The Sartious Mage (The Rhythm of Rivalry) (10 page)

Quiet, I’m trying to listen to see if my friend is doing anything she shouldn’t be doing.
No, that would arouse too much suspicion.

“That’s me,” I said, with my eyes nowhere near his face. It was rude not to look at the person I was talking to, but I didn’t want to invite more dialogue. I thought I heard something from behind the door, maybe the wooden barrel being pushed across the floor?

“That’s wonderful! Will you be staying tomorrow? My guests would love to see a some spells.”

“We’re leaving early, actually. Another time.” I couldn’t help but give him a slight smile. I knew I should be rude, even tell him to leave me alone, but I couldn’t do it. He was just being friendly.

I definitely heard something then. I didn’t know what Lisanda was doing, but it was something besides relieving herself.

“My friend should be coming out any moment,” I told the innkeeper. “Could you prepare our food?”

“Certainly,” he said, turning to leave. “It’ll be ready shortly.”

I whispered loudly toward the door, “Lisanda, what are you doing in there?”

“Almost out!” she called back in a voice that was far too obedient.

I reached toward the handle but hesitated. If she really was using the chamber pot and I stormed in, it would be the last time she trusted me.

“Hurry up,” I decided to say instead.

She didn’t respond.

“Lisanda?” I continued. “Lisanda, I’m coming in.”

The moment I turned the handle there was a crash.

I threw open the door to find the Princess clean and in her new tunic, but writhing on the ground. Around her were the two water barrels.

It was immediately evident she had stacked them and tried to climb on top in order to get through the window. Even more obvious was that she’d fallen.

I should’ve scolded her, told her she would be wearing the tarp from now on, that she would never be trusted again. But in the same way I couldn’t be rude to the innkeeper, I couldn’t bring myself to say any of those things to Lisanda. Watching her roll back and forth while holding her ass and clenching her teeth made her look miserable enough.

“Are you hurt?”

She groaned. “I think I broke my tailbone.”

“Not from that short of a fall.” I snickered a bit. “I hope you enjoyed the bit of privacy. It’s going to be the last you get.”

She grumbled, pushing herself to her knees and then eventually to her feet. She hobbled out the door with a hand on her rear.

“The food better be ready.” She tossed her hair out of her face petulantly.

I held in a laugh. She couldn’t possibly have been trying to be comical, but she was.

I sat between her and the door. Without the tarp constricting her legs and arms, there was little stopping her from running—that is, unless she wasn’t as starving as I was. Only a fool would run on an empty stomach with food sitting before her.

Lisanda could be foolish, but she wasn’t a fool.

I stole a few glances while she snapped off pieces of her bacon. My sister really did wear similar tunics to the kind Lisanda had on, but the Princess looked nothing like her. Kalli was two years older than me and Sannil’s daughter by blood. My sister was far closer to my weight than Lisanda’s. Kalli wasn’t fat in the least, but hardly a bone showed on her body, except her round chin.

Every part of my sister was rounded, from her face to her knees. She had curves where most women did, at her waist and chest, but her stature and muscles didn’t accentuate them. She was nearly as tall as me and stronger in some senses of the word. She was a natural born lifter, great around the farm.

Lisanda was everything Kalli wasn’t, but nothing that Kalli was. Lisanda was very thin, appearing helpless if I didn’t know of her surprising strength. She was short, with big eyes, thick hair, and barely a waist. She was a child’s doll, but with bones and curves instead of a round and squishy body.

The tunic was too large on her, as she’d stated. But she’d rolled up the sleeves and pulled down the slack around her feet so that it wouldn’t bunch up above her waist, allowing her womanly shape to show.

Most of the tunic was green, and not a nice forest green but more of a dying green, like that of a fallen leaf. The gray sleeves and hood were the same as the sky before a storm. Even so, she looked…radiant? No, that didn’t seem right. Pretty? Yes, definitely pretty, although that didn’t seem like a befitting description.

It wasn’t important. The only reason I was thinking about it was because she looked so different without the tarp and mud across her face and hair.

I thought I noticed her giving me a few glances as well while we ate.

At one point, our eyes met for just a blink, then immediately fell back to our food. She swallowed and looked up at me.

“Why are you looking at me?” Lisanda asked.

I tossed my hand dismissively. “I’m just looking around.”

“You’d better not fall in love with me.”

I nearly choked! What did she just say? And with such indifference, like she was talking about the weather or something! How was I supposed to respond? What did she expect me to say?

No words came, just complete shock. She nibbled on bacon while her eyes wandered. Her face was calm, tired even. Was it possible she didn’t realize that she’d just said the most ridiculous thing in the world? It looked as if she didn’t even expect me to respond to it! She certainly wasn’t waiting for an answer.

She finally turned back to me, swallowed, and folded her arms. “You’re staring,” she said accusingly.

“How can I not after something like that?” I scrunched my face and did my best to imitate her voice as I repeated her line, “You’d better not fall in love with me—who says that?”

She pointed at me. “You’d better not!”

Now, she seemed to be offended! It was too much. “That would be like me saying, ‘You’d better not kill yourself because I still need to trade you for the cure.’ ”

“It’s nothing like that. Of course, I wouldn’t kill myself, but you’re already falling in love with me.”

I stood with my arms in the air. “That’s—” I stopped myself. I was shouting. I sat back down and lowered my voice. “I would never fall in love with you.”

“Good. Keep it that way, farm boy.” She took another bite.

I was outraged. I felt the same anger as I had in the palace when her father wouldn’t give me the cure. I couldn’t even look at her, but I couldn’t storm off, either. I stood instead, pacing back and forth.

Luckily, I was so tired the anger soon succumbed to my exhaustion. I saw she’d finished her food, so I stood over her.

“Let’s go.” I waved her up from her seat. “Time for bed.”

She followed without much reluctance, clearly as tired as I was. I picked up my clothes from the bathing room. They were still damp, but I didn’t want to leave them. I had the idea I should be ready to flee in the middle of the night.

You’d better not fall in love with me.
And she called me delusional!

Ridiculous.

Chapter 10: Attack

Our room was on the second floor. It contained nothing but two beds. Both were big enough for two people, but obviously we wouldn’t be sharing.

“I’m taking that bed,” I told her when she flopped onto the one nearest to the door.

She sighed and pushed herself up, then proceeded to flop onto the bed near the window. I went over to investigate. From the window, the street was a fifteen-foot drop with nothing to climb down. Good, I thought. Some sort of injury would be inevitable if she tried to jump. I figured that should deter her.

She already was lying on her side with her eyes closed. She might even have been asleep. I wanted to be also, but I needed to bind her to the bed first. I took a slow breath to gather my concentration, then manipulated Sartious Energy into a tight ring around a leg of the bed nearest to Lisanda’s feet. She must’ve heard the windy sound of the spell because she sat up.

“What are you doing?”

I ignored her question, asking her one instead. “You happen to have any skill with Sartious Energy?”

While such energy packed together could be as hard as steel, any mage skilled with manipulating it easily could undo even the sturdiest creations. Lisanda would have little hope breaking one of my Sartious rings without a hammer unless she knew how to manipulate it. I didn’t figure she did, but she’d surprised me a few times already.

“No,” she answered.

“Good.” I finished with the ring around the bed leg. “Right ankle or left?”

She had a disappointed glare, clearly a sign she’d caught on to what was about to happen. She let her weight down to lie on her back.

“Right, I guess,” she said to the ceiling.

“I’m going to touch your ankle now,” I warned her.

“Hurry up.”

I touched my wand to her skin, forming a ring around it. When the SE was tightly packed, I connected the ring around her ankle to the ring on the leg of the bed. By the time I was done, I was panting and more eager for sleep than ever.

I knew what awaited me in my dreams, though—my darkness was going to kill me, and it was going to be gruesome thanks to all the SE I’d used today. But I was too tired to be worried.

Lisanda sat up to investigate the binding as I walked over to my bed. “That’s all Sartious Energy?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied coldly, figuring she was going to complain.

“How can you possibly do that at your age?” To my surprise, her tone seemed to hold pure curiosity.

She must’ve known at least a little about magic to ask such a question. Spells like what I’d just done were extremely difficult, probably impossible for most people no matter how much training they had.

Mages who could create Sartious rings usually had been practicing for more than ten years. But in my case, my darkness made me quite skilled, which reminded me that I should warn her about what was about to happen during the night. My nightmares were quite aggressive, causing me to thrash violently. I’d heard it was a startling sight.

“There’s something you should know.” I paused to think how to word it. When I’d told her about her father’s broken promise, I’d wanted her to believe me, to sympathize even, yet she hadn’t. But this time, I wanted her to call me delusional again. This time, she would see firsthand how wrong she was.

I pulled off my shirt.

She turned away. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t sleep with a shirt on, otherwise it’ll get bloody.”

She kept her head in the other direction. “Bloody? What are you talking about?”

“Remember the cure I told you about, the one your father promised me but didn’t deliver?”

She exhaled loudly as she lay back down. There was no other response. She still didn’t believe me.

“Well,” I continued, “look at me.”

She pulled her hair away from her face but didn’t turn. It was clear she was curious.

“Come on,” I said, creating light through my wand to make sure my cuts and bruises could be seen clearly.

She flipped around, then gasped.

I spoke before she could say anything. “When I fall asleep, a darkness attacks me, and this is the result.”

She shook her head. “Why don’t you just wear gloves or something?”

“These injuries don’t come from my hands,” I explained. “I’ve bound my hands to the bed, woken up with them still bound, yet I had fresh wounds. My father and sister have seen it happen.” I hesitated, unsure if I should give her the details. “It’s not pretty,” I said.

If she wanted more, she could ask.

Her eyes tightened with doubt. “You’re either lying or insane.” She turned back. “I’m going to sleep.”

Fine, you’ll see, I wanted to say. Instead, I relaxed on the bed and let overdue sleep finally come.

I woke unsure how long I’d slept. It felt like somewhere between an hour and two. I hadn’t dreamed yet, but I could feel one coming. My darkness was waiting for me the moment I fell back asleep. It was the same as right before a muscle spasm, when you felt some numbness, maybe a twitch, and then suddenly you realized it was going to happen and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

I drifted back into sleep, but anxiety kept pulling me out. Eventually, I was back in the bathing room, but there was a shower there now. I wasn’t sure how the inn now had access to the aqueduct and had built a shower, but I didn’t care. I loved showers, for they usually were very relaxing, but not this time. I had a feeling of urgency.

A curtain enclosed the shower. It wavered violently, then stopped, then shook again. I peeked out to find an open window. No one else was in the room, so I walked over and closed it.

An eerie feeling gave me a shiver. I didn’t want to get back in the shower, but I still had soap all over my body. I needed to rinse. I told myself I would just do it quickly.

Inside the shower, once again the curtain shook like a gust of wind had come into the room. I felt no breeze, and I checked the window. It wasn’t open. There were no other windows.

My heart fluttered with fear. I couldn’t figure out why the curtain was shaking. Quickly as I could, I rinsed off the rest of the soap and jumped out.