Chapter 25: Chapter 24: Concealed Successor

She felt the burning hearth from the Mage. He was seeping the warmth of the room as moments pass with none of the apprentices responding to his questions. The princess then could attest how the others were faring, there was too much hatred in the Mage to thaw the growing cold amongst them. But Alve could not withstand such fumes, considering they were but young students barely sprouting beards. So, although fear had wrought her chest, for sympathy for the silent and agitated new classmates, Alve shed a tear.

Her brother was quick to notice her distress. “Alve? What has hurt you?” When Arlou wretched his concerns to her, dabbing the droplet on her face with a finger, Alve was encouraged to bawl.

Her sobs drenched over the Mage’s flames as it echoed through the caved walls of the office. Both Scholar and Mage could not explain the sudden outburst as the grandfather principal came pondering like the lion portrayed in the Literatures of Scholars. Concern in his eyes, the Lord Visor like a wisp took out a small cloth and smothered Alve’s now dripping nose, the guards not even a steel seen to stop the perusing of the royal.

After a later of weeping and cooing on her head, when Alve found the courage to hold her tears at bay, the Lord Visor addressed the stunned crowd, his voice was of a tired as the age he was at. “We may have strained our little girl too much. Besides, the Lady Oria has started her rise,” he said as his back was towards them and his eyes drawn to Alve’s somber green. “You may all be dismissed. Scholar and Mage may stay to explain and report their first examination of their students. Apprentices will return to their quarters.” Alve saw the decision on the principal’s face and stood as he finalized the plan to them all. “The Masters will manage the next lessons thereafter.”

The Chonerin guards swept their wards away. When Sergeant Haisumen took Alve to his arms, the princess did not resist as her small tired form leaned on the guard’s plated chest. She did not follow the faces of the Skiethalon apprentices after her scene but the princess caught the growing heat of the air when they left the office. There was relief and for that, Alve was satisfied.

 

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“We seemed to believe you had the ability to control your eth, Lore Master. I was disappointed when you have unleashed your wrath upon my apprentices. Act that way again and I will no longer tolerate your disguise in my school. Hear me!” Zazun exclaimed, he was appalled by the Mage’s bursting eth to children, and to top, the renegade had not left his eyes from the door when the last of the apprentices left. The Taihe ignored him.

Canadrin’s hand on the Mage had lightened the shadows on Bapitismiaga’s face when she added, “who do you think was he then? To have you look like you’ve seen a ghost worries me.” They have seemed to have found concord with sarcasm, Zazun thought, had to see the civet Scholar purring like a house cat was astonishing.

The Mage eventually shook himself from the reverie and sadly laughed at the Scholar. “I did not take you for a touchy individual, Mistress,” with that jeer, Clanadrin immediately took of her hand with a sneer.

“You are a true coward, Mage,” the Scholar regulated. “You lie about your control of your own power and now you have threatened the princess.”

“A liar, I am. But powerful, I am not,” the Mage replied, he was now speaking in toe with both the Scholar and Zazun. The Lord Visor was bitter for the remark on being a deceiver, but he was also glad he admitted he was small to the larger problem at hand. “And to answer your questions,” the Mage continued, “Yes, the boy was familiar.”

“Familiar as to whom? The evil we all now face?” the Scholar bantered, not even phased by the Mage’s own admittance.

The Mage sighed and Zazun held his breath, it can’t be! He screamed silently.

“Apparently so,” the Mage confirmed and Zazun stirred on his footing. The principal was now afraid.

Scholar Clanadrin chuckled and chafed again, “and you think you saw the man to compare?”

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“Is he in our midst then? Using the child’s eyes to spy on us?” Zazun was shaking. He had slammed his left hand on the table when his feet could no longer burden him up. The principal was paranoid with the disguises, especially when it came to using children altogether. It was sick and in humane to think what possible eth-kamarta could the cursed one used to trick the people’s eyes. Or the eth-mamach overwrought to the original host of the body. Marlow’s void eyes were gaining its reasons why and how they were black.

“We should be glad when I tested him empty of such eth you fear, Master.” His words perked Zazun’s spirit. He could have assumed the wrongness.

“You were that sleight to test for eth?” Clanadrin was amazed.

“Testing for eth is easy work,” he wielded his sun burnt face to grin at the Scholar. “But my anger did boil my arcane. Had you not kept comforting my now empty arm, I would have exploded that boy to crisp. And yes, I have seen the man many years ago.”

Undaunted by the sour compliment, the Scholar asked, “then why ask him about his origin at all? Since, you would kill us all in a heartbeat.”

It was all enlightening but foreboding information. It was perhaps the circumstance of the boy that had put Zazun at ease, for a while. The Mage reviewed what most of them already knew that the Skiethalon was formerly a Krugan title for the region’s own emperor's guards. But Zazun could hardly swallow the thought that Krugan’s own decaying landscape had now pushed its former and surviving inhabitants to the other regions. The Faharian War had delt so much damage that even the Fae Folk had called the land cursed. Zazun had added to relieve a blink for the Mage and Scholar that the Skiethalon Guild was formerly from Vesta, which meant they could have possibly be immigrants originally from the western side of Lake Anrenye. When the boy’s features were relative to the cursed one, as Bapi inspected, Clanadrin’s word of him being an adopted son to the guild master, Marlin, Zazun almost forgot to slip in that the boy was under the protection of the council head in Fibi Enderi, the southern region below Krugan.

“Master,” Zazun caught Clanadrin's questioning eyes, “if he is under the council head, that means –”

“Yes, the Republic Endaya’s own Acolyte had confirmed her hand in the boy’s papers.” Zazun reached at one of his cabinets to take out the Acolyte’s stub pressed on Malrow’s documents, Enthah blindfolded while leaning on a long staff, her common wings absent.

“But why would confirm his figure to the Tarmorein?” the Scholar puzzled of such grandiose shelter over a no body.

The Mage then continued his account. It had turned out that Krugan was on a tight rope between the goddess’ word that Acolytes should remain to protect their region and Krugan’s own rise back as an empire. They were desperate to crown a ruler but they need it to be a relative to the former royal house Dracoro in order to satisfy the goddess regardless that being a non-Acolyte. House Dracoro had their Acolyte as emperor likewise to Chrovestera. The cursed one was a son to the former emperor before it fell. The Republic Endaya had relatives from the royal house and they were obliged to protect the last remainders of its bloodline, that being also deaf to the irrelevance of the family tree’s branches and the remnants of eth within them.

“So, that means the boy is subject to a quiet candidacy to be emperor? That is absurd!” Clanadrin practically called out. “Forgive me Master, but I am not overly fond of being manipulated to exploitation if I was a child. And them, to use a boy of fourteen withers so they may what? Pin his claim if he gains the interest from Alvedaima. What? You think I do not notice the corruption adults do to the young! Malrow obviously avoids the princess since he must have been forced by the masters of Skiethalon. The poor boy hates it and I do not want the princess to get involved.”

“So will the other regions,” the Mage commented, tiredness in his face. “If they heard of this, I believe they would start a war with Chustern, Fibi Enderi and the others who seem to support the indecisiveness. The former princess of Chrovestera had deemed the other regions’ ire in the past when Krugan announced the marriage of their own imperial son. An Acolyte on one region is enough, the possibility of two in one dynasty will draw heresy.”

“Do you think then the princess will bring the Acolyte bloodline, Mage? I did not know you disregarded rumors.” Zazun was instinctually bothered. If the whispers of the princess’ true sire were in fact redeemable, they would not have troubled the question of the princess being carried to Krugan without the Chrovesteran blood running in her veins.

“Hm, its time for Chustern to stop sleeping with their rotten histories if they continue to deny the line in the Chonerin,” the Mage was disgusted and had held Zazun’s opinion of him higher. The Mage’s word did not comfort Clanadrin at all but it was spring for Zazun to lie quiet anymore longer. If the King and his son will not survive the choking of their own High Adjunct, it was better for the princess to be protected by her sire’s guise and another nation’s ambition. She would not be killed outright, will she? Zazun implored a silent prayer to the goddess to welcome the risk.

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