Chương 12: Hope

Ch 12: Hope Felix was used to being treated like some dangerous weapon by others. Whether it was pirate hunters, merchant sailors, or bounty hunters—Felix the 'Lifestealer' had always been a kind of necessary evil. A vicious dog or a sharpened spear, better bought and unnecessary then needed and unavailable. These people wouldn't want him because he could light torches and candles. They'd want him because he could burn men alive.

But for now, he was happy to pretend, to 'train', and enjoy the lifestyle of a prized horse.

His eventual freedom wasn't going anywhere. So Isavey and her little bodyguard took him back to the 'fire temple', and he didn't make any problems. This time they led him to a room filled with baubles and trinkets, all kinds of symbols and shapes about the size of his palm.

"These are foci," said one of the completely cloth-clad priestesses.

"Hold it to help channel your spirit." Felix could basically only see her eyes, and assumed he'd better watch his tongue around women considered too sacred to look at. He nodded and picked up a copper ring.

"OK. What exactly do I do with it?" The priestess shrugged like it was a stupid question. Or maybe a 'how should I know?'

"Women are almost never casters, that is, users of mana," Isavey whispered beside him.

"You use it to direct your mana. Don't choose too quickly. Look at everything. Most wizards…" she shrugged, "a particular focus will… call to them. You should know it when you see it." Felix blinked and smiled. Sure, he thought. Know it when I see it. He wasn't at all sold on this being a thing. In fact the more time that passed between the now and the 'test', the more he was thinking these people just used magic differently than the mages in his world. But another part of him wanted to believe.

Truth was, despite it invalidating much of his life, he was desperate to find a way to do what they were suggesting. Sure, if he was wrong, he'd die in a fiery cataclysm—but hey, he'd been ready for that since he was a boy. Why not here in some exotic temple? It seemed a perfectly pleasant place to die.

"This one. I guess," he said after looking at everything. He picked up a kind of crescent moon, no feeling towards it at all. It didn't 'call' to him or stand out, but he was tired of looking and also starting to find the whole thing ridiculous. Isavey met his eyes, her arm curled very welcomely around his. He wasn't entirely sure why she was touching him—it was like she thought he was hurt or frightened and needed a shoulder. But he also didn't care why, because he was enjoying every second of it.

For a moment he was transported out of the 'temple' and into some coastal bazaar. He imagined they were a couple just freshly married and in love, shopping for trinkets for fun, for a break before they went home and crawled back into bed…

"Do you have any more, honored priestess?" Isavey frowned.

"I don't think our guest has found what he's looking for. Perhaps a focus used by a dual wizard in the past?" Felix sighed back to reality. The daydream had left its mark. The life he'd known for so long was warring with something unfamiliar. Something like… a dream for the future. It was dangerous. He knew such things could break him. The priestess guided them to a smaller storage area. She stared like a dock worker who hadn't been paid since last spring, then plucked the crescent from his fingers.

This room was much darker, and she lit a torch on the wall with a flint. After the fire started, she took the time to stare at him, as if to say 'you see how easy that was?' So that was a little rude. He ignored her and wandered the room looking at more meaningless baubles. These ones definitely looked… used. Worn down. Some were rusted or had broken pieces. Some looked half melted. Still none of them 'called' to him, and he just wandered a full ring of the room, running his fingers along most.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. He did eventually stop and notice a particular strand of simple jewels that sparked his memory. He saw a flash of his mother's face in some market in Bremen, holding up earrings to dangle, making a silly face until he laughed.

"This one," he said, gripping it as his mind again went far away. Isavey seemed pleased this time, and the women led him back up the stone steps and down the 'sewer' tunnel, right back to the candles and torches and hay.

"Alright," Isavey said, looking like a ship's bosun ready to pep talk him before battle.

"Just release whatever you can. After holding so much mana so long I don't think we should expect any miracles. I won't lie to you, Felix, it won't be easy to let go." You have no idea, he thought, feeling a strange sense of calm.

"I'll be right over here," Isavey said, taking a few steps back. He almost laughed.

"No. Take the priestesses and go. Nowhere close. Out of sight. Maybe further. Honestly you should clear the temple." Isavey quirked her head like he was being ridiculous.

"This temple is designed to prevent your magic from escaping, Felix. Even the water is warded. In fact the only thing you can hope to burn in here is in front of you. It's perfectly safe. I promise."

"That's nice. Now take the priestesses and go, or I'm not doing it." Isavey (and Cara behind her) stared. Felix was reminded this was a noble daughter. No doubt she wasn't used to being ordered around by peasants, or polite prisoners. He really didn't care. He fully expected this attempt at 'release' to fail, but the only he could think that was worse would be to succeed and hurt people who didn't deserve it. He'd spent his whole life training himself to avoid just that. He wasn't going to fail now.

"Please come with me, honored priestess," Isavey said after a long and uncomfortable delay. She turned and argued with the priestess in a whispered voice, eventually scooping all the other women up with an obvious air of noble authority. Then the 'sewer' was empty, and Felix was alone. He stared at the candle wick and gripped the string of cheap jewels in his hand. Sure, he thought, just release some 'mana' you don't really have. No problem.

He closed his eyes and entered his mental fortress, standing at the outer walls as he looked up to see the heat roiling above. He tried to remember exactly how it started. His fortress. He'd thought it was his father's idea, but he couldn't remember the man ever suggesting it. Marcus had always encouraged him to count, to use patterns, to occupy his mind until whatever intense feelings had passed. Funny to have the beginnings of such an important thing forgotten.

It made him think of magic itself—of the academy, the republic, the kings and mage wars. Was it truly so ridiculous to imagine they didn't understand how magic worked? Felix's mother had been taken by a plague. And as the people of Bremen sickened and died, they had all kinds of beliefs about why. People blamed the water, the air, the soil. They blamed foreign travelers and impiety, loose women and buggering men. But usually it was rebel mages or a witch's curse.

The one thing Felix had learned traveling the world was that people were almost always wrong about everything. So why not this? And what in the name of God was this roiling fortress of fire and stone if not Felix's 'spirit', his 'soul'? It was the best word he could think of. It was where he went when he was afraid, when he was overwhelmed. It was where magic vanished and became his. It was the thing that had both terrified and protected him for as long as he could remember.

Was it possible the magisters just didn't know where to look? That he really, truly could just… release it? As long as he was somewhere safe? He realized his hand was crushing the charm, the sharp edges digging into his palm as wetness formed in his eyes. In his mind, or in his soul, he opened the first gate of his fortress, and stepped inside. He shut the gates behind him, moving closer and closer to the swirling furnace at its heart. It had been so long since he stepped inside.

He couldn't remember now the last time he'd entered the inner sanctum—the first layers he'd built around the inferno in his core. The work was sloppier than he remembered. His early attempts to bind the thing, done in haste and with a child's imagination—something more like a cave than a castle. A bright light infused the world, and he squinted as he stepped past the final stone walls, straight into a melting world of molten heat and air so hot it burned.

He shivered and stared at the beating heart of his personal hell. It was like it stared back at him, as if it twisted and surged, daring him to come closer, to see which of them would blink first. He trembled in the real world and the imagined, lifting a hand lit orange and red in the glaring light. He wanted to pull away. To turn and run as he always had, to build another layer and then another as the magic grew.

But for the first time in a long time, a feeling pushed him on—a feeling crippled when his mother died, then mortally wounded when the magister called him a Lifestealer. A feeling resurrected in the big, brown eyes of an untouchable princess. He took step after step towards the flame that was his burden, not truly believing he would live, not sure even if he believed a world could exist where his fate was different than his father had told him.

But for the first time since he was a boy, Felix re-discovered a strength as powerful as that flame, as convincing as the urge to run. He remembered what it was to hope.