While frightening, magic empowered the warrior. Varin, with his hands held outright and a vicious smirk stretched across his stubbly face, circled Aiora who mimicked that diabolical stare. As a contrast, she listlessly strolled around with her arms by her side. Her eyes, gray as the sky above, concealed the thunder that was to come.

It was rare that they sparred—Varin often passed her pleas off under the ruse of it being an unfair battle, with him being the superior fighter and all, but more likely it was because she scared him. While her origin was told primarily through the sprinkles of hints she gave him, and rumors that spread throughout the academy, he shrugged it off as a mundane intimidation factor. After all, Aiora was a looker and as feisty as a wild cat.

With one swift movement, he struck an orb of energy at her. What could only be compared as a large, pressurized gust of wind blew toward the mage and she was pushed backward. Effortlessly landing on her feet, she pushed the hair out of her face.

“Messed up your hair, did you?” Varin teased.

Aiora responded with a soft chuckle, encompassing a ball of blue magic between her hands as she adjusted her posture. It illuminated her face, casting a terrifying shadow that made Varin’s jaw clench.

Here comes the storm.

Strengthening his stance, he closed his eyes as soon as that orb flew out of her grasp. He knew he was told to never turn his gaze from danger, but he couldn’t help it. She was too powerful, and watching that magic hit him like a battle horse was unwise—after all, how was he expected to sustain his ego when a tiny elf was knocking him around with some merriment spells?

And, when it hit him, he fell backward much further and harder than she had. The wind was knocked out of him as he was slammed to the grass, gasping for air as his eyes shot open. The sky spun above him and his core burned from the impact. If he had to visualize the pain, it felt like that same battle horse decided to stampede over his torso after knocking him down once already. Truly agonizing.

“What was that, Aiora?” Varin asked between breaths. Standing to his feet, he wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and watched her laugh, a righteously evil laugh at that. He went against his better judgement and held his hands up in fists, standing still instead of circling her. He pushed another forceful wind at her, her agile body practically twirling out of the path.

“Wind, Varin? Come on, you warrior! You are mightier than some breeze.”

Sniffling, he kept his distance as she playfully spun around him. Pushing his left foot in her direction, water lifted from the ground and wrapped around her leg like a vine. Consequently, she stopped twirling but her guffawing continued.

Aiora looked over her shoulder at Varin, her gray eyes twinkling some kind of foreign color—possibly yellow, or orange—and she pointed her index finger toward him. The tattoos that crept through the back of her blouse, hidden beneath the strands of her braid, radiated vibrantly.

Without warning, a zap of lightning exploded into the air and stabbed into his forearm, shocks of electricity tearing through his muscles and paralyzing him where he stood. The world darkened around him, the embrace of numbness overcoming his senses before he fell to his knees. Whatever water that had risen from the soil of Denzethea fell along with him. As his vision failed him, succumbing to the numb feeling of nothingness, he watched a blonde woman stand over him. Only, this was not Aiora. Those golden eyes and sickening sneer could not be mistaken for anybody else.

As the void overcame his senses, a final word escaped from his chapped lips: "Seraphine..."

He wasn’t sure how long he was out of touch with reality, but when light began to break through the shadows that consumed him, he found himself staring up at the stone ceiling of Lighthelm. Wafts of potatoes, cabbage, and rye bread welcomed him back to consciousness, a gentle hand resting atop his untouched arm.

Turning his attention to the guest, he met the wide, pleading eyes of Aiora. She began to profusely apologize.

“What’s gotten into you?” Varin asked, not waiting for her to finish her ramblings. Frowning, he moved his arm away from her and tugged at the gauze, eyes drifting down to examine the skin beneath it. It was blistered, blackened and charred—surely going to leave a scar.

“I am so sorry, Varin,” Aiora said and lowered her stare down to her hands. Varin knew this was a result of poor planning on her part, but the fact of the matter was he had never seen her lose grasp of her mana like that. Never.

What was more important to Varin was understanding what could have caused such a mindless mistake, and less about how the wound on his forearm would heal. Aiora was no novice with her magic—she could move boulders the size of giants with her mind and turn any warrior to stone with that glare, or so he would like to think.

“Aiora, I’m not upset. I am more worried as to why it happened in the first place.”

She walked to the other side of him, taking hold of the cloth he had just tugged at and wrapped it tighter around his forearm. Flinching, he closed his eyes and cursed at her to be gentle.

She nodded in response, her gaze stuck on his arm with the severity of a bull. The rage was boiling in his chest wildly, but he had to remain composed. After all, he would be a fool to think she intended to hurt him.

If his mother taught him anything, it was to remain calm and collected in moments of distress. Specifically when the cause of such turmoil was largely unknown.

Aiora moved away from Varin, making sure to keep her back turned to him. “Varin, what was your home like?”

“Home?”

“Yulia, correct?” Aiora continued.

Varin’s breath hitched in his throat, nodding slowly before finding his voice. “It was difficult, I grew up raising myself, and then later expected to raise my younger brother while my father went out to guard the city gates.”

“And your mother?” she asked.

“She did what she could, but her resources were… limited.”

Aiora turned to look Varin head on now, her lip turned downward into a frown. Varin mimicked this expression, shrugging his shoulders the moment the silence became overwhelming.

“Life is difficult to say the least. Here, as well as back home. You should know this better than anybody else, though.”

“Life is a cruel, cruel wench,” Aiora said with a curled grimace, clutching at the table with a stone cold grip. “I haven’t told you much about my upbringing, but the way I acted out there… It's been so long! I thought… I thought I had it under control, that's all.”

“What happened when you were younger?” Varin asked, sitting up carefully so he wasn’t lying down flat. With this question, her grimace twitched into an agonizingly sad frown.

“Do you remember the fire of Javunger? A few years ago?”

“Of course—caused by unrighteous heretics, no doubt.”

This is where she hesitated, her eyes darkening similarly to how they did during the duel. This made him want to prepare for an ungodly outburst again, but he sat still.

“Sure, but what if it wasn’t?”

Varin eyed Aiora carefully, his brow furrowing at the thought. “It is the only reasonable explanation, is it not?”

Aiora shrugged her shoulders and moved to the foot of his bed. Holding her hands on either side of the frame, her gaze flickered between his own eyes and the blanket.

With fidgeting fingers and a stare drenched with worry, she was overcome with so much raw emotion that she wept. Varin had never seen Aiora cry, and to be honest he never knew what to do with crying women. Should he remain quiet and let her mope? Stand on his own two feet and console her, assuring that everything would be alright? Notably, he decided to take the middle ground and console where he was at. He couldn’t stand to look at that trembling pout, though.

“Aiora, I can listen to you if you need to vent. I’ve never seen you cry before.”

She stifled a chuckle and rubbed the tip of her nose, turning her head away. The golden tattoos peaked underneath her braid, glowing wildly for just a moment. Just as they had when she lost control. He clenched both his jaw and his fists at the sight.

“I used to be the biggest crybaby, you would never believe it…”

“I have no doubt,” Varin said, his eyes not leaving the luminous markings. “Aiora, what are those runes for? I understand they come from your family?”

Whatever essence of a smile she held vanished, a grim pout returning. She reached up one of her hands to hold the back of her neck, nodding her head slowly. “Yes, passed along by blood.”

Varin hummed, furrowing his brow. He remained quiet for a few moments, hoping she would fill the silence with some kind of explanation. As the still air between them brought him comfort, he realized just how hard his heart had been beating inside his chest.

“I grew up in Javunger, Varin. My father was the Headminister of the Arcane Magics guild, and he spent my childhood collecting a group of extremists to follow in his footsteps. From a young age, that included me.”

“Arcane Magics… you mean—”

“Yes!” Aiora spat back as a response, her lips curled back into an agonizing scowl. “The word heretic… it haunts me, I wake up screaming the word after imagining the villagers burning me alive. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I’ll forever be marked for it. A keepsake permanently placed on my body. Lovely.”

“Placed?” Varin whispered. “You said it was carried on by blood, were you not born with it?”

Her face twitched, her fingers clawing into the skin of her neck before letting it drop down to her side. “I said it was given by blood.”

Varin stood to his feet, his head still pounding from the incident prior but he ignored it for now. Taking a few careful steps toward Aiora, he opened his uninjured arm for a hug which she gladly accepted.

“Blood… It's precious, isn’t it? I’ve taken blood, too. You are not alone in that vice.”

“But I am,” she said shakily. “You’ve told me of your stories—protecting your family, your home. I protected nothing but a lost cause for raising a dead witch!”

Varin watched as she pushed herself away from him, walking to the opposite side of the room to mess with some of the vials of potions. “Your father believed in the resurrection of the Firstborn?”

“Passionately… wildly! Very similarly to us, but you see... what made his guild a cult was because he told people that the Firstborn would not be resurrected in their original form, but instead plant the seed of power in those who make the greatest sacrifice. Through death, the Firstborn Mage shall grant the luckiest warrior power. The entire town of Javunger saw him as a prophet. Some righteous figurehead that spoke of the Firstborn’s dying wish.”

“A prophet?”

“A false one!” she laughed. “It took me all but eighteen years to figure that out. Ever since then, I’ve been running.”

“Didn’t run very far?” Varin questioned, sitting back down on the edge of the bed.

Aiora slowly shook her head. “No, I did not. There are monsters I need to ensure never get released again.”

Varin stared at the elf. Her stance was weakened, with shoulders slumped over and head hung low. She looked defeated, but he couldn’t place why. “So, the fire of Javunger? Did your father have something to do with it?”

Aiora chuckled at this, shaking her head decidedly. “He wishes he had that infamy, rest his soul. No, he did not. Rumor has it a child started it, Varin.”

“A child?”

This was when Aiora finally turned to look him head on. Her gray eyes flashed something dark, but it only lasted a second. She took a few steps toward him, holding her hands out melodramatically, bowing to top it off. “Death to Javunger, Varin. I caused that fire that killed so, so many... And the funniest thing about it?" she asked.

He hummed.

"May they all rot. I have no regret. That could be because there are simply bigger issues at hand, though.”

Varin gulped as his eyes scanned her from head to toe in a helpless attempt to follow. Standing to his feet, he shook his head. “What is it?”

“The Silver Dragon.” she whispered.

Shit.

“Yeah, that silver dragon. Are you ready? You said the dragonkeepers name before fainting, so I reckon we do not have much time.”

She knew about her too?

“Do I have much of a choice?”