Progeny (The Children of the White Lions) (2 page)
Read Progeny (The Children of the White Lions) Online
Authors: R.T. Kaelin
24
th
of the Turn of Maeana, 4744
Jhaell awoke, wet, shivering and lying on his back.
A wave of icy water rushed up to covered his legs, shocking him with its chill and forcing his eyes to snap open. The sky stared down at him, a solid slate of gray.
“Syra?”
The word came out as a soft, mumbled croak. His lips were numb.
Digging his elongated fingers into the soupy wet sand, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. He turned his head to the right, scanning the beach as the winter wind whistled in his ears. Other than a lone gull strutting through the breakers’ edge, the shore was empty of life.
“Syra?”
The scene to his left was the same, only there was no gull. The wind surged, blowing his long white-blond hair forward so that it smacked his cheek and stuck, plastering itself to his pale skin. Clearing his throat, he tried again, louder.
“Syra?”
His mouth tasted of saltwater.
“Syra!”
His voice sounded small against the waves’ roar.
Another wave rushed over him. Gasping against the cold, he scooted back from the tide and rose on wobbly legs. His robes, blue and soaked heavy with seawater, clung to his thin frame. He spun around twice, searching.
White-capped surf.
Hulking, jagged rocks sticking up from the sand.
The dark silhouette of the academy’s towers sitting on the distant horizon.
No Syra.
“Syra!”
Wanting a better view of the area, he stumbled toward a boulder several dozen paces away, shivering uncontrollably, grabbed hold of the rough stone, and attempted to scale it. His fingers—numb and wet—slipped from the rock.
“
Beelvra
!”
He gripped the handhold a second time and tried again. The result was the same. His long, ijulan fingers were weak and unresponsive to his wishes. Frustrated, he reached for the Strands of Air in order to knit a quick Weave and lift himself atop the rock. He failed at that, too, the white strings of magic falling apart before he could complete the pattern. The prolonged exposure to water and weather was affecting his ability to concentrate. He slouched forward to lean against the rock, trying to remember what had happened.
Against academy rules, he had brought Syra to the shoreline to help her prepare for the final trial of the semester. Preceptors were restricted from providing individual instruction, but he had made an exception for Syra. In her six turns at Immylla, the pair had grown close. Very close.
He rested his forehead against the cold stone and stared at his sand-covered boots. Spotting a few drops of crimson on the white sand, he stood tall and found a deep gash on his palm. He must have cut it on the boulder, but the numbness had muted the pain. Now that he saw it, it began to throb.
He turned around, back to the sea, hoping he could gauge the tide’s position and determine how long he had been unconscious. He stared up and down the beach, looking for the line of dead seaweed that marked high tide, but it was gone. Something had washed it away.
His eyes opened wide. He remembered.
For some reason, perhaps in an effort to impress him, Syra had reached for far too many Strands of Water. While she was strong with Water, she was still an acolyte, and her inexperience showed. Her Weave had become increasingly tangled, yet Jhaell had given her leeway, hoping she could fix her mistake. She had not.
He shut his eyes and cursed himself. With any other student, he would have unraveled the twisted mess, admonished them for overreaching, and made them start again. His feelings for Syra had blinded him. By the time he realized what she had wrought, it was too late.
A thirty-foot wall of water had risen from the sea and washed over the shore. Jhaell had tried to craft a protective barrier of pure Air around them, but the wave had moved too fast. He remembered Syra screaming, him reaching out to grab her arm and holding tight as the water struck. The torrent had ripped her from him in an instant.
He spun around and hurried inland, scanning the beach, praying the wave had released her before rushing back into the sea. Dozens of tide pools that were not here earlier littered the sand. He tripped over his robes and fell into one, but rose immediately, whipping his head around, staring, searching.
“Syra!”
A hundred paces away, he spotted a gray lump in another pool. The gray robes were a few shades darker from being soaked, but Jhaell recognized the acolyte garb in an instant.
“No…”
He sprinted, his elongated, ijulan arms swinging as he ran.
“Syra!”
He splashed through another pool on his way to her, praying she was simply unconscious. As he neared, he saw that she was on her stomach, her face submerged in the water. The only speck of color in the pool was a lone ribbon in her blond hair. Crimson. Her favorite color.
“Gods, no.”
He leapt into the pool and dropped to his knees, showering Syra’s back with more water.
“No, no, no…”
Grabbing her shoulder, he flipped her over. Her body was limp, lifeless. Her head rolled as he turned her, revealing a red, bloodless gash running from her left temple to her chin, marring her once beautiful face.
An icy numbness filled Jhaell, thrice as cold as the wet, winter wind. He squeezed his eyes tight, shutting out Syra’s pale, slack face. He hoped the wound meant her death had been a swift one. The thought of her drowning was unbearable.
Cradling her body in his arms, he opened his eyes, stared into hers—sightless though they were—and whispered, “
Khirlorn raecil erian elrict, Maeana
.”
“Wrong god, Jhaell.”
Startled, Jhaell looked up to find a black-robed saeljul standing a dozen paces away, his hair the same white-blond as Jhaell’s own, but pulled tight and bound with three black cords.
Confused, Jhaell muttered, “Pardon?”
The saeljul folded his hands before him and stepped forward a few paces.
“You are asking the wrong god for aid. Maeana will not answer your plea. She is rather strict with her rules.”
Jhaell’s eyes narrowed. His might be muddled, but he was certain he had never met the person standing before him. “How do you know my name?”
A sly smile spread over the stranger’s lips. “Answer something for me, Jhaell. Do you believe in fate? Or is your life your own to live?”
In no mood for riddles, Jhaell glared at the saeljul and muttered, “Leave me be, whoever you are.”
“Sorry, but I cannot do that. Rather, I
will
not do that.”
Bewildered and quickly growing angry, Jhaell shouted, “Go away!”
The stranger did not move. Instead, he nodded at Syra’s body and asked, “How are planning on explaining this to your superiors?” He shifted his gaze to Jhaell. “Preceptors getting students killed? That’s not good, Jhaell. Not good at all.”
That this stranger knew so much about him disturbed Jhaell, but not as much as the point the saeljul made. While accidents were common at the academy, deaths were rare. The last had been over three decades ago and the acolyte’s own fault. Looking back down to Syra, he shook his head.
“It does not matter what happens to me. Not now.”
The stranger approached, stopping at the edge of the pool. “Would you like my help?”
Jhaell pulled his gaze from Syra and stared up at the saeljul. The wind whipped at the stranger’s robes. “Who
are
you?”
The corners of the saeljul’s mouth curled up ever so slightly. “The answer to that question is…complicated.”
“I don’t care! Tell me who you are and how you know me. And what the Nine Hells you’re doing out here!”
“Would you like my help or not?”
“What help?! What are you talking about?”
The stranger nodded at Syra.
“I can bring her back if you like. Save her.”
Jhaell remained quiet for a moment, baffled by the saeljul’s claim. “Are you mad?”
“Not anymore. Again, would you like my help? Or shall I find another?”
“You can’t help her! She’s dead!”
The stranger gave a tiny shrug of his shoulders. “So?”
Jhaell wondered if the water and cold had so addled him that he was imagining this conversation. Shaking his head, he shouted, “What do mean, ‘so?’ She is
gone
!”
“For now, yes.”
Furious and bewildered at the same time, Jhaell screamed, “Whoever you are, just go! Leave me be!”
The saeljul let out a small sigh, shifted his attention away from Jhaell, and stared into the empty air above the pool. The familiar crackling of magic filled Jhaell as hundreds of pulsating gold and silver threads appeared overhead. The stranger began directing them, interweaving them with incredible skill and speed.
Jhaell stared up, his mouth agape. He had never seen any mage work so many Strands so swiftly. In the span it took for Jhaell to gasp, the saeljul completed a single, massive Weave. The glittering mass of strings had a number of holes in the pattern, meaning the stranger had used at least one type of Strand that Jhaell could not touch.
Staring with wide eyes, he muttered, “How is it—?”
“Quiet, please,” interrupted the stranger, his tone terse. With his face a mask of concentration, the saeljul looked to Syra’s corpse and directed the Weave over her, wrapping the web of gold and silver around her. “This will not last long. I am meddling outside my domain.”
Not understanding the stranger’s meaning, Jhaell stared up at him and asked, “What won’t last—?”
Syra stirred.
Looking down, he watched as she took in a deep, gasping breath as though she had just burst free from the depths of the sea. Fresh, red blood began to seep from the wound on her face. Her eyes, alive and alert again, darted about for a moment before locking on his face.
“Jhaell…?”
At first, all he could do was stare. This was impossible. No mage, no matter how skilled, was capable of doing this. After a few thudding heartbeats, he found his tongue.
“Syra?”
Wondering if the stranger had crafted an illusion, he reached down to touch Syra’s face. As he did, her gaze drifted to the gash on his palm. A look of concern flashed over her face.
“Oh, Jhaell, you hurt yourself! How did that—?” She cut off and drew in a quick, hissing breath. “The wave!” Peering into his eyes, she pleaded, “I am so sorry. I thought I could—”
“Hush,” murmured Jhaell, a joyful smile on his face. “It was an accident.”
“I so wanted to impress you. I wanted you…to be…proud of…” She trailed off and began to shiver. Within moments, she was shaking uncontrollably.
Jhaell’s joy fled. Something was wrong.
Syra’s eyebrows drew together. In a quiet, bewildered voice, she mumbled, “I’m cold, Jhaell.” Fear swelled to fill her eyes. “Why am I so cold?”
He began to lift her from the chilly pool when the glittering Weave around her fell apart. The Strands unraveled, fading in an instant, and Syra went limp in his arms. Her head lolled to one side, her unfocused eyes staring back out at the white-capped sea.
Syra had died twice today.
Jhaell lifted his head to stare at the stranger and pleaded, “Bring her back.”
“I cannot,” said the saeljul, shaking his said. “That Weave is too difficult to maintain.”
“Bring her back!”
“I said no,” said the stranger, his tone turning sharp.
Jhaell did not want excuses. “Try, blast it!”
A dark and wicked shadow passed over the saeljul’s face, bringing with it a fear so deep, so complete, and so cold that Jhaell wanted to flee and never look back, leaving Syra to the scavengers.
“Do
not
make demands of me! Not now! Not ever!”
As much as Jhaell wanted to run, the terror he felt kept him rooted in place.
The stranger glowered for moment longer before shutting his eyes and taking in a deep, steadying breath. Exhaling slowly, the saeljul reopened his eyes and offered an apologetic smile. “Pardon my outburst.”
The terror fled, allowing Jhaell’s bafflement to return tenfold and drown out every other emotion.
“Who
are
you?”
“Again, that is a difficult question to answer,” said the saeljul. A slight smile spread over his face. “But you may call me Tandyr.”
7
th
of the Turn of Sutri, 4999
