Lian was glad when they put Zaza behind them.
Keeping the peace between Lybell and himself was harder than he'd thought it would be, especially with Voniya placing the irritated blond Mage on guard duty, not that Lian needed a guard. To have the man hovering over his shoulder as he went about gathering his provisions in the shopping district had been an exercise in patience.
"Only four days left." Fenrir whispered to him the next night, when Lian had felt himself about to fall off the edge of his control.
His emotions raged inside him, and because of that Lian was discovering new things every day.
Ever since the incident in the stables where he had absorbed the energy of Fire, he'd been seeing things. Flicks of color in the corner of his vision. Never clear enough for him to grab hold of, but never too far from his notice. When he'd asked Fenrir what the flickering things were, Fen had been surprised.
"You see the energies?" the wolf had marveled.
Confused, Lian had sighed. It was becoming a regular thing, being blindsided by something sudden and new. He was becoming desensitized to all of these developments.
"I see these sudden flashes of color from the corner of my eye. When I turn my head to see what it was, there is nothing there. The colors have no rhythm or pattern, some are more frequent than others, but every time my mind wonders they begin flickering like firelight." Lian explained to his Guardian, hoping Fen would recognize what it was he was witnessing.
The wolf seemed to stare at him for a long while, their small sleeping area in the clearing of a random forest trail seeming private enough, despite the milling Mages struggling to set up their camps.
"You aren't what I expected when I was told I'd have a charge to protect." Fenrir admitted instead of answering Lian's unasked question. "The Mage who saved me spoke of patience. He spoke of a selfish creature who I would have to concur in the end. Who I would have to bear with until they could understand exactly what I meant to them. Yet from the beginning you've been an endless well of pleasant surprise. I didn't want to question my luck, but now I believe I must."
Lian found himself conflicted in his desire to smile at the Guardian and scowl in equal measure. "What are you talking about?"
Fenrir snorted and shoved his cold nose into Lian's cheek. "I will show you what you struggle to see. Do you remember what it felt like to see through my eyes?"
Lian did. The weird vertigo of looking at himself from the outside. It had been a dizzying experience. "I am guessing you'll be doing that again?"
"Yes, but this will be easier. I will show you what I see when I open myself up to the energies. The man who found me called it 'Mage Sight'."
Closing his eyes, the boy allowed his connection to Fenrir to open in his mind. The simultaneous joining of both of their bodies in his mind was crippling but he was already seated, so he held his hands against the ground as a steady base. It was as if the feeling of Fenrir's paws overlapped his fingers. He could feel the warm fur that belonged to Fenrir envelop his own body. He was both himself and his Guardian all at once.
"Open our eyes. When we are like this, you are in control of us." Fenrir's voice sounded, as loud and clear as it always was, but there was a difference. Lian heard his own voice say the words right along with Fenrir. Still, he followed the instruction.
Slowly opening his eyes, he nearly screamed with what he saw.
The world around him seemed to be alight with colors.
Bright and vibrant, blues and greens and purples stole the landscape.
"The colors I've been seeing. What is this?" He asked in awe. Again, both their voices sounded in his head.
"To connect with the energies in the world, we must be able to see it. Every Guardian can see the flowing strands of Gaia's powers, when we connect to that strand, we fuel the magic cast by our charges. Mages. Many Mages are able to connect as well, the potential is there, it is the gift Gaia gives everyone of you, but there are few who understand, few who try. So it becomes the Guardian's duty to balance the energies. When a Mage casts, we connect to Gaia. Some Guardians, the ones who didn't know what their purpose was, learn to do this alongside their charges. But I was taught much in my travels."
Lian couldn't help looking around. The air around them seemed to shimmer with a soft yet glowing silver color. The earth under them shared a mix of greens, blues, and yellows. If he looked at their camp's fire pit, he could see the bright reds and oranges of its valiant power. Blues surrounded them and Lian realized it was the moister in the air.
"Lian?"
Quickly, the boy's head turned to regard the Mage girl who'd come to speak with him. Ashling took a step back as his gaze settled on her.
"Shit! That's fuckin' creepy!" She exclaimed, wide eyes taking in him and his Guardian beside him. Lian wasn't sure what she meant, but Fenrir did, and so Lian understood.
In this state they were in, 'Soul Sharing' – the name came unbidden into Lian's head, likely from Fenrir – their bodies were in completely unison. When he'd been looking around at their surroundings, he had not only been turning his own head but he'd been turning Fenrir's as well. So, when Ashling called his attention and his head turned to assess her, he and Fenrir had turned as one.
"Ye're eyes are...fuck, Lian, their crazy." She continued, no longer backing away.
"Is everything alright?" Keera's voice came from behind him, but Lian kept himself from moving.
"Everything is fine." He spoke, but as soon as he did, he realized it was a mistake.
Two voices had spoken from his throat. It didn't go unnoticed.
"Holy fuckin' shit!" Ashling fell back onto her ass as she tried to scramble backwards.
Lian looked away from her, not wanting to alarm her further but not really knowing how to end this weird state of being he and Fenrir were in. Fenrir apparently didn't know either, because the knowledge wasn't in either of their heads.
"Interesting." Suddenly, Keera was in their line of vision. Her face a carefully blank mask that hid what she was thinking effortlessly. Lian couldn't help staring at her.
Ashling had been a working of silver and blue swirling shreds, but Keera was different.
Pure white light seemed to surround her head and her heart, while green covered the rest of her body. If Lian had to take a guess, he'd say the more glow around a person, the more powerful that person is. Keera was clearly, vastly more powerful than her sister. No wonder there was animosity between the two, their power level was like a chasm that one could never breach.
"You haven't even arrived at the Academy, yet you seem to be developing abilities only those with years of schooling could ever hope to achieve." Keera mused aloud. "You've accomplished a Soul Sharing."
Lian didn't blink. He knew that Keera was a Seer, yet he wasn't really sure what that meant. He'd never been faced with a Seer before, and none of the books in his mother's collection had spoken of them in any sort of tangible length. Any mention of them was almost brief and in passing.
Still, despite the fact that Keera seemed to know what a Soul Sharing was, Lian was hesitant to ask her anything. He didn't trust these mages. Not a one of them had earned anything from him. Yet Keera had been the easiest of all of them to deal with. She was quiet and reserved, keeping to her own tasks and never butting into the business of others unless specifically asked to, like when Voniya asked Keera to act as guard during their pass through a small trade village between Zaza and Hyden.
Lian couldn't be sure what all the Seer knew.
"We are bonded. Guardian and Charge, Balance is kept not just between us, but by us." Lian found his own voice speaking in tandem with Fenrir, but he hadn't made the conscious choice to speak.
"I know." Keera said, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "The Ward of Balance, yes?"
Lian almost reeled back at hearing that.
Oh god no, not another title. Champion of Gaia, Ward of Balance, what else was there? What else did fate have in store for him.
"You can calm yourself. Nothing will come of what you know. Any choices you make, you will make at your own will, just as you have been doing so far." Keera soothed, her green eyes penetrated and unnerving.
Outrage was quick to grow inside Lian, and with it came the fading of this strange bond he and Fenrir were sharing. Like the snapping of a cord, Lian felt himself flung back into his own body, unable to feel the beating of Fenrir's heart in his chest like he had been.
"What choices have I made for myself? What will do I have of my own? I've been thrown into this path with no warring nor preparation. Don't presume to call this my choice." Lian found himself sneering.
"Lian." Fenrir called, trying to calm the boy, but the fighter inside him wouldn't listen. The outrage was speaking louder than the surprise of the suddenly severed Soul Sharing.
Keera's gaze turned from him to Fenrir for a second before going back again. "But you have chosen this. From the day you took your first breath, all your choices have been leading to this. Tell me, why did you never make friends at your Warrior village?"
Indignation colored Lian's mind, but Fenrir was pushing something through their connection that Lian couldn't ignore. 'Listen to her' it seemed to whisper, without actually saying a word.
"Because my training was more important. I never had time for anything else." He admitted.
"Yet the kids admired you. For a long time, you were a hero in their eyes. Son of a General, strong and fast and courageous. Yet when Nova Alvitor and Ryker Crow tried to offer their hands in friendship, you turned away from them." Said Keera.
Lian almost flinched, but he opened his mouth to defend himself. "I challenged them to a duel. I'd be their friend if they managed to win against me. If they had anything to teach me, then I would spend time learning from them." He tried, but he knew it was weak.
"Yes, but instead of facing them like a Warrior, one on one, you insisted that they both come for you at once. Then, you used them against each other, never allowing them to show their individual skills. Nova was well versed in blocking blows, could see a hit coming from the slightest twitch of a muscle, yet you never let him show you just what he was capable of. His keen eyes could have improved your reflexes without the aid of midnight training when your mother retired to sleep."
Lian remember those training session. They'd been brutal. He would tie small logs to ropes and hang them from tree branches. Then he would hit them about, always watching to make sure all eight logs never hit him. The session had to be done in the dark so that the logs would be harder to see, forcing him to react fast with little warning. It'd taken three years of this training to overcome his clumsy reflexes. He'd been around twelve years old at the time.
"You see, Lian. Every choice is directly responsible for the outcomes of the future. The bitter resentment inside of Nova grew from that day forward. If you hadn't made an enemy out of the boy who admired you, then you would not carry the scars on your back."
Lian gasped, his left hand going to his shoulder where he knew the first cut had started. He remembered the feeling.
Was what Keera was saying really true? Was everything that happened his fault? His choices? Because of Nova's rage, his power had reacted. Because of his power surging forward, his mother had to use her unbalanced magic to keep Lian from killing Nova. This resulted to her death, much too soon. Not to mention the release of his powers. That had been the very thing that unleashed his magic on the world. Again, much too soon.
Helplessness bubbled inside Lian. He could feel Fenrir pressing into his side, supporting him as he connected every dot.
"That is merely one choice that has led us to this path. There are still lots of choices to make and every one of them will affect another. This is the truth of the world. We all cause an impact. Yet we do not realize what kind of impact we make until it is much too late to change it. You are on this path, Lion of Fury. Walk it like your father would have." Keera advised. Then she turned on her heel and walked away.
The boy couldn't help staring after her as his mind processed everything she'd said.
"Do ye really have scars on yer back?"
Startled, the boy spun, the Newmoon Dagger in his hand as he faced the person who'd spoken.
Ashling. He'd forgot she was there.
Quickly sheathing the dagger, he regarded her.
There was an honesty to Ashling's face that was almost vulnerability. Like she herself had heard that speech from her sister before.
Still, Lian couldn't find it in himself to admit to his shame. So he said nothing.
Ashling nodded to herself.
"It's okay. It doesn't matter to me. I just..." She paused, a battle raging in her eyes for a second before she seemed to shake it off. "Ye aren't the only one who's made shit choices." She allowed, before she too made her way back to the other two Mages who had been focused on cooking stew over their fire pit.
"Don't think about what she said too closely. What matters is the choices you make now. To look back is to stop moving forward. Whatever mistakes were made, whatever mistakes will be made, all of it means nothing right now." Fenrir tried to comfort him. Part of Lian was comforted, but another part couldn't help but dwell in the revelations Keera presented.
What other choices had he unconsciously made to affect his life?
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