Slap!

Slap!

Slap!

Each hit like a gong, calling my body to wake. At first, I just knew of the hits, the same way you’d know of the ground beneath you. But then they started to hurt. Each strike gave me a bit more feeling, and a bit more pain.

When it stopped, I tried to numb my mind to the stinging reverb left on my cheeks, instead focussing on the sounds around me. Things were quiet, I found it hard to tell if I had damaged ears or if my surroundings were still. Soon then loud footsteps begun then dimmed to nothing. I thought it was my terroriser leaving, but that wasn’t enough to calm me.

The tame crackle of a fire nearby came loudest after that. I found it troubling I hadn’t heard it sooner but it’s warmth begun to sooth me. I seemed to be laying facing it. The warm dirt informing me. Time passed like this, unknown to me how much of it. Every once in a while, I’d hear the shuffling of a pair of feet, wooden clackering, then a gentle roar from the fire and a stronger glow on my face.

I tempted opening my eyes but decided against it. The last thing I remembered was death. I didn’t imagine the Great Sage greeted everyone who made it into the afterlife with meaty hands and a campsite.

My neck no longer hurt. it felt surprisingly good. I would have thought I was in a different body if it wasn’t for the rest of me. There were few injuries, but I was overwhelmed by a hollow feeling.

Footsteps came, along with messy breathing.

“There’s no use, the boy’s out cold,” The man by the fire said.

“Still bleeding, his neck?” The newcomer was Jiren his deep voice telling.

“No, that water pulse of his… it completely stopped your flames. All he had was some shallow cuts on his neck.”

“How, how’d he do it Gorma, how?” asked Jiren.

“There’s no way a child like him could do that Jiren, it was perfectly balanced against you, no pyre wasted. That kinda skill could make him an aidin in the Kingdom of Water. He had help. It must have been a ward or something by his master. Probably to protect the book,”

“The women? Gorma no, the women failed academy.”

“You oaf, with a world book, why would you go through the academy? Flames though, all of them embers in that village and an ashen had a world book. And she ran their tomes. Hiding in plain sight!” Gorma let out a grunt.

“Haha, you’re right Gorma, those embers must have been idiots,”

"Strong idiots, it’s true what they say though, mages get wilder the further you go from the city. Dare I say that Heliar could have made the white guards,” Gorma said, shaking his head.

There was a brief stint of silence. “.… are you sure it’s fine?” Asked Jiren.

“The boy is still alive and his pyre is pitiful, there’s no way he could have done anything. He must still have the book. Once Emra finds his master we’ll interrogate both, worst case, we’ll get a holy sister to look through their memories.”

“Try it now, try the eyes now,”

Gorma let out an irritated sigh, “I did earlier and I’m too tired now. If I tried again, I might overdo it. It doesn’t even matter, wait for Emra,”

The eyes. Those glowing green eyes from before. They must have been Rahr’s eyes. I heard they only glowed when they were used to see something more valuable than themselves. Legend was they were ripped from the sockets of the seer Rahr and enchanted by a peer of light. Reading about it for the testing, I never even thought they existed, let alone that I’d come across them.

A cold sweat rolled down my head. They said Rahr’s eyes had a golden centre and glowed to reflect the nature of the artefact nearby. Green was meant to be corrupt.

Seeing them shine that bright emerald in the tomes was all the more worrying now. I tried feeling around for the book, I had mixed feelings when I felt the beads light on my chest, I remembered they had turned into the necklace.

I wanted anything I could confirm or understand now. I needed more information. Some sort of bearing for my sanity. Desperate, I opened my eyes before even deciding on it, shutting them as soon as I realised. Neither of them was looking at me so they hadn’t noticed. But that also meant I couldn’t see Gorma’s face.

I didn’t gain much new information except that we were in a forest and it was dark. The forest was unfamiliar, the trees rising higher than I was used to. They two men had set up a fire here.

Jiren was an ember, he flamed my neck. But the Gorma was the one that fed the fire. Why would you when you had actual flames at your command? Was he that exhausted, or maybe he wasn't an ember? I thought about how they mentioned the white guards, and how they could have Rahr’s eye, an artefact of a peer of light.

Why did they attack the ascetics and wreck the tomes? They were powerful men, but the ascetics were the strongest of the village, they’d even claim respect in the city. Not to mention there was only two of them here. They mentioned a third, that Emra, but he wasn’t there at the keep training or the tomes.

The more I thought about things the more clammy my hands became. These weren’t just bandits.

I didn’t know what a world artefact was either. I’d heard of paragon artefacts, Rahr’s eyes were one of them. If the book was more valuable than even that then…

What was Velma doing with it? They said she’d gone to the academy but she had told us she was born and raised in the village.

Nothing made sense.

“Think he woke.”

Even with my eyes closed I was sure I could still feel them look my way. I heard steps begin towards me.

This is it, I thought. I cannot say my mind was sound then and there in my fear. I played out what could have happened, what might have happened, and what would never happen but would have scared me enough to believe.

My thoughts were frantic. I thought to protect my eyes and heart. Dumb eyes were windows. The keepers had all but stared out confessions, whether true or false, from boys at the keep. A manic heart loosened the body. Your hands, your posture, your mouth would all betray you. Nothing good ever happened when you let other men influence those. But these weren’t just men. They were mages and I was a boy.

I had to avoid talking. Avoid them. Holding my tongue would be taken as an act of defiance that’d earn me beatings I couldn’t handle. I needed them to consider my silence as due course. I knew how.

I stopped my breathing and counted the seconds pass. I needed around a minute to calm my heart completely.

First, those same meaty hands struck me again. The hit hurt more than before. After my lack of response, even though I very much wanted to scream one out, my eyelids were reeled back. I tried to mimic the same cloudy look Vam gave when I done it to him once as a kid during one of his daytime naps. When my eyes were opened I made sure not to focus on anything in particular, I saw Jiren wide and clear.

He’d taken off his robe so his face was on show. He was thick tanned and even more so scarred, with a large slit running across his face. More than anything he was big, monstrously big for a person, his breath on me like a current.

My fish eyes might have been too convincing, Jiren opted to check my breathing right after. I let shallow breaths flow- unconscious people never breathed heavy. But, It was hard to keep them composed. I could only hope Jiren couldn’t tell.

“Think something wrong.” Jiren said to Gorma.

“What?”

“The boy, the boys not good.”

“What does that even mean, what’s wrong with him?”

“Breath slow, heart too.”

“Ever so succinct. He was like that yesterday too, it’s been five days, I think he’s just got us on a con.”

“Four months with holy sisters, I’d know if boy faked,”

Gorma sighed, “You and I both know at least three of those months were just you flirting,”

I heard a hearty laugh from Jiren. “Many years, you know me too well.”

Gorma mumbled in agreement, “With that spare month of training, what you think offed the boy?”

“Too much power, too little pyre.”

“But he couldn’t have cast the-”

“No, too much power. Too close. Too weak. Pyre into mess. Now his body fix.”

“Thought you said he stopped the attack?” asked Gorma.

“Not handle all.”

Gorma took the words in. “He’ll wake up soon, everybody’s gotta eat.”

My stomach lasted an hour before it began to howl. I realised being unconscious was a blessing in its own way. But I kept my ploy faking it. I’d snuck more glances and knew only Jiren was watching me now.

Jiren had been by the fire for an hour or several. He had been sat in deep focus, the sounds of my stomach going unnoticed. From the angle all I could see was his back. Occasionally he’d chant and occasionally he’d move, and I’d dare look, seeing him dance with the fire, warping it and shaping it. It was amazing, like watching a man playing with a dragon. He opted for slow focused movements, almost tribal in their togetherness.

Jiren performed the same rituals for me the night after, another day passing in my hunger. The movements were now etched in my mind though, it was the only entertainment I had and I found it fascinating the way the fire would prance around him. It seemed charmed by him, moving for him and with him.

My hunger had grown beyond control. It would waver in and out of phase, at its strongest enchanting me into a mental craze. I was finding it hard to reason my silence to myself. A conversational surely couldn’t be worse than starvation? And I had nothing to hide. The whole mess was Velma’s. I was innocent. But every time I thought to talk to them and earn some food, my lips re-tied at the thought of Lunar, and my ignorance in how she played in all of this. I couldn’t see a world where she betrayed me. I knew whatever the situation, she wouldn’t have done me wrong, and I wouldn’t to her. So I held my silence. Mistakes were harder to make with patient. Something my stomach didn’t understand.

As all bad men do, he came at night. I was lost in slumber, my only solace against the ravenous pit growing inside me. His footsteps were a deliberate type of heavy, over the forest winds and fire they carried to wake me up. I took no risks, Stilling my breath as soon as I heard the stranger join our camp.