terrified, “…did he take you?”  After a drawn, startled pause, the human shook its head.  “I would suggest running, then…this building is about to burn.”

Springs creaked and floorboards bent.  Valen watched, powerless and almost trancelike as naked feet scrambled out the door, followed the swish and clip of Melsinna’s own skirts and heels. 

When the door clicked shut, the air temperature spiked.  Red magic, like glowing blood trickled in from under the door, slowly at first and then faster as if gaining momentum as it dribbled down a hill, spidering off in every direction in an ever increasing multitude of mini rivulets across the floor.  He heard rather than saw the curtains behind him flicker and catch, then the sheets, and finally the floor, tendrils of smoke curling up like tiny smoke bombs or black steam vents. 

It would only be a matter of time before he felt it.

Outside the door, Melsinna turned to the human girl—Dale’s age, if that—and she caught her shoulder before she ran.  “You slept with him,” she said, holding the icy blue eyes steady as she spoke, her voice going abruptly liquid soft, gentle as a lullaby, and she raised a finger to the girl’s forehead.  “You fell asleep afterwards, and so did he…” She painted a pale, blue-violet circle of magic that sank into the girl’s skin as soon as it formed.  “You woke to the smell of smoke and tried to wake him, but couldn’t and ran…you got lost in the smoke and barely made it out with your life, passing out at the foot of the steps downstairs.  You’ll be found there, and remember nothing but what I’ve told you.  Do you understand?”

The girl nodded, blue eyes glassy and unfocussed, the tremble in her body gone.

Melsinna released her hold.  “Go.”

Colony of Ire, Derring Residence

“So you’re…related to him?” Rhyan guessed.  He sat, crouched, at the edge of a chalky white circle on Alroy’s floor, the rest of the man’s sparse living room ‘furniture’—a rickety wooden chair and dining table, various near-empty beer bottles, and what might have once been a functioning couch—pushed off to the sides of the room to clear up the area.

“No, no, no, nothing so serious as all that…” Alroy waved his hand as if to shoo off the suggestion and knelt on the opposite side.  “Zytana was married…well, ‘engaged’ I suppose you could say…at the time, and—where was that grounding stone you said you had?—I was an outsider.  A disguised outsider, naturally, but still…they were a very guarded people, which made it difficult to-” Alroy frowned as Rhyan held out his hand.  “A coin?”

“A medallion,” Rhyan corrected fishing again in his vest pocket as soon as Alroy took it, and Alroy tilted his head, turning the cool, weighty precious metal over in his fingers.

“Cecilisse…” He turned it again, “…the twin goddess.  Why—?”

“And Ryenne,” Rhyan added, holding out a second, which Alroy accepted in turn, increasingly curious.  “Baisyl has a matching set, and I’ve used them as grounders before…we’ve had them since we were children.”

Alroy examined the two carefully, the sister goddesses of the rain and the tides, as recognized by the worshipers of the Great Mother Mele, almost identical on the coins except for the tilt of their heads and the nature of the runes on the flip side of the medallions. 

“How long?” he asked.

“I was five and he eleven when father first had him sent away for an extended period…I didn’t want him to leave, and he gave me this set and told me to hold them close to me if I felt fear or loneliness, and promised that he’d know and be there for me in spirit if not in person to offer me his comfort.”  Rhyan looked distant, nostalgic almost.  After a time, he shook his head, as if dusting off the memories—or scolding himself for his own innocence.  “I didn’t know at the time, of course, about the magical property of the runes,” he continued, “…but I took real comfort from them more than once, and I think on some level it cued me in to some of my own abilities…”

“And then Melsinna found him out,” Alroy came in, finishing the thought. 

“It was a year after that that mother found out about his magic, yes,” Rhyan agreed, “…and I naturally hid any tenancies I had towards it from then afterwards.  In our later years, he would occasionally use the medallions as tethers to ground teleporting spells for small notes to communicate with me…one way, of course, from him to me since I never told him I had magic, and very short distances since his magic is limited.  When he…after he was cursed, father took away most of his things—all of his clothes and weapons—emptying his room, but I retrieved his medallions before his trip.  So long as he’s alive, I have reason to believe he’d keep them on his person if at all possible.”

“Mm…” Alroy pursed his lips, pensive, but he nodded.  “If he still has them, you’re right…they should be able to serve as ample enough of a tether to forge a connection for a seeing spell…”  Then, after a moment’s pause he asked abruptly, “But what about Tercian?  If you have it, then—or, ahh…Myl-”

“As far as I know, Myles is dry,” Rhyan said.

Alroy placed the medallions on the floor, but it failed to hide his frown.  “Very well.  If we’re going to do this, we should-”

“Alroy…”

Alroy spared him a glance.

“It wasn’t anything that father did, was it,” Rhyan said, and despite it being a question in nature, he spoke it as a statement. 

Alroy’s look of discontent deepened, unease filtering in over it.  “I’m…not sure what-”

“When Baisyl was first cursed, father said that it was because of a deal he made,” Rhyan pressed, “…a promise he couldn’t fulfill, but he never said what, or why…”

Alroy pursed his lips.  “Look, kid, I don’t think-”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Rhyan insisted.  “Why target Baisyl?  Why not father directly?  What could anyone hope to gain by such a peculiar curse in whatever case?  Even those who deal in dark magic don’t set about tossing out punishments on the children of those they deal with without hoping to gain something-”

“It wasn’t a matter of-”

“-and I found some of our financial records in father’s office after Baisyl was sent off,” Rhyan barreled on, unwilling to back down.  “Most of the shamans he promised he’d hired months ago that allegedly couldn’t find a cure?  Not a one was listed.  There were three mages that came to see Baisyl in person, Alroy…three, and all of them were familiar, ones that had worked closely with our family before…”

Alroy shut his eyes, fingers lifting to pinch the bridge of his nose.  “What is it you want me to tell you, again?”

“I want you to tell me why father wasn’t even trying to lift the curse!” Rhyan answered.  “It went beyond protecting his image and hording his gold…if I didn’t think I knew better, I’d say he wanted the curse to stay, and-”

“It’s because you’re right, child, alright?” Alroy cut in.  “It has nothing to do with your father.  It wasn’t any wrongdoing on his part…nor was it any wrongdoing of Baisyl’s.  Your brother was just…born to the wrong woman, at the wrong time.”

Rhyan frowned, waiting, but Alroy didn’t elaborate.  “And that’s all you’ll tell me?”

Alroy gave a weary sigh.  “Do you want to do this or not?”

“I do,” Rhyan answered, “…but I also…I know you know these things, and…” At Alroy’s unblinking look, his resolve weakened, the set of his shoulders sinking and the frustration in his features giving way to resigned defeat.  “I just don’t want to be so useless,” he murmured.  “My brother has always been there for me, sheltering me…and now I feel as though the fates have torn him from me and cast him out on some uncut path beyond my reach to Mele knows what end…but that maybe if I knew…”

Hands caught his, leading them out, and Rhyan blinked, startled into silence.  Alroy had workmen’s hands, worn by time and large around his; he placed them at the center of chalk ring, adding the two medallions side by side, half under his fingertips, and Rhyan felt his magic stir, like a curious, sleepy creature within him lifting its head at a familiar smell.

“I’ll tell you later,” Alroy promised, “…but for now rest assured knowing that you don’t need any more information than what you have…and that you are already doing more for your brother than I would have imagined you possibly could.”  He leaned back, mirroring Rhyan’s hand position but on the opposite side, the tips of his fingers folded over the other half of each of the medallions.  “Start when you’re ready, and I’ll train the spell as best as I remember how…”

After another moment, Rhyan gave a short nod and shut his eyes.

To him, ‘summoning’ his magic was not so much that as it was asking for his magic’s help.  He learned early that grappling with it—trying to command it and bend it to his will—exhausted his body as well as his spirit, but when stirred to attention and beguiled into acting almost on its own, he no longer bore the brunt of that burden.  In this case, he tempted it out first with a memory; the medallions made that easy.

Floorboards creak, and sore toes curl in shoes too tight.  Brother’s footsteps make clicking sounds as he walks about the room, back and forth, packing things away.  Too many books to count, it seems.

“…and father promises we’ll be back in but a month’s time,” he’s saying, speaking like he isn’t the least bit afraid. 

Why is Baisyl never afraid? 

Too tight shoes scuff the floorboards, making skid marks on previously perfectly black leather.  Father won’t be pleased if he sees.  A hand comes out of nowhere, lifting gently; the fingers are warm beneath the chin.

“Rhyan-”

“Your books-”

“The servants will pack everything important,” Baisyl says, almost flippantly, as if his studies aren’t as important to him as anything in the world.  “Here, wait there a moment…and close your eyes.  I have something for you.” 

The world goes dark, footsteps clack, a drawer opens, cloth shuffles, something clinks, and the footsteps return.

“Hold out your hands.”

It’s cool to the touch, and heavy, flat, and round—coins?

“And you may open your eyes.”  Baisyl sounds amused.

“The ladies from the statue…”  The words come out on their own in a soft, awed whisper. 

Last time father allowed everyone to accompany him into the city, the carriage rode past a beautiful sculpture of two women in the town square—one of many similar tributes to the great goddess, but one that stood out in particular for some reason.  Baisyl had noticed, too?

“They’re sisters,” Baisyl says.  “They work together and help each other…and they’re never apart for too long.  I have two of the same, see?”  Identical gold medallions glint in the afternoon sunlight when he holds them up.  “This way, even if I’m miles away…we’ll still have a link.  So…” Here, he grins—a quirky, Cheshire look that means he’s about to tease, “…you can stop acting like such a girl about this and quit fretting.  Fair?”

A nod as a blush heats up.  “Fair.”  Baisyl snickers and reaches out, fingers tousling hair around until it blocks off vision and the world squints out of focus again.  “Hey!”

Rhyan caught that moment, latching onto that snapshot of happiness and drawing it out like a tailor spinning thread.  He dangled it before his magic, waiting for it to take the bait and flicker up in answer before weaving it in and feeling it warm and spark to life, growing like a baby fire fed kindling.  After that, he fed it more recent memories, focusing on the tumult of emotions that came with them and siphoning out the most vibrant ones to lace them into the stream of budding magic and strengthen its swell.

Across from him, eyes shut, Alroy tracked the process with fascination, because while Rhyan may well have inherited his magic from a powerful dragon sorceress, he wielded it nothing like any immortal Alroy had ever known. 

Casting spells by drawing off one’s life force was like dipping into a pool—a set amount of stored power within oneself, which came in varying sizes depending on the age and power of the being in question—and using that stream of reserved energy as a channel to house and feed one’s magic as they tossed it about at will like a lion tamer handling their whip.  Mortals rarely inherited the ability to cast because their life pool was so small, dipping into it might mean drying it up.

Rhyan never dipped into his life energy.  Instead, he teased his magic out with something else entirely, building up his fuel and his power source seemingly from scratch, so that instead of working with a solid lake of power—magic woven into something cool, steady, and predictable as a heartbeat—he seemed to be dancing with a fire—magic intertwined with something as wild and fleeting as a lick of flame: powerful, certainly, but volatile, and temporary. 

Once satisfied with the build-up, he started sinking the magic into the medallions and out, into the patterned rune traced across the floor, not so much commanding the magic as offering it a suggestion and then opening a floodgate.  It spilled free accordingly, and seconds after it occurred to Alroy to wonder how he was supposed to train a spell that looked like nothing he’d ever seen, his conscious—like a loose shell on the edge of the shore—was caught up in the surge and drawn out with the tide.

Being caught in a seeing spell was something like having one’s every sense of self except the physical body jerked free of concrete world, reduced into a speck of sea foam, and tossed up into the great heavens. 

All that remained of his sense of direction was a vague notion that Rhyan was ‘beside’ him, though not visible or tangible in any traditional sense of the word, and when the movement stopped, a giant fog surrounded him on all sides.  Above and below, the white-grey mist was unchanging and unbroken but for two, spidersilk-thin threads of faintly pulsing white-blue light that ran through the center and all but endlessly in either direction—Rhyan’s magic, connecting his medallions to those Baisyl held. 

Alroy mentally frowned.

While the two lines at the source on their end came to a point—since the medallions were stacked together where they were—instead of carrying off in a similarly straight direction the opposite way, the magic split, the threads going farther apart the farther away it went, suggesting that…

Baisyl’s medallions were no longer both in the same place? 

Before Alroy got time to think that through further, images began to take shape accompanied by fragments of voices and conversation.

“…are you doing here?”

Kedean’s voice, the recent past, accompanied by the sound of a ship and sails.

“You can’t be here Zy-”

“Oh, no?”  The whistle of wind broke up the voices and images faded in and out.

“…don’t have time to watch you…”

“…not twelve anymore, Dee-”

There, the scene shifted entirely.  It was too early and Rhyan knew it, and while Alroy hadn’t originally planned on following him through the vision, now that he was already sucked in, he opted for sticking with the kid, placing magical markers of his own like stepping stones or breadcrumbs back to the tether as they slid off further into the fog.

“How about…” Baisyl’s voice, clear and clean, and an image, too, of a beautiful woman like a ghost amongst the clouds, an invisible breeze teasing her hair; it took a half second for Alroy to remember that that was Baisyl, “…you wager me a kiss…”

Wait, when was this?

Rhyan’s matching confusion knocked against him, easy to read since sharing a transcended state was something like participating side by side in a dream.  But the image shifted as quickly as it came.

Night settled in around them. 

Two figures stood at the rail of a ship, too far away for their conversation to carry, as if they were birds looking on from above, but Kedean was nearly impossible not to identify immediately, and Alroy recognized Baisyl more quickly this time.  More surprising even than their peaceful coexistence together for no apparent reason in the middle of a starlit night, though, was their body language, readable even from a distance: if Alroy hadn’t known better, he’d have thought they were courting each other, dancing the subtle dance of prospective lovers. 

Kedean and Baisyl got along?

Then, just moments after that thought fully registered, cannon fire sounded, and the situation became immensely more complicated.

As Rhyan’s anxiety spiked, the magic became abruptly more chaotic as if in direct response to his emotional state.  The scenes mingled, flitting about like agitated bees, several of them stacking together at once like miss-layered clips in a picture-show: a pixie woman Alroy didn’t recognize and a swarm of pirates; he saw Kedean fight and fall; Zyric woken, knocked out, and bound; an unconscious Baisyl waking to a lewd, armed man, a scuffle that took only a moment to identify for what it was, and then the same man dead by Baisyl’s hand. 

All through it, he felt every lurch of Rhyan’s fear and disgust as if they were his own until, sharply as a knife blade, something on par only with unbridled fury cut in from an outside source. 

Though it was neither his nor Rhyan’s emotion, it hit Rhyan like the brunt of a tidal wave, overwhelming any remaining focus he had and dragging him off into another time entirely.  It took a concentrated effort on Alroy’s part to catch even a glimpse of the cause: a current event from the immediate present, something pertaining to Melsinna and, not surprisingly, fire.

The connection cut.

Alroy swayed, feeling like a man jerked rudely from a trance—or a coma.  When his vision returned to him, he unfortunately found that Rhyan not only looked significantly worse than he felt, but was also clearly still caught up in the seeing spell: his body aglow as a night bug, collapsed limply on the floor but for incessant trembling, and his teeth grit, expression wreathed in vacillating degrees of pain. 

Swearing aloud to no one, Alroy moved forward, his mind already racing as he gathered the doll-like weight of Rhyan’s body into his arms.  If he snapped the connection unnaturally, there was a risk that Rhyan wouldn’t be able to return properly, but now that Alroy had been knocked out of the spell, it was nearly impossible to be of any direct help without doing just that—if he could even figure out how to work with the sort of wild magic Rhyan was toying with.

How had he let himself be conned into letting the child try this again?

Taking a slow breath and trying not to think about the consequences if things went sour, Alroy shut his eyes and leaned forward, holding Rhyan’s head up behind his neck and touching their foreheads together before murmuring a slow, whispered incantation. 

For all his years, he’d never been much of a scholar—or a sorcerer, for that matter, since the two tended to go hand in hand—so the runes he could draw up from memory were few indeed.  While the degree to which physically drawn runes could hone and empower upper tier spells was undeniably immense, he’d never used them enough to bother memorizing them.  But by now his body was old, and thus the reservoir from which he could draw his magic in a pinch was broad and deep. 

So, though his use of it was still comparatively crude and wasteful—unguided verbal spells being something like using a chipped logger’s hatchet when one really needed a sharpened dirk—his experience with worst-case-scenario incantations to use when necessary was sufficiently extensive, and he could afford the wasted energy.

Seconds later, Rhyan’s lashes flit, trying to lift, but fell flat, like a wounded butterfly attempting to take off only to fall short, back into the dirt, and his back arched, a pained sound escaping his lips.  “Baisyl!  Kill him, he’s trying to kill him…”

The words fell from his mouth as if recited in a mantra, torn between the concrete world and the trance state, and Alroy’s eyes darted open, turning to the boy’s clenched fist when he gripped it tighter to find that he was clutching the medallions like a lifeline.

“Mother’s going to murder the man, she’s going to burn…burn everything…there’s a house on fire and magic like blood, and a girl-”

“Rhyan,” Alroy spoke slowly, warily, trying to guide Rhyan back with his magic as well as the pull of the natural world, “…your mother isn’t here.  You can drop out of the spell now, you’re safe here-”

“When he dies they’ll all be after Baisyl!” Rhyan’s fist clenched tighter and then weakened just briefly enough to allow a single medallion to clink and slide out, knocking up dust as it hit the wood floor and rolled, spinning on one edge. 

“Rhyan-”

Rhyan’s fingers closed back around the remaining medallion, and Alroy felt the pulse of magic, but not in time to stop it.  Thus, when it snapped the connection, burning through the thread of binding magic like a surge of too much energy through a wire, he watched helplessly as it recoiled in the wrong direction—and took Rhyan with it. 

In a fraction of a second, the space filled moments before with a living, breathing sixteen year old boy emptied, the remaining medallion finished its spinning and clattered flat against the wood, and the soft glow in the runes traced across the floor flit out, their power source cut. 

Alroy threw metaphorical walls around the surge of panic and guilt that immediately rose up, shoving the useless and counterproductive reaction down in a by now well-practiced maneuver, and shut his eyes instead, calling the fallen medallion to his palm.  He squinted one eye back open to glower at it when it arrived, letting his magic seep into it and reading the spells already cast on it.

‘He would occasionally use the medallions as tethers to ground teleporting spells for small notes to communicate with me…short distances since his magic is limited…’

Teleporting spells indeed.  It was a grounding pad for porting spells—as well as a two-way mood ring, a sponge for storing magical energy if one needed an outlet, and a pretty coin to boot.

Alroy sighed.  Best case scenario?  Rhyan had panicked, overpowered the dormant porting spell ingrained in the medallion, and unintentionally transferred himself hundreds of miles across the continent and into his brother’s waiting arms.

Worst case scenario…?

After a fleeting mental image of Rhyan’s soul being ripped from his body, transported to an alternate dimension and violently fought over by demonic life-eaters from the shadowy abyss, Alroy cut off that train of thought.

He’d be more fortunate if the magic failed to pull all the way through and delivered him several thousand feet above a forest instead.  At least he’d die quickl-

“Hell,” Alroy snarled at nothing, and swung his hand out, throwing an angry magical kiss of death to an unwitting spider halfway across the room.  “No,” he snapped at its corpse, “…I haven’t done anything wrong…not unless you count aiding my youngest nephew in teleporting himself to Mele knows where and probably splitting his intestines across-”

Someone banged on his door, forcefully enough to shake it at its hinges, and Alroy shut his eyes once more.  Clearly, the fates had ordained that this was not to be a good day.  Determined not to screw anything up further, though, he shoved down the plethora of possible curse words applicable for the situation, tossed a quick concealment spell over the medallion before shoving it in his pocket, and stood. 

Reaching out, he grabbed the first container of alcohol in reach with anything in it, tossed enough into his mouth to leave a smell, and sloshed it around his gums and over and under his tongue as he chucked what remained to the ground, giving the throw enough force to ensure that the cheap glass shattered.  The liquid poured cooperatively out, sopping up the greater half of the markings on the floor, and he scuffed his foot through the rest, making sure that nothing recognizable remained before donning his best drunken leer and heading towards the door.

He reached it just in time to have his ‘guest’ pay him the courtesy of opening it for him.

---

A/N: Those two scenes were not supposed to take up the entire chapter.  Unfortunately (as usual) content that I thought I could cover in two to three thousand words took almost seven thousand words to get through, and...yeah.  So that's it.  BUT, we will have appearances by drunken Baisyl and sober Kedean next chapter, I promise. 

And hopefully this chapter at least answers a lot of plot questions, yeah?  :D  (Now we know who sent those demon things, what the demon things were, a lot more about how Rhyan's magic works, what the hell Baisyl was talking about when he said "Cecil and Rye" way back in chapter two, a little more about Alroy's relationship with the Merseille's, etc..)  If I was a smarter writer I'd have found some place to drop the proper hint on who picked up the other medallion earlier on, but maybe you can guess (because, um, no, Rhyan is NOT going to end up with Baisyl...or lost in the shadowy abyss of another demension, just in case you were wondering). 

And I'm thinking about creating an email group for update announcements, now that my writing is slowing down, whatcha think?  x.x

P.S.  When Valen called Melsinna his "brood sister" he did not mean it in the sense that they were actually related.  It's more like the "Hail, brother/comrad..." kind of thing.  Dragons of about the same age and status will refer to each other as brother/sister when greeting them without being related by blood.