In one night he had lost everything that mattered to him. He’d lost his mother, lost his home, and lost his chance at joining the Warrior’s Guild. They may allow him to test for a trainee’s spot in two days, but by King’s law his magic marked him as a warrant of the Academy, especially now without his mother to sign his custody over to the Guild. If the Guild were to accept him, they, as well as he, would be breaking an Alliance Law.
Yet despite so much loss, he had also gained something.
Fenrir.
Lian looked down at the wolf, resting peacefully on his lap, the furry body warm against his side and his back where Fenrir pressed against him.
Something inside him hummed in contentment despite everything that had happened in the last week and a half of his life.
Was this what mother felt? To have a Familiar? It’s like finally finding a missing part of my soul, when I hadn’t even known it was missing.
“It is not always this way.”
The voice in his head startled Lian. When he looked down at the wolf again, he found deep blue eyes staring straight into his.
“Familiars are not an extension of Mages. No matter what the teachings say. We have our own hearts, our own personalities. This feeling that you feel, I feel it too, but it is not always this way.”
“Then how is it? Usually?” Lian asked, curious despite himself.
A small snort pushed air against his stomach and Fen curled up.
“It usually takes time for a Mage to learn a Familiar. I have heard that most cannot even communicate. A connection takes trust and time to build, but this had to be so for both sides.”
Lian closed his eyes and laid his head to the side, sinking further into a slouch so he could rest his head on the simple wooden bed frame behind him. “Then what about us is different than the usual?”
“I do not know for sure.” Fenrir answered, not sounding as if he particularly cared.
“Well then tell me how you got here. How did you know where to find me?”
“The ley lines guide us to our partners. Magic pulls our instincts in a certain direction. We feel it all our lives, but it is only when the magic awakens inside the Magic user, that we can finally locate our charges. For many of us, it feels like finding our way home.”
“You keep speaking as if you’ve been around a lot of Familiars.” Lian’s hands moved over Fen’s fur as they spoke. Soothing them both in this weird twilight moment.
“I have spoken to my share. There are many Magic users, and many Familiars wondering around looking for their own charges. A Familiar lives for the turn of eighteen seasons before they are called home. I must admit, I was surprised when, only sixteen seasons into my life, the call came for me.”
Lian furrowed his brows, but didn’t bother to open his eyes. The tea in his other hand forgotten as he lost himself in the conversation and his exhaustion.
“But I didn’t call for you.”
“You do not call. Your magic does. We come when we are needed, when those entrusted to us finally awaken.”
“So you found me last night? You were there just when I needed you.” Affectionately, Lian squeezed the back of Fen’s powerful neck, causing a small grumble in the wolf’s throat.
“Not last night. The call came eight moons ago. I heard, and finally knew where to find my charge. So I began to make my way to you.” Fenrir’s head came off of Lian’s lap, and Lian’s eyes opened slowly to find the wolf’s gaze on him. “I was too far to be there when you needed me the first time. For that I am sorry, but I had much to learn before I could come for you, and I believed I still had time to learn what I could.”
“Where were you, Fen? You speak as if you’ve spent your whole life waiting for my magic to call you.” Was that how it was for Familiars? They could not be normal animals.
“I was in many places. I was born in the snow, a territory of hard times. I was the only pup to survive our first winter.”
“You were born in a pack then? Like a normal wolf?” Lian’s curiosity burned bright in the chaos of his life. He wasn’t ready to deal with the fallout of all that happened, but he would always be ready for a good story.
“I was. My mother was an Alpha female. She led our pack. She was rare for her kind. A lone Alpha female without the protection of a male, would fall under the claws of a more powerful pack, but there was no weakness in my mother. When she was carrying her first litter, she made her way north, to the snow mountains were the territory is not kind to wolf packs. Yet she led her pack with strength and survived the snows. Still, her first litter died that season. I am of her second, and I am all that is left of my pack.”
Lian didn’t know how, but he could feel a deep aching sadness in the wolf. An ache that his own heart echoed loudly and in perfect harmony. “How did they die?” he asked softly.
Sad blue eyes made Lian’s heart squeeze in his chest.
“Humans lived in the mountains. My mother didn’t know of humans, she was wild and free. A traveled wolf if I’d ever met one. Yet it was the first time any of my pack had seen humans. The grown wolves fought, but they did not win. I was small at the time, and I would have died too, but there was a Magic user with the humans. When he found me, he took me from the snow.”
Fenrir’s head laid back down on Lian’s nap and the wolf closed his eyes, as if thinking about the next part of his tale.
“This Magic user spoke to me a lot. His own Guardian was a Lynx, and together the two revealed to me what I was and why I was born. Magic users do not kill Guardians, because it would have been so very easy for their own Guardians to have been killed before meeting. I would not be the first Guardian that Magic user found, but I was by far the most curious.
“Seasons passed by and I slowly picked up human language. Guardians can speak to other Guardians but never to Magic users who are not their charges. I knew that someday I would meet my own charge, and I wanted to know how to communicate with them. I’ve traveled many places in the turn of sixteen seasons. I’ve seen many Guardians find their charges, seen many Guardians killed before they could ever meet their Magic user. But with every step of my journey, I was always pulled in this direction. I thought I had more time. I thought I had more things to learn. I am sorry I did not come sooner.”
A part of Lian warmed at the wolf’s mournful tone. This strange little wolf had been making his way to Lian ever since he was born. Learning things that could possibly, someday help his Mage. Fenrir had cared about Lian before Lian had ever known what he was.
“Don’t apologize. I’m glad for all that you’ve learned. I am glad to be able to talk to you like this.”
“Many Guardian’s communicate in images and emotions. I wanted to do more than that. I was not killed that night because I had a purpose. That was the only thing that mattered to me. Like my mother before me, I would give my all if it helped in my purpose.”
Lian smiled. The expression felt frail and weak, but it was a smile none the less. His mother had been right. She may be gone, but he was not alone.
“What now, then?” Lian found himself asking. “You’ve followed this path all the way to me. What do we do now?” He could almost hear the desperation in his own voice, and he was sure that Fenrir could feel it.
His entire life he’d had his own purpose. Becoming a Warrior just like his father. It had been his dream since he was old enough to understand what it meant to dream. Yet now. He didn’t know. Everything was broken, everything fractured and undefined. Where would he go now?
“The Mages will come.”
“What?” Lian’s attention snapped taught like a rope pulled from both sides.
“A display of power like yours would have attracted more attention than merely mine. The Oracles would have felt your power awaken. They will send Mages to collect you. It is what they do every time a new Magic user awakens. They are likely almost here, it has been many moons since the first awakening.”
Lian suddenly couldn’t breathe.
Mages were coming for him. They would take him away from the Guild, claim him as some sort of property of the Academy. He wouldn’t be able to become a Warrior.
Even though this was something he had already known with his head, the facts had not yet struck his heart. Not until he’d known that Mages were already on their way.
“I’m not going with them.” Lian whispered. Defiant even though he knew he had no choice. “I am going to find a way to Kyro, and I am going to join the Warrior’s Guild.”
Fenrir’s head once again came up and his eyes locked into Lian’s, piercing the panic inside until it held still. Calmed but not gone.
“I have seen those with power, yet unable to control it. They harm those around them, not because they want to, but because they do not know how to control it. Power much be trained, or it will burn as bright as it did this day. Will you be able to dive into battle as a Warrior, and only harm those you oppose?” Fenrir’s voice was soft. It did not reprimand, nor did it judge. Fenrir was speaking as a fighter who has seen what the cost of battle takes to pay.
Lian knew the wolf was right, but he couldn’t, he wouldn’t give up on his dreams. His father’s legacy. He would show everyone the kind of Warrior a Lion of Fury really was. He had to.
“I can’t become a Mage, Fenrir.” Lian whispered. “I just can’t.”
Drawing his knees up, Lian crossed his arms on them and bowed his head into the hallow circle.
The wolf beside him rose on four paws, pressing his muzzle into the side of Lian’s head and huffing into his hair.
“You were born a Magic user, but it does not define how you will fight.” Fen’s words caused a stutter in Lian’s tight chest. “A Warrior does not merely fight with a sword. There are a range of weapons to use in a battle field. Your power is merely another choice. You must learn to control it, this is true, but no one can keep a Warrior from battle.”
Lian’s head snapped up as understanding dawned.
“Can I learn control in two years?” He asked softly, not daring to put too much hope on slim possibilities.
“I do not know. But you’ve mastered harder tasks in shorter time, have you not?” Fen’s eyes were shining as they stared into his own. Lian could feel the hope bubbling up despite himself.
He was a Warrior, he would always be one, but law said that every child with Awakened Magic would be collected by the Academy. It never said how long the Academy would keep these children. Lian had always thought that Mages would stay under the influence of the Counsel until they died, but Fenrir had spoken of a Mage in the Northern Winter Mountains, just at the edge of Verran territory. No Academy Mage would have a valid reason for traveling that far North when the Academy was to the East.
He would go with the Mages that’d come. He would learn all he could, as fast as he could. When the time came, he would flee the Academy and make his way to Kyro. There was nothing stopping him from becoming a Warrior then.
“This will be our path, Fenrir.” Lian said, his hand coming up the grab a fist full of the coarse fur at the side of Fenrir’s neck. “We were both born with a Warrior’s heart.”
Eyes sparkling with glee, Fenrir throw his head back and howled.
The sound was new and thrilling, vibrating Lian’s very bones in the small confines of the hut. Lian felt the sound in his chest and just like his Familiar, Lian tipped his head back, took a deep breath and sang a wolf’s song.
Lian wasn’t sure if he imagined it, but somewhere in the sky, among the howls that filled the room around them, Lian heard the cry of a Raven.
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