C. Sebastian Nutt
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Chapter 213 - Heading
🕑 Added 2025-08-12 21:49:02 +0000 UTCI feel weird, just lying here and listening to him breathe. There is something about the way that he does it which is so different, but I can't put my finger on it. The short rise of his chest followed by long exhales, the way he looks like he is smiling in his sleep. It is the only time that I have seen him smile in the last few days. I hope that I helped do that, give him that little bit of contendness, even if it is only in dreams. Reaching out, I run my fingers along the side of Jor'Mari's face, feeling the prickles of whiskers on his chin. Stupid, I know that, but I just can't go without feeling him one last time.
He doesn't stir as I slip from the bed, the covers the same cerulean as all of the furnishings in the room. This family has an odd sense of decor. I find my clothes scattered on the floor and pull them on as quietly as I can, leaving my boots discarded under the table. They're just ordinary shoes, not even that expensive, just something I found in a closet in the house since my true enchanted ones exist in some strange in-between space now. I leave them, stopping at the table near the door, retrieving a pre-written note and leaving it folded on top.
Last night, he asked me to stay. I want to, want to more than anything right now, but I know that I can't. I can't ask him to leave, to sail off with me on some dangerous adventure on the other side of the world. It wouldn't be fair, not when there is still so much work he has to do here in Mari. It's hard not to blame the gods that destiny should pull us in different directions right when I think we are finding our real connection. This could have been something great.
The well-oiled door gives no whine as I close it behind myself, slowly releasing the handle to let the bolt slide smoothly back into place. In the dead of night, the manor lies still. A fit of coughing as I pass the large room given over to housing the injured is the only sound as I move through. I pause at the door there, thinking that I should at least say something to Dovik, should at least see Jess again. I left messages for them in the note I left behind, not that it makes me leaving like this any better. Clenching my first to stop the scratching, I turn away from the door, slipping out of the back like a coward.
It's already there, a disc of gold sitting out on the lawn, just a dark patch in the grass that is already laden with furniture. A shadow stands in front of the ship, one that becomes my friend as I draw nearer. Dovik sits there, hunched forward in a chair pulled from somewhere in the yard. His eyes stare unfocused at the ground in front of him. I realize that he is asleep with his eyes open, looking down at the ground.
For a terrible moment, I think of walking past him, taking my ship to the spot I arranged with Corinth ahead of time and leaving. That, that I can't do. Sighing, I slap an amorphous shape draped dew-ladden cloth to my right. The shape, as it turns out, is a pile of books stacked inordinately high. The books clatter to the grass, a series of dull thuds as they fall over one another to spill into the yard.
Dovik blinks, his eyes flicking up, finding me standing there in the moonlight. “Guess I ruined your getaway,” he says, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “Sorry.”
“You shouldn't be sleeping out here,” I tell him.
The popping of his back as he stands from the chair, stretching, lend my words credence. Dovik looks at the disc of the ship sitting in the grass behind him. “I think you wanted me to.”
“I'm sure I don't know what you are talking about,” I say.
“I'm sure you don't.” He looks me up and down before nodding to himself. “I see something in you, Charlene, something that I feel myself. You're restless, you can't sit still, can't bring yourself to be inside for more than a few hours at a time. I feel that itch too. I can't stop thinking about Jess, about what those things did to her. Illigar told us where they will be. It feels like it's the first time in my life I had a clear goal, something that I needed to strive for. Maybe it's bad that the first thing I wanted this strongly in my life is to kill something, but I think we're the same in that way.”
For a moment, I don't know how to react to that. He says the exact words that I feel, but he doesn't take them far enough. It isn't just these monsters, these evil and malevolent souls, but all of them. These ones need to go, need to pay for what they've done. After that, there will be more, more creatures made of foul magic that take the lives of those who have never done anything to deserve it. I will find it, the way to burn them all out, to rid us of them. For now, I can focus my crusade on these few. It is good to have short-term goals, or so I've heard.
“Good,” I say. The ship's surface is cool beneath my bare foot as I step aboard it. Sending a mental command to the throne in the center of the disc, the enchantments deep inside the metal begin to whir to life.
“Good,” Dovik repeats, stepping onto the ship next to me. “Where are we going then?”
I look at him out of the corner of my eye. “I can't bring you where I am going,”
“That makes it sound dangerous,” he says. “All the more reason that you should have someone with you to help you out of the trouble you are going to get into.”
“What about Jess?”
The question hits a sore spot. He looks away, staring at the surface of the ship. “Illigar said that he would take her back to Grim with him. He has to go and make his report to the Guildmaster about everything that has happened in Mari. My mothers is an incredibly powerful healer. If she can't do anything for her, then I don't know who can. At least they should know how to contact Jess’ family.”
I bite my lip. If I push him, call him out for leaving her when she is injured, I can probably make him stay. But how could I say that to him when I am doing the exact same thing.
“You're right, I'm going somewhere dangerous. It would be suicide to come,” I say.
“Then, I have to come, don't I? We still have to reach the third rank before this trail business. Not only that, if what Illigar implied is true, then the people that will enter will already be at the peak of the third-rank, and these monsters that we have to defeat are already somewhere near that. If I want to get strong enough to do that in the time that I have left, I am going to have to put my life on the line. Why not watch your back while I'm at it?”
I shake my head. “You don't understand. Dovik, I am going to the Hells. I have to.”
He pauses, but he doesn't step off the ship like any sane person would. He swallows, his eyes flicking back and forth. “Which one?”
“Tabbris.”
“Have you arranged passage?”
“My brother says that he can.”
“Can he arrange for the both of us to go?”
“Dovik.”
“If the Vivantee can handle it, I don't see why I can't. It isn't as if it is supposed to be underwater.” Despite his words, there is fear in his eyes. Instead of letting it show, he smiles, or at least makes the attempt.
“You really are a courageous man, Dovik Willian.”
He winces. “Hurtful.”
“No.” I step forward, folding my arms around him in a quick hug. “I mean it.” I don't give him the time to return the embrace before I am walking across the metal, throwing myself into the throne in the center. The last of the dormant enchantments embedded in the vessel come alive and the disc begins to levitate into the air in a silent glide. “We will have to go to Tabbris, but first I have somewhere else that I need to spend some time at.”
Dovik continues to stand still as a statue for a moment, his elbows bent with his arms in front of him, before he shakes himself out of it. He wipes his brow with the back of a hand. “Good. Two years in Tabbris sounded like a bit too much. Where are we going now, then?”
“First, we are going to meet my brother. We need his magic to make the trip not last all the time that we have remaining. Then, we are going to Faeth. According to Corinth, the National Academy of Faeth is beginning a new year in just a few weeks. It is about time that I really learned about enchantment.”
Comments
SecondBlahm
Clenching my first -> Clenching my fist before this trail business -> before this trial business
Nicholas Bolton
I interpreted it as being aimed more towards this specific strain of monsters rather than all monsters, but I see it can be read either way
DANTE
Wouldn't exterminate all monsters deprive everyone but nobility of a path to power? also, academy arch..........................
