Chapter 36

“What’s she doing here?” Wallace demanded. Dawn was still almost two hours away as they stood on the mountain, bathed in starry night.

He had heard of Kestrel and Sephira’s harrowing ordeal and knew this meeting was inevitable, but still it burned at him. He’d promised Van he would shield his family from magic, and he’d failed them.

Miserably.

He’d lost Van’s wife he’d never been able to meet to the Forgotten, and now, not only had Aris, Van’s younger brother, been drawn into their dark world, but so had Van’s daughter, Sephira.

He was an abject failure. It was impossible for anyone to have done a worse job of keeping a secret than he.

Give it a few more days, and I’ll take the twins, Corrine, and half of the barracks under my tutelage as well, Wallace huffed at the thought.

“She survived an Inquisitor’s attack. You WILL teach her. She’s been dragged into our mess and I won’t let her be unequipped,” Aris’ voice let Wallace know there was no option but to teach her.

The old soldier let out a long sigh, his shoulders drooped in defeat. I’m sorry Van old friend. I really did try. I did my best.

Over the next half hour Wallace gave Sephira a condensed version of the explanation he’d given to Kestrel and Aris. The girl, to her credit, caught on quicker than both her uncle and Kestrel. It was as if it she was reviewing a language she learned but had thought forgotten and in just a short time of instruction she had surpassed both in her understanding of Magic.

The sun had nearly risen and the horizon had turned a light green by the time they finished. The dawn would soon break and bathe the morning in brilliant pinks and oranges.

Sephira couldn’t summon the magic though.

They quickly realized she was no Memory Mage, but despite her inability to access it, she recognized the touch of magic more deeply than anyone Wallace had ever met. By the end of the lesson she was recognizing its touch at a level that had taken Wallace himself years to attain.

As the dawn broke and the sun greeted the resting city of Fiell, Wallace gruffly called an end to the session. Wallace led them down from the rabbit trails that led to their small hidden grove. Kestrel watched the greying man in awe while they descended. He made no sound as he trekked over the pine bough laden trails. Despite his aging appearance, Wallace moved with the grace of a Mountain Leopard.

His stealth was a vivid reminder of his deadly past as a soldier.

That gave Kestrel an idea.

*****

“So, what do you think?” Kestrel asked. “Can you teach me or not?”

Wallace nodded. It was a great idea, how he’d not thought of it himself was still a mystery to him. His use of Memory Magic had saved his life more than once in the Mountain Campaigns, and any edge that Aris and the boy could get may one day save their lives.

Aris grinned when he saw Wallace’s response. Kestrel had approached him not long after descending the foothill they trained upon with the idea of adapting Memory Magic to the battlefield. He’d told Aris how helpless he’d felt under the touch of the Inquisitor during their battle, and how the man wielded his memory like a weapon.

Though their abilities were different than those of the Inquisitors, why couldn’t they too, weaponize their abilities?

Aris had immediately seen the brilliance in the young man’s thoughts. The boy, though unlearned, had surprising wisdom.

He had been just as excited to test it out as Kestrel. He wouldn’t let himself pass up any opportunity that would allow him to better protect his family.

They began their match. Wallace’s instructions rang clear through the sparring grounds. Memories wove together with the tangle of grappling bodies. At a touch, Kestrel saw where Aris’ knee tended to buckle from an old injury and trapped the the General’s leg as leverage for a sweep that left the older blonde man on the sandy ground.

Aris grinned. “Wonderful! Now it’s my turn!” he rushed at Kestrel and caught him in a clinch.

There!

He immediately found the memory of the knot in Kestrel’s calf that had been giving him problems for the few days. Kestrel posted and created enough distance to try and sneak an uppercut through the General’s guard. Aris pushed him away and landed a heavy leg kick on the sore spot that been hurting Kestrel. The young man collapsed in a heap, he grabbed his calf and cursed in pain.

“You’re a jerk,” Kestrel growled as he took Aris’ offered hand to help him regain his footing.

“Yeah, but a jerk who can target weak spots. It’s great isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Kestrel’s grin was feral. “Now it’s my turn!”

*****

Sephira’s life continued much the same as it had before the attack. The only difference is she no longer did the shopping. That was now handled by household servants.

She had fought with her aunt over it, but Corrine had insisted and wouldn’t budge no matter how Sephira begged or pleaded. She knew that everything was changing under her and couldn’t do a thing about it and she loathed that fact, but at least with this small thing she could keep her niece safe from whatever darkness that her family was being pulled into.

Without her daily excursions into the city Sephira began to feel stifled. She was a like a Mountain Leopard stuck in a showman’s cage. Here freedom had been taken from her by Rel and the dead Inquisitor. She couldn’t bear the inactivity, so, after spending a day fuming over her aunt’s edict Sephira decided to put all her energy into her sessions with Wallace and the small coterie that had forced themselves into his tutelage. It fulfilled that desperate need for something to do that her confinement caused.

Sephira’s skill in recognizing the touch of magic shot up like a Lilly sprouting from the late spring snows in the mountains. By her fourth meeting, she could not only recognize every touch, but she’d nearly mastered laying the trap for Takers that had taken Kestrel months to perfect.

“Let’s try again,” Wallace said, his breath creating a cloud of condensation in the air in front of him, hanging like a cloud in the darkness. “Give me your hand girl.”

Sephira nodded. Kestrel and her uncle had already made their way down the mountain, but she had insisted she would stay and work with Wallace just a little longer.

Sephira placed her tanned right hand into Wallace’s outstretched calloused paw. His hand lightly squeezed her and for a brief second, she wondered if this was what having a grandfather felt like.

She had never known hers. Her father Van had ran with Aris to get away from the drunken abuse that they had been raised under. To this day Aris didn’t know if his father was dead or alive nor did he care.

Sephira immediately felt the strange tingle she’d come to recognize as a Taker’s touch. It was an odd phantom limb feeling.

Sephira made a face of discomfort at the touch on her memories and winced.

“It’s okay dear, there’s nothing to worry about,” Wallace reassured her.

A dam inside of Sephira’s mind broke at those words.

Wallace fell into a flood of memories.

*****

Wallace watched from a child’s eyes as Van and his wife, who’s face was a blur, argued for what seemed like the millionth time. Wallace heard crying that he knew what his own, or rather, Sephira’s, and felt helpless not being able to comfort her mother.

“I’m in Sephira’s memories.” He reminded himself while he watched Van standing resolute despite his bride’s pleading. Even after decades of using Memory Magic, he could get caught up and lose himself if he wasn’t on constant guard.

Wallace couldn’t understand what was happening. Sephira must have only been only about two years old in the memory. The words were lost on him in her recollection, but the faces and gestures were unmistakeable.

It was the look of pain born from love.

“I have to do something!” Wallace recognized Van’s voice. “I can’t just sit by and watch as this monster eats away at the soul of our nation! I love it too much to let it happen!” the memories had shifted. The picture of her father was clearer in Sephira’s mind and Wallace knew that this must’ve taken place shortly before Van’s execution.

“Stay with us! We need you! If you keep going on like this, you’re bound to be caught! I don’t know what I’d do without you. How could I take care of our baby alone?” the voice of Sephira’s mother struck a chord in Wallace’s mind.

Why couldn’t he see her face?

He should be able to see her face.

Something was wrong.

“I’m sorry my love. You’ll never truly know just how sorry I am. How much I wish we didn’t live in this time. How much I wish didn’t have this ability that I’ve been given. But I have it, and I have not only a duty to my family, but I also swore an oath to serve and protect my country,” Van’s voice dripped with sadness and determination. Wallace could tell he was psyching himself up with his words.

That familiar voice that Wallace couldn’t quite place let out a sigh and small grunt of affirmation. “I know, and that’s why I fell in love with you in the first place. You truly love everyone. It’s just unbearable thinking of what might happen to you and what I would do without you.”

Van’s hand reached to the head of his wife and brushed a stray hair away. He cupped the back of her head and drew her into a tender kiss.

A barrage of memories poured through Wallace’s mind. Sephira’s childhood unfolded before his eyes. He wondered if his eyes were watering as he watched her memories of her father Van, whom he’d trained, and who's death he still felt was his fault all these years later.

Wallace had been Van’s teacher in magic. And it was that magic that had opened the path he had walked down towards his execution. He had inadvertently caused the death of Sephira’s father, and now here he was, teaching her the same magic that had gotten her father put to death.

He was a fool.

Wallace tried to pull his hand from Sephira’s. The memories were more than he could handle. Each one reminded him of his greatest failure. They were monuments to the death of a great man that he had failed.

Wallace had almost yanked free, but as his touch lifted a memory yanked him back into Sephira’s mind like a magnet.

“It’s okay darling, I’ll take all the pain from you. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Your daddy did a terrible thing and he paid for it. But you don’t have to remember it. You can remember him before he was taken,” a sickly sweet high pitched voice who’s words dripped like molasses cooed to her.

“Your family betrayed you. They weren’t there for you when you needed them the most,” The man was lying. He had to be. Her daddy was her hero. He would never do anything wrong. He WAS a good man. This gross man was a liar. “We care about what’s best for you. The Emperor loves his subjects. He loves all the little children. He only wants what’s best for you. So I’ll take all that sadness from you and give you a new family. I’ll give you better one. One that’s loyal to the Emperor. I’ll take that traitor you called father and give you one who's loyalty will never betray you.”

Wallace watched as Sephira sat quietly in terror. She didn’t dare breath, afraid of what might happen if she tried to escape.

She was terrified not only for her life, but the life of her mother as well. These were bad men. They would hurt her. She had seen them hurt people.

She didn’t want to be hurt. She didn’t want them to touch her.

Still she was too afraid to move.

The hand softly rested on her forehead. It was cold and wet. It felt like a dead fish.

The memories leading up to the days before Van’s death were there, and then suddenly weren’t. They disappeared as if they had been erased. Sephira, just a young child screamed.

“No! Daddy! Daddy don’t leave me!”

Rage boiled through Wallace as he watched the scene. The Forgotten searched through the young girls brain like a surgeon and any memory he deemed unfit disappeared at the touch of his magic. Wallace cursed aloud as Sephira’s memory showed the mage’s predatory smile while he erased the life the small girl had known.

“Stop! I love my family! I don’t wanna lose them!” Sephira screamed her voice raw to no avail. “Don’t take mommy from me too! I don’t wanna forget her! Please don’t take mommy!” her voice broke.

Sephira’s young cries went unheeded.

*****

Wallace’s hand jerked out of Sephira’s. He was in a cold sweat and Sephira’s look of concern pierced him. There were a million questions in her bright aqua eyes, but a firm shake of the head and a raised hand from Wallace quieted them.

He needed time to process what he’d just seen.

What in the depths of hell was that!? Wallace thought.

He was weary. He’d taken memories before, oftentimes traumatic. He was no stranger to horrible memories. He used his own to defend himself, but this was different. It was sickening. How could those monsters do that to one so young? How could they erase a family?

Why?

He understood erasing memories of her father’s rebellion, but why her mother? Why did she seem so familiar?

Just who had she been?