High Mage means what? And what about Talitha? I heard you call her the High Priestess.
“‘High Mage’ is just a fancy term for calling him a king without him sounding like a self-righteous prick. Although he is a self-righteous prick, so their little game of semantics didn’t really work, did it?” He shook his head with a shrug.
I crossed my arms over my chest. Based on Valik’s conversation with Talitha, it sounded like he’d stolen something from Brecken once. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if the High Mage wasn’t Valik’s biggest fan.
“As for Talitha. Same thing. She’s the leader of all the Mystics. It takes a lot tobecome one, so I consider her achievement to be somewhat remarkable.” The respect and admiration he held for her glimmered in his eyes. Obviously, he wasn’t deterred by her harsh demeanor toward him.
Why is Brecken the key?
“The Druids are keepers of knowledge and protectors of the aether’s balance in Arcadia. He most likely knows where the stone is,” Valik vaguely explained. There were still so many more questions I had for Valik regarding Druids and Mystics, and even his own abilities. I frowned, wondering what stone he was talking about.
The pad disappeared from its spot in front of him, materializing in front of me again.
What is the stone that you just mentioned? I heard you and Talitha talking about that, too.
Valik tilted his head to the side, then gazed off into the distance as he took a deep breath. “The Seraphite Stone is essential to the balance of Arcadia’s aether. Whoever possesses it controls which side of the pendulum it swings, or how it feeds us our power. The reason that Celanea relies on Syphon Bonds for her strength is because the aether in Arcadia is balanced. But it tilts slightly in favor of light magic, which is why we replenish just fine and are able to use our abilities with ease. The problem right now isn’t that the aether is off-balance because of the Seraphite Stone. It’s because of the Syphon Bond that is draining the aether at an amplified rate that’s hard for the stone to maintain. But if the stone falls into Celanea’s hands, her power will be endless, and we’ll be left no better off than humans, unless we succumb to wielding dark magic as well.”
I couldn’t imagine how much darker this world would be if this stone were to end up in Celanea’s possession. It sounded like a horror film I didn’t want any part of.
Valik waved a hand again; this time, a glass of ice cubessurrounded by amber liquid appeared on the table. He took a sip, relaxing into his seat. “Before I head to bed for the night, would you be able to draw the sigil that appeared in your mind?”
The notepad appeared in front of me again, and I hesitated for several moments as I focused on the sigil. It wasn’t a difficult one to sketch, just three wavy lines stacked above one another, with two straight ones framing them on the top and bottom. When I finished, I slid it across the table.
Valik flipped the pad around, his brow furrowed as he looked at it. “That’s a Druid symbol.” He massaged his jaw, rubbing his palm over the short beard that created a shadow on his face. “It represents air.”
I cocked an eyebrow, confused as to why I was shown a Druid sigil.
“And you just…” Valik paused, unbelieving, “instinctivelyknewto draw the symbol in the air?”
I nodded, growing annoyed.
“Right. Well that’s strange.”
I snatched the notebook back along with the pen, scrawling another question.
How is it that you’re able to conjure this notebook and that glass of whiskey, but you were too drained to do anything else when we were fighting for our fucking lives?
Valik sighed as he rubbed circles on his temples with his fingers. “Gods, I keep forgetting how uneducated you lot are. Not your fault. That is totally Celanea’s. But my magic is a lot different from anyone else’s, really. Doing menial tasks like conjuring objects requires very little, whereas purifying an Endarkened unicorn requires a massive amount of energy that will shut me down. I can recover if I’m surrounded by strong aether.” Looking around at the receiving room, he held his arms out wide to make an example. “Whydo you think I chose the Celestial Castle as my crash pad? Because it had the strongest concentration of purified aether in all of Arcadia. Most kingdoms had high amounts, but with this castle being the top dog of them all, it held more. So I locked it down when the king and queen?—”
Scarlett stirred on the settee, interrupting what Valik had been about to say. I didn’t care. My chair shrieked across the polished white marble as I shoved to my feet to get to her side. With a groan, she pushed up onto her elbows, squinting through her exhaustion as she tried to take in her surroundings.
I knelt by the edge of the settee, and when she met my eyes, she asked, “Cotton? What happened?”
“Well, to spare you from trying to read his atrocious handwriting, I’ll explain,” Valik said, exhaling as if he’d just saved the day.
“Oh my gods, he’s still alive?” Scarlett grumbled, clutching her forehead.
“Well, don’t step around my feelings or anything,” Valik retorted before he continued in great detail about what happened with the Endarkened unicorn.
“So basically, unicorns are healers…orwere,” our strange host said. “Now, since the Tempests have drained them of the purified aether fueling their magic with the Syphon Bond, their magic is tainted and twisted. Instead of healers, they feed off of your aether by doing the opposite of healing. They make you deathly ill. I had no choice but to temporarily purify the mare so she wouldn’t kill you, and in the hope we could make it back in time. I also had hoped she’d heal you while she was briefly restored, which she did. Thank Michael’s bright, glowing broadsword for that, or you’d be totally fucked now.”
I stared at Valik as if he’d lost too many brain cells. Perhaps it was all the time he’d spent here alone. Surely that couldn’t be good for someone’s psyche.
“Anyway, little did we know, we’d get stampeded by the mother lode of the Endarkened beasts, and your pal here pulled through inthe last second with a little Druid trick he’d been keeping up his sleeve. Would’ve been nice to have been in on that secret a month ago, ya know?”
That grabbed Scarlett’s attention as she faced me with an uncertain expression. “What is he talking about, Cotton? What Druid trick?”
I dropped my gaze to the floor, shrugging. When I looked back up at her, I exhaled, running my fingers through my hair. The strands had grown out longer than I usually allowed them. I shook it out in frustration before standing up to leave the room. I could handle the suspicion from Valik, but not Scarlett.
