Why the fuck did I say that? Drazaria thought, shoving his hands in his pockets as he headed for his base. He knew Jonoor was lurking in the shadows somewhere, but he was pretty sure the Knife wouldn’t attack him too close to the inn. Which gave him a moment alone with his thoughts.

It was true, though - he had been a good kid. Vallas’s dutiful and grateful ward. And before that, the gravedigger’s kid. Never causing trouble, always doing what he was told… he hadn’t even been a troublemaker in his mercenary days, or even-

He shook his head violently - no, he wasn’t going to think about that.

When Drazaria reached the distance he thought Jonoor would deem acceptable, he was surprised by Vasskr merging from the surrounding forest.

“There you are,” his brother said, stepping closer.

Drazaria cast a look around them and signed, <<Here to lecture me again? Jonoor is skulking nearby for a fight.>>

<<What did you- >> Vasskr paused, then shook his head, <<No, I’m sure they were looking for a fight.>>

<<Bold of you to say that in front of them,>> the sorcerer chuckled.

<<And I didn’t come to lecture you,>> his brother signed, <<I came to warn you - the Royal Sorcerer intends to visit the Temple next week.>>

Drazaria grimaced, <<Well, thanks for that, then.>>

<<Of course,>> Vasskr replied, then added, <<Though it’s me that should be thanking you.>>

<<For what?>> the sorcerer asked - he knew his brother meant for saving his life, but that was something Drazaria didn’t need thanks for.

Vasskr sighed, then said softly, “You aren’t in good condition for a fight.”

<<I’ll decide that for myself,>> Drazaria rolled his eyes, <<Now go on so I can have it out.>>

<<If that’s what you want,>> his brother shook his head, <<Good luck, Zawn.>>

<<My luck’s never been good,>> the sorcerer snorted.

“Then you’re overdue,” Vasskr replied, reaching out to clasp his shoulder for a moment before leaving.

Drazaria rolled his eyes again at the sentimentality, then let his head loll onto his shoulder as he called out, “Aren’t you supposed to be pretending I don’t exist?”

“You were never actually exiled,” Jonoor said, stepping out from behind a tree and drawing their four daggers, “Though I can’t imagine why.”

Because I never actually did anything wrong, the sorcerer thought, but instead of saying so twisted around by letting his head fall more over his shoulder and following it, “Well, we’ve lost our audience - going to fight me, or what?”

“Fight you?” Jonoor scoffed, twirling the daggers around their fingers by the circular handles, “No. I’m going to kill you like Vasskr should have done just now.”

Drazaria grinned, bringing his hands out of his pockets and coating them in red attack magic, “Oh, I’m so scared.”

Jonoor scoffed again, grabbing all their blades and charging, “You can’t even beat a bunch of teenagers!”

People really like to point that out, the sorcerer thought, just before he charged to meet his opponent. He could feel the grin splitting his face - he felt dangerous, like he was a morningstar; sharp from every angle but made to smash rather than cut. It was his favorite feeling, really.

Drazaria put up a reactive barrier around the rest of his body and ignored the knives as they bounced off of him anyway, enhancing his strength as he swiped at Jonoor directly, letting lashes of attack magic fly off rather than hold them in.

The Knife twisted and stumbled back in surprise to avoid the blows, immediately forced on the defensive. They ducked and dodged and parried, unable to get a blow in themself.

Drazaria kept on them, laughing in a heady rush of magic claw swipes and attack-bladed kicks as he easily broke through Jonoor’s defense and started laying into them directly. He didn’t kill them - Jonoor didn’t know the truth, so they didn’t deserve that. But the sorcerer did beat them senseless, feeling less hollow as he stood over the assassin’s unconscious body and caught his breath.

After losing to the kids so spectacularly and almost getting himself killed, he’d been worried he was losing his edge - beating Jonoor assured him he hadn’t.

Drazaria huffed and released his magic, putting his hands in his pockets and turning away - now it was really time to get back to his base. Jonoor would no doubt rouse in a few hours and limp their way back to the inn to lick their wounds, and the weather was mild enough not to cause any more damage. So the sorcerer whistled a jaunty tune off-key as he left, wondering if he would need to be more vigilant on his next visit to the inn.

Drazaria took the week avoiding the Royal Sorcerer to train Owal and Heline. Both were entirely too enthusiastic about it.

“Jax and their friends have been training together, so they have good coordination as a team,” the sorcerer opened with, “We don’t have time for that right now - so our goal will be to instigate one-on-one battles and stay out of each other’s way.”

“Sounds good to me,” Owal purred, feeding thons hawk a bit of meat, “I’m guessing I should focus on Kendra?”

“Yeah,” Drazaria agreed, “You’re both trained combatants already, so it’s a good match-up.”

“Oh,” Heline sighed, deflating, “I suppose Tedi and I are both inexperienced combat mages, so that’s also a good match-up.”

“Leaving Jax and the Companion to me,” Drazaria confirmed, cracking his neck, “Owal, you know your strengths already - train with that hawk if you plan to use it for this week.”

“Her name is Miss Prettyfeathers,” the vanin teen replied, then cooed, “Isn’t that right, Miss Prettyfeathers?”

Drazaria rolled his eyes as the hawk actually seemed to nuzzle the teen’s nose in agreement. Then he turned to Heline, “As for you, let’s work on that inexperience.”

“You’re going to train me to use magic?” she asked, lighting up immediately.

“Just so no one gets hurt,” the sorcerer replied, holding up a finger so she didn’t get her hopes up about being his… apprentice or something.

“Right!” Heline said, looking no less starry-eyed for the correction.

Drazaria had learned a bit about illusion magic - from Heline’s mother, no less - but discovered the teen both knew more and had little interest in using it. Still, he insisted on running her through a few drills to show her its combat advantages - whether or not she used it would be up to her, but he wanted to make sure she at least knew how to if she needed it. Then, he went into the basics of using attack magic. 

“At your level, you’ll want to focus on blasts,” he explained, forming a ball of attack magic over his palm.

“What about the way you use attack magic?” Heline asked, even as she held her hands together to try and copy him.

“If you lose control of attack magic while it’s right up against your body, it’ll feedback on you directly,” Drazaria replied, and carefully held out his own ball of attack magic, “Here, for now, get a feel for it by taking control of this one.”

Heline nodded, accepting the attack magic and concentrating to hold it together.

Drazaria stretched and sat on the ground, continuing to explain, “At least when you lose control of a blast, it hits something that isn’t you. If you feel you’re losing control of that one, toss it - I charged it enough for ten minutes otherwise.”

The pelatia teen nodded, three eyes all squinted in concentration.

It took several tries before she could hold an attack magic ball for the full ten minutes and several more before she could form her own wobbly ball of attack magic. Drazaria kept her focused on just that for the first few days - it was how he’d been trained, back on Oralie. At least, it was how he remembered it - Trainer having him and all the kradreen kids around his age in the practice grounds learning the basics. The first time he’d met Jonoor had been on the practice grounds - it had been exciting. The first time he’d met another kid like him. His first friend in Oralie.

Lot of good it did him now.

When Heline could form and maintain her own attack magic for ten minutes with relative ease, Drazaria had her start aiming at a target ten feet away. Until she could hit it ten times in a row, he banned her from using it in actual combat - her vines worked well enough for that against an opponent like Tedi.

When she wasn’t working on attack magic, he had her holding a defensive barrier around herself - first for ten minutes as well, then for thirty. For now, the bare basics would have to do - honestly, they were the majority of what was used in combat anyway. Bigger spells tended to take too much time and concentration compared to powerful simple spells.

At the end of the week, he was satisfied enough with her progress to risk real combat.

As usual, he went to the Temple and jumped down from the top of the gorge to the floating platforms below. Owal was able to follow easily, and Heline used vines to drop down from the edge.

“Sheesh, you’d think they’d have a lookout or something…” Owal muttered, holding out thon arm for the hawk to land on it.

“Guardian!” Drazaria called out, ignoring thon, “I’ve come to challenge you for Swordheart.”

“Whoa,” Owal said, having to shift thons stance for balance as the floating platforms came together as a whole.

Drazaria rolled his eyes, watching the teens pour out of the Temple.

Vasskr, as always, was at the rear - and quickly hid the small smile seeing Owal and Heline with his brother prompted.

Drazaria grimaced, He’ll never let me live this down.

“I thought you didn’t need any help?” Kendra said mockingly as she took a fighting stance near Jax, weighted staff at the ready.

“We can barely hold him off by himself…” Tedi muttered, shifting his weight like he wasn’t sure how he should stand, “But at least we aren’t in a pocket dimension this time…”

Has Vasskr still not found that kid a trainer? Drazaria wondered.

“Oh he doesn’t need our help,” Owal quipped back, “We just wanted in on the fun of beating some goody-goodies.”

“Th-that’s right,” Heline agreed, having vines grow out of the jars of dirt she had strapped around her waist.

“He’d have to beat us first,” Kendra said, sticking out her tongue at the vanin teen.

Drazaria rolled his eyes at the banter - teenagers.

Jax seemed… conflicted. They looked at Drazaria, Owal, and Heline - then back at Vasskr.

Vasskr ignored the look, standing calm and resolute.

Yeah, he’s annoyingly good at that, isn’t he? Drazaria thought and barked out, “Are we fighting or not, Guardian?”

“Right,” Jax sighed - then held up a hand and called out, “By the might of the cosmos, I accept your challenge!”

Their blue armor formed, staff appearing in Jax’s hand as the barrier around the platform fell around them.

Here we go, Drazaria thought and charged forward.

As planned, Owal and his hawk disappeared, only to pop up next to Kendra. Heline ran closer, but only just in range of attacking Tedi, which left Jax and their Companion open and Drazaria undistracted.

The sorcerer came in swinging heavy - barriered arms and legs as he struck and kicked, dodging and parrying the Companion’s antlers while Jax…

“Why do you even wantSwordheart?” they asked, blocking another blow. It was all they were doing - blocking and dodging and watching Kendra and Tedi with one eye each.

“Why not?” Drazaria demanded, grabbing the staff and using it to balance as he aimed a kick at the teen’s middle.

Jax swung him around, grabbing the sorcerer’s ankle with one of their tails to throw him off, “You saved Vasskr.”

Drazaria scoffed, rolling to his feet and jumping out of the way of the Companion’s antlers, “Is that what you think?”

“He saved you,” they charged tact, uncertain, “Or tried to…”

The sorcerer charged in again, grabbing the staff and using enough force to knock the Guardian back into the perimeter barrier.

Jax hissed in a breath, wincing at the kickback from the barrier.

“I want Swordheart so I can use it to steal the Basin,” Drazaria hissed, “And once I have, I plan to bring that stupid castle to the ground. Right after I kill that smug bastard of a Royal Sorcerer.”

The Guardian’s eyes went wide in surprise; all six focused on their opponent now.

“Stop trying to sympathize with me, Guardian,” Drazaria threatened, “I’m not a good person - I wouldn’t be here if I was.”

Need something to read while waiting for the next chapter? Check out these other AF Tourney entires below! (Links in description.)