Cinders of Magic

Chapter 10-1

Chapter 10

The sun burned heavily, and Alara had to squint to look out at the meadow where her sister tossed bits of meat into the air for a hawk to catch mid-dive before swooping away. The girl, ten as of this year, ran excitedly through the manicured grass, whooping each time one of the falconer’s birds dropped low enough to get another treat of meat. Her face was hidden now behind a veil of pink lace, as was only proper.

The field was not a true meadow, but more a massive garden carefully maintained out past the back of the estate. Once, before Alara had even been born, a forest had grown all around the estate. Aspers, Oaks, and the occasional King’s Tree dotted the landscape and somehow managed to hold the encroaching Deadtrees at bay without much help. All that remained of the old forest were the occasional roots that bulged just beneath the surface of the grass and the twelve King’s Trees scattered on the grounds as it was highly illegal to have them removed. Alara rested beneath one, reading in the soft yellow-green light its fruit gave off.

She could not concentrate on the words on the page and let her eyes flit over the ink without absorbing any meaning. Out of the back of the estate was the only place safe from the flurry of activity within. Though it had only been two weeks for her, the rest of the estate and family had mourned Hessaux for a full two months already. He had been interred before she had arrived from her grandfather’s lands in Haive.

“Aly!” Jira screamed as she ran over to jump into Alara’s lap, knocking the air out of her older sister. Bernard, Alara’s house serpent, hissed from where it rested at Alara’s side, startled by the sudden movement. “Sorry, Bernard.”

“Sorry Bernard?” Alara said, managing to choke down some air.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Jira’s face contorted behind her thin pink veil. Alara searched her sister’s eyes and saw tears start to form in them.

“No. No, babeling. I’m quite alright, but I could use a warning.”

Bernard flicked his forked tongue a few times and set his head, which was the size of one of her longer textbooks, over Alara’s leg, effectively pinning it protectively to the blanket she was sitting on. Alara sighed and hugged Jira tight.

“Agillan doesn’t complain,” Jira said as she laid her head back against Alara’s shoulder and looked up at her. The veil the girl wore fell across her face, and after attempting to blow it away four times, Jira settled for flipping it back over her head. “This thing is so annoying.”

“It is,” Alara agreed, “but you’ll get used to it.”

“Why do I have to wear one. None of the boys have to.” “To surprise them. Imagine the look on those boys" faces when they see you fully grown for the first time, beautiful, with the stars falling through the sky behind you.”

Jira considered the image a moment and made a sick face, sticking out her tongue. Alara rolled her eyes and flipped the pink veil back over her sister’s face. Jira flailed dramatically in her arms.

“It also saves us from your faces,” Alara said. Alara heard a rustling behind her and turned to see her grandfather leaning against the tree they were beneath. His attire was overly formal, as it always was, and he scowled out at the world around him. “I have something for you,” she said.

“What is it?” Jira asked.

Alara reached into her bag and pulled out a smooth crimson piece of fabric; it was thin and lined with an intricate gold chain around its rectangular edge. The flowery scent of it caught her as she held it up to show Jira, and nine years’ worth of memories came rushing to her.

“Your verballe,” Jira said.

“It was mother’s first,” Alara said. “I’m not using it anymore, so I thought that you might want it.”

“Are you sure?” Jira touched the verballe tentatively and felt the smoothness for herself.

“Absolutely.”

Alara watched her sister smile through the veil of pink she wore before she plucked her own verballe away and tossed it to the blanket. She took the red verballe from Alara’s hand, studied it with reverence for a moment, and began to secure it to the clips in her hair. She moved deftly, and it was in place in only a few seconds.

“How do I look?” Jira asked.

“Small.”

Jira jumped out of Alara’s lap and stood triumphantly over her big sister. She struck a pose that fell somewhere between hero and princess.

“How do I look now?”

“Like the Rose herself,” Alara said. She flinched at her own words, but Jira hardly seemed to notice.

“Have you my sword?” Jira dropped her voice an octave, which still left it safely in soprano.

“I’m afraid I don’t. No pistols either.”

Jira thrust her hand back towards the man leaning against the tree. “Grandfather! I require your cane, sir.”

Alara looked back at him as well. He studied his granddaughter wearing the verballe his daughter had worn, and Alara saw a sadness in his red eyes. He smiled and straightened himself as he started to walk over.

“What do you need it for, young lady?” he asked.

“I’m going to hunt dugholes.”

He arched an eyebrow but extended his cane to her all the same. Jira snatched it away joyously and knelt back onto the blanket. She tapped Bernard on the top of his head three times, and the giant snake opened its eyes lazily.

“Come, Bernard,” Jira said. “We’ve dugholes to find.”

Bernard flicked his tongue, and to Alara’s surprise, began to move. He slithered his great bulk over Alara’s leg as he made his way down the slight incline to the grass where Jira was busy running ahead of him, slashing at imagined enemies with the cane as she ran.

“That child is a mystery,” Damian said.

“When did she train my serpent…”

“What?” He stared down at his grandaughter a moment before shaking his head. “Never mind. Join me please, we have things to discuss.”

“You wish for me to hurry up with convincing my father,” Alara said, remaining seated.

Damian glanced back towards the manor and sighed. He kicked a fold in the blanket that had fallen over itself and straightened out a spot to sit on before easing himself to the ground.

“Observant as ever,” he said.

“Or perhaps I just know how impatient you can be.”

“Things have begun to move. I’ve been holding talks--” he started.

“Two days,” Alara interrupted.

“Pardon?”

Alara turned to her grandfather, inspected the furrow in his brow, the tiredness that showed in the small crease of his shoulder line, and the exhaustion that clung to the bottom of his eyes. She fixed him with her cold silver-flecked eyes.

“We had a deal. You would give me time, and I would make sure you achieved what you came here for. The man you hated would no longer have your cherished symbol, and all you needed to do was give me a few days so that I might mourn for my brother whilst I betrayed my father. Now you want to rush me?”

“I don’t want to rush you.” Damian pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes tight. For the barest of moments, he looked his real age. “I simply didn’t expect things to move so quickly.”

“You didn’t plan for it?” Alara asked.

“I did, but…” he trailed off.

“A promise of time wasn’t a part of those plans.” Alara turned away from him and watched her sister play in the grass. Bernard crept invisibly through the grass, only given away by the leap of the small animals he scared out of their holes. “What is happening that would make you break a promise to your granddaughter?”

“I cannot say.” He opened his eyes and set them on the horizon. Tiredness forgotten, he pulled his shoulders back in line with an audible pop of his muscles. “It’s adjudicator business.”

“I can’t tell if that makes it better or worse.”

“It makes it important,” he said.

“Most important. How can we win a war without our most powerful relic? Its loss is probably what has placed us in this quagmire.” Alara pulled up a handful of grass and threw it against the wind. The slight breeze tore away her fit as if it were nothing at all. Alara supposed it may have been.

“You joke,” Damian said, “but if your mother had been in this fight, we would have ended this years ago.”

“You cannot believe that.”

Damian nodded. “It was only near the end of the war with the Haive that she emerged to her true self. The Rose. An army of giantmen were cleaved cleanly in two by raw and unbending power that had never been seen on the field of battle before. I doubt it ever will again.”

“Do you…” Alara sat up straight and caught his eye. “Do you want the ring for a weapon? It is cursed, grandfather. Look at what it did to her.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “None of the Pieces of Aeon are cursed, Alara. It is simply impossible. You will need to reconcile that.”

“You’re wrong,” Alara said, turning away and lying full out on the blanket. She looked up at the softly glowing King’s Fruit that hung from the tree overhead, a display of sparkling green stars against the sky of black leaves. “I still have two days besides.”

“Alara,” Damian warned.

“You may be a politician grandfather, but my father is a businessman. He made his proposal when we arrived, and he would want to allow me time to think it over while he waits and plans for my counter-proposals. It is only just to give both sides the time to meditate and ruminate on what they plan to bring to the next meeting.”

Alara tried to pick constellations out of the fruit hanging from the tree. She found it easy; it was easier than finding the ones in the real stars at least. If she held her hand just right, forming a loop with her finger and thumb, she could imagine the forked eye of a dragon staring down at her. She wondered for a moment what those beasts of legend must have looked like in the flesh.

“This is not something that we can allow business courtesy to forestall,” Damian said through clenched teeth. “This is important.”

“As you’ve said.”

“Your excuse of needing more time is thin and obvious for what it is. Do not slip into melancholy, granddaughter. Not now.”

Alara propped herself up with her elbows and glared at him. The gaze he returned was impassive and scrutinizing.

“Take it from him then,” Alara said.

Damian squinted his eyes at her.

“You have the power, don’t you. March into his office and demand that he hands the ring over to you. Compel him to do so. My father’s no channeler; he would be powerless to stop you from doing so, the mighty Feeler that you are. Even if he were, I’m sure the sheer might of your power would overwhelm him.”