Brief Respite

  “What time is it?”

  “Hmm. I’m not sure.”

  Cocooned in a blanket, staring at Theo, Ty waited with an expectant smile on her face.

  “You want me to check the time for you?”

  She nodded before closing her eyes and shuffling closer to Theo.

  “Okay, okay,” sighed Theo with a short laugh, sitting up with a yawn before squinting at the timepiece on his nightstand and lying back in bed. “Ten past six.”

  “I used to always wake up around this time,” she mumbled into the blanket.

  “Still tired?” he whispered softly, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.

  “A little.”

  “We stayed up pretty late last night.”

  “Mm.”

  “Been a while since we’ve been to the forest.”

  “Mm.”

  Theo propped up his head with his arm, a mischievous grin beginning to form on the edge of his lips. “Don’t you have a date with Luci today, tactician?”

  Ty’s eyes shot open, and she resurfaced from her blanket-cocoon. “When did I tell—oh Graces, that’s today.” And then her eyes furrowed, analyzing Theo’s playful smile, and then, with a pout, she pulled the covers over her again. “That’s later!”

  “Oh, come on,” he groaned, stretching and sitting up, yawning again before pulling the covers off Ty. “You had some stuff you wanted to do today, remember?”

  With one last final grumble, Ty let her physician pull her upright before leaning up against him anyway, enjoying the feeling of his skin on hers. It was warm. “Yes, yes. Time for you to learn how to play tactician for me.”

  Theo tilted his head and sighed at his hopeless class leader, all the while with a smile still on his face. “You say that like it wasn’t your idea, dear.”

  The smile she returned was glum, but a gentle chuckle accompanied it. “Yes, dear.” And then she slowly got dressed, planted her feet on the cold floor, and stretched, feeling her whole body ache.

  “Doing okay?” asked Theo, already clothed and standing in front of her with one hand extended.

  “Mhm,” she nodded, taking the hand and getting pulled into a warm embrace that she couldn’t say no to.

  “Sorry, last one.”

  As he gripped her tightly in his arms, she did the same, closing her eyes and channeling a bit of what anima she had regained while sleeping into him.

  “Oh, hey—” Theo reacted, pulling back with a perplexed look on his face. “You’re sneaky.”

  “Hmm?” the tactician smiled back innocently before shuffling over to Theo’s seat at his table, where she sat and draped his small blanket over her shoulders. The aching would subside later, but the fatigue still lingered—probably because they had gotten just barely four hours of sleep. “Okay, show me the book.”

  “Book?” asked Theo obliviously before answering his own question. “Ah, that one.”

  Laying her head down on the table, she watched as Theo stood in the center of the room, hands on his hips as he looked around.

  “I mean…it’s here somewhere…”

  Ty took the opportunity to survey his room again. There were no longer cups strewn around but neatly stacked upright on a shelf. Still six cups, somehow. His desk was messy with papers, parchment, journals, and half-open books. Stacks upon stacks of books—which wasn’t at all surprising—lined the back of his desk against the wall, propping up thick papers and various tomes. The only part of his bare desk that was visibly untouched by academic paraphernalia was a small spot in the corner, where Em’s small painting sat. “I didn’t think it could have gotten messier,” she said aloud to herself.

  Meanwhile, Theo was wading through the towers of books beside his desk on the opposite side of the room. The towers were far more condensed than she had last remembered them being, some in the back having already tipped, and many of the spines blocked by no fewer than two sets of books.

  “It’s…one of those I don’t really look at,” grunted the bibliophile, trying to evade the books while also examining every stack he passed. “It was…it was a set, I think. Oh? Oh, here!” Theo exclaimed after lifting up a set of books near the back, accidentally toppling over a rogue tower, which would have scattered across the floor had there not been stacks of other books already in the way. “Volume three!” he grimaced sheepishly before putting the books in his hands down and inspecting the spines.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “This room is definitely a fire hazard,” she mumbled as she watched Theo place the text in front of her.

  “Hm?” he asked with wide and innocent eyes. “What was that?”

  She gave him a hopeless smile and shook her head before opening the book to its first page.

  A Survey of Ancient Magic: Volume 3.

  The text under the title was blacked out.

  “Why’s the author blacked out?”

  Blinking, craning his neck and inspecting the page, he didn’t seem fazed. “Oh, it’s always been like that. I think it was one of Em’s old teachers? I never saw them, but I remember that when they died…he changed.” His eyes were distant as he paused. But only for a second. “I didn’t care, though. He was still my Em.”

  Reluctantly, she nodded as if she understood. “I’m guessing you probably don’t know who it was that censored it, huh?”

  Theo could only shrug. “It’s been too long. These books were meant to be burned, anyway.”

  She bit her bottom lip as she continued to flip the old, yellowed pages, feeling like she was forgetting something important.

  Shame. I think about the concept often, even as I write these chapters. I think about the words she used. The look on her face as she repeated the words. Shame. Shame. Shame.

  The writing felt like Krastoff’s, but there was still something off. Her fingers traced the words at the end of the chapter she had read last time. It was smooth.

  “Hey, Theo,” she uttered quietly, rereading the last paragraph and missing the feeling of the words that Chel’s book had. “Do you…do you have anything that Em’s written? Like a book?”

  After giving her a questioning look, Theo shuffled closer to Ty on the crate they were both sitting on and reached for the book beside her. “Yeah, but what does this have to do with anything?” he said while he put a sizable title in front of her.

  History of Ancient Treatises and Defining Borders.

  Emrys sel’esiet Seville.

  She stared at the name on the first page.

  “Seville? Is that another teacher?” she asked aloud, attempting to rub the remaining sleep out of her eyes because even something as simple as a name looked suspect to her.

  “Well, he’s gone through a few—besides, that was back then. People went to different teachers compared to now, where it’s usually just one.”

  But somehow, she still couldn’t wrap her head around it. “But…but it should have been Krastoff,” she murmured, squinting at the page as if the words would magically change. “Where did the…where did the other teachers come from?”

  “If it’s like what you told me yesterday…the name was unusable, right? And no one has any idea if they’re still alive?” Theo’s words were calm and patient, and Ty tried to focus on that fact as she took a deep breath and flipped a few pages until she arrived at a random paragraph of prose.

  The storm ran through Frieril Forest, barely sparing Blackire Village, and shifted the stone markers that had been placed within the village boundaries almost a century ago by the Queen Lanimede. While this could have easily been solved by setting the markers in their original positions stated in Figure 2.11.1 through 2.11.24, those from the village claimed that the movement of the markers was an indication of divine intervention.

  She flipped a few more pages until she arrived at the end of a chapter near the middle of the volume.

  Approximately 12 percent of the text failed to be re-negotiated. Specifically, lines 17 and 42 were debated at length between the two parties, and line 33, which was ordered by the queen to be stricken out of the treatise, was kept in by the presiding arbitrators Peirth and Moire. At the time of writing, the Township of Thaon has filed for subsequent renegotiation to ensure the safety of the route to the village of Thaon, but no date has been set. See Appendix D for full text and annotations.

  Wondering whether she was going to have to pore over Em’s entire bibliography to substantiate her suspicions, Ty flipped to the very back of the book and found a glimmer of hope remaining. There was an afterword.

  I owe a great deal to Head Archivist Araminta at MATS for her comprehensive collection of documents and treatises. They were indispensable to the creation of this text, which I hope will serve as a starting point for future researchers.

  Her eyes skimmed the rest of the praises until she spotted another familiar name.

  This volume would not have been possible if not for the support of my student, Theodore, who continues to inspire me with his unending passion for learning and life. With every passing day, in this magical, miraculous world centered on the Ancients—those infinitely incomprehensible, awe-inspiring, mystical beings—he reminds me more and more of the magic that is present in us. The future I must protect for him by facing the truth head-on.

  Ty froze. Her hands lifted off the book, and she could feel a deep sense of foreboding rising from the pit of her stomach. The darkness. The look that Emrys gave her. The report she had discussed not a week ago with Nate. A single unknown name that stood out against the rest—before everything had happened, there was that one name she did not understand.

  “The Auramancer,” she whispered, feeling a crawling, disgusting feeling all over her. As if her memories of Emrys were mocking her from the past. “The Auramancer,” she repeated, getting out of her seat and prompting Theo to scoot off as well. “He can see auras. That’s why Faris called him that. It’s…it’s Em?”

  The darkness did not lie. It was Em’s aura that she saw.

  “What do you mean?”

  Paying her classmate no heed, the tactician could do nothing but try to grasp the truth before it escaped. It was so close. It was right there in front of her. In the book. In the words. In a faraway memory. Faris knew it. He had known it last Circle. He had written the report in the past, but further into the future that she ever got.

  “It’s…Krastoff?” she whispered, numb as she turned around to Theo. “Em…wrote that book you just gave me? You watched him—them—write it?”

  I want to take it. I want to take his color.

  “Ty, I really don’t understand why it matters,” Theo tried to say calmly, even though her fear was beginning to infect him.

  “Did you watch him write it?” she continued to say under her breath, quietly and measuredly. She looked him straight in the eye. “You did, didn’t you?”

  I want to take it, that beautiful red that used to be mine.

  “Y-yes. I did.”

  The fog was stronger than ever—a monstrous, consuming void. “You said Em’s teacher passed away. You—you said he changed. When was this book written? Before he changed? After?”

  That I used to see in myself.

  His eyes were wide and unblinking as he scanned Ty’s desperate expression, not knowing that the silence could not save him. “I was only old enough to help in the later years. It…it was after. After his teacher passed away. After he changed.”

  The dark truth finally surfaced, eclipsing her. “Listen, Theo. Either the Em you know right now is Krastoff, or Em killed him and took his aura. I don’t—I don’t have any concrete proof which one it is, but this means that either Krastoff is going to take you too, or Em’s going to…he’s going to make you kill him and turn you into an Ancient, just like Krastoff.”