CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
1029 Words
Ceraun woke up the next morning a little late, he could immediately hear Adrik conversing with his parents.
They most likely wanted to hear from a different and trusted source about what had happened the day before, although Ceraun had told them word for word.
He got up and stretched a bit, his joints creaking and popping as he did so.
He folded up his ratty blanket and rolled up his pallet, carefully placing them close to the wall.
He stepped out of his room, keeping a straight face when his parents went quiet at his presence, looking immensely guilty.
"Oh, Adrik?! You're here already?" He feigned ignorance, greeting his parents as he went to get the barrel.
"Don't you want to know what they asked me?" Adrik asked curiously as they started for the gate.
Ceraun shrugged, uninterested. "Not really, I already told them all that happened, if they want to hear the same words from a different person's lips, that is their issue not mine."
"Your mother is just worried about you." Adrik responded shortly without being promoted.
"She always is." Ceraun muttered without spite.
It was true, when he was apathetic of living, she was worried and now that he had gotten his drive back, she was equally worried.
He had come to take it as one of the things that would be ever present, his mother worrying over him.
He didn't mind, he just wished she would not go through so much trouble and strain her already frail health too.
Adrik let the matter go, his mother was the same, when she was not too busy with ensuring their survival, she was worrying about him.
He could not wait to get carted off to war so that she would receive the benefits that the families of soldiers got, it would be enough to let her rest for however long she wished to live.
But even that was not enough to encourage more Mages to join the army because no Mage had ever returned after getting enlisted into the army.
Not to mention that there was no way to reach out to the Mages gone out to war.
He was sure Ceraun had similar thoughts, he could see how the other's black eyes went cold whenever he talked about how much harder his well aged parents had it with the terrible life they had to live.
The gate seemed less rowdy that cold and dusty morning after the spectacle of the day before.
They got water and finished up all of their duties for the day before being let go by equally worrying mothers.
Ceraun had to drag himself away from his mother who was insistent on cutting off his hair, while he had wanted to keep it for a while longer, he would cut his long dark-blond locks all off before he got drafted.
He wished to keep it for the remainder of the time he would spend in Thrika, he was quite aware that he might not see his parents again after he left.
He had left it to grow out, not just because it was such a hassle to cut them but also and most importantly because his mother had said when they newly got to Thrika of how his lengthening hair reminded her of her grandfather.
Both his parents had dark hair and blue eyes, his now dead uncle also had the same features.
His grandparents were not a part of his childhood or life as his parents had him too late for grandparents who had died off before he was even born.
He managed to break away with himself intact, realizing that he had spent quite the time at home.
It meant that Adrik was most likely already waiting for him at the slope so he started for it.
Just as he had predicted, Adrik was standing at the edge of the slope, looking stoic and brooding and he remembered the day before when Lord Edbert had called him barbaric because of the length of his hair while Adrik had been called, almost-gentlemanly.
He got to Adrik and just as they were about to race down the rocky incline, a shrill voice halted them.
"Wait!!!" Haneul’s familiar voice rang out from the distance. "Ceraun? Adrik?"
They both stopped immediately, whirling around simultaneously to see Haneul running up to them.
His usually unkempt hair was sort of groomed for the first time, the coarse dark hair cut shorter.
Ceraun went alert when Haneul got close enough, noting that Adrik did the same.
"What are you doing?" He asked the shorter Mage, his voice coming out more coldly than he had planned for.
Haneul faltered, looking hesitant, almost like he would have liked to change his mind, instead he parted his lips and said.
"My grandmother passed the night before, I am no threat to you." He explained calmly, a flash of sadness painting his desert, brown eyes at the mention of his dead grandmother.
"What?" Ceraun exclaimed in shock, his eyes going wide.
Adrik was equally surprised but showed this in a calmer way, his hazel eyes widening briefly before he schooled his expression once more.
"My grandmother, she died in her sleep last night." Haneul repeated adding more details for clarity.
"Orphans get taken care of for free." He added into silence that preluded his previous statement. "So I do not have to sell out my own people just to feed my grandmother and I." He concluded with a small smile, his entire face lightening up.
Another Mage family had taken a look at him and the mother of that family decided to shorn his head, he could not complain, there was nothing to complain about and none to complain to.
Ceraun let Haneul's words slowly sink in, they would feed orphans but not children who lived with a caretaker so old that they had to be taken care of?
He tried to not think too much about it, instead focusing on the rest of Haneul's happy news.
"We sympathize with you over your grandmother's passing." Adrik was the one to speak up for them, bowing politely and respectfully.
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