Pain. Pain bloomed inside Lian. Full, his body was too full, his heart struggled to pump so much blood through his body, his mind was stuffed with cotton and his limbs wouldn't move with so much tension. He was holding too much power.
"You idiot!"
Fenrir? Lian could hear his Guardian, could feel the wolf approaching, fast and worried.
"You need to pass to me, you need to balance the power!"
Balance. That's what was wrong. There was too much inside him, too much power and energy. His skin crackled with it, his core humming in an attempt to vent some of this buzzing magic.
"Lian, before your heart stops, please, balance us."
The closer Fenrir got, the more Lian could feel the uneven weight of their cores. His was heavier than Fen's, his body struggling to come to terms with such an imbalance.
Finally, after what felt like long minutes, Fenrir was finally within range. Their connection snapped into existence, two lakes finally breaking through the dam that had blocked them from each other. Just as water would flow from one to the other, so did the energy Lian had held inside. Balance was struck and the relief was instant.
A loud gasp escaped Lian's lips as he struggled to fill his lungs with air. He hadn't realised he'd stopped breathing until he'd taken that sharp breath. His chest burned and his eyes watered. His body hurt from a fatigue he was unused to. His training sessions had never left him with this kind of pain. It wasn't a physical thing, but Lian could feel it anyways.
"What did you do?"
Finally hearing the voice, ocean blue eyes turned to see who was in the stables with him.
Ashling.
Her expression was a mix between awe and horror, there was a plate of food on the ground in front of her and she wasn't moving.
"I don't know." Lian answered anyways, his voice a mere whisper he'd had to push out of his tight throat.
A second later, Fenrir burst into the stables, his strides long as he rushed toward Lian without stop. Lian almost didn't have time to brace for his Guardian's momentum.
Fenrir slammed into Lian's chest and the fighter grunted as his back hit the ground hard.
"You're an idiot! Don't absorb energies without your Guardian around! You aren't a vessel, you can't hold more than you were made for, you can't tip the balance! What were you thinking! I am made to balance your power, I am made to hold what you cannot, I am made to absorb and share, it is through me the energy should come!"
Fenrir was pissed, but his coarse tongue was quick on its swipes against Lian's face. Just as quick as his harsh words.
"I'm sorry." Lian whispered breathlessly. "I didn't know what I was doing, I just reacted. I had to do something, it couldn't be like the forest again. I couldn't let everything burn again."
Squinting an eye open from under Fenrir's attack, Lian gazed at Ashling.
Confusion and fear warred against each other on her face. She'd never seen a Mage do what Lian had done. He understood that on a general level. Yet, he wasn't sure exactly what he'd done. He'd absorbed the flames that had begun to burn the surrounding hay in the sables, but he wasn't sure how he'd done it. It had almost felt as if the energy within the fire wanted to be connected to his own flow of energy. Like multiple drops on a glass window, as a drop rolls down it combines with the drops in its path seamless expanding itself into one.
"You-you are a Fire Mage." Ashling murmured, confusion winning out in the end. "But you- what you did shouldn't be possible."
"I couldn't let it burn." Lian admitted. "I couldn't let everything burn again." They were the same words he'd spoken to Fenrir, his simple truth. He would have done anything to stop the hungry flames.
Lian couldn't move with Fenrir's weight holding him down. The wolf had stopped licking him, but he refused to get off of Lian, insisting that if he did, his charge would do something stupid again. So the fighter was stuck staring at Ashling from his spot on the stable ground. He didn't know what conclusion she would draw from his action, didn't even know what she was thinking, but he needed to make sure she didn't know about his affinities.
"I'm a Fire Mage." He lied. It wasn't the smoothest, but it seemed to work when Ashling's eyes cleared from their haze and she nodded her head.
"Right." She breathed. "It's a shame, I would have chosen you as an apprentice if you'd been an Air Mage instead."
"Thank you for the consideration." He intoned, relieved to hear her joking.
"I was supposed to bring ye food, but ye've ruined that now." She eyed the bowl of soup she'd dropped on the ground. "That was the last of the cook's best soup." Ashling sounded forlorn making Lian huff out a small laugh.
"I'll live, thank you. Violet filled the pack she gave me with some provisions, I won't go hungry this morning." Lian soothed.
Ashling nodded. "That was yer teacher, yeah?"
For a second, Lian heard the familiarity of her accent. It was a subtle version of Annia'Teitori's, a thinner veil over her words than the Fae had.
"Yes. She was my teach for a good portion of my life. My mother and father as well as some of my father's men were known to instruct me on any range of subjects." He couldn't help a small smirk as he thought of the men who would often seek him out to instruct him on the proper use of their favorite weapons. Many of her father's men were trained first in swords-work, but their passions usually ran on a wide spectrum of weaponry."
"Well, we'll be stopping by the shopping district to prepare for the journey ahead. You can replenish your supplies there. Our next Inn will come in Trens, it's the closest town to Hyden. Between here and Trens is a four days ride, then it's two days to Hyden and the Academy."
Lian noted how Ashling avoided mention of his mother, despite how famous Lian now knew she was.
"Don't worry about me. Fenrir can hunt for what we need."
Ashling gave him a weird look before nodding again. She was quite for a second as Lian finally managed to get Fenrir to back off. As he was pulling himself to his feet, she spoke again.
"About Lybell-" she began, but Lian was quick to cut him off.
"Whatever happens between me and Lybell will remain between the two of us. I would kindly appreciate it if you and Voniya could respect that simple fact. He attacked me and my Guardian would have retaliated had I not stopped him. Maybe next time Lybell will think before flinging magic into the air like a petulant child."
Ashling cringed but instantly her eyes strayed to his arm.
An off white bandage covered the area that had been injured the night before. Having no way to explain a sudden recovery, Lian opted to hide the healed wound instead. His impressive range of motion with the arm was bound to raise questions as it was.
"I just wanted to ask if you were okay. We saw you last night, before Voniya got you into the stable. You didn't look like someone who'd be moving the next morning." Ashling admitted with a wry smile.
"I'm a Warrior by blood and training. One injury isn't enough to keep me bed ridden." It was a lie. As good as Lian was at blocking out pain to continue a fight, what Fenrir had done to him would have likely lost him his dominant arm. He was more than greatful to Annia'Teitori for that alone.
"No joke. We've gotten a few of you soldier types every once in a while, but they weren't like you. They'd known since they could understand it, exactly what they were destined for, so they never saw much use in training for the Faction Exams. You're one of a kind in the Academy." Ashling's usual smile was almost a relief to see. Whatever she'd seen when she's first entered the stables, she'd manage to explain it to herself in a way that allowed Lian to keep his secrets.
"I never wished to be anything in the Academy, much less the only one of my kind."
Valkyrie shook our her mane, then swayed her head to bump Lian's shoulder. She was already saddled, but the brittle was absent. Lian found himself debating if the warhorse really needed it.
"Voniya said we'd be off once everyone is finished eating. Are you sure you and Lybell-"
Again Lian stopped her. "I understand that the four of you are to be my escorts. I understand the necessity in it. But I do not appreciate the way I've been treated. Let me be perfectly clear with you, Ashling, if you four are the representation of the Mage Faction, then it isn't a Faction I want to be a part of." Hard brown eyes captured Ashling's attention. Lian saw her recoil at whatever she saw in them. With a resined sigh, Lian turned away from the red-headed Mage dismissively.
He wouldn't hide his plan from anyone who asked. The one thing he would never be, was a lapdog for the Counsel.
A/N: A little note to everyone reading this story: Thank you so much for the support. If anyone sees any mistakes or plot holes, let me know. I have 2 jobs currently and it doesn't give me a lot of time to review before I start writing again. I've got the story moving forward steadily, but it would help me keep things straight if someone pointed errors out! On that note, I hope you're enjoying this story and I hope you'll stick with it as Lian and Fenrir meet new friends and learn what is coming. Just so you guys are aware though, there will be romance in this story going forward. (Not with Tori, though I do love the fea) It will be a boy though. I hope you're as excited to meet him as I am to write about him.
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