39 | Familiar Magic

It fades almost as quickly as it arrives—the darkness in her eyes—but Klia sucks in a sharp breath and grabs Eli by the hand, yanking him down the hallway. He follows without hesitation, not even needing to ask if she’s picked back up her brother’s heartbeat. Eli’s own heart jumps into his throat, for there will be danger wherever they find the boy.

But they will find him.

Eli knows little of what he expects to find and is half-concerned they will plow face-first into a bend in the tunnel, or one of the strange doors with no handles. There is scant light, even less so with Klia seeming to draw darkness about her, and he keeps her from running too quickly.

All at once, the air is thicker, heavy with moisture. When Eli puts a steadying hand along the tunnel wall, it returns damp. Water is a good thing—they are running low, to begin with, and Eli is always half hoping that any flow of an underground stream may be a way to lead back to the surface given the presence of so many rivers on these mountains. They splash through puddles, a spray of mist dripping down in a small waterfall from a crack in the ceiling of the walkway. It is fresh and bitter cold, and briefly shocks Eli out of any lingering exhaustion. Klia doesn’t even seem to notice.

Then she yelps, and Eli realizes what’s happened with just enough time to scramble to a halt, keeping the girl from tumbling full force down the sudden set of steps in the dark. He nearly crashes to the ground doing so, but neither of them tumbles down.

Scrambling carefully back to her feet, Klia wipes at a new scratch on her knee through Eli’s long shirt and doesn’t seem terribly bothered.

“Easy now,” Eli says, taking them carefully down the mossy steps even as the girl picks back up on her tugging. She points out at something in the dark, but Eli can see not much of anything at all and hears only quite a bit of water. “I cannot see, girl.”

Not for the first time, he wishes they had that shimmering little orb, which would light their way if only Eli hummed to it. But there are only the faintly shimmering stones of insects in his hand, and he can barely see the steps beneath his feet. If he was not holding tight to Klia, he would lose her in a moment.

His boot is soaked, and he drags Klia back once more. Water drifts by, lapping quietly at the edges of the stone. Have they come back across the aqueduct? If so, he is worried for any drop in the floor as there was when they climbed out near that small tree, the same place he spoke with Thistle upon waking.

There is no light.

He looks down at Klia’s hand, her fair skin, but the way he can barely even see her where she stands alongside him. The barest outline of her face gazes up at him. Can she see me clearly? It is nearly as if she is drawing all sight from the room, though realistically Eli knows they are in the pitch dark of an underground cavern—even without what strange magic she possesses, he would still be unlikely to see.

“Klia,” he whispers, uncertain what might lurk in the dark, particularly since the girl seems to have found her brother once more. “Your magic makes it as night, doesn’t it?”

She doesn’t move or give any indication she comprehends his words, but when he squeezes her hand, she squeezes back.

“I know you want to find Thistle, but I need you to calm yourself down and let your magic fade for a little bit so I can see better.”

Momentarily, he wonders if she sees better in the dark than in the daylight, and stores that question away for when they are out of danger.

When nothing happens, he tucks the bees away into his pocket, utterly drowning them in darkness, and crouches before her, putting his hands on the shape of her shoulders in the dark.

“I know you are frightened. It is alright to be very frightened, I am as well. So, I need you to be brave and concentrate on your magic so I can see.”

Her hands hold onto the back of his where they grip her shoulders, and Eli sees.

All the dark corners of the pitch room become clear, if not still dim and strangely one-tone, as if he is not seeing through human eyes at all. With a start, he glances about himself and finds the water he stumbled into is indeed another section of the aqueduct, running through the center of the room. More runes carve the floor, but this is not merely another empty room for water to pass through—it is nearly some sort of storage for massive crystal pools. Even larger in length than the library, the room stretches far back, farther than Eli thinks he would usually see even in brighter light. Moss hangs along the walls, some vines wriggle softly back and forth, hanging out from between the cracks, and something slashes softly in one of the smaller pools. If it wasn’t so overgrown, Eli wonders if perhaps it was once a bathhouse of sorts, though the water is frigid.

He is moments from asking Klia if she is sharing her magic on purpose, or if there is something else at work in this strange place, when water rains down on them from above, and Eli is no longer beneath the mountains.

* * *

It is a long, dark night. Winters in Monsetyra are often as such, and Eli lit a candle long ago, helped by the dimming light of the hearth. Lyra went to bed ages ago. Rowan, his older brother, was going to help him go through these papers but had entirely too much wine over dinner. Eli is actually surprised he managed to fall asleep upright on the reclining couch and didn’t pass out face-first on a pillow.

Eli plans on joining the sleeping household soon enough.

He has few battles these days and fewer missions. Getting ever so slightly to the point where he is too old to be planting himself on a battlefield, his skills are now more attuned to helping the next lineage of the Queen’s warriors. He shuffles through papers of different men and women, most more likely to be called boys and girls with their often-young ages. He sets aside which ones have the most likelihood of skills to foster. Anyone with a warrior’s class or fighting skills will receive training, but not within the palace itself.

Those are a special breed.

Eli remembers his own long days of learning the way of the blade with a mixture of fondness and exhaustion. He is as tough but not as unsympathetic as his own teachers were. His pupils like him more, he believes, but they are no less the fighters for it.

A soft knock startles him—he was nearly dozing off in his chair. Stretching, he looks back and says, “Yes?”

Abner’s face comes into view. The door was already open, he didn’t need to knock.

“I couldn’t tell if you were passing out in your chair.” His son joins him. He is a young man now, quite possibly heading toward taller than his father. Eli doesn’t know where the kid gets it. Lyra and all her sisters are not overly tall women, and Eli is large but has no idea how his kid is going to end up bigger than him. He’s not as graceful about it as Eli is, much to both of their amusements.

“No one tells you that even with a Warrior class, eventually, you will be shuffling papers like a politician.” Eli scatters a few of the discarded parchments along the side of his desk.

Abner seats himself on the corner of the heavy desk, feet on the edge of Eli’s chair. They have a fine house in the second upper ring of the city, where those of his class and similar may reside once they are high-ranked enough. It is not large, but Eli has never wished in particular for a large dwelling, and Lyra is thrilled with it, draping tapestries and little marble figures across every wall and corner. His office is small enough for a second hearth to fit nicely along with his desk, and a window opposite. Growing up in a fighting school for boys, he feels spoiled.

“Find any of a worthy nature?” Abner asks, looking rather amused by himself.

“Oh, plenty. But I cannot pick them all. Not enough room in the entire palace. What do you have there?”

His son has a small book clasped between his long fingers. Eli has seen it before, with its many drawings. Even as old as he is, Abner still sometimes shows his old man his scribblings, even if most go far over Eli’s comprehension.

“’Tis only a creature sketch,” he says, flipping to a page and handing it over. “I often consider the types of familiars we could summon if they were melded with our own skills.”

Eli touches the paper gently, careful not to smear the charcoal. It is a funny little thing, a fox of sorts with too-large eyes and flowers mixed in with its fur. Abner can grow anything, and Eli often wonders where such a skill was inherited from. Certainly not from his father or mother.

“If you manage to give a tiny familiar some flower magic, I would like one as well,” he says, handing it back.

The two of them laugh softly, never waking the rest of the house.