Battle Mage: Winter's Edge (5 page)

             
She smiled. “Well, we wilders do get a little leeway and I wasn’t exactly a poor peasant girl when the wizards found me either. My family is a member of the nobility actually. They’re a lesser house so there was no great loss over me being drafted into the wizards’ guild. Of course, having two older brothers for my father to pass his position onto didn’t hurt either. I was just their little girl and they were kind of tired of my lightning sparking out and breaking things anyway, so that didn’t help my cause either.”

             
“My parents thought it was quite an honor to have their son chosen, even if I was just to be a battle mage. They receive money each month to help their farm also,” Sebastian told his situation with brevity.

             
The girl blushed once again. “I hope I didn’t insult you with the poor peasant comment. I just meant that my family have money and like to send me gifts.”

             
“Not to worry,” he replied and quickly changed the subject. “So since your natural magic is lightning does that limit your ability to learn other magic?”

             
Smiling at the change of topic, Ashleen quickly shook her head, “Not at all, though I am strongest with air and earth magic.”

             
“That seems a strange combination.”

             
“Not at all,” the girl repeated and sat back in the chair dangling her left leg over the arm baring it once more. Noting his eyes darting away due to her lack of inhibition at the mere flash of leg, she rolled her eyes. Ashleen remarked, “Sheesh, for a big, bad falcon you sure get spooked easily by a girl’s legs. I’m wearing underwear silly,” with that she flashed her matching silver, satin panties with a quick flick of the robe before covering back up. “Now concentrate. As I was saying, lightning magic tends to use air and earth for the base of the magic. Since that’s true, my affinity for both is nearly a given. I do tend to stay with the air spells mostly though. Getting control over those earth spells is a little tricky.”

             
The mage nodded. “So I’ve heard, though I’ve only used a few myself. None of the earthquake level spells certainly.” He paused. “If your power is always fighting to release, where is it being drawn from do you think? I mean, you’re obviously as powerful as any wizard but I don’t sense so much power that there should be a surplus in you fighting to escape all the time.”

             
The girl held out her hands with a small smirk. “Some of the master wizards say that I am drawing power from the earth all the time, so it’s not really my power as much as the energy I seem to steal from the ground. Basically I have to constantly keep a mental barrier in place to prevent over pulling. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to stop the power from leaking out in the form of lightning.”

             
The problem intrigued him. “What if you’re separated from the ground somehow? I mean like if someone picked you up?”

             
Blinking her eyes in mock flirtation, Ashleen asked, “Are you volunteering?”

             
He laughed. “Well, for the sake of curiosity I may. I am actually curious if you’d still pull power through the person or if the separation could actually separate the link.”

             
Ashleen looked thoughtful. “I have been picked up during my life but I never thought about whether I could feel the earth that way. If you really want to, you’ve actually gotten me curious.”

             
The apprentice stood up straightening her robe before gesturing to the young man. The falcon stood as she gathered the folds of her garment and flicked her platinum blond hair back over her shoulder. Wrapping her arms around his neck, Sebastian lifted her easily. The girl was lighter than he would have thought, especially with the multiple layers of fabric. Even as the apprentice was calmly staring at him, the mage noted a strange tingling through his body and he knew it wasn’t from seeing her pretty legs again.

             
Ashleen was looking at his face intently he noticed, but as his eyes found hers, the girl closed them in thought. “Hmm,” she hummed while considering how the power felt to her in the new position before shaking her head. “If it is a bond with the earth I am not noticing a flow difference.”

             
Sebastian’s tongue was tingling, but he wasn’t feeling like any harm was being done. “Try sensing where the power’s flowing, because I am tingling all over here.”

             
The girl thought a moment and her eyes opened as she smiled. “Oh, yes you’re right.” She patted his hair as it began standing up. “You’re channeling the power all right. The flow seems nearly as strong as anywhere else. You can put me down now if you want by the way.”

             
Putting her down, Sebastian rubbed his arms that had goose flesh from the feel of the power running through them. “This floor’s underground,” he mused. “I wonder if we were in a tower, if the flow would be the same?”

             
Before Ashleen could respond, the evening bells began to toll. She shrugged. “Maybe later we can test more, if you’re still interested. Right now I am getting hungry and it’s been a long day.

             
“You could escort me to dinner though, because I honestly don’t know where the hall is right now,” the girl finished with a grin.

             
“Sure, I could use something to eat as well,” he stated gesturing towards the door.

             
Straightening her robe once more to make the top tighter against her chest as it had loosened a bit while he held her, the apprentice took his arm generating another little tingle before they began their walk.

Chapter 3- A New Direction

              The dining hall of Falcon’s Keep was expansive and one of the most decorated rooms in the main castle. At some point, one of the lord’s wives had taken over the design of the whole room a few years before and now long flowing crimson wall hangings trimmed with gold were along all the walls. Four tall stained glass windows were also set in the southern wall in an attempt to let as much light into the room for as much of the day as possible for those working within the castle. The main colors were gold, yellow and orange which would give the room a warm glow earlier in the day, but by dinner the sun was long set and the stone was already beginning to cool despite six blazing fireplaces lining the east and west walls.

             
The golden candle chandeliers and wall sconces were already lit by the time the two entered the hall. They found several long tables with table cloths of a cooler shade of red also trimmed with gold positioned in lines on the polished ebony floors. By the time their eyes made it to the floor, it was like looking at a room of fire set on a black hearth.

             
“Interesting,” Ashleen stated quietly to her escort as they entered the room, “but not to my taste. As you might have noticed I am partial to blue and silver not red and gold.”

             
Ignoring the intensity of the colors around them, the pair found a table and it quickly filled up as dinner was brought into the serving hall. As two other falcons took the opposite side of the table from them, Sebastian thought that it was probably a good thing that the tablecloths were large enough to come down over their legs. Ashleen had crossed her legs as she sat next to him and the robe had split open to reveal them above her knees once more. The cloth was pushed a bit forward to reveal some of her shapely thighs as well and he had a feeling that she was doing it on purpose, if only to tease him.

             
“So, Sebastian, who’s your pretty friend?” the male of the falcons asked as he took note of the unfamiliar and very attractive face of the girl next to the mage. The blond haired man brushed back a lock of hair as he stared at the apprentice with a warm smile.

             
“This is Ashleen, Dougren, an apprentice from Kardor. Ashleen, this is Dougren and Rilena. They’re a couple friends of mine.”

             
“An apprentice what?” Dougren asked absently still lost in the beauty of the girl’s sparkling blue eyes and pretty face. As the mage’s eyes wandered lower taking in the silver haired apprentice’s robe covered attributes, Rilena rolled her dark brown eyes next to him in disbelief.

             
Ashleen smiled and replied, “An apprentice wizard, silly.” She did her lightning trick deftly with her left hand while her right still held a fork. Sebastian noticed the tines of the fork sparking with blue light even while she was trying to watch her left.

             
Eyes widened slightly in surprise as the male falcon replied sheepishly, “Oh, that kind.”

             
“Well, I am pleased to meet you, Ashleen,” the young woman falcon known as Rilena replied. A dark haired beauty as well and slim of build, Rilena was one of Sebastian’s better students in the new magic he had created. Not just a pretty face, the beauty also had a good head on her shoulders. His friend Dougren, though normally intelligent, tended to lose his head around new, pretty women as was evidenced by this latest lapse of intelligence.

             
“My pleasure,” the apprentice giggled at the male falcon’s blushing face. “So do you two learn wizard magic like, Sebastian, or is he a bit unique?”

             
“He’s the only mizard so far as I know. We just learn what he tries to teach us,” Dougren quickly chimed in trying to show he was still intelligent enough to try and win points with the new girl.

             
“Mizard? What’s a mizard?” Ashleen asked looking perplexed from the odd terminology.

             
“That’s what people have been calling, Bas here. He’s sort of a genius with magic.”

             
Rilena elbowed him and softly declared, “Idiot.”

             
“What?” Dougren cried out in pain looking wounded more than by just an elbow.

             
“Maybe Sebastian didn’t want her to know? Just because people call him that, Dougren, doesn’t mean he actually likes it, you know?”

             
Sebastian waved off the woman’s protective mothering. “It’s ok, Rilena. She already knows that I learn wizard magic quite quickly. I just never called myself a mizard and I still think it’s a ridiculous title by the way.”

             
Ashleen mulled the word on her tongue. “Mizard. More than a mage, but maybe less than a wizard. Who knows for sure?

             
“So he knows both types of magic, but the question is can he dance?” the silver haired beauty finished with a chuckle.

             
Rilena smiled. “Oh, he knows how to dance, though I think it’s been awhile since I’ve seen him actually do so.”

             
“Mmmm, good when does the dancing begin?”

             
“I know how to dance too,” Dougren volunteered brightly, causing Rilena to cover her face in shame with her left hand.

             
Ashleen smiled and replied dryly, “Good for you.” She held a straight face only momentarily before laughing at Dougren’s feigned wounded appearance.

             
It wasn’t long before the tables were cleared and moved to the sides of the hall by servants and many of the future dancers as well who were glad to help speed the process along. Once the floor was clear, a trio of musicians set up on one side of the hall and began to play. The floor filled with couples quickly and Sebastian found himself being dragged onto the floor by the wizard’s apprentice. He was more than a half foot taller than the girl, but she moved very well beside him completely undaunted.

             
As they danced, he felt like there were many eyes watching their every movement. Whether they were simply taking in the beautiful new girl or if her kardorian robes were flashing too much of her legs, he wasn’t sure. Kardor obviously had a different sense of fashion, and from her outfit Sebastian guessed they had a difference in modesty as well.

             
From dance to dance, they moved and eventually Sebastian lost any worries of what anyone else was doing or thinking of them. He needed his attention focused to match the girl’s steps. She was better than he and that meant his big feet could cause trouble. As the night continued, however, it was the gown that proved to be a menace yet again.

             
The girl’s foot stepped to the side catching the edge of the robe under her right foot. The downward step forced her to bend and the movement off set her balance. Her ankle gave giving a nasty twist and Ashleen gasped in pain as she went down.

             
The beauty of her exposed legs became the least of his concern. He tried to help the girl back up, but her ankle refused to hold her. With the dance crowd only half noticing the fallen girl, Sebastian came to her rescue by picking her up like he had in private. Strangely, the tingling this time felt warmer. Carrying her out of the crowd to one of the nearby benches, the man set her down and checked the ankle.