Chương 6: Isavey

Ch 6: Isavey It took Felix a few seconds to recover from the whole 'eternal prisoner' news. Considering he'd spent most of his life fleeing men who wanted to lock him up, it wasn't the best feeling. But, after he'd processed it, he realized a few things: First—this island seemed nice compared to a cold, stone fortress. Second—the people living here weren't bloodthirsty, or they would have just tried to kill him. And third, there was no way they could hold him against his will forever.

Eventually, after he healed, he would just escape.

"OK," he said, leaning back in his chair.

"Do I get a room or something?" The girl blinked, her stunned expression somehow both adorable and attractive at the same time. She had a face shape he'd never seen in his life, mostly round but curving down to a more pointy chin. Her dark brown eyes were big but sort of slit to the sides, like some of the people of the far south. Apparently his immediate acceptance confused her.

"Maybe... you do not understand. Or I used the wrong words. You can never go home. You must stay here until you are old. Until you die."

"Yeah, I got it. Your command of my language is impeccable," he said, moving his leg with a groan.

"I'm hungry. I don't suppose you can help find me something to eat?" The girl just kept staring with those big, exotic eyes. Then she looked at his leg and frowned.

"They were supposed to heal you. I'll fetch the elder." He prepared to launch into a tirade about healers and their ignorant butchery, but the girl was already out the door and babbling outside. He took a few calming breaths, and soon enough she was back with the older woman.

"She must touch your leg," the girl explained.

"It will hurt at first, but then, it will heal you. Fix the bone."

"And I suppose she's never failed in a hundred years, either?" He grinned as the girl went pink.

"My name is Felix, by the way. What's yours, beautiful girl?" The elder's eyes popped from her head." Vile creature. You will watch your tongue when you speak to..."

"It's alright," said the younger woman.

"My name is Isavey. Of House Amadi." A beautiful name, Felix decided. But he was familiar with people whose names included things like 'house' or 'clan' or 'kingdom'. This was some kind of noble daughter. And whatever land or culture you pleased, people were always pretty touch about royal women. To her credit, however, her tone didn't imply he was worth less than the mud on her boot. That would have been standard. No doubt she still felt that way, but at least she'd been trained to be polite.

That made one of them.

"Well." He did his best to smile, looking between the women.

"Now we're acquainted. Isavey, I don't believe for one second your friend there can heal my leg. Just like I didn't believe your wizard could 'wipe my memories'. But if you insist on trying, I guess that'd be fine." The princess or whatever gave him a good long stare. Then she and the elder spoke a little in their own language, and the older woman knelt beside Felix and reached out her hand. She seemed... tentative, like she was reaching for a rattlesnake.

"Don't worry, sweetheart." Felix winked.

"I don't bite."

"She's going to touch your leg now, if that's acceptable." Isavey said over the woman's shoulder, face still glowing with heat.

"Because you are... gifted, the process is more dangerous. Please don't try and resist."

"No resisting here," Felix assured.

"Touch away." The elder scowled, her face locked in concentration. When her hand finally connected with Felix's leg, he twitched and shook and made a hissing sound. The elder and princess both gasped and pulled back in fright. Felix chuckled.

"Sorry. Couldn't help myself." The elder stared daggers. But Isavey covered a grin with her hand. To see her beautiful face smile was too much reward to feel bad, and Felix met it with a laugh. It was good to still be alive, he decided, knowing a weight had followed him from the sea. It would be some time yet for his mind and heart to process the loss of his crew. They weren't old friends, but a crew was like family on the sea and they'd fought in several battles.

He'd known them all well enough, and their deaths would linger in his soul. But the smile of a beautiful woman helped. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The elder quickly grabbed a handful of his flesh, and her eyes blazed with a sudden light. Felix fought the impulse to twist it off and snap it. Surprise helped. She was a mage? Did all these damn people have magic? Again it was elemental magic, a feeling like ice cold water splashing over his skin.

Why these people thought throwing around freezing cold would do anything to heal a person, or strip their memories, he had no idea. He tried not to consume it too quickly. Better to at least let the woman keep a little dignity. The cold increased, and though Felix did his best he soon felt it simply absorbing into the furnace at his core. It went on for some time, until finally the elder pulled away, sweat running freely down her face.

"I... wasn't able to succeed," she said, her eyes locked on Felix's leg. He was about to roll his eyes and thank her for the effort when he looked down and realized his foot was flat on the floor, the pain reduced. He moved his leg, which felt slightly stiff and not at all back to full strength. But…by God, it didn't seem broken. He stared in disbelief. How was that possible?

"It looks healed," said Isavey with a confused expression.

"It wasn't me, Lady," said the elder, still staring as she shook her head.

"His gift blocked me, or at least took my mana. It was… it must have been him." Felix blinked and looked between the women, resisting the urge to call them both liars and fools. I didn't do anything, he wanted to say, this is all nonsense. But his leg was healed. It was fucking healed. Magic didn't fix things, it destroyed them. It swallowed up people and lives and burnt them to nothing. It made warriors and kings, pirates and pirate-hunters. It didn't make healers. And Felix was a God damn Lifestealer.

He was the very worst kind of destructive mage. Except... his leg. It was a cold, hard fact laughing in his face. He wiggled his toes and lifted from his chair, finally holding his breath as he stood and put weight on it. There was pain, but almost nothing. It was… fine. He realized both the elder and Isavey had pulled away when he stood. They withdrew nearly to the door as if ready to run as they stared. Seeing the fear in the women's eyes bothered him.

"I'm not some mad dog. I wouldn't hurt you. I'm a soldier. I only hurt soldiers. Men of violence." The princess watched his eyes, then turned to the elder and spoke awhile in her own language. The older woman spoke back, and they exchanged once or twice before the elder bowed and left. Again Isavey met his gaze with those big, brown eyes. Whenever she did he kept forgetting whatever clever thing he was going to say.

"How could it be you don't know your own magic?" she said. He shrugged, not sure these people knew as much as they thought they did either. But his leg…his God damned leg…

"I was…never trained," he said.

"Except by my father. But he's not Touched. Gifted, I mean. Whatever you call it. Anyway, he did his best. My magic works well enough." Isavey shook her head as if amazed.

"Only water mages can heal, Felix. That means you can channel both fire and water, two sources of magic. That's a rare feat, even here in the isles, especially opposites like that. It... changes things." Felix couldn't heal. He was no elementalist because he had no trigger. You had to have mana to turn it into clever things with all the signs and nonsense the sanctioned types learned in their academies. Felix's mana was dry as a bone. He was a lifestealer. A Sea Dragon. He sucked up the world and destroyed it.

He wasn't made for fancy tricks. He was made to take, to ruin, to kill. All he ever got to decide was who, or what, and sometimes even when.

"What things does it change, princess?" He assumed it meant he'd just gone from 'polite prisoner' to whatever name these people had for 'witch'. Would they get out the wood and oil and build him his very own pyre?

"How you'll be treated." Isavey looked away like her brain was moving quick, her pretty face a neutral mask.

"How you'll be received."

"I thought I was a polite prisoner," he said with a wary smile.

"How different can things be?"

"You still are. Until you've passed the tests. But from what I've seen today I think you will. And then..." she shrugged and looked away. Tests. Mages and their fucking tests. Didn't matter which part of the damn world you were in. Even ridiculous fantasy islands.

"And then what, Isavey?"

"Then…" The girl shrugged.

"You will be invited to stay, but you won't have to." She stepped to the door.

"It's a fair walk to the palace. Is your leg good enough now?" Invited, she said? Somehow he doubted that. He'd seen plenty of times how powerful men 'invited' people to do what they were told, or die. But in that particular moment, he struggled to imagine what he'd like more than a pleasant stroll in the sunlight beside the beautiful girl. Whatever his fate later, his current moment beat being dead in the sea next to a bunch of pirates. The thought turned his mind again to the crew who'd died beside him.

He hadn't been aboard that long. But they were good enough men and he'd liked a few of them. I'll pour the offerings to the sea for you, he thought. To your gods and a few others I might think of. And good brandy from the south, not that piss swill you stupid Midlanders always drank. You fought bravely, and you died well. It'll be received. The princess was looking at him with intense and curious eyes, waiting for an answer. The strangeness of life seemed to all crash down on him like a wave in the tides.

He was a prisoner to mages, but he'd survived. Life on the sea was hard, and Felix had seen a great many men die in his young life. Yet here he was surrounded by the pleasures of breathing in and out. He tried to focus on the better things. The things he could control. And he did what he always did with people who could never understand what it was to be a Lifestealer—he smiled and put on a little charm.

"I might need help," he lied, holding out a hand as he limped forward. The girl looked awkward but took his arm and helped him down the steps. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and grinned.

"Direct me, princess, I'm in your hands." She gave him an embarrassed, maybe skeptical look. But she didn't push him away. She smelled and felt incredible. He knew he could never be with a woman because of his 'gift', but it didn't mean he couldn't enjoy the little things. Soon they were walking arm in arm towards the valley, and to who knew what else. Maybe it was 'tests', as she said. Maybe it was a room full of mages who'd decide they didn't like this strange foreigner after all.

But for the next few minutes, at least— yes, thank you father, you were right —Felix was very happy to be alive.