Almost there...I completely revised a section of the plot upon proofreading and deciding that I didn't like it after all, so I'm currently in the process of rewriting a good deal of Chapter 21. It'll be up by the morning.
“Jace.” I didn’t know what to say beyond his name, so it took me a moment to pause and collect my thoughts. I shook my head. “I…what is…” I shook it again, deep creases marring my brow as I stared at the metal that stuck out from the mage’s sleeve. I can’t believe this. “What…what in the nine damn hells is that thing? What did you do?!”
“Huh. It’s some kind of alloy even I’ve never seen before,” Venser remarked, bending down a little so as to get a closer look. He tapped the metal with one knuckle, and it let out a soft hollow ring. He straightened and blinked in surprise. “And for Windgrace’s sake, I’m a planeswalking artificer!” He scowled, fingers ruffling through his hair. “Knowing about these types of things is supposed to be my job…”
“That’s not the point, Ven,” I snapped. “It doesn’t matter what it is! What matters is where his arm---”
“It’s etherium,” Jace interrupted then. I stared at him in shock, but he didn’t so much as spare me a glance when he bent his arm at the elbow, letting it flex for Venser to see. In fact, it almost looked like he was avoiding my gaze on purpose. Anger bubbled in my chest. “Common on Esper. Almost every one of the higher-ups has a body part made out of it, and they pretty much use it as a type of currency, too.”
“Hmmm.” Venser couldn’t seem to make up his mind as to whether or not he liked what he saw. When he straightened up fully and began to stroke the faint brush of beard on his chin, though, his eyes were narrowed. He didn’t look pleased. “It’s not Phyrexian, then? It almost looks it…”
“No.” Jace spoke quickly, shaking his head hard enough to toss his dark hair about. “Not at all. I know it looks a little…” he wiggled his fingertips again, eyes falling down to their tapered points, “…menacing, but I promise you, it’s fine.”
“Fine?!” That was it. I had had it. I needed answers, now. Growling, I took a hard step forward, and ignored the resulting pain that shot up my legs and made me wince. Venser saw and reached out with a hand to try and steady me, but I angrily brushed him away. “You call this fine, Jace?” I reached out to grab the metal limb and hold it up in front of him, my reflexes quicker than he had anticipated. I felt my fingers close around his wrist. “You’re bloody delusional! For the spirits’ sakes, your whole damn arm is gone!” I shook the limb forcefully, and to my surprise he just…let me. The thing felt strangely warm in my hand, but yet it hung limp as a dead fish. I only barely noticed the wisps of black that had begun to curl from beneath my fingertips, and wind around his. “You’re going to tell me what happened to you, and you’re going to tell me now, Beleren!”
Jace flinched visibly at the sound of his name. “I…uh.” He swallowed hard, and with my grip still tight around him, he turned to look at Venser. When I did the same, I was surprised to see the artificer’s face twisted with a sudden guilt. My heart did something strange in my chest as I felt confusion take hold of me. “Well, I…”
“Jace,” Venser sighed, “just tell her.”
Now it was my stomach’s turn to act up. “What are you two talking about?” My voice had lost some of its sharpness, however much I tried to keep it in there. My eyes widened against my will. “What’s going on?”
Jace took advantage of my moment of confusion to gently extricate himself from my grasp. I frowned when I realized this, but I didn’t make a move to seize him again. There was no need. The mage let out a sigh too, now, long and deep and far too burdened for my liking. “I’m, uh…not quite sure how to say this to you, Rana. I’m afraid you’re going to panic on me.”
I almost laughed, and would have had Jace not just used my nickname again. Damn him, I thought. I strained to keep from getting visibly flustered. How can one stupid little word have so much power over me? Spirits damn him. “Well, I’m already on the verge of panic,” I spat, caustically, “so I think it would be in your best interest to just tell me before things get any worse.”
Jace looked to Venser again. The artificer shrugged helplessly, and Jace pressed the fingertips of his left hand – his flesh hand – between his eyebrows.
“Ugh,” he groaned. “Alright, alright.” He took a deep, slow breath. I held mine, whether or not that was a good idea.
“Rana…I lost my arm in the battle. When I summoned Akroma. She told me that was the price her first summoner paid to bring her into existence, and, well…that was the price I had to pay, too.”
I could almost hear the anger rushing out of me in a hiss. My breath went with it. “Jace…” My heart dropped all the way down to my knees, and suddenly I felt like I wanted to collapse, to just go to sleep and pretend none of this damn business with Alanor had ever happened. I felt just a little sick. “You…lost your...” My shoulders slumped, and I couldn’t bring myself to finish whatever disjointed sentence had been forming in my throat. I swallowed back the lump there, and a well of tears with it. “Spirits…I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” I looked up into Jace’s eyes, fixed firmly on the floor, and then slid my gaze to the left, to Venser. He was looking away too, and shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably. Just then, something in me clicked.
“You knew,” I whispered. Hurt blossomed in me as I stared intently at the artificer. My eyes narrowed. “You knew about this the entire time, and you didn’t tell me.”
Venser’s eyes widened as hurt spread across his own face, and he opened his mouth to say something before Jace held up a silencing hand. Venser and I both turned to look at him, and the mage shook his head. “He didn’t know that I was going to be attaching this arm,” he said quietly, “and I made him promise not to say anything to you until you were better. You were in bad shape. I didn’t want to cause you any more stress than you were already under. So if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me, not him.”
My face fell. I wanted to be mad, to be angry or upset or anything that involved harsh, negative emotions right now, but…I couldn’t. I had no reason to be – the men had kept what had happened a secret out of a desire to protect, not to hurt. How could I fault them for that?
Still though, this was not a pleasant piece of news. I could at least be upset in that regard.
I shuffled my way over to a couch and sat down heavily, not even bothering to ask Jace or Venser if I could be excused. I didn’t really care what they thought about it, at the moment. My legs hurt like hells. “So tell me then,” I said, once I had arranged myself into a comfortable position with my head against one arm of the couch and my legs propped up atop the other, “how did you get ahold of that metal…thing? That arm?” I waved my own arm in a dismissive gesture. Surprisingly, I wasn’t panicking – If anything, I felt an odd sense of numbness, though I knew that it would fade away after a couple more minutes or so. I supposed I could work with it while it lasted. “Did you just conveniently have one lying around at the back of your closet or something?”
Jace and Venser were in the process of crossing the room to meet me, and as they sat themselves down on the couch opposite mine, the mage sighed. There was a soft chuckle hidden somewhere in that sound. “Actually,” he said, as he settled back to rest his elbow on his knee and his chin in his left hand, “I did.”
That I hadn’t been expecting. Even Venser turned to fix his companion with a look of puzzlement, then. My face must have mirrored his. “Wait, what?”
Now Jace really chuckled, though there was something dark hidden within his tone that made me shiver. “You sure you want to hear it?” He smiled. The bitterness in that smile gave me a start, and I wondered what he could possibly be about to say that could color his face with such an emotion. “This isn’t going to make me sound like a good guy.”
“Well, now you have to tell me.” I rolled over onto my side so that I was facing him, and idly attempted to rub the soreness out of the leg that held more weight. It didn’t work.
Jace shrugged. “If you say so.” There was a brief pause in which he looked down at his etherium right arm, with his usual inscrutable expression – only this time, his handsome blue eyes were cold as ice. I felt another chill course its way through my body, as if their glare had become tangible and reached out to stab me. I’m not going to like this, am I?
“This arm,” he continued finally, deliberately, “once belonged to my oldest enemy, Tezzeret.”
Venser’s eyes shot wide as saucers, and though I didn’t understand the strength of his reaction, I did feel a knot of hesitant disgust twisting in my stomach at Jace’s words. No. He can’t mean…
“Tezzeret? You mean the Tezzeret we found in the depths of Ish Sah? That Tezzeret?”
Jace turned to look at Venser, and the expression of utter shock that he found when he did sent the mage’s own eyes widening. Apparently he hadn’t expected Venser’ reaction, either.
“Glowy etherium arm?” he asked. “White hair, nasty scars on his face?”
“Yeah,” Venser breathed.
Jace nodded, slowly. “That’s the one.”
“How did you even get that arm?” Venser beat me to the punch before I had the time to open my mouth, or before Jace had the time to elaborate. The artificer’s expression had now morphed to one of mingled amazement and disbelief. “The one he had when I saw him was completely fused to his shoulder – If you wanted it, you would’ve had to---”
“Cut it off,” Jace finished – and his tone was quiet and sharp, leaving no room for argument. “With a manablade.” He paused for breath, and his fists, fallen to his lap, clenched so tightly that the knuckles on his left hand turned a stark white. “I did it, but we were in a fight to the death at the time, if that makes any difference. The arm has a hell of a lot of power, and I didn’t want it to remain in his possession.”
Venser could only shake his head. His gaze fell to Jace’s – Tezzeret’s? – arm, and he drank in the sight of it as long as he dared before at last looking away. When he did, he shook his head again.
“You shouldn’t have been able to do that,” he said. His eyes unfocused as they stared out the window across from the couch, and his voice turned as soft as I had ever heard it. “Your body should’ve gone into shock from just trying to attach it. Even master artificers die fitting themselves with non-organic parts, and you’re…not even a novice. I don’t understand.”
Jace smiled thinly, but he didn’t look at Venser either. “Well, that was the fun part about accidentally gaining all of Tezzeret’s memories when I mind-wiped him.” His left hand traced paths across the smooth, dull surfaces of his metal arm, and his gaze softened. “Learned everything there is to know about etherium, since he considers himself an expert. So at least that’s something good.” He shrugged languidly, taking the moment to roll his shoulders and test their range of motion. Everything seemed to be in working order, from what I could tell. “I went to Emmara’s because I knew it would be a dangerous process, even with all that knowledge. She helped stave off the shock and the worst of the sickness, so…” He finally turned to Venser and the artificer to him, and he shrugged again. “Does that explain everything properly?”
Venser hesitated, but after a moment he nodded. Strangely enough, he looked a little defeated. The expression was only there for a moment, though, and it disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Yeah. I guess that’s the best answer I’m gonna get, so I’ll take it.” He smile, too, was hesitant. “Well, I’m glad you’re alive, Jace. You really pushed yourself through a mire of s***, didn’t you?”
“We’re both glad,” I said quietly. Both men turned to look at me when I spoke, and I simply shrugged in response. “It’s the truth.”
Jace’s smile widened. I almost blushed at the sight of it – almost, but not quite. I’m getting better at this.
“So, Rana.” Venser’s voice came as a surprise, and I turned my head almost jerkily in an attempt to change direction and look at him, partially out of reflex. He had folded his hands together in front of him, and was now resting his chin on the tips of his fingers. “Now that the three of us are here, we should probably discuss…” His gaze shifted from one end of the room to the other, and when he was apparently satisfied with his search, he leaned in closer. “…you know.”
My brow furrowed. “Know what?” Then, during the brief silence, I became aware of my pulse throbbing in my neck, and abruptly I understood. “Oh!” Alongside understanding, dread rose up like a wave in the pit of my stomach. “Oh, you mean…Sorin. Right.”
Venser nodded. Next to him, I noticed that Jace’s lips had hardened into a tight line.
“Well…what about him do you want to know?”
“You don’t have to tell us the details,” Jace responded immediately, words clipped, “just the most important things. What he did to you.”
Without even thinking, I shook my head. I remembered Sorin’s words of veiled threat, and the bitterness behind them that had taken me by surprise. The memory of them gave me pause, and I found myself searching for someone’s gaze – something solid to hold onto, even as I floundered mentally. I found Venser’s first, alert and bright, and his brown eyes latched onto mine as naturally as if they belonged there. Fear knifed at my insides. It must have reflected in my expression, because, to my immense relief, he understood. I praised the spirits.
“Jace,” he said softly, “I don’t think she feels like it’s safe to tell us. Maybe we should---”
“No.” The mage’s voice was firm, harsh, and I saw a hint of the cold steel from before creep its way into his eyes. Both the artificer and I flinched back as one. “Venser, we have to know. I’m not going to let Sorin have his way with her, no matter how important he may be to what we’re doing. Even if we have to keep him with us, I have to know what he’s trying to do. It’s the only way we can keep her safe.”
Keep me safe? My head spun foolishly at the thought of Jace wanting to protect me, straying then to my memory of the rescue that had been our first meeting. He had used the word “we” just now, granted, but still…
“Well then, why don’t you just ask if you can read her mind? That’s what you do, isn’t it? Then you can pin it on yourself if she’s under threat not to tell, and Sorin finds out.”
At the mention of his magic, Jace froze. His expression, on the other hand, melted like a snowdrift in spring, and a note of supreme worry found its way into his eyes quicker than I could comprehend.
“Rana,” he said haltingly, “I…could do that, but…”
“But what?” My heart suddenly started to beat faster at the prospect of Jace rummaging through my thoughts, laying the innermost recesses of my mind as bare as they could ever be. I didn’t fear the intrusion – not from him, I trusted him – but the thought of him finding out about my stupid, childish feelings for him…
He probably already knows, idiot. And they’re not childish – You’re an adult. You’re allowed to feel whatever the hells you want.
I swore near-silently, under my breath. What a perfect time to start arguing with myself.
“Rana, it’s really not a pleasant process. I’ll be gentle, of course, but still, it’s---”
I shook my head. Screw everything. I’m already in enough trouble. “No, Jace, it’s…it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just tell you.”
The mage tilted his head to the side in confusion at my sudden reversal, but he didn’t argue. “You’re sure? That’s, uh…really what you want to do?”
I forced a smile and nodded. “Yeah. It’s okay, really. I trust you both. If I end up getting in any sort of trouble I can’t handle, I know I can come to you. It’s fine.”
Jace nodded, and beside him Venser smiled. I smiled back – though this time, it was a little more sincere. At least that’s a start.
The smile didn’t last for long, however. As warm and encouraging as Venser and Jace both seemed, sitting perfectly still and patient as they waited for me to say something, the memories I dredged up of my fight with Sorin in Urborg were…distressing, to say the least. My heart skittered, and I found it hard to pull words from my throat.
“He…” I swallowed, and braced myself for the cracking in my voice that was sure to come. I knew it would. It was a guarantee. “He challenged me to a fight when I asked him if he could tell me more about the Eldrazi, and I was stupid enough to accept. We planeswalked to Urborg.” I could see Venser’s brow arch at the mention of his home plane, but he said nothing. He simply listened. So I continued. “He completely overwhelmed me, and then…” I could feel my hands starting to shake. “…he…stabbed me. Through the shoulder. Threw me down on the ground, and made me drink his blood if I wanted to live. I didn’t really have a choice.” And there it was – the inevitable crack. I knew it would happen. “He told me to sleep, then, and I passed out. I…I couldn’t not. It wasn’t under my control.” I shook my head, slowly, not meeting the gaze of either man for a moment as I sucked in a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. Somehow, it made me feel a bit better. “When I woke up, I was lying on this couch like you found me. And…that’s that.”
There was a long stretch of silence. When I finally did have the courage to look up, my eyes instantly went to Jace – and I regretted the decision, for his were blazing with hellsfire. His fists were clenched so tightly at his knees that I worried they might snap, and his face was flushed a hot red with anger. I turned to Venser instead, not wanting to see Jace like that, and I found him to be staring at me with a similar expression of shock from before. He shook his head when my eyes found his.
“Damn it,” Jace hissed. “Damn it, damn it, damn it. That goddamn bastard did something that can be taken a million different ways!”
Venser and I both turned to face the mage. I felt my stomach churn at the frustration in Jace’s voice, knowing that it couldn’t mean anything good. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he growled, “drinking a vampire’s blood is almost always a bad idea, but Sorin’s a damn planeswalker – and he’s probably older than all of us combined. There’s no telling what that could’ve done to you. Literally. He could’ve instilled a sort of latent vampirism in you, or he could’ve taken some small control over your mind, or he could’ve just healed you with black magic. I don’t know. I can’t know.”
My heart dropped like a stone. “But…how can I find out? Is there any way?” Desperation and panic fought for dominance as they clawed their way through my veins, shredding my insides in their wake. I turned to Venser, wide-eyed. “Come on, Ven, you have to know something! Please, I…” My voice trailed off. There was nothing I could say with words that I hadn’t already said with every other part of me that could speak – I was shaking, and even though I still lay on my side on the couch, I had drawn my knees up tight to my chest. I was suddenly very cold, and the heat of this position offered some small comfort.
Venser, though, shook his head. He looked utterly pained to have to do so, but his anguish didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it made me feel worse. S***. S***. This can’t be happening, it can’t…
“Believe me,” Jace snarled, and I found my eyes abruptly drawn to his even in my state of near-to-erupting panic, “I’ll get it out of him one way or another.” He stared directly at me, his gaze searing with heat. I felt my breath catch in my throat. “I promise, Rana.”
It was…well, really, it was all I had. It was the best I could get, even. I nodded, and gave Jace the most genuine smile I could muster as I forced myself to keep calm. My lips trembled, but I held the expression long enough for him to notice, and to relax a little. The sight of his shoulders sagging was a welcome relief – I didn’t think I could handle a minute more of that rage in his eyes, or the way I could nearly hear his teeth grinding against one another as he glared at me. It struck something in me. And that something was more than I cared to feel right now.
“I’m so sick of this,” I blurted out suddenly. It was odd, not only because I was still in the middle of trying to hold my smile, but also because I was barely even conscious of that thought existing in my mind – but nevertheless, a moment later my face cracked in half to send the pieces tumbling down around me. A grimace spread across my lips, and I found my hands covering my face, and my fingers digging into my skin as the most overwhelming sense of frustration surged through me. It all happened before I had a moment’s chance to process what was going on.
“I just…” The words poured forth from my lips, unbidden. Why am I…? “I hate being the liability in this group. I hate it. I hate losing. I hate having to make people take care of me.” Tears strained against the corners of my eyes, but I pushed them back. My fingers dug deeper. No, damn it. “I’m my tribe’s hunter, for the spirits’ sakes – I’m not some kind of pushover! I’m not weak, I swear to everything that’s out there---!”
“Rana.” There was a soft rustling sound, and then an instant later a hand was covering mine, and gently peeling it away from where it clung to my face. A second hand did the same with my other, and when I was forced to look ahead, I saw Venser kneeling beside where I lay on the couch. Jace had moved to the edge of his own seat, and for a moment I caught a flicker of irritation as it passed across his face, but…no, it wasn’t there. I must have imagined it.
“Rana,” Venser said again, gently, “we know you’re not weak. You’re just not used to fighting in the big leagues, that’s all.”
From behind Venser, Jace nodded. His smile was a little strained, but it was no less warm. “You just need a bit of an edge,” he added. “Some training, or maybe a---”
He stopped midsentence. Venser turned to look at him, and the both of us saw Jace’s eyes slowly widen as an expression of comprehension dawned across his face. He clapped his left fist in his etherium palm, making the metal ring out ever so slightly.
“I’ve got it,” he crowed. His eyes were alight with triumph as he leaned forward over his knees, grinning. The sudden force of his emotion was startling, and I found myself taken aback. “Rana, remember how I said that planeswalkers can become ageless, so long as they find their own way of doing it that works?”
I wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this, but his mention of the word “ageless” had my full attention already, and had washed away any notions of hesitance in a fraction of a second. I nodded, enthusiastically. “Of course I do!” was all I could think to say.
Jace chuckled. “Well.” Even Venser was staring at him now, rapt, and I found myself breathless as the mage’s expression of pure and utter victory swept me away. “Tell me – Which of those trees you summon in battle would you say is your favorite? Which one have you bonded with the most?”
I smiled. “That’s easy. The one with the really thick arms and legs, and roots for a beard. I summoned it back when we were fighting Alanor’s cult, remember?”
I hadn’t thought it possible, but Jace’s grin managed to broaden itself even further. “Yes, I remember. His name is Doran. I’ve met him before. And that’s exactly the answer I was looking for.”
I blinked. There was far too much information in that statement for me to process at once. “You…know it? Him? How?”
Jace tilted his head to the side a little and crossed his arms over his chest. He leaned back against the cushions of the couch. “He’s a great sage in Lorwyn.” He sounded calm on the surface now, but I could hear the excitement boiling just beneath his veneer. “One of their revered treefolk. I talked to him for a little while when I was visiting that plane, and he told me all sorts of things – One of which might pertain to you, if I’ve got it right.”
Now I was the one who could barely contain my excitement. “And what would that be?”
“An ancient ritual. Any Lorwyn arboromancer with enough power can bind a portion of their soul to a specific tree, which will grant them even more power and will extend their lifespan so long as that tree lives.” Jace’s eyes positively gleamed as he leaned forward again, then stood to pace back and forth in front of his couch. He kept his gaze fixed on me all the while. “If that’s just what happens when a mage does it, then imagine what could happen if a planeswalker like you did it, Rana! That could very well be exactly what you need!”
My heart could have soared straight out of my chest. I could have run over to Jace and tackled him in a hug, had my legs been willing. Venser turned to smile at me, and I found myself beaming at him in return, breathlessly. Something warmed inside me at the sight of the expression that crossed his face when I did, but I was too excited about what Jace had said to concern myself with it for long. I looked up at the mage, who looked right back down at me with equal fervor.
“So we’re going to Lorwyn, then,” I said. It was most certainly not a question.
Jace picked up on that fact, and grinned again. “Looks like it. As soon as your legs finish healing, we can set right out.”
“It’ll be another week or so before I would risk any travel, let alone planeswalking,” Venser said, hauling himself to his feet and then holding out a hand to help me up. I took it, and gingerly the artificer assisted me in putting the right amount of weight on the right feet as I struggled into a standing position. “I can keep the essentials of my lab with me when we go, just in case something happens. Better safe than sorry.” Eventually I balanced myself – and this time, I didn’t need to lean on Venser’s shoulder near as much as before. I felt massively buoyant. If I didn’t hold tight to him, I was sure that I would float away right then and there.
But then Venser’s words registered in my head, and I turned swiftly to look up at him. He met my gaze with equal parts confusion and concern, seeing the worry that I could feel in my own expression.
“You haven’t been sleeping at all, Ven,” I said, softly. “Are you sure you can handle a trip like that, in your condition?”
The artificer blinked. Clearly, he hadn’t thought about that part.
“You don’t need to feel compelled to go with us,” Jace chimed in. His arms were folded over his chest again, and he was smiling as bright as before. “You’ve done a hell of a lot for us already. We’ve been keeping you from Vincenius, and your work.” His eyes glimmered now with something I couldn’t quite discern, but his tone was as friendly as ever, so I didn’t bother to push deeper. “I know Lorwyn fairly well, and I can assure you it’ll be an easy trip. I know which places are safe and which aren’t. We’ll be fine.”
Venser looked down at me again, hesitant. I returned his look with a kind smile, and rested my head on his shoulder for a brief moment.
“Go home and rest.” The moment passed, and I lifted my head to fix him with a firm, unwavering stare. “Please. I’ve been worried about you for awhile now, and it’s been driving me crazy.” I held my stare for a moment longer before I finally faltered – No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t help but smile. “I promise I’ll come and visit to tell you how it went when we get back, alright?”
There was a long pause. Then, finally, with a deep sigh, Venser relented. A smile crept across his face too, as he looked at me. “Alright…fair enough, Rana. You win. But you know which potions to take at what time by now, right?”
I nodded. “Yep!”
“And you promise you’ll let me know if you run out of anything, or if there’s any problems?”
I grinned. “Yep!”
“Promise you’ll take it easy for awhile, alright?”
I giggled and rolled my eyes. “Ven, come on.”
“I’m serious!”
I sighed, resisting the urge to laugh. “Okay, fine, fine, I promise. I’ll take it easy.” I rested my free hand on my hip, and cocked an eyebrow at the artificer. But only if you go straight back and get some sleep, okay?”
“You’ve got a deal.” Before I could say anything more, Venser reached into one of the satchels at his belt and pulled out a little glass ball, small enough to fit in my closed fist. It was ringed around the edge in gold, and the air inside the glass was a shimmering milky color, swirling about itself like a heavy mist. He handed the thing to me, and I took it carefully. I looked up at the artificer in wonderment.
“What is this?” I asked. The trinket felt cool and smooth in my hands, and it was a little heavier than it looked. Still though, it was a comfortable weight.
Venser winked at me. To my surprise, I felt a hint of a blush creep involuntarily into my cheeks. “It’s a little device I’ve been using for awhile. Break it, and I’ll get a message that tells me your location. I’ll come right to you.” He chuckled, giving me a playful nudge with the shoulder I still rested against. “So you better only use it if you really need me, got it?”
I curved my fingers around the orb. I didn’t quite know why, but as I held the little thing, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from smiling. “Got it.”
***
“You’re sure you don’t want to come along, Akroma?”
The angel stood beatifically in the glow of the sunrise that poured through the common room’s windows, her wings bathed in a beautiful mix of pink and yellow. I couldn’t help but look past her, at what sky was visible between the towering buildings of Ravnica – Red. Already, the clouds were fully tinged with the color, and I found myself reminded of an old merfolk saying back on Zendikar – Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Too bad the human shipmasters they directed had always tended to ignore the little tidbit of wisdom. Ah well. Their loss. Of life, that is.
Before I had time to wonder whether or not the sky would prove to be a good omen or a bad omen for the start of our trip, Akroma shook her head. Her violet hair was as flawless as ever as it brushed the sides of her face, and she smiled at me radiantly. “No. I wish I could accompany the two of you, but I am not yet certain of whether or not I possess planeswalking powers, let alone how I might harness them. Venser’s hypothesis is sound, but it is simply that – a hypothesis. It needs testing.” She shrugged, the motion as fluid as only an angel could manage. “Perhaps by the time you return, I shall have come to a conclusion.”
I nodded, returning the angel’s smile. “I hope so. I’d really like to travel with you, Akroma.”
Her eyes softened. “And I you. Until then, the speed of the gods be with you on your journey, both of you. And do not strain yourself, Lady Ranewen – Your legs have only recently healed. I fear that you will cause yourself further injury by pushing yourself too hard.”
Beside me, Jace chuckled. “No need to worry. If she tries, I’ll make sure to stop her.”
I mock-scowled. Akroma nodded, obviously pleased. “Indeed. I should hope so, Jace Beleren. Take care, the both of you.”
“And you as well,” Jace said. He and I both bowed our heads respectfully to the angel, and then we stepped one after the other into Jace’s ready-made portal to the Blind Eternities.
As was the norm now, my time – or lack thereof – in that place passed by in a blur, a mad rush of chaos that failed both description and comprehension alike. By the time I thought I had some sort of hold on it, it was simply over, and tangible mana tugged at my inner being while the sensations of physical reality buffeted my outer one.
Unfortunately – and much to my dismay – the only sensation I felt as I came to in our newest destination was the press of water all around me, and the choking burn it made as it flooded into my lungs.
Definitely a bad omen, was my only thought.
A/N: Yeah, I know...this chapter was definitely a lot of exposition. I couldn't really see any way around it - It needed to happen. However, to make up for it, Chapter 22 will be posted this Friday, and Chapter 23 next Monday (I have the majority of this week off, so...guess what I'm doing with my free time )! After that, it's regular schedule as always.
A great chapter, but the damage has already been done - I can only picture the confrontation between Jace and Tezzeret as a mix of Magicka and the Black Knight from Monty Python's holy grail
Also, any chance they inadvertently walk into Shadowmoor?
A great chapter, but the damage has already been done - I can only picture the confrontation between Jace and Tezzeret as a mix of Magicka and the Black Knight from Monty Python's holy grail
Ha! Hahahaha ohhhhhh boy. That image...I'm not going to be able to get it out of my head now. Thanks for that.
(The battle I was alluding to was the confrontation at the end of Agents of Artifice, by the way. I didn't make that one up...thank goodness.)
Exposition is often one of the hardest things to do. Too often, it just ends up with one character telling trivial things, with random bits of important stuff scattered throughout. Once again, you avoid the old traps.
The detail of the arm, along with the summoning of Akroma, were excellently done. The break-down of what Sorin did, along with the possiblity of Jace...maybe putting the old bloodsucker in his place...really works for me. I don't know how, but you made Jace really badass. I really have to give you props for that.
And finally...Lorwyn. My first real set...and one of my favorites. My first two decks were made from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. If there was anyone I'd trust to write about this plane, it would be you. After all, you did New Phyrexia right. You did Zendikar right. You even got modern Urborg right. I can't wait to see what happens next.
Exposition is often one of the hardest things to do. Too often, it just ends up with one character telling trivial things, with random bits of important stuff scattered throughout. Once again, you avoid the old traps.
The detail of the arm, along with the summoning of Akroma, were excellently done. The break-down of what Sorin did, along with the possiblity of Jace...maybe putting the old bloodsucker in his place...really works for me. I don't know how, but you made Jace really badass. I really have to give you props for that.
And finally...Lorwyn. My first real set...and one of my favorites. My first two decks were made from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. If there was anyone I'd trust to write about this plane, it would be you. After all, you did New Phyrexia right. You did Zendikar right. You even got modern Urborg right. I can't wait to see what happens next.
(incoherent noises of joy) Ahhhhhhthankyouthankyou!
Seriously, I was really really stressing about this chapter. I couldn't move forward without tying a few threads into place and setting up others, so I knew this had to happen - Still though, I was afraid of it ending up boring. It's a relief to know I handled it right.
I'm also going to harbor a secret pride now that I can make Jace a badass...He deserves it, if you ask me.
I'm looking forward to this next plot arc so much that I just can't stop writing. Agh. I can't wait till Friday!
Well, I'm glad I could bring alittle joy up :). Really, I doubt you need to stress that much. You made the one character I absolutly hated (Jace) and made me actually like a version of him. That in and of itself is a feat I've rarely seen.
And...wait...Friday? We get 2 updates this week?!
YES!!! YES!!!
Ahem...now that I've had my Bison moment...I eagerly await the second update. Should be the highlight of my week :).
A/N: I found out my family is coming for an impromptu visit tomorrow morning, and I sorely underestimated the amount of cleaning my place needed – Hence, the couple-hours delay. Hrrrgh. So sore…I think I’m just gonna go pass out now.
Chapter 23 will still be out on Monday. It and this chapter are both a tad shorter than normal, since I haven’t had as much time to work on them, and since they’re the second and third chapters posted in a single week (I consider them two halves of one whole chapter, but doing that kind of thing would probably screw up the numbering system if I tried to write them as such). I still hope you enjoy them, regardless!
Chapter 22:
My limbs flailed about helplessly, as useless as if they weren’t even there at all.
Damn it! My lungs still burned from when I had reflexively tried to breathe and only drawn in water, and the sensation was spreading all throughout my chest. It made it even harder to move. I can’t see – Damn it, no, I can’t die like this! It’s so stupid---There’s no way---
And perfectly on cue, my prayers were answered. I still couldn’t see a thing through the smothering blackness around me, but I felt a hand on my arm then, pulling me up and up…
A second later, my head broke the surface of the water. I sucked in as deep a breath as I could manage, but there was hardly any room left in my lungs for air – so instead I coughed, violently, as my arms scrabbled for purchase. Eventually I found dry land and I clung to it tight, fingers digging deep into what I could feel to be soil beneath them.
“Unnnh.” My throat hurt too much to talk, so I didn’t. I simply groaned. It took a few seconds for my vision to clear, and when it did I saw Jace, pulling himself up onto the grassy bank beside me. It took him visible effort to do so, weighed down as he was by his sopping wet cloak. With a grunt, he struggled out of it and threw it in a heap on the ground, finally dragging himself all the way out of the water.
“Well, that didn’t quite go as planned,” he muttered. The leathers he wore on his chest seemed to be wicking away most of the water, but still not near enough. He unbuckled them and threw them aside too, leaving only a thin black shirt that clung to him. He flopped down heavily on his back. “Ugh…you okay, Rana?”
“Mmmph.” It still hurt to talk. It took me a second longer to realize that the lower half of my body was still submerged, so with far too much effort than it should have taken, I clawed my way up and out. When I was finally free of the icy water, I collapsed in a heap next to Jace’s pile of discarded clothes, on my stomach. Moving any further was not an option at this point.
A minute passed in silence, save for the quiet sounds as the both of us tried to catch our breath. I managed to roll to one side after a time, and then onto my back to stare up at the sky. I shivered. Spirits, I’m freezing.
The second my thoughts started to wander, though, I felt something cold and wet slap me right across the face. When I blinked and reached up to peel it off, I found it to be Jace’s shirt.
“Whoops,” he said, sounding as if he were trying – and failing – to hold back a chuckle. “Missed. Sorry.”
I scowled and dumped the thing unceremoniously into the pile beside me. “Yeah, yeah.” My voice was just a little hoarse, but at least talking had become bearable. It was a start. “You’re not fooling me. That was on purpose.”
This time, Jace did chuckle. “Well, excuse me for wanting to dry off. I wasn’t planning on going swimming today, so I didn’t quite dress appropriately. I’m freezing.”
My breath came out in a soft laugh then. “If it makes you feel better, you’re not the only one.”
“Probably because your entire damn outfit is sticking to you.” I could almost hear the wry grin in his voice, and I balked. “I mean, that’s just a guess.”
My cheeks flushed. For once, thanks to my current temperature, I welcomed the heat. He probably can’t see it, anyway. I wasn’t going to be walking around very well on my just-healed legs wearing clothes as wet as this – much less creeping silently, which is what I had planned on doing just in case – and they certainly weren’t going to get any drier so long as they remained on me. Well, great.
I paused for a moment as I considered my options, and then at last I sighed. I’m not taking the leggings off. Consequences be damned.
“Look at me funny and I’ll hit you,” I grumbled, before pushing myself upright and undoing the laces of my vest, then sliding it off along with the simple green hunter’s shirt I wore beneath it. I had made the smart decision of wearing a breast band today, thank the spirits, and so I wasn’t really being immodest, but…Nevertheless, I blushed deeply the second my clothes fell down into my lap. The breeze felt warm against my bare skin, and that was some small comfort – not much, but something. I turned around to face Jace, crossing my arms in front of me. When I met his ever-so-slightly-widened blue eyes, I put on my most immovable scowl.
Oh, damn. I had nearly forgotten that Jace had taken off his shirt too, and it was all I could do to keep my gaze at eye level. I swallowed. Damn, damn, damn. This is not fair.
“So.” I cleared my throat ceremoniously then, hoping that if I kept a controlled enough tone of voice, he wouldn’t get suspicious. “To business. And our first order is – Where are we?”
Jace wore an expression of great amusement as he regarded me, to my chagrin. I just can’t win, can I? “Well,” he said, folding his arms behind his head as he arched his back and stretched. His eyes clenched shut and his brow furrowed, but then a moment later he exhaled, and let both of his arms – etherium and flesh alike – drop back into his lap. I noticed, with some interest, that it really was his whole arm that was metal now – the etherium wound its way from shoulder to fingertip in a delicate, almost artistic overlay. “We’re definitely in Lorwyn now, I can tell you that.”
I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes. “I figured as much.” The two of us were sitting on the bank of a wide river, and surrounded on nearly all sides by tightly-knit groves of trees. A layer of leaves coated the sun-dappled floor beneath us, and here and there I could see clusters of flowers – red and blue and orange and gold, large and small, and all of them in full bloom. It was a pretty place. Peaceful, too. It matched the description Venser had given me during our discussion of other planes some time ago while I was recovering, so I figured that even without Jace here, I would have been able to make an educated guess as to my whereabouts. I’ve got to start learning about these places sometime, after all.
At my remark Jace, unlike me, did roll his eyes. “Did you, now. I see.” He wrung dry the shock of hair that hung into his face, and flicked the water away where it dripped onto his wrist. “Well, I’m assuming what you really want to know is where we are in comparison to where Doran is, am I right?”
I nodded. I had begun to busy myself unfolding Jace’s and my clothes, and then laying them out in the sun to dry. I didn’t think it would take too long. It was a warm day, and direct sunlight in combination with that and the breeze would make the process a surefire thing. I could already feel the water evaporating from my skin and hair, besides – it was a simple, yet uncannily pleasant sensation. “Yeah. I’m eager to get moving, to be honest.”
Jace didn’t respond for a moment. When I finally finished my task and looked up, though, I found him smiling at me. His head was tilted to the side just a little. “Really?” His tone of voice – casual and teasing – took me a bit by surprise. Since when have we been close enough for him to sound like that? “I would think you’d want to stay here awhile, since it’s such a pleasant little place. In the middle of a forest, no less!”
Despite myself, I flashed him a crooked grin. “Well, I do like forests – You’ve got me there. And this place is pretty.” I plucked at a little acorn lying on the ground near my leg and twirled it idly by the stem, between my fingers. “But no. Really, I want to get this done. I’m excited. This could be exactly what I need to…” I shrugged, “…figure this whole ‘planeswalker’ thing out, you know?”
Jace hesitated, then allowed himself a small smile. “Mm. Yeah. I do.” He sighed, flicking his wrists again in a gesture that he usually performed to shove back his sleeves. “I guess I’ll get us started, then, if you don’t mind.” Before I could ask him what he intended to do, he held his left hand out in front of him, and wisps of pale blue light began to coalesce between his fingers. Barely a moment passed before the aether around his hand began to distort, and then it parted to allow a figure through – which came to rest, neatly, on the palm of his hand. It was a miniature winged woman, her skin the same color as the blue light. Her pretty little translucent wings fluttered as she looked up at Jace obediently, and my jaw dropped open. I found myself staring at her in wonderment.
“Go find Doran,” he said simply. “You remember who that is, right?”
The woman’s head bobbed. She bowed at the waist before taking flight, and then sped off into the trees without any further ado. Her tiny form was gone before I could even blink.
There was a pause, and then I shook my head in disbelief. “What…was that?” I asked. I had never seen someone so small before, let alone someone so small who possessed wings, too. I was remarkably curious.
Jace laughed lightly. “She’s a cloud sprite. One of my most useful little summons.” Suddenly, he cocked an eyebrow at me, and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Are you saying you’ve never seen a faerie before, Rana?”
I shook my head. “Can’t say I have.”
Jace smiled. When his gaze met mine, I felt my breath catch in my throat at the way his eyes just…gleamed.
“Well then,” he said, cheerily, “you’re in for a fun trip.”
***
Several hours later, Jace and I were nearly there. Nearly. Or so said the cloud sprite, in her language of gestures and soft sounds that only Jace seemed to understand. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure it the hells out.
“She says we’re going to be entering treefolk territory in about a quarter of a mile,” he panted, stumbling over a large tree root as he made his way through the undergrowth. For someone as fit as he seemed, he was rather clumsy when it came to this. “I had her warn Doran and his people that I’m coming, so they won’t attack us on sight. Hopefully.”
I snorted. I was a good ten paces ahead of the mage, having been used to traversing cluttered forest floors – and canopies – for my entire life. I leapt over a fallen branch without pause, and turned back to look at Jace as I walked briskly ahead. “Hopefully? What, so if they happen to be having a bad day, then we’re screwed?”
Jace chuckled ruefully. In truth, it came out more like a wheeze. “Something like that.”
I groaned, and ducked beneath an overhanging vine that had threatened to smack me right in the neck had I not been looking. “Wonderful. Sounds just typical for our luck.”
Jace swore loudly in time with the sound of ripping cloth, and I turned again to see the edge of his cloak snagged on some bracken. I sighed, and stopped to double back and help him out.
“You’re going to break the poor bush,” I chided, bending down to free the cloth. I trusted my deft hands far more than I did his, and so I swatted them away when he tried to reach down and help. “I told you it wasn’t a good idea to put this thing back on, didn’t I?”
The mage grunted. “Nowhere else I could put it…”
In no time flat, both the cloak and bush were safely extricated from one another’s grasp. “There.” I stood up, brushing my hands together to remove the dirt that had coated his hem. When we were at eye level, I had to restrain myself from throwing Jace my most self-satisfied smirk. “Next time, listen to me before you go off traipsing into the heart of the forest. Fair deal?”
“Fine,” he grumbled, though I could see a hint of a smile twitching the corners of his lips. “Whatever you say, o mistress of the woods…”
“Hmmm…nice title.” I resumed my previous pace, quickly gaining distance on Jace as he trudged along even slower than before. I had to raise my voice to be heard now, though it still kept its playful tone. “A little overdramatic, but I could get used to it. Just don’t call me it in public, though, okay? I would hate to sound like I think too highly of myse---Ooof!”
For once, I had been too distracted by my banter to pay attention to what was in front of me. When I opened my eyes and looked, my heartbeat briefly stilled in my chest – for standing right in front of me, hardly having backed a foot away, was…spirits, it was one of the trees I’d summoned into battle against Alanor! How can this be possible?! It was one of the leaf-bearded twins, the one that carried the broadsword. His brother stood a short distance behind him, the other trees all around them somehow bending and shifting to make room for their bulk without breaking. I stared in awe.
“You,” the great being rumbled, his voice sounding both like the splitting of the earth, and like every sound in a thunderstorm melded. One leaf-eyebrow raised as he peered down at me, bark creaking. “I do not know you, and yet you are familiar. How is this so?”
I gulped. I wasn’t quite sure how to explain this – in truth, I wasn’t even sure how it was possible in the first place. Mostly it just…happened. “I…I’ve used my magic to summon a replica of you to fight for me in battle. I don’t know how it works, but---”
“Ah,” the tree said, not deigning to let me finish. “You are a mage. I understand now. You need not explain.” He turned his face from me without sparing so much as another glance, and let his beady eyes come to rest on Jace. “You are Jace Beleren, are you not?”
Jace nodded. If he was as awestruck or as suddenly nervous as I was, he sure as hells wasn’t showing it. “I am.”
From behind the tree, his partner took an earth-shaking step forward. As his foot came crashing down on the forest floor with the force of a hedron tumbling from the sky, I cringed. The sound vibrated its way up my legs, sending what felt like every bone in my body quivering. Have they been waiting here this whole time? There’s no way we couldn’t have heard them moving before…
“We have been instructed to take the two of you to Lord Doran at once,” the second tree said. His voice was just as jarring as his partner’s, though softer by only a note. “We shall carry you. It will make the remainder of the journey far swifter than simply traveling on foot.”
Again, Jace nodded. He wore his business face now, and so of course he appeared utterly unflappable. Typical. “Of course,” he said, tone pleasant. “I thank you for your kind offer.”
Without warning, I felt something slide beneath my feet even as my body was lifted into the air, and I let out a yelp. The world was rushing by too fast for me to see – at least for a moment – and the sight, along with the deafening creaking that made my eardrums throb, set me off balance and tumbling onto my rear. However, when I did, I felt the familiar touch of worn wood beneath me – and when I had composed myself enough to take in my surroundings again, I realized that the tree with the broadsword was now holding me up in the palm of his hand, as Jace had held the tiny cloud sprite. I wondered vaguely where the little thing was before remembering how she had perched herself on Jace’s shoulder. I blinked back my dizziness then, so I could have room to marvel.
“I can sense your connection to the land, little one,” my carrier said, startling me into looking up and meeting his unfathomably deep black eye. Yellow pupils, I noticed. I was reminded of Sorin, and I shivered. That, combined with that fact that he had begun moving, made it hard for me to hold my gaze where it was. “You are an odd one. You are similar to a human, but you have the ears of an elf. Yet, you have no horns. What are you?”
Sparing a glance out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jace riding seated on the palm of the other tree, eyes closed and head bowed. The cloud sprite sat in her position on his shoulder, similarly postured. What is he doing?
“I am an elf,” I answered, at once returning my eyes and my attention to where they belonged. I would concern myself with Jace later. “Though I’m…a different kind. I’m not from here.” I tilted my head a little as I pondered what the tree had said, and smiled. Interesting. “Where I’m from, elves don’t have horns.”
“Ah,” the tree said. He continued his slow trail forward, through the forest as it bent over backward to clear a path for him. “So you are a world-walker, like Jace Beleren. Lord Doran has told us about your kind. You are, indeed, a rare breed. I am not surprised that he wishes to see you.”
Lord Doran, I thought, feeling suddenly nervous. My heart stuttered. I’ve never really spoken to anyone important outside my tribe– What in the hells am I supposed to do different? Do I bow? Do I flatter him? What?
“Tell me, little one – What is your name?”
I jolted out of my reverie, shaking my head. I was still staring into the one eye of the tree that was facing in my direction, though I had clearly gone out of focus for a moment. Or maybe longer. “My name is Ranewen,” I said, politely as I could. I would have bowed, had I been standing. “Ranewen of the Tajuru, from the plane of Zendikar.”
The tree nodded – at least, as much as it could do. “Ranewen,” it said, tasting the word on whatever passed for its tongue. “Ranewen. It is a pleasure to meet you then, Ranewen. I am Broadbark. My brother is Odum, and the two of us are Lord Doran’s high guards.” His tone somehow lightened, and in the span of an instant it became…almost teasing, oddly enough. I didn’t know how to react. “You were wondering of such things, were you not?”
Indeed, I had been. I always felt uncomfortable not knowing someone’s name, and it was no different when my conversation partner was a tree – or treefolk, rather. “I…was.” For the first time I smiled, allowing a bit of my nervousness to wash away. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Broadbark.”
“Likewise.” Broadbark turned his head away from me, and placed his gaze forward once more. After several long minutes in silence – during which I simply stared at the forest around me, drinking in its beauty from such a high vantage point – he came to a sudden halt. I turned forward, and beside me, on Odum’s hand, Jace looked up and did the same.
“We have arrived,” Odum said, quietly.
Before us stood a small clearing, open at the top to the late afternoon sun’s rays as they streamed down bright and hot. It was fringed in flowers and stands of heavily leaved bushes, and bare in the center save for one large, familiar figure – the sight of which set a lump forming in my throat, and forced my heart to beat faster.
“Lord Doran,” the two guards intoned in reverent unison, as both of them swept into creaking bows at their waists. Somehow, they managed to keep their passenger-carrying arms held perfectly upright.
My rootbeard stood tall and proud, gazing first down on his subordinates and then up at Jace, and then, impossibly slowly, over to me. I clutched my hands into tight fists at my side.
“You,” Doran said softly. His voice was as deep of a rumble as either Broadbark’s or Odum’s, but there was an undercurrent of strength in it that I could palpably feel – In fact, it seemed to resonate in me perfectly, harmonizing with the pulse of green mana that I held to dearly, unconsciously. Something in me flared when I looked at him. Suddenly I found myself struggling to breathe. “So it is you, after all.”
Jace and I exchanged glances – his open, mine hesitant – before we both turned back to Doran. Abruptly, I wanted to speak, so without regard to the consequences, I just…did.
“I never expected to meet you in person, Doran,” I said. My voice suddenly went soft at the edges to match the great treefolk sage’s tone. I shook my head. “You’ve done so much for me, and here I was thinking that you were some…strange figment of my imagination, some daydream gone wild the second I called upon mana.” I smiled, slowly. “And yet, here you are.”
The tree paused. During the length of that pause, he did not move.
“Yes,” he whispered, finally, “here I am. And here you are, to claim my power once more.”
My blood turned to ice. Wait…does he know? How could he possibly---
“I am connected to you,” Doran interjected, as smoothly as if he had been reading my thoughts. I could only stare in stunned silence. “You call upon me with your will, and as such, your will calls out to me. I know more of your thoughts and feelings than you may guess, my dear young planeswalker.”
I swallowed hard. I wanted more time to ponder this, to ask a million and one questions, but…
“Lord Doran,” I said. I endeavored to keep my voice as steady and clear as I could. “If you know so much about me already, then do you have an answer to the question I planned to ask you by coming here?” I stared directly at him, my gaze unwavering. “Is there anything I can do, to convince you to agree?”
“I do…and there is.” Doran waved his arm in a short motion, and in response Broadbark lowered his hand to set me gently on the ground. Beside us, Odum did the same with Jace. The mage hurried over to stand by my side, and flashed me a look – but it came and went too quickly for me to decipher with certainty. I thought I caught anxiety.
The tree waited until Jace and I were focused on him once more, and then haltingly, he nodded. The leaves crowning his head rustled as they were touched by a light breeze.
“If you wish for me to agree,” he continued, “then you must fight me, here and now. You must do so alone, upon only your own power.” Dark pools though they were, something in his eyes seemed to glitter as they bore into me. I swayed on the spot. “One way or another, this matter will be settled by sunset, should you accept. So what say you, Ranewen?”
There was a pause where I allowed myself to be surprised at the fact that he knew my name, but the moment quickly passed. Jace’s hand on my shoulder steadied me – whether it was there in support or in concern, it didn’t matter – and I took a single step forward, steeling my gaze. Here goes nothing.
“Lord Doran,” I said, firmly as I could, “I accept your challenge.”
Thrilling stuff! One tiny thing (and you'll have to excuse me for this) - from what I can see, Odum and Broadbark have yellow eyes.
They do? (goes to check the card in her deck) Aw, crap, they do. Black eyes with yellow pupils. Why is it that I always manage, somehow, to screw up eye color with everyone? Haha. Thanks for the tip. I'll go fix it right now.
Ah, treefolk were such a great tribe back in Lorwyn (still my favorite tribe ever, actually). Only Norin the Wary could rival Doran as my favorite creature of all time. Guess I'll be enjoying these coming chapters more than usual.
Honestly, Doran has probably been one of my favorite creatures for awhile. I have a lovely treefolk deck that has him as the central figure - Works pretty damn well, if I do say so myself.
A/N: Yeah, yeah, I know I’m late again by a little – I just couldn’t stop obsessing over trying to make this chapter the exact way I want it, since…uh…well, you’ll see. I feel like it’s at least a little justified.
Be gentle on me, guys. (ducks for cover)
Chapter 23:
“Ungh!”
I landed on my back, limbs flailing. Pain seared through me as cloth ripped, enough to allow the hard ground to dig itself viciously into my skin.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jace flinch. He stood at the edge of the clearing between Odum and Broadbark, wreathed in a shroud of blue as he maintained both his visual illusions and his sound nullification barrier at once – meager though the latter was, at his own admittance. To avoid drawing his treefolk tribe’s attention to the two errant planeswalker visitors, Doran had requested that the battle be sealed off from the rest of the forest. For whatever reason he felt the need to be cautious, and neither Jace nor I had seen any sensible reason to argue with him – so, without further ado, the mage had set to work. He half-focused his attention on watching the battle unfold, once he was confident enough that his illusions would stay.
I honestly hoped he liked watching a good solid beatdown, because that was the only word to describe what I was currently undergoing.
Meh, beatdown’s a little harsh – More like a…uh…
I rolled to my feet and leapt, dodging a brutal swipe of my trusted ally’s bark-fists when they aimed themselves directly at my head. I was just a bit too slow, and the sting as I felt my scalp slice open sent me tumbling right back to earth. I yelped in pain.
Nope, nevermind. Beatdown about covers it.
Spitting blood, I shoved myself to my knees. Doran had wasted no time in preparing his next attack while I was down, as now the aether was in the midst of rippling before him like a windblown pond. The tree gestured with his arms and shouted, and before I could blink there were suddenly four treefolk in front of me instead of one – great oaks all of them, with long vine-wands clasped in their humanlike fists. Despite the imminent danger, I couldn’t help but feel a note of surprise.
Doran can summon?
I didn’t have time to ponder the subject any further though, because the oaks were now letting out a unified war cry that sounded like the splitting of branches beneath lightning. Then they were charging, wands at the ready, and damn it, I noticed that the ends of the things were pointed. Just what I need.
“You think that’s gonna scare me off?” I shouted. It was hard to be heard over the din of three treefolk – oh, and now Doran too, great – coming at me full speed on feet as large and heavy as boulders. Even so, I would rather go out with fighting words on my lips than screams of terror. I gritted my teeth, and siphoned black mana to me as I thrust my hands, palms out, in front of my face. I could feel a gust of wind at my back, and then my hair was whipping up around my head like a tempest – wisps of white against a growing backdrop of darkness.
“Too bad for you,” I snarled, “that I’ve got too much on the line to just give up and go crawling back home to mommy!”
Bad choice of words, I realized, as my mind registered that I had neither a home nor a mommy to go crawling back to. My gut clenched. The air around me seemed to roar as it darkened even further, and I let the tide of raw power flood over me and wash away any scrap of emotion left.
“Back---the hells---OFF!”
I screamed, and there was a familiarly satisfying blast that rocked the entire clearing.
I could hear the summoned treefolk’s rumbling, croaking screams too, as they were sucked without hope of resistance into my immense vortex. The damn thing eclipsed nearly every other instance of the spell I had cast before, and its tug was so strong that I could even feel it gnawing at my ankles – Whatever I had done to make it so big, I needed to do it again. No. I needed to learn how to do it on command, that was what I needed. All I could do now though was wait for it to collapse inward, so I could just be done with this fight and ask Doran if he could fulfill my favor for me. Surely it had drained him of as much power as it had drained me by mere proximity – I was getting so exhausted by now that my already-weak legs could barely hold me up…
But when the vortex did vanish, there was no one behind it. Well, Jace, of course, and Odum and Broadbark where they all stood at the edge of the clearing, but…no Doran. I whipped about in alarm.
Where---
Suddenly, a tremendous crack across the back of my head told me exactly where.
In an instant I felt all the mana drain out of me, to be replaced only with a dull, throbbing agony as I crumpled to the ground.
***
“Stand back, Beleren – give her some breathing room. She is waking.”
I opened my eyes and blinked, and found myself staring directly up into both Jace’s face and Doran’s. I couldn’t see Odum and Broadbark, but I could feel their presence just as easily as I would feel the position of my arm in a dark room – innate, like a part of me. The familiar taste of the mana about them relaxed me too, and I pushed myself into a sitting position. Surprisingly, everything felt…good. Whole. Not shattered into tiny little pieces, as I had expected.
“How long was I out?” I muttered. I turned to look at Jace, whose eyes flashed with clear relief.
“Just a minute or two,” he said, and shrugged lightly. “Lord Doran gave you a concussion with that last hit, but your injuries weren’t anything I couldn’t fix.”
I smiled and nodded. “Thanks.” Truthfully, I was grateful, but at the moment I had more important business to attend to first than lauding thanks upon someone who likely didn’t need more of an ego boost than he already had. I was sure that out of all people, Jace would understand. Slowly, I turned to look up at the majestic rootbeard that towered over me – even bent at the waist as he was, he dwarfed me quatrefold. I knew he was tall, but I only really got an accurate sense of his scale by being this close. Battle hadn’t counted. I had been too intent on not getting my ass kicked back then to notice such trivial things as comparative height…not like it worked, but hey.
Chuckling, I shook my head. My fingers absently reached up to brush the wound on my scalp, and found only smooth skin. “Guess that’s what I get for being cocky, huh?”
Doran let out a rumble of amusement. His face made no visible motion to accompany the sound – which for some reason unsettled me a little – but nevertheless, his tone was warm. “Yes, I suppose you could call it that.” One of his great branched fingertips reached down to stroke the side of my face, which gave me a start. “Still, it is significantly better than giving up. Regardless of the mistakes you made, you fought to the end without fear. That is an honorable defeat, dear Ranewen. You should be proud to learn from such a thing.”
The touch of his branch was surprisingly warm, and the green mana that Doran positively bathed in was a great comfort to both body and soul – or, well, whatever part of me it was that sustained itself on mana. I closed my eyes and smiled. “You’re sure, Lord Doran? That was an embarrassingly short battle. I think I only got in two hits on you, if that.”
The treefolk rumble-laughed again. “That is two hits better than plenty of other people have managed, my dear. So, yes. I am sure.”
For a moment I hesitated – and then, finally, I exhaled and allowed my eyes to slide open. Jace still knelt at my side, his own eyes wide and attentive, and as my thoughts drifted I felt the cool touch of his mana signature. Before, I had only really ever felt the strength of whatever types of mana I used personally – green, black, and white, with green by far being the most noticeable – but lately I had been able to feel much more than that. I had felt Chandra’s fiery heat when she hugged me goodbye back in the Consortium compound, and then Venser’s gentle combination of white and blue throughout the entirety of my healing process – an aura that put me as at ease as if I had never been injured, and soothed my wounds better than any balm. Now, there was Jace’s, too. His was at once cold and electric, though altogether refreshing whenever it chanced upon me. The best way I could think to describe it was to liken it to the sensation of jumping straight into icy water on a hot day.
“Lord Doran,” I said softly, meeting his gaze, “I understand that I lost. Thank you anyway, though. …For giving me your time. You really didn’t need to.”
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the familiar sound of wind between the canopies of the trees above.
“When,” Doran returned, after a time, “did I say anything about denying you a reward for your efforts?”
My gaze snapped to attention right in unison with Jace’s. I felt my heart begin to drum hard against my ribcage.
“But Lord Doran.” I desperately didn’t want to protest, and instead to just take this stroke of luck and run with it, but of course my mouth wouldn’t let me. As per usual, I opened it too wide and babbled on inanely. “Lord Doran, you…you can’t mean that you want to…reward me? I lost.”
The tree barely suppressed a chuckle. “With honor,” he said simply, “as I told you before. Your strength of will is far more important to me than the strength of your physical body, and you have proven yourself perfectly well to me today.” He nodded – or at least, so much as a treefolk could manage. “Truly, I need no more from you than that.”
Had I jumped for joy as I wanted to, I was sure that I would’ve flown up and away. “Thank you, Lord Doran.” I beamed, reaching up to take hold of the branch that still caressed my face so I could cradle it. It might not have been the most socially appropriate thing to do at the moment, but I honestly couldn’t give less of a damn. “Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say. Perhaps I didn’t need to say anything.
With a loud creak that came out more like a groan, Doran stood up straight and gently disentangled himself from my grip. “I have council that I must hold with my tribe this evening, but we shall discuss terms on the morrow. Would this arrangement be fair to you, Ranewen of the Tajuru, from the plane of Zendikar?”
I blinked back surprise at the title. Then, though, I remembered to have introduced myself to Broadbark as such, and I laughed out loud.
“Yes, Lord Doran. That arrangement would be more than fair.”
***
The sun was finally beginning to dip beneath what horizon I could see between the trees when Jace and I finished pitching our tent. It had taken us a good hour’s walk to get here – here being a quiet nook beside a freshwater spring where Jace had spent some time on his previous visits to Lorwyn – and what felt like ten more trying to get the damn contraption set up. More than once, I had wished Venser were here. Neither Jace nor I seemed to be competent when it came to working with our hands.
The mage collapsed onto his knees in front of the entrance now, letting out a beleaguered sigh. “I swear, I’m an idiot for not asking Doran if we could stay with his tribe for the evening.”
I was busy tending to the fire we had miraculously managed to get started, so I only looked up at him for a second. “We would’ve had to set up the tent there too, y’know.” I blew on the tiny flame, twice, in an attempt to get it going. Little success. “And besides, I’m sure he’d have asked if we wanted to stay, had we been allowed. They’ve probably got important treefolk business to discuss at the council or something. No outsiders.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right.”
Reaching into my satchel, I threw a handful of overdried herbs on the fire to serve as kindling. To my delight, the flames did leap up higher, and now they gave off a pleasantly spicy sent to boot. “At least your little cloud sprite’s been keeping an eye on things for us over there. She said she’d take us straight to them tomorrow, right?”
“Mm.”
We passed the next few minutes in silence until I managed to get the fire burning at a decent height, and then finally I stood up to brush the ash and dirt off of my leggings. The flames had eaten right through my herbs, and now we were starting to run a little low on kindling. “I’m going to check around for some more fuel for the fire, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jace looked up from the tent pole he was fixing – it must have collapsed again, when I wasn’t looking – and tilted his head a little as he regarded me. “Don’t go too far, Rana.” His put down the peg in his hand, and his eyes softened in concern. I stopped. “I know you know how to handle yourself in the woods better than I do, but this isn’t Zendikar. There’s all kinds of things out there you haven’t seen.” He chuckled, running a hand through his messy hair. He’d had his hood down the entire time we’d been in Lorwyn, and it was…nice, to see him so relaxed. “Hells, I probably haven’t seen half of them.”
I smiled warmly. “Well, thanks for the advice, Jace, but I think I’ll be fine. I’ll make sure to keep an eye out, though.” I turned before I could allow a blush to creep across my cheeks from the way he watched me go, and I made my way across to the other side of our little campsite, where a stand of brush separated the cleared space from the forest proper.
The second my body rustled into the bracken, though, I heard the sharp sound of something whizzing past my ear.
My hunter’s instincts kicked in without pause and I swiftly dropped to a crouch, hand shooting to the knife at my belt. I knew it wouldn’t do me any good in comparison to my magic, but the worn leather handle felt good in my grip. It cleared my head, focused my attention. Always had. Always will.
“Jace!” I cried. I growled, spinning toward the direction the arrow had come from. “Get down, we’re getting shot at!”
“Elves!” He shouted back. I was too concerned with where our attackers might be than with looking for him, so long as he sounded fine. “F***, Rana, we’re right in the middle of their hunting grounds!”
Jace’s colorful swear made me nervous, but what made me even more nervous then was the way his voice quavered at the edges. This was not going to be good.
And even without knowing about the elves of this new plane, I knew, as a rule, exactly what it meant to trespass on a clan’s hunting grounds as an outlander – in most cases, a quick death.
I caught a flash of delicately curving horns as someone moved from branch to branch in the tree above me, lightning-fast. Someone else moved too in the tree beyond them, and then another figure, and another – until then, finally, my pricked ears caught exactly what they were looking for. The unmistakable twang of a bowstring being drawn tight, just above and diagonal to the large tree with the lump on its trunk. Our attackers had been moving into a new position upon missing their first shot, and now they – however many they happened to be – were preparing again to fire.
I was about to scale the tree ahead of me and go toe to toe with them in my own element, had a sudden flash of blue from behind me not overwhelmed the clearing.
I turned briefly, just in time to see two large drakes bursting forth from a tear in the aether at Jace’s command. The mage stood in front of the entrance to the tent still, eyes glowing as blue and as bright as the scales on his beasts. The two creatures took to the air with ear-splitting roars when he lifted a hand, and streamed directly toward the trees above my head, opening their mouths to spew out clouds of impossibly hot steam. I saw blurs of movement as a few of the elves managed to dodge in the nick of time, just barely avoiding being incinerated like everything else caught up in the blast. I stared in awe for a moment. I couldn’t help myself.
I was rewarded for that distraction, however, with an arrow that I just barely managed to dodge. It set me off balance enough to tumble backwards – and as luck would have it, I landed right in the rocky spring. The back of my thigh gashed itself across a particularly jagged edge, tearing a path straight through to muscle. I bit my tongue to keep from letting out a howl. It only partially worked.
“Rana!” Even over the screeching and the sizzling that continued to go on above us, I could hear the wild panic in Jace’s voice. He was at my side faster than I thought he could move, bending down to lift my body gingerly back onto the grass. I winced. No one had dared fire another arrow after that second one just now– the drakes were catching onto their movements too fast for that, and had probably cleared a good majority of them out, anyway. We were safe for the moment.
“Damn it,” he hissed, as he supported my upper half with one arm. His eyes narrowed. “Dammit, Rana, that arrow didn’t hit you, did it? Please tell me it didn’t. They’re tipped with moonglove extract – If it broke the skin, you’ll---”
“Please,” I groaned. I closed my eyes against the throbbing burn in my thigh, which mingled with the already persistent ache of my healing leg to make me so lightheaded that I couldn’t focus. “No talk of morbid stuff. I think I’m gonna throw up.”
The sounds of the drakes faded away to a much quieter clamor behind us, and Jace’s expression relaxed a little as he looked at me. His eyes were still scanning my body rapidly, up and down, but he didn’t seem to be finding what he had dreaded. “So it…didn’t hit you, then?”
I shook my head. My stomach was heaving, so talking would probably be a dangerous option at this point.
He sighed out loud with relief, and scooped me up into his arms. He must have noticed the blood staining the rocks and pooling beneath my leg, because he took care not to put his hand anywhere close to the wound, choosing instead to hold me beneath the knees.
“I think the drakes chased them off,” he said quietly, as he hurried us both toward the tent. “The second they get killed, I’ll know. When that happens, I’ll just summon two more to keep watch.”
Honestly, I didn’t give a damn what Jace did about the damn drakes or the damn elves so long as he fixed my damn leg before I vomited all over us both. That was, obviously, not my ideal course of action.
When he had ducked through the entrance, Jace gently laid me down onto the bedroll I had set up, and laced the tent flaps shut before turning back to me. He looked concerned still, but there was no denying the utter relief in his face compared to a few moments earlier. I supposed I understood – being injured and bleeding and in gut-wrenching agony was far preferable to being injured and subsequently dying from a toxin, by a long shot. It was a pretty relatable concept.
I closed my eyes. Oh, that’s much better.
I could feel Jace’s gloved etherium hand beneath my knee, lifting up my leg so that he could see the injury, and then I felt the warmth of his left hand as it ghosted across my thigh. White mana flared hot at the fingertips.
Even in the midst of all my pain, my body somehow was cognizant enough to make my cheeks flush.
He held his grasp where it was for a moment, examining the wound – and then, without further pretense, he just cupped his entire hand over it to let the magic seep into me. I felt it move through my skin to my muscle to places even deeper, and all the way down to my ailing stomach as I breathed in the sweet heady scent of the mana. I probably imagined that healing magic smelling like anything, to be honest, but it still made my nose tingle. That had to count for something.
A moment passed in silence as the spell finished its work, and the remaining mana dissipated to rejoin the aether. Neither of us spoke. I opened my eyes, slowly, and lifted my gaze to look at Jace.
When I saw that his hands still hadn’t let go of my leg, my heart nearly stopped beating outright.
The mage’s eyes met mine. Slowly – almost torturously so – he fixed me with a languid smile. He didn’t seem to be concerned with the fact that I was staring at him wide-eyed and almost certainly openmouthed, or that my face was likely, by now, the color of Chandra’s flaming hair – instead, he just lowered my leg ever-so-delicately to the ground. I gaped.
“Feel better?”
Swallowing, I nodded. When I managed to find the right words to speak, my voice came out faint.
“Yeah. Uh, completely. …Thanks, Jace.”
He smiled again, this time in a cheerful manner that I was more used to seeing. “You’re welcome.” He flopped back onto his own bedroll then with a huff, and rolled over onto his side so that he was facing me. “You had me really worried, for a second there. If you had gotten any of that moonglove extract in you, you’d have been a goner. No questions about it.”
I hadn’t realized until that moment just how close our bedrolls were to one another S***.
“Uh…good thing I have pretty good reflexes then, huh?”
Jace laughed softly at that, and I couldn’t help but smile back when I saw the mirth in his eyes. For one brief second, I was able to push back my nerves. Just a little.
“I guess so. I wouldn’t have expected it out of you, but it looks like you proved me wrong today.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, nothing.”
I scowled, trying to make myself look indignant at his teasing. It wasn’t an easy task, what with this cramped tent forcing us to lie close to one another if we wanted to lie down at all. The proximity had summoned my blush back to my face – with a vengeance, no less. Wonderful.
Jace must have seen it, too – of course he would, it was right damn there in front of his nose! – because suddenly, he was smiling at me in the most captivating way, and then something in his gaze just…changed…
There was a faint rustling as he shifted, and then before I could react his lips were on mine.
My eyes shot wide. My entire body went rigid at that small, simple contact, and I found myself utterly unable to respond. I could feel my heartbeat going mad in my ears.
This isn’t really happening. I must’ve passed out from the pain in my leg or something, and now I’m dreaming.
…Yeah. That has to be it.
There was one achingly long moment where I was conscious of the pressure of his lips – and then, as abruptly as it had begun, the kiss ended. Jace pulled away, enough so that his eyes were able to find mine. At first they held a hint of confusion, but then when he saw what must have been the shock in my own, he relaxed. A slow smile spread across his face.
“I’m, ah…guessing you weren’t expecting that?”
I shook my head. My previous blush had intensified itself tenfold, heating my face to the point where I wondered if spontaneous combustion were actually possible.
Jace’s smile widened, and his left hand lifted to brush across my cheek. “Well then.” And without any further pause he was kissing me again, eyes closed, hair falling across his forehead to frame his face in rich dark brown. I found myself suddenly powerless. The great majority of my body fell limp as a rag doll, and my mind wiped itself blank to be left only with thoughts of this is happening this is happening I can’t believe it this is actually happening. There was nothing else I could do. Finally, I just gave in and kissed him back.
His lips were warm and yielding against mine, and my own parted right as his arms encircled me and pulled me close. I could feel his hair now, tickling where it brushed my cheeks. I had the absurd urge to laugh.
Whether it was from sheer emotion or lack of air, I couldn’t tell – but either way, I soon found myself dizzy as our kiss heated, and as his tongue found mine to begin a dance of vying for dominance. How long had it been since I’d been kissed this way? Or at all? Too long, I thought, and I let Jace roll me over and press my back down into the bedroll. He hovered over me, supporting his weight with his etherium arm while the other tangled in my hair.
“Mm…” A quiet sound escaped my throat before I could stop it, and almost instantly I felt his muscles tense. His eyes opened to bore into me – an inescapable, clear cerulean, so much so that I found myself suddenly entranced. It was impossible how damn blue those things were.
I let out a little gasp as his mouth left mine to trail a pathway across the curve of my jaw, and then ever so slowly down to my neck. My arms reached up and wrapped around him. I felt teeth graze skin, and I shivered. I felt his tongue lightly trace the line of my collarbone, and my back arched. I groaned. He bit down, and my breath escaped in a low hiss.
“Jace…” I was too caught up in the physical sensations rocketing through me to be entirely aware at the moment, so by the time I noticed his wandering hand it was thoroughly beneath my shirt, having skated up my side all the way to my breast band. The blush that had lingered in my cheeks deepened. Wait, I wanted to say as my heart picked up tempo, hold on, but his lips had conveniently lifted to recapture mine. I wiggled a little in his grasp, hoping to draw his attention.
Much to my dismay, though, he took my movements as a sign of encouragement.
Deft fingers worked at the small metal catch, and in barely an instant the thing was free, pooling as loose strips of cloth at my back. My skin seared wherever his fingertips touched as they made their way back down to my stomach, especially when they circled the edge of my bare breasts in the process.
“Jace,” I said again, though of course it came out uselessly muffled. I untangled my arms from around him, and pushed firmly against his chest. “Hold on…stop. Mmmph. Hey. Heywaitaminute---” None of those words made it out of my mouth comprehensibly, and instead they sounded more than anything like noises of pleasure. S***. This isn’t helping.
His eyes shifted to meet my gaze then as his hand fisted in the bottom of my shirt – and with a darkness in their depths that I could only describe as hunger, he began to lift it up. The coil in the bottom of my abdomen wound tighter. Part of me just wanted to say f*** it upon seeing that look, to just sit back and shut up and let this happen, and indeed I did hesitate for a moment. I was a grown woman, after all. I could do whatever the hells I wanted. This wasn’t wrong.
I know, but I just…
The cloth was featherlight against my skin, and I shivered as it was drawn away to expose my ribcage to the cool air. Jace kept on kissing me all the while, urgently.
I can’t…
“HEY!”
Finally – though reluctantly – I broke free of Jace’s arms with one hard shove, and rolled over onto my side. I yanked my shirt back down into place as quickly as I could. The breast band would have to wait.
“Slow…slow down,” I breathed. I hadn’t realized I was panting until just this moment, and for whatever reason that knowledge flustered me enough to make my ears burn. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. My breath came out in a shaky exhale. “You’re going too fast.”
When my words were met with no response, I looked up – and then when I found Jace’s eyes upon doing so, I gave a start. The ardor in them hadn’t just cooled, but frozen over entirely. His face had fallen enough, too, so that he now looked completely abashed.
“I…” He couldn’t seem to find the right words to say, so he just sighed and shook his head. “…Ah, s***.”
“Hey.” I noticed that Jace’s cheeks were now enveloped in a blush as well, but I only caught it for the half-second he remained facing me before he laid himself down on his own bedroll, and turned his back to me. His left hand reached up to bunch in his hair.
“Jace,” I said, scooting closer to him. Tentatively, I put one hand on his shoulder. “Really, it’s fine. I just…I didn’t want to---”
“No, Rana,” he sighed, and I was taken aback by the irritation in his voice. My words died right away in my throat. “You don’t have to explain it to me. It’s my fault – I was being too aggressive. I’m sorry.”
I was about to open my mouth to argue, to push hard enough to convince him that I wasn’t going to start throwing around blame or holding this silly little misunderstanding against him – but to my utmost surprise, something stopped me. A face, familiar and yet thoroughly unexpected in this moment, made its way to the forefront of my mind. Something twisted in my chest. I closed my mouth.
“Just forget about it, Rana. Go to sleep. You need your rest after today.”
Even though I knew he couldn’t see me, I…damn it all, I nodded. Swallowing back the lump in my throat, I laid down on my own bedroll, and pulled the blanket up tight beneath my chin. The same face from before nearly swam in front of my vision, and no amount of blinking could chase away the guileless warmth of its smile.
Get your act together, dammit, I thought, as I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for sleep to claim me.
It took a great while. As I finally slipped into dreams, though, I realized that in the state of half-awareness I had fallen into, I could still feel the lingering heat of Jace’s touch – burned like iron brands into my skin.
With his taste still so completely him on my lips, I drifted off.
***
When I awoke hours later, I instantly knew that something was wrong.
It was pitch dark in the tent at first, but as my body lurched with an unexpected surge of adrenaline, everything seemed to light up. Not supernaturally, of course – I just was suddenly able to see in the otherwise-dim moonlight with a remarkable clarity.
Heart pounding, I rolled onto my side and let my eyes fall on Jace. He looked fine enough, to my relief – I could see his form, rising and falling gently in the breath pattern of sleep, with all of his limbs and other vital parts intact. Or so it seemed. Details were lost to me, but at least there were lumps beneath his blanket wherever they belonged.
Still though, the uneasy feeling persisted.
And in perfect honesty, it had nothing to do with the awkwardness of our goodnight, or the way I still couldn’t get that damn face out of my head – even now, apparently.
Swallowing hard, I scooted closer to the mage and shook him by the shoulder. He didn’t so much as stir. I tried again, more forcefully, this time putting both hands to use in the effort.
“Jace,” I hissed. “Jace, wake up.”
No response. My pulse had picked up to a canter by now, and I was starting to feel a little dizzy.
“Jace.” I sat up and shook him roughly, urgently, so hard that his hair tumbled into his face. “Come on, seriously. This isn’t funny. Wake up.” But his only response was to fall limply onto his back, head and one arm lolling across my knee. I gave a start. His face stared up at me through closed eyes with an expression of utter, immovable calm, save for the occasional twitch of his mouth, and I might have blushed – had I not been on the cusp of heart failure, perhaps.
“’E ent gonna answer yeh, girl.”
There it was. The heart failure. For a brief moment my world went black at the edges as I registered my panic, and then slowly I turned around to face the entrance of the tent.
In the swathe of moonlight that cut directly across the opening flaps – which still hung shut, their laces tied tight – I could see the outline of an enormous armored shadow. It was surrounded by dozens of others, their as-yet-unseen forms coming in every nightmarish shape and size you could imagine – and worst of all, there were noises now. Low growls, and gurgles, and what almost sounded like moans, and...oh spirits, I’m screwed.
No, I’m beyond screwed. I think I’m f***ed this time.
“’E’s under my control now, so I suggest yeh do what I say if’n yeh want ta…keep ‘im from harm, less jus’ say.” The voice was deep and masculine, gruff, and grating as nails on ice. I shuddered. I wanted to throw my guts up from sheer fright, but that was something I was going to have to keep under some semblance of control.
I stole a glance down at Jace, who still appeared to be sleeping peacefully as I’d even seen him – his eyelids fluttered as I watched, even – and then I looked back up toward the shadows. Almost unconsciously, one of my hands slid beneath the back of his head, to support him as he lay in that same awkward position across my lap. “And just who are you?” I asked. It was all I could do to try and keep my voice brave. It still quavered, but at least it was understandable.
I could almost hear the wicked smile in response, and my blood chilled the instant the stranger’s words met my ears.
“Why dontcha step outside, Miss Ranewen, ‘n’ we’ll have a li’l…chat.”
Oh dear...Shadowmoor, awaken. If thats what has happened, then sadly for little Ranewen, she's in a heap of trouble. I hope to heaven that Ashling isn't a monster any longer. Although, if these are boggarts, she's got enough to worry about. Oh this will be soo much fun :D.
Ok, now for the review, so to speak. The battle was very well done. It was a very easy, comphrensible read. The ambush by the elves makes sense, and was almost exactly what I would have excpected.
And...Jace...oh Jace. I was worried you'd pull a stupid romance thing where they fall into passion and then the drama is all about how they balence love and the knowledge that one of them could die...yeah...Thankfully, you didn't. You handled it very, very well. In fact, I have no doubt that you could handle the romantic parts for any characters.
I am absloutly blown away by this so far, and I eagerly await the coming updates :D.
Thanks, Dark Fire! This chapter was a really fun one to write. I'm so, so relieved you liked it - I knew it would probably go strongly one way or another, to be honest.
I have a few interesting plot mechanics in place for Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, so I'm anxious to get them started. I hope they turn out as well as I imagine them in my head!
And oh Jace indeed...I can't stand sappy, overemotional drama where two characters instantly fall in love and then flail all over one another for the rest of the story, so I can promise you won't see any of that from me. I have some different things in mind...
Woah, things are definitely moving fast now though.
But yes, moonlight on Shadowlyn can only mean one thing. And...the horrible mind-control critters, hmm. Either it's a trick of the light and they're Fae, or they're merrows (the bad kind). Kithkin wouldn't really make sense to me, but I suppose it's not impossible.
Fae, plus merrow...oh my...thats a headache straight from Oona. At least it ain't Cinders. Then both of them would likely be dead already :o. I really can't wait to see what you got in store. This really is getting good :).
ps: I can't say how bloody glad I am to hear that there won't be that over the top, mushy nonsense some (bad) authors pass as romance. Thank Heavens (or the Inferno, whichever ya'd prefer ;)) for that.
Happy to hear it! That's one thing that always drives me nuts about fanfiction, so I try to keep from falling into the same traps with my own writing. It isn't the easiest thing in the world, though - which is why it helps to have people who catch me in my mistakes!
I know this is going to be disappointing and I’m genuinely sorry for that, but I’m going to have to push Chapter 24 back to next Monday. I tried to get it finished by this morning, but I just couldn’t. For the past month or so I’ve been on a screwed up schedule where I only have a couple of days to write a chapter rather than a full week – I don’t remember exactly why this is, but I think it started when I was sick one time and had to postpone something a couple of days, then double posted in a week to make up for it. Either way, the end result is the same: I’ve been rushing to post – which leads to delays when I bite off more than I can chew – I’ve been running on little to no sleep thanks to this in combination with all the ridiculous things real life has been throwing at me lately, my body has been failing me on a regular basis, and I’ve apparently (according to my boyfriend and closest friends) been a bit of a nervous wreck. So honestly, the best possible solution I can think of is to give myself some time to sleep, de-stress, and sort out all my obligations. After that, I’ll finally be able to enact a normal once-a-week schedule.
tl;dr – I really, really need a short break for my health and sanity. I love this story as much as always, but I love being well, rested, and in good spirits even more.
“Jace.” I didn’t know what to say beyond his name, so it took me a moment to pause and collect my thoughts. I shook my head. “I…what is…” I shook it again, deep creases marring my brow as I stared at the metal that stuck out from the mage’s sleeve. I can’t believe this. “What…what in the nine damn hells is that thing? What did you do?!”
“Huh. It’s some kind of alloy even I’ve never seen before,” Venser remarked, bending down a little so as to get a closer look. He tapped the metal with one knuckle, and it let out a soft hollow ring. He straightened and blinked in surprise. “And for Windgrace’s sake, I’m a planeswalking artificer!” He scowled, fingers ruffling through his hair. “Knowing about these types of things is supposed to be my job…”
“That’s not the point, Ven,” I snapped. “It doesn’t matter what it is! What matters is where his arm---”
“It’s etherium,” Jace interrupted then. I stared at him in shock, but he didn’t so much as spare me a glance when he bent his arm at the elbow, letting it flex for Venser to see. In fact, it almost looked like he was avoiding my gaze on purpose. Anger bubbled in my chest. “Common on Esper. Almost every one of the higher-ups has a body part made out of it, and they pretty much use it as a type of currency, too.”
“Hmmm.” Venser couldn’t seem to make up his mind as to whether or not he liked what he saw. When he straightened up fully and began to stroke the faint brush of beard on his chin, though, his eyes were narrowed. He didn’t look pleased. “It’s not Phyrexian, then? It almost looks it…”
“No.” Jace spoke quickly, shaking his head hard enough to toss his dark hair about. “Not at all. I know it looks a little…” he wiggled his fingertips again, eyes falling down to their tapered points, “…menacing, but I promise you, it’s fine.”
“Fine?!” That was it. I had had it. I needed answers, now. Growling, I took a hard step forward, and ignored the resulting pain that shot up my legs and made me wince. Venser saw and reached out with a hand to try and steady me, but I angrily brushed him away. “You call this fine, Jace?” I reached out to grab the metal limb and hold it up in front of him, my reflexes quicker than he had anticipated. I felt my fingers close around his wrist. “You’re bloody delusional! For the spirits’ sakes, your whole damn arm is gone!” I shook the limb forcefully, and to my surprise he just…let me. The thing felt strangely warm in my hand, but yet it hung limp as a dead fish. I only barely noticed the wisps of black that had begun to curl from beneath my fingertips, and wind around his. “You’re going to tell me what happened to you, and you’re going to tell me now, Beleren!”
Jace flinched visibly at the sound of his name. “I…uh.” He swallowed hard, and with my grip still tight around him, he turned to look at Venser. When I did the same, I was surprised to see the artificer’s face twisted with a sudden guilt. My heart did something strange in my chest as I felt confusion take hold of me. “Well, I…”
“Jace,” Venser sighed, “just tell her.”
Now it was my stomach’s turn to act up. “What are you two talking about?” My voice had lost some of its sharpness, however much I tried to keep it in there. My eyes widened against my will. “What’s going on?”
Jace took advantage of my moment of confusion to gently extricate himself from my grasp. I frowned when I realized this, but I didn’t make a move to seize him again. There was no need. The mage let out a sigh too, now, long and deep and far too burdened for my liking. “I’m, uh…not quite sure how to say this to you, Rana. I’m afraid you’re going to panic on me.”
I almost laughed, and would have had Jace not just used my nickname again. Damn him, I thought. I strained to keep from getting visibly flustered. How can one stupid little word have so much power over me? Spirits damn him. “Well, I’m already on the verge of panic,” I spat, caustically, “so I think it would be in your best interest to just tell me before things get any worse.”
Jace looked to Venser again. The artificer shrugged helplessly, and Jace pressed the fingertips of his left hand – his flesh hand – between his eyebrows.
“Ugh,” he groaned. “Alright, alright.” He took a deep, slow breath. I held mine, whether or not that was a good idea.
“Rana…I lost my arm in the battle. When I summoned Akroma. She told me that was the price her first summoner paid to bring her into existence, and, well…that was the price I had to pay, too.”
I could almost hear the anger rushing out of me in a hiss. My breath went with it. “Jace…” My heart dropped all the way down to my knees, and suddenly I felt like I wanted to collapse, to just go to sleep and pretend none of this damn business with Alanor had ever happened. I felt just a little sick. “You…lost your...” My shoulders slumped, and I couldn’t bring myself to finish whatever disjointed sentence had been forming in my throat. I swallowed back the lump there, and a well of tears with it. “Spirits…I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” I looked up into Jace’s eyes, fixed firmly on the floor, and then slid my gaze to the left, to Venser. He was looking away too, and shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably. Just then, something in me clicked.
“You knew,” I whispered. Hurt blossomed in me as I stared intently at the artificer. My eyes narrowed. “You knew about this the entire time, and you didn’t tell me.”
Venser’s eyes widened as hurt spread across his own face, and he opened his mouth to say something before Jace held up a silencing hand. Venser and I both turned to look at him, and the mage shook his head. “He didn’t know that I was going to be attaching this arm,” he said quietly, “and I made him promise not to say anything to you until you were better. You were in bad shape. I didn’t want to cause you any more stress than you were already under. So if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me, not him.”
My face fell. I wanted to be mad, to be angry or upset or anything that involved harsh, negative emotions right now, but…I couldn’t. I had no reason to be – the men had kept what had happened a secret out of a desire to protect, not to hurt. How could I fault them for that?
Still though, this was not a pleasant piece of news. I could at least be upset in that regard.
I shuffled my way over to a couch and sat down heavily, not even bothering to ask Jace or Venser if I could be excused. I didn’t really care what they thought about it, at the moment. My legs hurt like hells. “So tell me then,” I said, once I had arranged myself into a comfortable position with my head against one arm of the couch and my legs propped up atop the other, “how did you get ahold of that metal…thing? That arm?” I waved my own arm in a dismissive gesture. Surprisingly, I wasn’t panicking – If anything, I felt an odd sense of numbness, though I knew that it would fade away after a couple more minutes or so. I supposed I could work with it while it lasted. “Did you just conveniently have one lying around at the back of your closet or something?”
Jace and Venser were in the process of crossing the room to meet me, and as they sat themselves down on the couch opposite mine, the mage sighed. There was a soft chuckle hidden somewhere in that sound. “Actually,” he said, as he settled back to rest his elbow on his knee and his chin in his left hand, “I did.”
That I hadn’t been expecting. Even Venser turned to fix his companion with a look of puzzlement, then. My face must have mirrored his. “Wait, what?”
Now Jace really chuckled, though there was something dark hidden within his tone that made me shiver. “You sure you want to hear it?” He smiled. The bitterness in that smile gave me a start, and I wondered what he could possibly be about to say that could color his face with such an emotion. “This isn’t going to make me sound like a good guy.”
“Well, now you have to tell me.” I rolled over onto my side so that I was facing him, and idly attempted to rub the soreness out of the leg that held more weight. It didn’t work.
Jace shrugged. “If you say so.” There was a brief pause in which he looked down at his etherium right arm, with his usual inscrutable expression – only this time, his handsome blue eyes were cold as ice. I felt another chill course its way through my body, as if their glare had become tangible and reached out to stab me. I’m not going to like this, am I?
“This arm,” he continued finally, deliberately, “once belonged to my oldest enemy, Tezzeret.”
Venser’s eyes shot wide as saucers, and though I didn’t understand the strength of his reaction, I did feel a knot of hesitant disgust twisting in my stomach at Jace’s words. No. He can’t mean…
“Tezzeret? You mean the Tezzeret we found in the depths of Ish Sah? That Tezzeret?”
Jace turned to look at Venser, and the expression of utter shock that he found when he did sent the mage’s own eyes widening. Apparently he hadn’t expected Venser’ reaction, either.
“Glowy etherium arm?” he asked. “White hair, nasty scars on his face?”
“Yeah,” Venser breathed.
Jace nodded, slowly. “That’s the one.”
“How did you even get that arm?” Venser beat me to the punch before I had the time to open my mouth, or before Jace had the time to elaborate. The artificer’s expression had now morphed to one of mingled amazement and disbelief. “The one he had when I saw him was completely fused to his shoulder – If you wanted it, you would’ve had to---”
“Cut it off,” Jace finished – and his tone was quiet and sharp, leaving no room for argument. “With a manablade.” He paused for breath, and his fists, fallen to his lap, clenched so tightly that the knuckles on his left hand turned a stark white. “I did it, but we were in a fight to the death at the time, if that makes any difference. The arm has a hell of a lot of power, and I didn’t want it to remain in his possession.”
Venser could only shake his head. His gaze fell to Jace’s – Tezzeret’s? – arm, and he drank in the sight of it as long as he dared before at last looking away. When he did, he shook his head again.
“You shouldn’t have been able to do that,” he said. His eyes unfocused as they stared out the window across from the couch, and his voice turned as soft as I had ever heard it. “Your body should’ve gone into shock from just trying to attach it. Even master artificers die fitting themselves with non-organic parts, and you’re…not even a novice. I don’t understand.”
Jace smiled thinly, but he didn’t look at Venser either. “Well, that was the fun part about accidentally gaining all of Tezzeret’s memories when I mind-wiped him.” His left hand traced paths across the smooth, dull surfaces of his metal arm, and his gaze softened. “Learned everything there is to know about etherium, since he considers himself an expert. So at least that’s something good.” He shrugged languidly, taking the moment to roll his shoulders and test their range of motion. Everything seemed to be in working order, from what I could tell. “I went to Emmara’s because I knew it would be a dangerous process, even with all that knowledge. She helped stave off the shock and the worst of the sickness, so…” He finally turned to Venser and the artificer to him, and he shrugged again. “Does that explain everything properly?”
Venser hesitated, but after a moment he nodded. Strangely enough, he looked a little defeated. The expression was only there for a moment, though, and it disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Yeah. I guess that’s the best answer I’m gonna get, so I’ll take it.” He smile, too, was hesitant. “Well, I’m glad you’re alive, Jace. You really pushed yourself through a mire of s***, didn’t you?”
“We’re both glad,” I said quietly. Both men turned to look at me when I spoke, and I simply shrugged in response. “It’s the truth.”
Jace’s smile widened. I almost blushed at the sight of it – almost, but not quite. I’m getting better at this.
“So, Rana.” Venser’s voice came as a surprise, and I turned my head almost jerkily in an attempt to change direction and look at him, partially out of reflex. He had folded his hands together in front of him, and was now resting his chin on the tips of his fingers. “Now that the three of us are here, we should probably discuss…” His gaze shifted from one end of the room to the other, and when he was apparently satisfied with his search, he leaned in closer. “…you know.”
My brow furrowed. “Know what?” Then, during the brief silence, I became aware of my pulse throbbing in my neck, and abruptly I understood. “Oh!” Alongside understanding, dread rose up like a wave in the pit of my stomach. “Oh, you mean…Sorin. Right.”
Venser nodded. Next to him, I noticed that Jace’s lips had hardened into a tight line.
“Well…what about him do you want to know?”
“You don’t have to tell us the details,” Jace responded immediately, words clipped, “just the most important things. What he did to you.”
Without even thinking, I shook my head. I remembered Sorin’s words of veiled threat, and the bitterness behind them that had taken me by surprise. The memory of them gave me pause, and I found myself searching for someone’s gaze – something solid to hold onto, even as I floundered mentally. I found Venser’s first, alert and bright, and his brown eyes latched onto mine as naturally as if they belonged there. Fear knifed at my insides. It must have reflected in my expression, because, to my immense relief, he understood. I praised the spirits.
“Jace,” he said softly, “I don’t think she feels like it’s safe to tell us. Maybe we should---”
“No.” The mage’s voice was firm, harsh, and I saw a hint of the cold steel from before creep its way into his eyes. Both the artificer and I flinched back as one. “Venser, we have to know. I’m not going to let Sorin have his way with her, no matter how important he may be to what we’re doing. Even if we have to keep him with us, I have to know what he’s trying to do. It’s the only way we can keep her safe.”
Keep me safe? My head spun foolishly at the thought of Jace wanting to protect me, straying then to my memory of the rescue that had been our first meeting. He had used the word “we” just now, granted, but still…
“Well then, why don’t you just ask if you can read her mind? That’s what you do, isn’t it? Then you can pin it on yourself if she’s under threat not to tell, and Sorin finds out.”
At the mention of his magic, Jace froze. His expression, on the other hand, melted like a snowdrift in spring, and a note of supreme worry found its way into his eyes quicker than I could comprehend.
“Rana,” he said haltingly, “I…could do that, but…”
“But what?” My heart suddenly started to beat faster at the prospect of Jace rummaging through my thoughts, laying the innermost recesses of my mind as bare as they could ever be. I didn’t fear the intrusion – not from him, I trusted him – but the thought of him finding out about my stupid, childish feelings for him…
He probably already knows, idiot. And they’re not childish – You’re an adult. You’re allowed to feel whatever the hells you want.
I swore near-silently, under my breath. What a perfect time to start arguing with myself.
“Rana, it’s really not a pleasant process. I’ll be gentle, of course, but still, it’s---”
I shook my head. Screw everything. I’m already in enough trouble. “No, Jace, it’s…it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just tell you.”
The mage tilted his head to the side in confusion at my sudden reversal, but he didn’t argue. “You’re sure? That’s, uh…really what you want to do?”
I forced a smile and nodded. “Yeah. It’s okay, really. I trust you both. If I end up getting in any sort of trouble I can’t handle, I know I can come to you. It’s fine.”
Jace nodded, and beside him Venser smiled. I smiled back – though this time, it was a little more sincere. At least that’s a start.
The smile didn’t last for long, however. As warm and encouraging as Venser and Jace both seemed, sitting perfectly still and patient as they waited for me to say something, the memories I dredged up of my fight with Sorin in Urborg were…distressing, to say the least. My heart skittered, and I found it hard to pull words from my throat.
“He…” I swallowed, and braced myself for the cracking in my voice that was sure to come. I knew it would. It was a guarantee. “He challenged me to a fight when I asked him if he could tell me more about the Eldrazi, and I was stupid enough to accept. We planeswalked to Urborg.” I could see Venser’s brow arch at the mention of his home plane, but he said nothing. He simply listened. So I continued. “He completely overwhelmed me, and then…” I could feel my hands starting to shake. “…he…stabbed me. Through the shoulder. Threw me down on the ground, and made me drink his blood if I wanted to live. I didn’t really have a choice.” And there it was – the inevitable crack. I knew it would happen. “He told me to sleep, then, and I passed out. I…I couldn’t not. It wasn’t under my control.” I shook my head, slowly, not meeting the gaze of either man for a moment as I sucked in a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. Somehow, it made me feel a bit better. “When I woke up, I was lying on this couch like you found me. And…that’s that.”
There was a long stretch of silence. When I finally did have the courage to look up, my eyes instantly went to Jace – and I regretted the decision, for his were blazing with hellsfire. His fists were clenched so tightly at his knees that I worried they might snap, and his face was flushed a hot red with anger. I turned to Venser instead, not wanting to see Jace like that, and I found him to be staring at me with a similar expression of shock from before. He shook his head when my eyes found his.
“Damn it,” Jace hissed. “Damn it, damn it, damn it. That goddamn bastard did something that can be taken a million different ways!”
Venser and I both turned to face the mage. I felt my stomach churn at the frustration in Jace’s voice, knowing that it couldn’t mean anything good. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he growled, “drinking a vampire’s blood is almost always a bad idea, but Sorin’s a damn planeswalker – and he’s probably older than all of us combined. There’s no telling what that could’ve done to you. Literally. He could’ve instilled a sort of latent vampirism in you, or he could’ve taken some small control over your mind, or he could’ve just healed you with black magic. I don’t know. I can’t know.”
My heart dropped like a stone. “But…how can I find out? Is there any way?” Desperation and panic fought for dominance as they clawed their way through my veins, shredding my insides in their wake. I turned to Venser, wide-eyed. “Come on, Ven, you have to know something! Please, I…” My voice trailed off. There was nothing I could say with words that I hadn’t already said with every other part of me that could speak – I was shaking, and even though I still lay on my side on the couch, I had drawn my knees up tight to my chest. I was suddenly very cold, and the heat of this position offered some small comfort.
Venser, though, shook his head. He looked utterly pained to have to do so, but his anguish didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it made me feel worse. S***. S***. This can’t be happening, it can’t…
“Believe me,” Jace snarled, and I found my eyes abruptly drawn to his even in my state of near-to-erupting panic, “I’ll get it out of him one way or another.” He stared directly at me, his gaze searing with heat. I felt my breath catch in my throat. “I promise, Rana.”
It was…well, really, it was all I had. It was the best I could get, even. I nodded, and gave Jace the most genuine smile I could muster as I forced myself to keep calm. My lips trembled, but I held the expression long enough for him to notice, and to relax a little. The sight of his shoulders sagging was a welcome relief – I didn’t think I could handle a minute more of that rage in his eyes, or the way I could nearly hear his teeth grinding against one another as he glared at me. It struck something in me. And that something was more than I cared to feel right now.
“I’m so sick of this,” I blurted out suddenly. It was odd, not only because I was still in the middle of trying to hold my smile, but also because I was barely even conscious of that thought existing in my mind – but nevertheless, a moment later my face cracked in half to send the pieces tumbling down around me. A grimace spread across my lips, and I found my hands covering my face, and my fingers digging into my skin as the most overwhelming sense of frustration surged through me. It all happened before I had a moment’s chance to process what was going on.
“I just…” The words poured forth from my lips, unbidden. Why am I…? “I hate being the liability in this group. I hate it. I hate losing. I hate having to make people take care of me.” Tears strained against the corners of my eyes, but I pushed them back. My fingers dug deeper. No, damn it. “I’m my tribe’s hunter, for the spirits’ sakes – I’m not some kind of pushover! I’m not weak, I swear to everything that’s out there---!”
“Rana.” There was a soft rustling sound, and then an instant later a hand was covering mine, and gently peeling it away from where it clung to my face. A second hand did the same with my other, and when I was forced to look ahead, I saw Venser kneeling beside where I lay on the couch. Jace had moved to the edge of his own seat, and for a moment I caught a flicker of irritation as it passed across his face, but…no, it wasn’t there. I must have imagined it.
“Rana,” Venser said again, gently, “we know you’re not weak. You’re just not used to fighting in the big leagues, that’s all.”
From behind Venser, Jace nodded. His smile was a little strained, but it was no less warm. “You just need a bit of an edge,” he added. “Some training, or maybe a---”
He stopped midsentence. Venser turned to look at him, and the both of us saw Jace’s eyes slowly widen as an expression of comprehension dawned across his face. He clapped his left fist in his etherium palm, making the metal ring out ever so slightly.
“I’ve got it,” he crowed. His eyes were alight with triumph as he leaned forward over his knees, grinning. The sudden force of his emotion was startling, and I found myself taken aback. “Rana, remember how I said that planeswalkers can become ageless, so long as they find their own way of doing it that works?”
I wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this, but his mention of the word “ageless” had my full attention already, and had washed away any notions of hesitance in a fraction of a second. I nodded, enthusiastically. “Of course I do!” was all I could think to say.
Jace chuckled. “Well.” Even Venser was staring at him now, rapt, and I found myself breathless as the mage’s expression of pure and utter victory swept me away. “Tell me – Which of those trees you summon in battle would you say is your favorite? Which one have you bonded with the most?”
I smiled. “That’s easy. The one with the really thick arms and legs, and roots for a beard. I summoned it back when we were fighting Alanor’s cult, remember?”
I hadn’t thought it possible, but Jace’s grin managed to broaden itself even further. “Yes, I remember. His name is Doran. I’ve met him before. And that’s exactly the answer I was looking for.”
I blinked. There was far too much information in that statement for me to process at once. “You…know it? Him? How?”
Jace tilted his head to the side a little and crossed his arms over his chest. He leaned back against the cushions of the couch. “He’s a great sage in Lorwyn.” He sounded calm on the surface now, but I could hear the excitement boiling just beneath his veneer. “One of their revered treefolk. I talked to him for a little while when I was visiting that plane, and he told me all sorts of things – One of which might pertain to you, if I’ve got it right.”
Now I was the one who could barely contain my excitement. “And what would that be?”
“An ancient ritual. Any Lorwyn arboromancer with enough power can bind a portion of their soul to a specific tree, which will grant them even more power and will extend their lifespan so long as that tree lives.” Jace’s eyes positively gleamed as he leaned forward again, then stood to pace back and forth in front of his couch. He kept his gaze fixed on me all the while. “If that’s just what happens when a mage does it, then imagine what could happen if a planeswalker like you did it, Rana! That could very well be exactly what you need!”
My heart could have soared straight out of my chest. I could have run over to Jace and tackled him in a hug, had my legs been willing. Venser turned to smile at me, and I found myself beaming at him in return, breathlessly. Something warmed inside me at the sight of the expression that crossed his face when I did, but I was too excited about what Jace had said to concern myself with it for long. I looked up at the mage, who looked right back down at me with equal fervor.
“So we’re going to Lorwyn, then,” I said. It was most certainly not a question.
Jace picked up on that fact, and grinned again. “Looks like it. As soon as your legs finish healing, we can set right out.”
“It’ll be another week or so before I would risk any travel, let alone planeswalking,” Venser said, hauling himself to his feet and then holding out a hand to help me up. I took it, and gingerly the artificer assisted me in putting the right amount of weight on the right feet as I struggled into a standing position. “I can keep the essentials of my lab with me when we go, just in case something happens. Better safe than sorry.” Eventually I balanced myself – and this time, I didn’t need to lean on Venser’s shoulder near as much as before. I felt massively buoyant. If I didn’t hold tight to him, I was sure that I would float away right then and there.
But then Venser’s words registered in my head, and I turned swiftly to look up at him. He met my gaze with equal parts confusion and concern, seeing the worry that I could feel in my own expression.
“You haven’t been sleeping at all, Ven,” I said, softly. “Are you sure you can handle a trip like that, in your condition?”
The artificer blinked. Clearly, he hadn’t thought about that part.
“You don’t need to feel compelled to go with us,” Jace chimed in. His arms were folded over his chest again, and he was smiling as bright as before. “You’ve done a hell of a lot for us already. We’ve been keeping you from Vincenius, and your work.” His eyes glimmered now with something I couldn’t quite discern, but his tone was as friendly as ever, so I didn’t bother to push deeper. “I know Lorwyn fairly well, and I can assure you it’ll be an easy trip. I know which places are safe and which aren’t. We’ll be fine.”
Venser looked down at me again, hesitant. I returned his look with a kind smile, and rested my head on his shoulder for a brief moment.
“Go home and rest.” The moment passed, and I lifted my head to fix him with a firm, unwavering stare. “Please. I’ve been worried about you for awhile now, and it’s been driving me crazy.” I held my stare for a moment longer before I finally faltered – No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t help but smile. “I promise I’ll come and visit to tell you how it went when we get back, alright?”
There was a long pause. Then, finally, with a deep sigh, Venser relented. A smile crept across his face too, as he looked at me. “Alright…fair enough, Rana. You win. But you know which potions to take at what time by now, right?”
I nodded. “Yep!”
“And you promise you’ll let me know if you run out of anything, or if there’s any problems?”
I grinned. “Yep!”
“Promise you’ll take it easy for awhile, alright?”
I giggled and rolled my eyes. “Ven, come on.”
“I’m serious!”
I sighed, resisting the urge to laugh. “Okay, fine, fine, I promise. I’ll take it easy.” I rested my free hand on my hip, and cocked an eyebrow at the artificer. But only if you go straight back and get some sleep, okay?”
“You’ve got a deal.” Before I could say anything more, Venser reached into one of the satchels at his belt and pulled out a little glass ball, small enough to fit in my closed fist. It was ringed around the edge in gold, and the air inside the glass was a shimmering milky color, swirling about itself like a heavy mist. He handed the thing to me, and I took it carefully. I looked up at the artificer in wonderment.
“What is this?” I asked. The trinket felt cool and smooth in my hands, and it was a little heavier than it looked. Still though, it was a comfortable weight.
Venser winked at me. To my surprise, I felt a hint of a blush creep involuntarily into my cheeks. “It’s a little device I’ve been using for awhile. Break it, and I’ll get a message that tells me your location. I’ll come right to you.” He chuckled, giving me a playful nudge with the shoulder I still rested against. “So you better only use it if you really need me, got it?”
I curved my fingers around the orb. I didn’t quite know why, but as I held the little thing, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from smiling. “Got it.”
***
“You’re sure you don’t want to come along, Akroma?”
The angel stood beatifically in the glow of the sunrise that poured through the common room’s windows, her wings bathed in a beautiful mix of pink and yellow. I couldn’t help but look past her, at what sky was visible between the towering buildings of Ravnica – Red. Already, the clouds were fully tinged with the color, and I found myself reminded of an old merfolk saying back on Zendikar – Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Too bad the human shipmasters they directed had always tended to ignore the little tidbit of wisdom. Ah well. Their loss. Of life, that is.
Before I had time to wonder whether or not the sky would prove to be a good omen or a bad omen for the start of our trip, Akroma shook her head. Her violet hair was as flawless as ever as it brushed the sides of her face, and she smiled at me radiantly. “No. I wish I could accompany the two of you, but I am not yet certain of whether or not I possess planeswalking powers, let alone how I might harness them. Venser’s hypothesis is sound, but it is simply that – a hypothesis. It needs testing.” She shrugged, the motion as fluid as only an angel could manage. “Perhaps by the time you return, I shall have come to a conclusion.”
I nodded, returning the angel’s smile. “I hope so. I’d really like to travel with you, Akroma.”
Her eyes softened. “And I you. Until then, the speed of the gods be with you on your journey, both of you. And do not strain yourself, Lady Ranewen – Your legs have only recently healed. I fear that you will cause yourself further injury by pushing yourself too hard.”
Beside me, Jace chuckled. “No need to worry. If she tries, I’ll make sure to stop her.”
I mock-scowled. Akroma nodded, obviously pleased. “Indeed. I should hope so, Jace Beleren. Take care, the both of you.”
“And you as well,” Jace said. He and I both bowed our heads respectfully to the angel, and then we stepped one after the other into Jace’s ready-made portal to the Blind Eternities.
As was the norm now, my time – or lack thereof – in that place passed by in a blur, a mad rush of chaos that failed both description and comprehension alike. By the time I thought I had some sort of hold on it, it was simply over, and tangible mana tugged at my inner being while the sensations of physical reality buffeted my outer one.
Unfortunately – and much to my dismay – the only sensation I felt as I came to in our newest destination was the press of water all around me, and the choking burn it made as it flooded into my lungs.
Definitely a bad omen, was my only thought.
A/N: Yeah, I know...this chapter was definitely a lot of exposition. I couldn't really see any way around it - It needed to happen. However, to make up for it, Chapter 22 will be posted this Friday, and Chapter 23 next Monday (I have the majority of this week off, so...guess what I'm doing with my free time )! After that, it's regular schedule as always.
Also, any chance they inadvertently walk into Shadowmoor?
[Clan Flamingo] Tier Archivist
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Ha! Hahahaha ohhhhhh boy. That image...I'm not going to be able to get it out of my head now. Thanks for that.
(The battle I was alluding to was the confrontation at the end of Agents of Artifice, by the way. I didn't make that one up...thank goodness.)
Hmmm...Well, I suppose you'll have to see, won't you? Haha. Shadowmoor is certainly going to be addressed, I can tell you that.
The detail of the arm, along with the summoning of Akroma, were excellently done. The break-down of what Sorin did, along with the possiblity of Jace...maybe putting the old bloodsucker in his place...really works for me. I don't know how, but you made Jace really badass. I really have to give you props for that.
And finally...Lorwyn. My first real set...and one of my favorites. My first two decks were made from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. If there was anyone I'd trust to write about this plane, it would be you. After all, you did New Phyrexia right. You did Zendikar right. You even got modern Urborg right. I can't wait to see what happens next.
(incoherent noises of joy) Ahhhhhhthankyouthankyou!
Seriously, I was really really stressing about this chapter. I couldn't move forward without tying a few threads into place and setting up others, so I knew this had to happen - Still though, I was afraid of it ending up boring. It's a relief to know I handled it right.
I'm also going to harbor a secret pride now that I can make Jace a badass...He deserves it, if you ask me.
I'm looking forward to this next plot arc so much that I just can't stop writing. Agh. I can't wait till Friday!
And...wait...Friday? We get 2 updates this week?!
YES!!! YES!!!
Ahem...now that I've had my Bison moment...I eagerly await the second update. Should be the highlight of my week :).
I have to say, I'm excited that you're excited.
[Clan Flamingo] Tier Archivist
[15:21] <@CC> Remember, if you argue, you are an idiot.
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Chapter 23 will still be out on Monday. It and this chapter are both a tad shorter than normal, since I haven’t had as much time to work on them, and since they’re the second and third chapters posted in a single week (I consider them two halves of one whole chapter, but doing that kind of thing would probably screw up the numbering system if I tried to write them as such). I still hope you enjoy them, regardless!
Chapter 22:
My limbs flailed about helplessly, as useless as if they weren’t even there at all.
Damn it! My lungs still burned from when I had reflexively tried to breathe and only drawn in water, and the sensation was spreading all throughout my chest. It made it even harder to move. I can’t see – Damn it, no, I can’t die like this! It’s so stupid---There’s no way---
And perfectly on cue, my prayers were answered. I still couldn’t see a thing through the smothering blackness around me, but I felt a hand on my arm then, pulling me up and up…
A second later, my head broke the surface of the water. I sucked in as deep a breath as I could manage, but there was hardly any room left in my lungs for air – so instead I coughed, violently, as my arms scrabbled for purchase. Eventually I found dry land and I clung to it tight, fingers digging deep into what I could feel to be soil beneath them.
“Unnnh.” My throat hurt too much to talk, so I didn’t. I simply groaned. It took a few seconds for my vision to clear, and when it did I saw Jace, pulling himself up onto the grassy bank beside me. It took him visible effort to do so, weighed down as he was by his sopping wet cloak. With a grunt, he struggled out of it and threw it in a heap on the ground, finally dragging himself all the way out of the water.
“Well, that didn’t quite go as planned,” he muttered. The leathers he wore on his chest seemed to be wicking away most of the water, but still not near enough. He unbuckled them and threw them aside too, leaving only a thin black shirt that clung to him. He flopped down heavily on his back. “Ugh…you okay, Rana?”
“Mmmph.” It still hurt to talk. It took me a second longer to realize that the lower half of my body was still submerged, so with far too much effort than it should have taken, I clawed my way up and out. When I was finally free of the icy water, I collapsed in a heap next to Jace’s pile of discarded clothes, on my stomach. Moving any further was not an option at this point.
A minute passed in silence, save for the quiet sounds as the both of us tried to catch our breath. I managed to roll to one side after a time, and then onto my back to stare up at the sky. I shivered. Spirits, I’m freezing.
The second my thoughts started to wander, though, I felt something cold and wet slap me right across the face. When I blinked and reached up to peel it off, I found it to be Jace’s shirt.
“Whoops,” he said, sounding as if he were trying – and failing – to hold back a chuckle. “Missed. Sorry.”
I scowled and dumped the thing unceremoniously into the pile beside me. “Yeah, yeah.” My voice was just a little hoarse, but at least talking had become bearable. It was a start. “You’re not fooling me. That was on purpose.”
This time, Jace did chuckle. “Well, excuse me for wanting to dry off. I wasn’t planning on going swimming today, so I didn’t quite dress appropriately. I’m freezing.”
My breath came out in a soft laugh then. “If it makes you feel better, you’re not the only one.”
“Probably because your entire damn outfit is sticking to you.” I could almost hear the wry grin in his voice, and I balked. “I mean, that’s just a guess.”
My cheeks flushed. For once, thanks to my current temperature, I welcomed the heat. He probably can’t see it, anyway. I wasn’t going to be walking around very well on my just-healed legs wearing clothes as wet as this – much less creeping silently, which is what I had planned on doing just in case – and they certainly weren’t going to get any drier so long as they remained on me. Well, great.
I paused for a moment as I considered my options, and then at last I sighed. I’m not taking the leggings off. Consequences be damned.
“Look at me funny and I’ll hit you,” I grumbled, before pushing myself upright and undoing the laces of my vest, then sliding it off along with the simple green hunter’s shirt I wore beneath it. I had made the smart decision of wearing a breast band today, thank the spirits, and so I wasn’t really being immodest, but…Nevertheless, I blushed deeply the second my clothes fell down into my lap. The breeze felt warm against my bare skin, and that was some small comfort – not much, but something. I turned around to face Jace, crossing my arms in front of me. When I met his ever-so-slightly-widened blue eyes, I put on my most immovable scowl.
Oh, damn. I had nearly forgotten that Jace had taken off his shirt too, and it was all I could do to keep my gaze at eye level. I swallowed. Damn, damn, damn. This is not fair.
“So.” I cleared my throat ceremoniously then, hoping that if I kept a controlled enough tone of voice, he wouldn’t get suspicious. “To business. And our first order is – Where are we?”
Jace wore an expression of great amusement as he regarded me, to my chagrin. I just can’t win, can I? “Well,” he said, folding his arms behind his head as he arched his back and stretched. His eyes clenched shut and his brow furrowed, but then a moment later he exhaled, and let both of his arms – etherium and flesh alike – drop back into his lap. I noticed, with some interest, that it really was his whole arm that was metal now – the etherium wound its way from shoulder to fingertip in a delicate, almost artistic overlay. “We’re definitely in Lorwyn now, I can tell you that.”
I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes. “I figured as much.” The two of us were sitting on the bank of a wide river, and surrounded on nearly all sides by tightly-knit groves of trees. A layer of leaves coated the sun-dappled floor beneath us, and here and there I could see clusters of flowers – red and blue and orange and gold, large and small, and all of them in full bloom. It was a pretty place. Peaceful, too. It matched the description Venser had given me during our discussion of other planes some time ago while I was recovering, so I figured that even without Jace here, I would have been able to make an educated guess as to my whereabouts. I’ve got to start learning about these places sometime, after all.
At my remark Jace, unlike me, did roll his eyes. “Did you, now. I see.” He wrung dry the shock of hair that hung into his face, and flicked the water away where it dripped onto his wrist. “Well, I’m assuming what you really want to know is where we are in comparison to where Doran is, am I right?”
I nodded. I had begun to busy myself unfolding Jace’s and my clothes, and then laying them out in the sun to dry. I didn’t think it would take too long. It was a warm day, and direct sunlight in combination with that and the breeze would make the process a surefire thing. I could already feel the water evaporating from my skin and hair, besides – it was a simple, yet uncannily pleasant sensation. “Yeah. I’m eager to get moving, to be honest.”
Jace didn’t respond for a moment. When I finally finished my task and looked up, though, I found him smiling at me. His head was tilted to the side just a little. “Really?” His tone of voice – casual and teasing – took me a bit by surprise. Since when have we been close enough for him to sound like that? “I would think you’d want to stay here awhile, since it’s such a pleasant little place. In the middle of a forest, no less!”
Despite myself, I flashed him a crooked grin. “Well, I do like forests – You’ve got me there. And this place is pretty.” I plucked at a little acorn lying on the ground near my leg and twirled it idly by the stem, between my fingers. “But no. Really, I want to get this done. I’m excited. This could be exactly what I need to…” I shrugged, “…figure this whole ‘planeswalker’ thing out, you know?”
Jace hesitated, then allowed himself a small smile. “Mm. Yeah. I do.” He sighed, flicking his wrists again in a gesture that he usually performed to shove back his sleeves. “I guess I’ll get us started, then, if you don’t mind.” Before I could ask him what he intended to do, he held his left hand out in front of him, and wisps of pale blue light began to coalesce between his fingers. Barely a moment passed before the aether around his hand began to distort, and then it parted to allow a figure through – which came to rest, neatly, on the palm of his hand. It was a miniature winged woman, her skin the same color as the blue light. Her pretty little translucent wings fluttered as she looked up at Jace obediently, and my jaw dropped open. I found myself staring at her in wonderment.
“Go find Doran,” he said simply. “You remember who that is, right?”
The woman’s head bobbed. She bowed at the waist before taking flight, and then sped off into the trees without any further ado. Her tiny form was gone before I could even blink.
There was a pause, and then I shook my head in disbelief. “What…was that?” I asked. I had never seen someone so small before, let alone someone so small who possessed wings, too. I was remarkably curious.
Jace laughed lightly. “She’s a cloud sprite. One of my most useful little summons.” Suddenly, he cocked an eyebrow at me, and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Are you saying you’ve never seen a faerie before, Rana?”
I shook my head. “Can’t say I have.”
Jace smiled. When his gaze met mine, I felt my breath catch in my throat at the way his eyes just…gleamed.
“Well then,” he said, cheerily, “you’re in for a fun trip.”
***
Several hours later, Jace and I were nearly there. Nearly. Or so said the cloud sprite, in her language of gestures and soft sounds that only Jace seemed to understand. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure it the hells out.
“She says we’re going to be entering treefolk territory in about a quarter of a mile,” he panted, stumbling over a large tree root as he made his way through the undergrowth. For someone as fit as he seemed, he was rather clumsy when it came to this. “I had her warn Doran and his people that I’m coming, so they won’t attack us on sight. Hopefully.”
I snorted. I was a good ten paces ahead of the mage, having been used to traversing cluttered forest floors – and canopies – for my entire life. I leapt over a fallen branch without pause, and turned back to look at Jace as I walked briskly ahead. “Hopefully? What, so if they happen to be having a bad day, then we’re screwed?”
Jace chuckled ruefully. In truth, it came out more like a wheeze. “Something like that.”
I groaned, and ducked beneath an overhanging vine that had threatened to smack me right in the neck had I not been looking. “Wonderful. Sounds just typical for our luck.”
Jace swore loudly in time with the sound of ripping cloth, and I turned again to see the edge of his cloak snagged on some bracken. I sighed, and stopped to double back and help him out.
“You’re going to break the poor bush,” I chided, bending down to free the cloth. I trusted my deft hands far more than I did his, and so I swatted them away when he tried to reach down and help. “I told you it wasn’t a good idea to put this thing back on, didn’t I?”
The mage grunted. “Nowhere else I could put it…”
In no time flat, both the cloak and bush were safely extricated from one another’s grasp. “There.” I stood up, brushing my hands together to remove the dirt that had coated his hem. When we were at eye level, I had to restrain myself from throwing Jace my most self-satisfied smirk. “Next time, listen to me before you go off traipsing into the heart of the forest. Fair deal?”
“Fine,” he grumbled, though I could see a hint of a smile twitching the corners of his lips. “Whatever you say, o mistress of the woods…”
“Hmmm…nice title.” I resumed my previous pace, quickly gaining distance on Jace as he trudged along even slower than before. I had to raise my voice to be heard now, though it still kept its playful tone. “A little overdramatic, but I could get used to it. Just don’t call me it in public, though, okay? I would hate to sound like I think too highly of myse---Ooof!”
For once, I had been too distracted by my banter to pay attention to what was in front of me. When I opened my eyes and looked, my heartbeat briefly stilled in my chest – for standing right in front of me, hardly having backed a foot away, was…spirits, it was one of the trees I’d summoned into battle against Alanor! How can this be possible?! It was one of the leaf-bearded twins, the one that carried the broadsword. His brother stood a short distance behind him, the other trees all around them somehow bending and shifting to make room for their bulk without breaking. I stared in awe.
“You,” the great being rumbled, his voice sounding both like the splitting of the earth, and like every sound in a thunderstorm melded. One leaf-eyebrow raised as he peered down at me, bark creaking. “I do not know you, and yet you are familiar. How is this so?”
I gulped. I wasn’t quite sure how to explain this – in truth, I wasn’t even sure how it was possible in the first place. Mostly it just…happened. “I…I’ve used my magic to summon a replica of you to fight for me in battle. I don’t know how it works, but---”
“Ah,” the tree said, not deigning to let me finish. “You are a mage. I understand now. You need not explain.” He turned his face from me without sparing so much as another glance, and let his beady eyes come to rest on Jace. “You are Jace Beleren, are you not?”
Jace nodded. If he was as awestruck or as suddenly nervous as I was, he sure as hells wasn’t showing it. “I am.”
From behind the tree, his partner took an earth-shaking step forward. As his foot came crashing down on the forest floor with the force of a hedron tumbling from the sky, I cringed. The sound vibrated its way up my legs, sending what felt like every bone in my body quivering. Have they been waiting here this whole time? There’s no way we couldn’t have heard them moving before…
“We have been instructed to take the two of you to Lord Doran at once,” the second tree said. His voice was just as jarring as his partner’s, though softer by only a note. “We shall carry you. It will make the remainder of the journey far swifter than simply traveling on foot.”
Again, Jace nodded. He wore his business face now, and so of course he appeared utterly unflappable. Typical. “Of course,” he said, tone pleasant. “I thank you for your kind offer.”
Without warning, I felt something slide beneath my feet even as my body was lifted into the air, and I let out a yelp. The world was rushing by too fast for me to see – at least for a moment – and the sight, along with the deafening creaking that made my eardrums throb, set me off balance and tumbling onto my rear. However, when I did, I felt the familiar touch of worn wood beneath me – and when I had composed myself enough to take in my surroundings again, I realized that the tree with the broadsword was now holding me up in the palm of his hand, as Jace had held the tiny cloud sprite. I wondered vaguely where the little thing was before remembering how she had perched herself on Jace’s shoulder. I blinked back my dizziness then, so I could have room to marvel.
“I can sense your connection to the land, little one,” my carrier said, startling me into looking up and meeting his unfathomably deep black eye. Yellow pupils, I noticed. I was reminded of Sorin, and I shivered. That, combined with that fact that he had begun moving, made it hard for me to hold my gaze where it was. “You are an odd one. You are similar to a human, but you have the ears of an elf. Yet, you have no horns. What are you?”
Sparing a glance out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jace riding seated on the palm of the other tree, eyes closed and head bowed. The cloud sprite sat in her position on his shoulder, similarly postured. What is he doing?
“I am an elf,” I answered, at once returning my eyes and my attention to where they belonged. I would concern myself with Jace later. “Though I’m…a different kind. I’m not from here.” I tilted my head a little as I pondered what the tree had said, and smiled. Interesting. “Where I’m from, elves don’t have horns.”
“Ah,” the tree said. He continued his slow trail forward, through the forest as it bent over backward to clear a path for him. “So you are a world-walker, like Jace Beleren. Lord Doran has told us about your kind. You are, indeed, a rare breed. I am not surprised that he wishes to see you.”
Lord Doran, I thought, feeling suddenly nervous. My heart stuttered. I’ve never really spoken to anyone important outside my tribe– What in the hells am I supposed to do different? Do I bow? Do I flatter him? What?
“Tell me, little one – What is your name?”
I jolted out of my reverie, shaking my head. I was still staring into the one eye of the tree that was facing in my direction, though I had clearly gone out of focus for a moment. Or maybe longer. “My name is Ranewen,” I said, politely as I could. I would have bowed, had I been standing. “Ranewen of the Tajuru, from the plane of Zendikar.”
The tree nodded – at least, as much as it could do. “Ranewen,” it said, tasting the word on whatever passed for its tongue. “Ranewen. It is a pleasure to meet you then, Ranewen. I am Broadbark. My brother is Odum, and the two of us are Lord Doran’s high guards.” His tone somehow lightened, and in the span of an instant it became…almost teasing, oddly enough. I didn’t know how to react. “You were wondering of such things, were you not?”
Indeed, I had been. I always felt uncomfortable not knowing someone’s name, and it was no different when my conversation partner was a tree – or treefolk, rather. “I…was.” For the first time I smiled, allowing a bit of my nervousness to wash away. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Broadbark.”
“Likewise.” Broadbark turned his head away from me, and placed his gaze forward once more. After several long minutes in silence – during which I simply stared at the forest around me, drinking in its beauty from such a high vantage point – he came to a sudden halt. I turned forward, and beside me, on Odum’s hand, Jace looked up and did the same.
“We have arrived,” Odum said, quietly.
Before us stood a small clearing, open at the top to the late afternoon sun’s rays as they streamed down bright and hot. It was fringed in flowers and stands of heavily leaved bushes, and bare in the center save for one large, familiar figure – the sight of which set a lump forming in my throat, and forced my heart to beat faster.
“Lord Doran,” the two guards intoned in reverent unison, as both of them swept into creaking bows at their waists. Somehow, they managed to keep their passenger-carrying arms held perfectly upright.
My rootbeard stood tall and proud, gazing first down on his subordinates and then up at Jace, and then, impossibly slowly, over to me. I clutched my hands into tight fists at my side.
“You,” Doran said softly. His voice was as deep of a rumble as either Broadbark’s or Odum’s, but there was an undercurrent of strength in it that I could palpably feel – In fact, it seemed to resonate in me perfectly, harmonizing with the pulse of green mana that I held to dearly, unconsciously. Something in me flared when I looked at him. Suddenly I found myself struggling to breathe. “So it is you, after all.”
Jace and I exchanged glances – his open, mine hesitant – before we both turned back to Doran. Abruptly, I wanted to speak, so without regard to the consequences, I just…did.
“I never expected to meet you in person, Doran,” I said. My voice suddenly went soft at the edges to match the great treefolk sage’s tone. I shook my head. “You’ve done so much for me, and here I was thinking that you were some…strange figment of my imagination, some daydream gone wild the second I called upon mana.” I smiled, slowly. “And yet, here you are.”
The tree paused. During the length of that pause, he did not move.
“Yes,” he whispered, finally, “here I am. And here you are, to claim my power once more.”
My blood turned to ice. Wait…does he know? How could he possibly---
“I am connected to you,” Doran interjected, as smoothly as if he had been reading my thoughts. I could only stare in stunned silence. “You call upon me with your will, and as such, your will calls out to me. I know more of your thoughts and feelings than you may guess, my dear young planeswalker.”
I swallowed hard. I wanted more time to ponder this, to ask a million and one questions, but…
“Lord Doran,” I said. I endeavored to keep my voice as steady and clear as I could. “If you know so much about me already, then do you have an answer to the question I planned to ask you by coming here?” I stared directly at him, my gaze unwavering. “Is there anything I can do, to convince you to agree?”
“I do…and there is.” Doran waved his arm in a short motion, and in response Broadbark lowered his hand to set me gently on the ground. Beside us, Odum did the same with Jace. The mage hurried over to stand by my side, and flashed me a look – but it came and went too quickly for me to decipher with certainty. I thought I caught anxiety.
The tree waited until Jace and I were focused on him once more, and then haltingly, he nodded. The leaves crowning his head rustled as they were touched by a light breeze.
“If you wish for me to agree,” he continued, “then you must fight me, here and now. You must do so alone, upon only your own power.” Dark pools though they were, something in his eyes seemed to glitter as they bore into me. I swayed on the spot. “One way or another, this matter will be settled by sunset, should you accept. So what say you, Ranewen?”
There was a pause where I allowed myself to be surprised at the fact that he knew my name, but the moment quickly passed. Jace’s hand on my shoulder steadied me – whether it was there in support or in concern, it didn’t matter – and I took a single step forward, steeling my gaze. Here goes nothing.
“Lord Doran,” I said, firmly as I could, “I accept your challenge.”
That's the thing about rooms - they look fine until you realize someone else is going to see them. Enjoy your passing out, sounds like you deserve it
[Clan Flamingo] Tier Archivist
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They do? (goes to check the card in her deck) Aw, crap, they do. Black eyes with yellow pupils. Why is it that I always manage, somehow, to screw up eye color with everyone? Haha. Thanks for the tip. I'll go fix it right now.
Thanks! I did. I would have more so if I'd gotten more than 5 hours of sleep, but hey - I have tonight for that.
[Clan Flamingo] Tier Archivist
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Honestly, Doran has probably been one of my favorite creatures for awhile. I have a lovely treefolk deck that has him as the central figure - Works pretty damn well, if I do say so myself.
[Clan Flamingo] Tier Archivist
[15:21] <@CC> Remember, if you argue, you are an idiot.
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Perfect MCC Scores: 2
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Be gentle on me, guys. (ducks for cover)
Chapter 23:
“Ungh!”
I landed on my back, limbs flailing. Pain seared through me as cloth ripped, enough to allow the hard ground to dig itself viciously into my skin.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jace flinch. He stood at the edge of the clearing between Odum and Broadbark, wreathed in a shroud of blue as he maintained both his visual illusions and his sound nullification barrier at once – meager though the latter was, at his own admittance. To avoid drawing his treefolk tribe’s attention to the two errant planeswalker visitors, Doran had requested that the battle be sealed off from the rest of the forest. For whatever reason he felt the need to be cautious, and neither Jace nor I had seen any sensible reason to argue with him – so, without further ado, the mage had set to work. He half-focused his attention on watching the battle unfold, once he was confident enough that his illusions would stay.
I honestly hoped he liked watching a good solid beatdown, because that was the only word to describe what I was currently undergoing.
Meh, beatdown’s a little harsh – More like a…uh…
I rolled to my feet and leapt, dodging a brutal swipe of my trusted ally’s bark-fists when they aimed themselves directly at my head. I was just a bit too slow, and the sting as I felt my scalp slice open sent me tumbling right back to earth. I yelped in pain.
Nope, nevermind. Beatdown about covers it.
Spitting blood, I shoved myself to my knees. Doran had wasted no time in preparing his next attack while I was down, as now the aether was in the midst of rippling before him like a windblown pond. The tree gestured with his arms and shouted, and before I could blink there were suddenly four treefolk in front of me instead of one – great oaks all of them, with long vine-wands clasped in their humanlike fists. Despite the imminent danger, I couldn’t help but feel a note of surprise.
Doran can summon?
I didn’t have time to ponder the subject any further though, because the oaks were now letting out a unified war cry that sounded like the splitting of branches beneath lightning. Then they were charging, wands at the ready, and damn it, I noticed that the ends of the things were pointed. Just what I need.
“You think that’s gonna scare me off?” I shouted. It was hard to be heard over the din of three treefolk – oh, and now Doran too, great – coming at me full speed on feet as large and heavy as boulders. Even so, I would rather go out with fighting words on my lips than screams of terror. I gritted my teeth, and siphoned black mana to me as I thrust my hands, palms out, in front of my face. I could feel a gust of wind at my back, and then my hair was whipping up around my head like a tempest – wisps of white against a growing backdrop of darkness.
“Too bad for you,” I snarled, “that I’ve got too much on the line to just give up and go crawling back home to mommy!”
Bad choice of words, I realized, as my mind registered that I had neither a home nor a mommy to go crawling back to. My gut clenched. The air around me seemed to roar as it darkened even further, and I let the tide of raw power flood over me and wash away any scrap of emotion left.
“Back---the hells---OFF!”
I screamed, and there was a familiarly satisfying blast that rocked the entire clearing.
I could hear the summoned treefolk’s rumbling, croaking screams too, as they were sucked without hope of resistance into my immense vortex. The damn thing eclipsed nearly every other instance of the spell I had cast before, and its tug was so strong that I could even feel it gnawing at my ankles – Whatever I had done to make it so big, I needed to do it again. No. I needed to learn how to do it on command, that was what I needed. All I could do now though was wait for it to collapse inward, so I could just be done with this fight and ask Doran if he could fulfill my favor for me. Surely it had drained him of as much power as it had drained me by mere proximity – I was getting so exhausted by now that my already-weak legs could barely hold me up…
But when the vortex did vanish, there was no one behind it. Well, Jace, of course, and Odum and Broadbark where they all stood at the edge of the clearing, but…no Doran. I whipped about in alarm.
Where---
Suddenly, a tremendous crack across the back of my head told me exactly where.
In an instant I felt all the mana drain out of me, to be replaced only with a dull, throbbing agony as I crumpled to the ground.
***
“Stand back, Beleren – give her some breathing room. She is waking.”
I opened my eyes and blinked, and found myself staring directly up into both Jace’s face and Doran’s. I couldn’t see Odum and Broadbark, but I could feel their presence just as easily as I would feel the position of my arm in a dark room – innate, like a part of me. The familiar taste of the mana about them relaxed me too, and I pushed myself into a sitting position. Surprisingly, everything felt…good. Whole. Not shattered into tiny little pieces, as I had expected.
“How long was I out?” I muttered. I turned to look at Jace, whose eyes flashed with clear relief.
“Just a minute or two,” he said, and shrugged lightly. “Lord Doran gave you a concussion with that last hit, but your injuries weren’t anything I couldn’t fix.”
I smiled and nodded. “Thanks.” Truthfully, I was grateful, but at the moment I had more important business to attend to first than lauding thanks upon someone who likely didn’t need more of an ego boost than he already had. I was sure that out of all people, Jace would understand. Slowly, I turned to look up at the majestic rootbeard that towered over me – even bent at the waist as he was, he dwarfed me quatrefold. I knew he was tall, but I only really got an accurate sense of his scale by being this close. Battle hadn’t counted. I had been too intent on not getting my ass kicked back then to notice such trivial things as comparative height…not like it worked, but hey.
Chuckling, I shook my head. My fingers absently reached up to brush the wound on my scalp, and found only smooth skin. “Guess that’s what I get for being cocky, huh?”
Doran let out a rumble of amusement. His face made no visible motion to accompany the sound – which for some reason unsettled me a little – but nevertheless, his tone was warm. “Yes, I suppose you could call it that.” One of his great branched fingertips reached down to stroke the side of my face, which gave me a start. “Still, it is significantly better than giving up. Regardless of the mistakes you made, you fought to the end without fear. That is an honorable defeat, dear Ranewen. You should be proud to learn from such a thing.”
The touch of his branch was surprisingly warm, and the green mana that Doran positively bathed in was a great comfort to both body and soul – or, well, whatever part of me it was that sustained itself on mana. I closed my eyes and smiled. “You’re sure, Lord Doran? That was an embarrassingly short battle. I think I only got in two hits on you, if that.”
The treefolk rumble-laughed again. “That is two hits better than plenty of other people have managed, my dear. So, yes. I am sure.”
For a moment I hesitated – and then, finally, I exhaled and allowed my eyes to slide open. Jace still knelt at my side, his own eyes wide and attentive, and as my thoughts drifted I felt the cool touch of his mana signature. Before, I had only really ever felt the strength of whatever types of mana I used personally – green, black, and white, with green by far being the most noticeable – but lately I had been able to feel much more than that. I had felt Chandra’s fiery heat when she hugged me goodbye back in the Consortium compound, and then Venser’s gentle combination of white and blue throughout the entirety of my healing process – an aura that put me as at ease as if I had never been injured, and soothed my wounds better than any balm. Now, there was Jace’s, too. His was at once cold and electric, though altogether refreshing whenever it chanced upon me. The best way I could think to describe it was to liken it to the sensation of jumping straight into icy water on a hot day.
“Lord Doran,” I said softly, meeting his gaze, “I understand that I lost. Thank you anyway, though. …For giving me your time. You really didn’t need to.”
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the familiar sound of wind between the canopies of the trees above.
“When,” Doran returned, after a time, “did I say anything about denying you a reward for your efforts?”
My gaze snapped to attention right in unison with Jace’s. I felt my heart begin to drum hard against my ribcage.
“But Lord Doran.” I desperately didn’t want to protest, and instead to just take this stroke of luck and run with it, but of course my mouth wouldn’t let me. As per usual, I opened it too wide and babbled on inanely. “Lord Doran, you…you can’t mean that you want to…reward me? I lost.”
The tree barely suppressed a chuckle. “With honor,” he said simply, “as I told you before. Your strength of will is far more important to me than the strength of your physical body, and you have proven yourself perfectly well to me today.” He nodded – or at least, so much as a treefolk could manage. “Truly, I need no more from you than that.”
Had I jumped for joy as I wanted to, I was sure that I would’ve flown up and away. “Thank you, Lord Doran.” I beamed, reaching up to take hold of the branch that still caressed my face so I could cradle it. It might not have been the most socially appropriate thing to do at the moment, but I honestly couldn’t give less of a damn. “Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say. Perhaps I didn’t need to say anything.
With a loud creak that came out more like a groan, Doran stood up straight and gently disentangled himself from my grip. “I have council that I must hold with my tribe this evening, but we shall discuss terms on the morrow. Would this arrangement be fair to you, Ranewen of the Tajuru, from the plane of Zendikar?”
I blinked back surprise at the title. Then, though, I remembered to have introduced myself to Broadbark as such, and I laughed out loud.
“Yes, Lord Doran. That arrangement would be more than fair.”
***
The sun was finally beginning to dip beneath what horizon I could see between the trees when Jace and I finished pitching our tent. It had taken us a good hour’s walk to get here – here being a quiet nook beside a freshwater spring where Jace had spent some time on his previous visits to Lorwyn – and what felt like ten more trying to get the damn contraption set up. More than once, I had wished Venser were here. Neither Jace nor I seemed to be competent when it came to working with our hands.
The mage collapsed onto his knees in front of the entrance now, letting out a beleaguered sigh. “I swear, I’m an idiot for not asking Doran if we could stay with his tribe for the evening.”
I was busy tending to the fire we had miraculously managed to get started, so I only looked up at him for a second. “We would’ve had to set up the tent there too, y’know.” I blew on the tiny flame, twice, in an attempt to get it going. Little success. “And besides, I’m sure he’d have asked if we wanted to stay, had we been allowed. They’ve probably got important treefolk business to discuss at the council or something. No outsiders.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right.”
Reaching into my satchel, I threw a handful of overdried herbs on the fire to serve as kindling. To my delight, the flames did leap up higher, and now they gave off a pleasantly spicy sent to boot. “At least your little cloud sprite’s been keeping an eye on things for us over there. She said she’d take us straight to them tomorrow, right?”
“Mm.”
We passed the next few minutes in silence until I managed to get the fire burning at a decent height, and then finally I stood up to brush the ash and dirt off of my leggings. The flames had eaten right through my herbs, and now we were starting to run a little low on kindling. “I’m going to check around for some more fuel for the fire, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jace looked up from the tent pole he was fixing – it must have collapsed again, when I wasn’t looking – and tilted his head a little as he regarded me. “Don’t go too far, Rana.” His put down the peg in his hand, and his eyes softened in concern. I stopped. “I know you know how to handle yourself in the woods better than I do, but this isn’t Zendikar. There’s all kinds of things out there you haven’t seen.” He chuckled, running a hand through his messy hair. He’d had his hood down the entire time we’d been in Lorwyn, and it was…nice, to see him so relaxed. “Hells, I probably haven’t seen half of them.”
I smiled warmly. “Well, thanks for the advice, Jace, but I think I’ll be fine. I’ll make sure to keep an eye out, though.” I turned before I could allow a blush to creep across my cheeks from the way he watched me go, and I made my way across to the other side of our little campsite, where a stand of brush separated the cleared space from the forest proper.
The second my body rustled into the bracken, though, I heard the sharp sound of something whizzing past my ear.
My hunter’s instincts kicked in without pause and I swiftly dropped to a crouch, hand shooting to the knife at my belt. I knew it wouldn’t do me any good in comparison to my magic, but the worn leather handle felt good in my grip. It cleared my head, focused my attention. Always had. Always will.
“Jace!” I cried. I growled, spinning toward the direction the arrow had come from. “Get down, we’re getting shot at!”
“Elves!” He shouted back. I was too concerned with where our attackers might be than with looking for him, so long as he sounded fine. “F***, Rana, we’re right in the middle of their hunting grounds!”
Jace’s colorful swear made me nervous, but what made me even more nervous then was the way his voice quavered at the edges. This was not going to be good.
And even without knowing about the elves of this new plane, I knew, as a rule, exactly what it meant to trespass on a clan’s hunting grounds as an outlander – in most cases, a quick death.
I caught a flash of delicately curving horns as someone moved from branch to branch in the tree above me, lightning-fast. Someone else moved too in the tree beyond them, and then another figure, and another – until then, finally, my pricked ears caught exactly what they were looking for. The unmistakable twang of a bowstring being drawn tight, just above and diagonal to the large tree with the lump on its trunk. Our attackers had been moving into a new position upon missing their first shot, and now they – however many they happened to be – were preparing again to fire.
I was about to scale the tree ahead of me and go toe to toe with them in my own element, had a sudden flash of blue from behind me not overwhelmed the clearing.
I turned briefly, just in time to see two large drakes bursting forth from a tear in the aether at Jace’s command. The mage stood in front of the entrance to the tent still, eyes glowing as blue and as bright as the scales on his beasts. The two creatures took to the air with ear-splitting roars when he lifted a hand, and streamed directly toward the trees above my head, opening their mouths to spew out clouds of impossibly hot steam. I saw blurs of movement as a few of the elves managed to dodge in the nick of time, just barely avoiding being incinerated like everything else caught up in the blast. I stared in awe for a moment. I couldn’t help myself.
I was rewarded for that distraction, however, with an arrow that I just barely managed to dodge. It set me off balance enough to tumble backwards – and as luck would have it, I landed right in the rocky spring. The back of my thigh gashed itself across a particularly jagged edge, tearing a path straight through to muscle. I bit my tongue to keep from letting out a howl. It only partially worked.
“Rana!” Even over the screeching and the sizzling that continued to go on above us, I could hear the wild panic in Jace’s voice. He was at my side faster than I thought he could move, bending down to lift my body gingerly back onto the grass. I winced. No one had dared fire another arrow after that second one just now– the drakes were catching onto their movements too fast for that, and had probably cleared a good majority of them out, anyway. We were safe for the moment.
“Damn it,” he hissed, as he supported my upper half with one arm. His eyes narrowed. “Dammit, Rana, that arrow didn’t hit you, did it? Please tell me it didn’t. They’re tipped with moonglove extract – If it broke the skin, you’ll---”
“Please,” I groaned. I closed my eyes against the throbbing burn in my thigh, which mingled with the already persistent ache of my healing leg to make me so lightheaded that I couldn’t focus. “No talk of morbid stuff. I think I’m gonna throw up.”
The sounds of the drakes faded away to a much quieter clamor behind us, and Jace’s expression relaxed a little as he looked at me. His eyes were still scanning my body rapidly, up and down, but he didn’t seem to be finding what he had dreaded. “So it…didn’t hit you, then?”
I shook my head. My stomach was heaving, so talking would probably be a dangerous option at this point.
He sighed out loud with relief, and scooped me up into his arms. He must have noticed the blood staining the rocks and pooling beneath my leg, because he took care not to put his hand anywhere close to the wound, choosing instead to hold me beneath the knees.
“I think the drakes chased them off,” he said quietly, as he hurried us both toward the tent. “The second they get killed, I’ll know. When that happens, I’ll just summon two more to keep watch.”
Honestly, I didn’t give a damn what Jace did about the damn drakes or the damn elves so long as he fixed my damn leg before I vomited all over us both. That was, obviously, not my ideal course of action.
When he had ducked through the entrance, Jace gently laid me down onto the bedroll I had set up, and laced the tent flaps shut before turning back to me. He looked concerned still, but there was no denying the utter relief in his face compared to a few moments earlier. I supposed I understood – being injured and bleeding and in gut-wrenching agony was far preferable to being injured and subsequently dying from a toxin, by a long shot. It was a pretty relatable concept.
I closed my eyes. Oh, that’s much better.
I could feel Jace’s gloved etherium hand beneath my knee, lifting up my leg so that he could see the injury, and then I felt the warmth of his left hand as it ghosted across my thigh. White mana flared hot at the fingertips.
Even in the midst of all my pain, my body somehow was cognizant enough to make my cheeks flush.
He held his grasp where it was for a moment, examining the wound – and then, without further pretense, he just cupped his entire hand over it to let the magic seep into me. I felt it move through my skin to my muscle to places even deeper, and all the way down to my ailing stomach as I breathed in the sweet heady scent of the mana. I probably imagined that healing magic smelling like anything, to be honest, but it still made my nose tingle. That had to count for something.
A moment passed in silence as the spell finished its work, and the remaining mana dissipated to rejoin the aether. Neither of us spoke. I opened my eyes, slowly, and lifted my gaze to look at Jace.
When I saw that his hands still hadn’t let go of my leg, my heart nearly stopped beating outright.
The mage’s eyes met mine. Slowly – almost torturously so – he fixed me with a languid smile. He didn’t seem to be concerned with the fact that I was staring at him wide-eyed and almost certainly openmouthed, or that my face was likely, by now, the color of Chandra’s flaming hair – instead, he just lowered my leg ever-so-delicately to the ground. I gaped.
“Feel better?”
Swallowing, I nodded. When I managed to find the right words to speak, my voice came out faint.
“Yeah. Uh, completely. …Thanks, Jace.”
He smiled again, this time in a cheerful manner that I was more used to seeing. “You’re welcome.” He flopped back onto his own bedroll then with a huff, and rolled over onto his side so that he was facing me. “You had me really worried, for a second there. If you had gotten any of that moonglove extract in you, you’d have been a goner. No questions about it.”
I hadn’t realized until that moment just how close our bedrolls were to one another S***.
“Uh…good thing I have pretty good reflexes then, huh?”
Jace laughed softly at that, and I couldn’t help but smile back when I saw the mirth in his eyes. For one brief second, I was able to push back my nerves. Just a little.
“I guess so. I wouldn’t have expected it out of you, but it looks like you proved me wrong today.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, nothing.”
I scowled, trying to make myself look indignant at his teasing. It wasn’t an easy task, what with this cramped tent forcing us to lie close to one another if we wanted to lie down at all. The proximity had summoned my blush back to my face – with a vengeance, no less. Wonderful.
Jace must have seen it, too – of course he would, it was right damn there in front of his nose! – because suddenly, he was smiling at me in the most captivating way, and then something in his gaze just…changed…
There was a faint rustling as he shifted, and then before I could react his lips were on mine.
My eyes shot wide. My entire body went rigid at that small, simple contact, and I found myself utterly unable to respond. I could feel my heartbeat going mad in my ears.
This isn’t really happening. I must’ve passed out from the pain in my leg or something, and now I’m dreaming.
…Yeah. That has to be it.
There was one achingly long moment where I was conscious of the pressure of his lips – and then, as abruptly as it had begun, the kiss ended. Jace pulled away, enough so that his eyes were able to find mine. At first they held a hint of confusion, but then when he saw what must have been the shock in my own, he relaxed. A slow smile spread across his face.
“I’m, ah…guessing you weren’t expecting that?”
I shook my head. My previous blush had intensified itself tenfold, heating my face to the point where I wondered if spontaneous combustion were actually possible.
Jace’s smile widened, and his left hand lifted to brush across my cheek. “Well then.” And without any further pause he was kissing me again, eyes closed, hair falling across his forehead to frame his face in rich dark brown. I found myself suddenly powerless. The great majority of my body fell limp as a rag doll, and my mind wiped itself blank to be left only with thoughts of this is happening this is happening I can’t believe it this is actually happening. There was nothing else I could do. Finally, I just gave in and kissed him back.
His lips were warm and yielding against mine, and my own parted right as his arms encircled me and pulled me close. I could feel his hair now, tickling where it brushed my cheeks. I had the absurd urge to laugh.
Whether it was from sheer emotion or lack of air, I couldn’t tell – but either way, I soon found myself dizzy as our kiss heated, and as his tongue found mine to begin a dance of vying for dominance. How long had it been since I’d been kissed this way? Or at all? Too long, I thought, and I let Jace roll me over and press my back down into the bedroll. He hovered over me, supporting his weight with his etherium arm while the other tangled in my hair.
“Mm…” A quiet sound escaped my throat before I could stop it, and almost instantly I felt his muscles tense. His eyes opened to bore into me – an inescapable, clear cerulean, so much so that I found myself suddenly entranced. It was impossible how damn blue those things were.
I let out a little gasp as his mouth left mine to trail a pathway across the curve of my jaw, and then ever so slowly down to my neck. My arms reached up and wrapped around him. I felt teeth graze skin, and I shivered. I felt his tongue lightly trace the line of my collarbone, and my back arched. I groaned. He bit down, and my breath escaped in a low hiss.
“Jace…” I was too caught up in the physical sensations rocketing through me to be entirely aware at the moment, so by the time I noticed his wandering hand it was thoroughly beneath my shirt, having skated up my side all the way to my breast band. The blush that had lingered in my cheeks deepened. Wait, I wanted to say as my heart picked up tempo, hold on, but his lips had conveniently lifted to recapture mine. I wiggled a little in his grasp, hoping to draw his attention.
Much to my dismay, though, he took my movements as a sign of encouragement.
Deft fingers worked at the small metal catch, and in barely an instant the thing was free, pooling as loose strips of cloth at my back. My skin seared wherever his fingertips touched as they made their way back down to my stomach, especially when they circled the edge of my bare breasts in the process.
“Jace,” I said again, though of course it came out uselessly muffled. I untangled my arms from around him, and pushed firmly against his chest. “Hold on…stop. Mmmph. Hey. Heywaitaminute---” None of those words made it out of my mouth comprehensibly, and instead they sounded more than anything like noises of pleasure. S***. This isn’t helping.
His eyes shifted to meet my gaze then as his hand fisted in the bottom of my shirt – and with a darkness in their depths that I could only describe as hunger, he began to lift it up. The coil in the bottom of my abdomen wound tighter. Part of me just wanted to say f*** it upon seeing that look, to just sit back and shut up and let this happen, and indeed I did hesitate for a moment. I was a grown woman, after all. I could do whatever the hells I wanted. This wasn’t wrong.
I know, but I just…
The cloth was featherlight against my skin, and I shivered as it was drawn away to expose my ribcage to the cool air. Jace kept on kissing me all the while, urgently.
I can’t…
“HEY!”
Finally – though reluctantly – I broke free of Jace’s arms with one hard shove, and rolled over onto my side. I yanked my shirt back down into place as quickly as I could. The breast band would have to wait.
“Slow…slow down,” I breathed. I hadn’t realized I was panting until just this moment, and for whatever reason that knowledge flustered me enough to make my ears burn. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. My breath came out in a shaky exhale. “You’re going too fast.”
When my words were met with no response, I looked up – and then when I found Jace’s eyes upon doing so, I gave a start. The ardor in them hadn’t just cooled, but frozen over entirely. His face had fallen enough, too, so that he now looked completely abashed.
“I…” He couldn’t seem to find the right words to say, so he just sighed and shook his head. “…Ah, s***.”
“Hey.” I noticed that Jace’s cheeks were now enveloped in a blush as well, but I only caught it for the half-second he remained facing me before he laid himself down on his own bedroll, and turned his back to me. His left hand reached up to bunch in his hair.
“Jace,” I said, scooting closer to him. Tentatively, I put one hand on his shoulder. “Really, it’s fine. I just…I didn’t want to---”
“No, Rana,” he sighed, and I was taken aback by the irritation in his voice. My words died right away in my throat. “You don’t have to explain it to me. It’s my fault – I was being too aggressive. I’m sorry.”
I was about to open my mouth to argue, to push hard enough to convince him that I wasn’t going to start throwing around blame or holding this silly little misunderstanding against him – but to my utmost surprise, something stopped me. A face, familiar and yet thoroughly unexpected in this moment, made its way to the forefront of my mind. Something twisted in my chest. I closed my mouth.
“Just forget about it, Rana. Go to sleep. You need your rest after today.”
Even though I knew he couldn’t see me, I…damn it all, I nodded. Swallowing back the lump in my throat, I laid down on my own bedroll, and pulled the blanket up tight beneath my chin. The same face from before nearly swam in front of my vision, and no amount of blinking could chase away the guileless warmth of its smile.
Get your act together, dammit, I thought, as I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for sleep to claim me.
It took a great while. As I finally slipped into dreams, though, I realized that in the state of half-awareness I had fallen into, I could still feel the lingering heat of Jace’s touch – burned like iron brands into my skin.
With his taste still so completely him on my lips, I drifted off.
***
When I awoke hours later, I instantly knew that something was wrong.
It was pitch dark in the tent at first, but as my body lurched with an unexpected surge of adrenaline, everything seemed to light up. Not supernaturally, of course – I just was suddenly able to see in the otherwise-dim moonlight with a remarkable clarity.
Heart pounding, I rolled onto my side and let my eyes fall on Jace. He looked fine enough, to my relief – I could see his form, rising and falling gently in the breath pattern of sleep, with all of his limbs and other vital parts intact. Or so it seemed. Details were lost to me, but at least there were lumps beneath his blanket wherever they belonged.
Still though, the uneasy feeling persisted.
And in perfect honesty, it had nothing to do with the awkwardness of our goodnight, or the way I still couldn’t get that damn face out of my head – even now, apparently.
Swallowing hard, I scooted closer to the mage and shook him by the shoulder. He didn’t so much as stir. I tried again, more forcefully, this time putting both hands to use in the effort.
“Jace,” I hissed. “Jace, wake up.”
No response. My pulse had picked up to a canter by now, and I was starting to feel a little dizzy.
“Jace.” I sat up and shook him roughly, urgently, so hard that his hair tumbled into his face. “Come on, seriously. This isn’t funny. Wake up.” But his only response was to fall limply onto his back, head and one arm lolling across my knee. I gave a start. His face stared up at me through closed eyes with an expression of utter, immovable calm, save for the occasional twitch of his mouth, and I might have blushed – had I not been on the cusp of heart failure, perhaps.
“’E ent gonna answer yeh, girl.”
There it was. The heart failure. For a brief moment my world went black at the edges as I registered my panic, and then slowly I turned around to face the entrance of the tent.
In the swathe of moonlight that cut directly across the opening flaps – which still hung shut, their laces tied tight – I could see the outline of an enormous armored shadow. It was surrounded by dozens of others, their as-yet-unseen forms coming in every nightmarish shape and size you could imagine – and worst of all, there were noises now. Low growls, and gurgles, and what almost sounded like moans, and...oh spirits, I’m screwed.
No, I’m beyond screwed. I think I’m f***ed this time.
“’E’s under my control now, so I suggest yeh do what I say if’n yeh want ta…keep ‘im from harm, less jus’ say.” The voice was deep and masculine, gruff, and grating as nails on ice. I shuddered. I wanted to throw my guts up from sheer fright, but that was something I was going to have to keep under some semblance of control.
I stole a glance down at Jace, who still appeared to be sleeping peacefully as I’d even seen him – his eyelids fluttered as I watched, even – and then I looked back up toward the shadows. Almost unconsciously, one of my hands slid beneath the back of his head, to support him as he lay in that same awkward position across my lap. “And just who are you?” I asked. It was all I could do to try and keep my voice brave. It still quavered, but at least it was understandable.
I could almost hear the wicked smile in response, and my blood chilled the instant the stranger’s words met my ears.
“Why dontcha step outside, Miss Ranewen, ‘n’ we’ll have a li’l…chat.”
Ok, now for the review, so to speak. The battle was very well done. It was a very easy, comphrensible read. The ambush by the elves makes sense, and was almost exactly what I would have excpected.
And...Jace...oh Jace. I was worried you'd pull a stupid romance thing where they fall into passion and then the drama is all about how they balence love and the knowledge that one of them could die...yeah...Thankfully, you didn't. You handled it very, very well. In fact, I have no doubt that you could handle the romantic parts for any characters.
I am absloutly blown away by this so far, and I eagerly await the coming updates :D.
I have a few interesting plot mechanics in place for Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, so I'm anxious to get them started. I hope they turn out as well as I imagine them in my head!
And oh Jace indeed...I can't stand sappy, overemotional drama where two characters instantly fall in love and then flail all over one another for the rest of the story, so I can promise you won't see any of that from me. I have some different things in mind...
But yes, moonlight on Shadowlyn can only mean one thing. And...the horrible mind-control critters, hmm. Either it's a trick of the light and they're Fae, or they're merrows (the bad kind). Kithkin wouldn't really make sense to me, but I suppose it's not impossible.
[Clan Flamingo] Tier Archivist
[15:21] <@CC> Remember, if you argue, you are an idiot.
Untrophied Wins:
Perfect MCC Scores: 2
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Haha.
ps: I can't say how bloody glad I am to hear that there won't be that over the top, mushy nonsense some (bad) authors pass as romance. Thank Heavens (or the Inferno, whichever ya'd prefer ;)) for that.
Hey guys,
I know this is going to be disappointing and I’m genuinely sorry for that, but I’m going to have to push Chapter 24 back to next Monday. I tried to get it finished by this morning, but I just couldn’t. For the past month or so I’ve been on a screwed up schedule where I only have a couple of days to write a chapter rather than a full week – I don’t remember exactly why this is, but I think it started when I was sick one time and had to postpone something a couple of days, then double posted in a week to make up for it. Either way, the end result is the same: I’ve been rushing to post – which leads to delays when I bite off more than I can chew – I’ve been running on little to no sleep thanks to this in combination with all the ridiculous things real life has been throwing at me lately, my body has been failing me on a regular basis, and I’ve apparently (according to my boyfriend and closest friends) been a bit of a nervous wreck. So honestly, the best possible solution I can think of is to give myself some time to sleep, de-stress, and sort out all my obligations. After that, I’ll finally be able to enact a normal once-a-week schedule.
tl;dr – I really, really need a short break for my health and sanity. I love this story as much as always, but I love being well, rested, and in good spirits even more.
…Blargh.