"You would do well to realize when it is wise to speak, and when it is wise to keep your misguided opinions to yourself." Keera spoke softly, watching the retreating back of the interesting boy from such a small part of the Kingdom.
"You don't actually believe he could be of any worth do you? Yes the boy has a wolf Familiar, but it has obviously been a mistake. The scrolls only speculate what having a Wolf Familiar means. Looking at that boy, it's obvious that all of the tales are just legends. Very wild ideas, written by very old men." Lybell argued as he got himself down from his horse's back, the horse wouldn't stay still for long so Lybell cursed and smacked the poor animal's side.
The horse whinnied and tried to pull away, but Lybell held the reins securely in his fist.
"Are you really that blind?" Ashling hopped off Stormrider with ease. "The power in 'that boy' as you call him, is staggering. I heard from the man at the stables that he started a whole forest fire before bringing a rainstorm just to put it out."
"And you trust the words of a stableman trying to pawn off an orphan?" Lybell's sneer twisted his pretty face until all of what had made him pretty disappeared. "You know that each mage only has one affinity. If he had called the fire, then the rain was merely a coincidence."
Keera was the last to dismount as she watched her sister and Lybell stand toe to toe and glare at each other. The two never did get along.
"Do you even know who his mother was?" Ashling insisted, her hands balled into fists. Keera was almost sure that her sister was only a few more words from punching the man in the face. She couldn't decide yet if she would stop the fight or just allow it to play out. Lybell was much too stupid to be allowed a free pass.
"Does it really matter in the end? Magic doesn't care about the family, it embraces the person."
"Whoever taught you should be kicked out of the Academy! The ability to use magic runs in bloodlines as far back as we can remember! That's why Wizards exist beside Mages!"
"Then enlighten me, great scholar, what lineage does that boy carry?"
Ashling's anger suddenly stilled. Her eyes going wide as she looked at Lybell in surprise.
"You really do not know?" She asked, feeling slightly unbalanced by such a foible within Lybell. To not even bother finding out who they would be retrieving, Lybell had volunteered for the journey. He'd come specifically to prove to Voniya that he was ready to take the Mastery Exams. How had Voniya even allowed the man to tag along without any knowledge at all?
"You really should shut your mouth before it begins to actually smell like you're speaking from your ass." Voniya's voice was hard as her eyes took in both Lybell and Ashling.
Lybell turned his glare to her, not backing down on this. Voniya was the only one who could see the doubt in his eyes, like he had gotten something vital very very wrong, but was too proud to allow the mistake to be seen. Voniya felt for the man in some ways. A noble man's son through and through.
"Haylen Sinclair." Keera was the one who spoke now, stepping away from her mount to join the party of four making a spectacle of themselves right in front of a random inn.
Lybell's entire body stiffened.
Voniya could see the exact moment when it really sank in. She refused to feel sorry for the man, he was the one who had gone into a situation blind, but she understood why his eyes looked as if they were trying to escape his head.
Haylen Sinclair had been the youngest Mage to ever become a Master. Her power had been legendary, The Great Battle-Raven, they had called her. She had renounced her seat as a Master to join in the frontier wars against the Darkins as Delegate between Mages and the battlemen, only to have her Familiar die during the final battle that pushed the Darkins into Hel's Forest at the very edge of their new Academy. Instead of laying down and dying like any other Mage would have done upon the death of her Familiar, she made a pact with one of the Warriors and maintained balance within her magic insuring that her own power would not tear her apart from inside, going on to become an adviser to the King and a Tactician in his counsel. Afterwords she retired from that post and the word spread through the Mages that she had finally died of a magical backlash. The only case of a human being used as a magical vessel had been deemed unsuccessful.
Lybell himself had been very young during the Darkin Wars, but his beloved older sister had died in the battle, and Master Haylen had been the one to bring his sisters body back so that the family had something to bury. Lybell could see her face in his mind, she'd looked so young and grief stricken as she bowed to his father, giving him and Lybell both her deepest condolences and insuring that Nina had been a strong Mage until the very end.
Lybell remembered feeling as if his world was collapsing around him, only to have Haylen Sinclair herself wrap her arms around his body as he sobbed into her shoulder.
"She spoke of you often." Haylen had murmured into his ear. "The Mark you bare on your arm, she thinks it'll be a raven, just like mine. Treat her well if it is. She will never abandon you."
And with those words Haylen had released him and left. She had been maybe twenty two or twenty three at the time. While Lybell had only been seven years old.
Ten years later, she disappeared.
"Do you understand now?" Keera asked, her hand coming to squeeze his shoulder briefly, as if she had seen the memory of that moment along with him. Lybell actually believed that she may have, Keera and Ashling had never explained how Keera's Seer powers worked.
"So he is Master Sinclair's son." Lybell muttered, his emotions subduing his earlier anger.
"He is." Voniya answered. She had done her research thoroughly, only to discover that the Village in which the magical flare had come from had been Haylen's birth village. After that, it didn't take long to align the pieces of the puzzle. She'd known who she would find there when they had set off on the journey. She had not been completely prepared for Lian Fury though, that is for sure.
"He is Haylen Sinclair's son, has a wolf Familiar, came into his powers at fifteen, and carries himself like a Warrior." Ashling listed, lifting a finger for each point on her right hand. "To believe that he is anything but special is just stupid."
Lybell felt his scowl return as he rounded on Ashling. "None of that proves anything. His power may have spiked, but he has not yet reached full maturity. He is nothing but a child!"
"A child he may be, but even the Counsel wants him under the Academy roof." Voniya cut in. "Everyone will be watching closely to see what becomes of that child, and the Counsel has chosen us as his guardians, Lybell, you yourself volunteered to come."
Lybell didn't answer, though Voniya could guess why.
He had volunteered for a retrieval mission only to be told that the boy would require more of them than just an escort. In an attempt to gain favor with the Counsel and hopefully ascend to the title of Master without first venturing into Hel's Forest for his final exam, Lybell had burdened himself with a much tougher responsibility.
"He has nothing left." Keera said somberly, all her earlier amusement leeched away. All three of her companions turned to look at her, all of them taking her words to heart but reacting vastly different. Lybell scowled, Voniya frowned, and Ashling nodding. "Haylen died during the night and he was left to find her body. It was what had unleashed his magic."
Voniya gasped and Lybell reared back, but Ashling stared at Keera with hard, unwavering eyes.
"So you saw?" Ashling asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
Keera looked at her sister and sighed. Every time they spoke of her visions, Ashling would get that same look on her face.
"I have. The first time it happened, the night the Counsel had felt the surge of power, about seven days ago, he had gotten attacked by older boys and-" Keera paused. She wanted to tell them about what she'd seen, about the wounds on the boys back by a knife wielded in anger and insanity. But she could not. Lian had been protective of it, violently so. She would not share such a secret with anyone, it was much too private. "And Haylen used her unstable powers to restrain his own."
"She sacrificed herself." Voniya deduced. They all looked down, allowing themselves a moment of silence for the great Mage. They had all been warned of the consequences of a Mage who'd lost their Familiar. Despite having believed she'd died much earlier than she actually had, the loss of one of their greatest Masters was still a blow to the Mages.
"You don't think Lian knows, do you?" Ashling asked with a small frown.
"He does not." Keera answered.
"Doesn't he deserve to know?" Lybell insisted. "He should know that it was his fault his mother died the way she did."
"It was not his fault!" Voniya insisted. "No one is to tell him. It will be a topic during his training and I do not doubt he will put the pieces together, but by then time would have dulled the wound. None of us will tell him."
Lybell sneered at her, but nodded his head anyways. Ashling looked at Keera before nodding as well. Voniya didn't bother getting an agreement from Keera.
"Let's go get a room." Voniya sighed, tugging on Lybell's arm. "Ashling, go grab the boy. We have an early day tomorrow."
No one noticed the shadow skulking away from the side of the inn.
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