"The baby princess killed Thom." Brent paced in front of the bar in the otherwise empty main room of the tavern. The solid thump of his boot heels on the floor reminded him of Tarfeather's hooves on a hard-packed road. "Is that what you're saying?"
Eudora grabbed his arm. "Wait. Who says he's dead?"
Brent tensed. Just thinking about that night made him want to run out and train his sword form to work off the feelings. He turned away from Eudora. "I do. I saw it happen, Eudora. He was still as a statue, then this mist..." His eyes prickled with impending tears. "It surrounded him completely. And then it was gone and so was he. What else could he be?"
Eudora didn't answer but her stockinged feet padded back and forth on the floor. Brent wiped the few tears from his face and turned back to her. Although silent, Eudora was gesturing wildly with her hands as she paced. Her usually snug breeches flapped a bit on her overly thin frame. Her dark blond hair stuck in all directions, like she'd been running her fingers through it.
Brent stepped in front of her to stop the pacing. "Eudora, what else could he be?"
She shook her head then shrugged. "I don't know, Brent. I wish knew." Her voice cracked a little. "None of this makes sense. Normally I'd ask the elders. Or even my grandfather..." Tears welled in her violet eyes. "It's not supposed to be possible, although..." Eudora covered her face with her hands and slumped forward. "None of this was supposed to be possible."
Her shoulders shook with quiet sobs. Brent fidgeted, longing for a sword at his hip for his hand to worry. What should he do? Years ago, when his wife was alive, he'd offered physical comfort when she was upset, but Eudora? Was it acceptable to touch a mage like that?
Eudora began speaking again, but her voice was rough and partly muffled. "... a week ... My fault ... gone ... Mary ... No one--"
"Shhh..." Brent stepped forward. He hesitated, then gently touched her shoulder. She looked at up at him briefly, and the sadness and insecurity in her eyes seemed to encourage him. Braver now, he wrapped his arms around her slim frame and pulled her to him. With her face against his chest, her arms rigid at her sides, Eudora wept. Gently he stroked her back and shoulders while her tears soaked through his shirt. Soon her body softened and melted into the contact.
He lowered his face to the top of her head and let his own tears flow. They'd been pushing so hard. Left behind so many. And now cut off from the rest of Vestony, the future of so many rested on his shoulders. On their shoulders. He pulled her tighter.
Her hands snaked around his waist and her shudders lessened. He'd forgotten how much rested on her now. Their only healer, only mage. So competent, so powerful, her youth was easily overlooked. More than twenty years younger than himself and only just graduated to full mage status a few months before King Anton died. She'd been sent to tend Queen Valeria during and after childbirth, replacing the retiring Royal Healer.
"I'm sorry." Brent gently pushed Eudora away from his chest and took a step backwards. Eudora was a powerful mage, but she was also vulnerable and young enough to be his daughter.
Eudora wiped her tears from her face with the tips of her delicate fingers and blushed. "Sorry about your shirt."
Brent walked to the bar and uncovered the clay teapot. "The past several months have been intense. Overwhelming even for me, and I was trained for battle." He gestured with a heavy mug. "Tea?"
Eudora nodded. "I think we underestimated the challenges of being totally cut off. None of us really knew what it meant and everything happened so fast." She pulled up one of the tall stools and sat, wrapping her legs around the stool's.
Brent walked around to the other side of the bar, making a show of getting the honey, although he could have reached it fine from the other side. "Can you explain to me what you're thinking with Regina and Thom? I know a lot of the details are probably beyond me, but personally I find talking through a problem often helps me find some answers."
Eudora added a modest teaspoon of honey to her tea. "Need to wean myself off the sweet stuff--at least until we find hives here." The spoon rattled against the cup as she stirred.
Brent sat quietly and waited. Eudora often seemed to need time to gather her thoughts. He made himself sip his tea slowly, making sure he actually tasted it.
Eudora drank some tea then took an audible deep breath. "I don't know how much you know about how Heklan magic works. But killing..." She shook her head emphatically. "Harming someone intentionally or killing them--it doesn't work. Hekla forbids it."
"So you're saying he isn't dead? Then where is he?"
Eudora kept her eyes on her tea and kept jiggling the spoon. "I don't know. It's complicated. You know mages can smell who is casting?"
Brent waited until she looked up then nodded.
"Well, when I woke up the other day and it was thundering, I smelled what I expected the protective spell around the valley to smell like--my own magic mixed with those of Absal, Magni, Edilon, and Ottilie. Only this other smell was mixed in." Eudora took another audible deep breath and her knuckles were white from clenching the mug.
Brent reached out and touched her hand lightly. "It's okay. You're brainstorming. We'll figure it out." He withdrew his hand again. No more touching the mage.
"The magic that made Thom disappear... It was a combination of Regina's magic and the protective spell around the valley." She took a sip of her tea.
Brent waited, hesitant to interrupt her train of thought.
"Do you know anything about how magic develops in mages?" Eudora again rattled the spoon against the mug with agitated stirring.
Brent shook his head. "Not really. I only know they're usually in their teens."
"Yes, usually, in terms of being able to cast. We can often sense--smell--others using magic at a much earlier age, depending on our strength, although not all realize the connection." She drank the last of her tea, but without rattling her spoon. "My father was fully trained at Hekla Holt, so he was casting all the time and I don't remember not knowing what the smells meant. It was different for Nana. She didn't know what it meant until her teens, when she started getting her powers. Her family hadn't had magic for a few generations."
Brent refilled her mug to keep his hands busy. "And your mother?"
"I never knew her. She died when I was two." Eudora took a little honey then stirred aggressively.
Brent tried to imagine his childhood without his mother. He shuddered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry."
Eudora shook her head, although her knuckles were again white around her mug. "It's not a problem; I had plenty of love from Nana and my father. Until they had to send me to the Holt." She took a deep breath, frowning, before continuing. "My cousin and I were playing on the dunes a few months after my tenth birthday. The sun was bright, perfect for snakes to sunbathe. Ingelise accidentally stepped on one--a poisonous one. I'd felt Nana heal a snake bite a few times and when I thought of her healing, it just flowed out of me. Ingelise ended up running for help instead, because I fainted from the magic. A month later I became an apprentice to my mother's father." Eudora's voice was flat at the end and she stared into her mug.
Brent resisted the urge to hug her again even though she’d been surprisingly responsive to his touch only minutes before. "So did you meet anyone who started young, like Regina, in your training?"
Eudora looked him in the eye. "No, no one like Regina has ever existed, as far as I've been taught. I was something of a child prodigy for getting my power so early and so strong. Most are thirteen or fourteen before they can control simple spells and often need a few years of training before they can do healing spells like I started with."
Brent tightened his fist, longing to hit something. Instead he relaxed it, controlling his emotions and reactions as his training had demanded. Letting them influence anything--letting Eudora know he was concerned--wouldn't help the situation. "So what does this mean? Do you have any idea why Regina is like this?"
Eudora got up and started pacing again. Brent forced himself to stay seated, keeping the bar safely between them. At least the walking should help smooth the roughness from the floorboards. But he'd have to make sure they kept up the supply of socks, if Eudora continued wearing hers out like this. He suppressed a smile at the thought of her with the bottoms worn out of a stack of socks.
After a few minutes of pacing, Eudora sat abruptly on her stool again. "My guess--and it is only a guess--is that the protective spell we cast around Misty Vale somehow awakened her magic prematurely." She kept her eyes down as she spoke, and her fingers traced the grain of the wooden bar. "What I don't know is why or how that happened. Nor do I know if the protective spell or her own magic was in control. But I suspect she will become very strong."
Brent shook his head. "How can that happen? How can she even have magic? Her parents don't."
"We don't fully understand how Hekla chooses who will develop magic, although she does tend to favor certain families." Eudora ran her palms over her narrow thighs. "The royal family of Vestony had previously been known for magical powers, although none of the more recent generations have manifested them. That latent tendency probably combined with the similar traits, although less fortunate, in Queen Valeria's family history to again produce a caster..."
Brent rubbed his hand over his hair. "What do you mean less fortunate?" He wished she'd look at him again.
Eudora stared into the dregs of tea in her mug. "I probably shouldn't have said that, but you are the Royal Guardian. You know how I said Hekla forbids using magic to harm? Depending on the severity of the act, she either decreases a mage's power slowly or cuts it off suddenly. We call it 'withering.'"
She tipped the last drops of tea into her mouth. "Master Taarnfall, my grandfather, considered withered mages an important lesson in proper use of powers. He said one of Valeria's ancestors had been a very powerful mage. When his wife took a female lover, he went into a rage and tried to do something to the lover, although no one ever figured out what. Hekla, of course, snapped his connection to magic. He spent his remaining days crying and moaning, unable to communicate."
Brent failed in his attempts to control his need to pace. "Are you saying this could happen to Regina?"
Eudora came over and grabbed his arm. "Brent, calm down. She has to try to hurt someone magically before Hekla would punish it. And most withering is a gradual loss of power, which causes withdrawal-like symptoms and short term rapid aging. Then the body adjusts to life without the power and continues like for normal people."
He pulled his arm from her hand and resumed pacing. "But she's just a baby. What's going to happen when she's a toddler and throwing a tantrum and wants to hurt someone? How are we going to stop that?"
Eudora stepped in front of him and put her hand on his chest to stop him. "Magic doesn't generally happen just because you want something. It's more complicated than that. And we still don't know if she can do magic on her own or if it's the protective spell using her power."
"But you did magic without meaning to." Brent began to step aside.
Eudora gripped his arms. Her strength was much greater than he expected from her slight frame. "I was thinking about magic--about the way my grandmother healed. And healing is always strongest, because Hekla blesses it. "
Brent looked into her eyes, more piercing and violet than ever. "Vestony needs her. We need her. She's our best chance of defeating Ballademager and regaining peace. She's all that's left of the royal family. We can't lose her." How could he protect her from things he couldn't see?
Eudora wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tight. "We'll find answers, Brent. We have to trust Hekla has something planned for Regina right now. And our princess has a lot of people to help raise her right. She needs you."
How could this girl keep staying so strong? "I'm glad you're with us, Eudora. I can't keep her safe without your help."
Her lips parted as if she meant to say something, or as if she--
No. He didn't dare. Hands on her shoulders, he held her at arm's length. "Your Hekla better keep you safe, too, Eudora."
The Rest of the Saga
This story was Part 4 of The Saga of Misty Vale. Steemshelf is on my to-do list, but I'm stressed with pretrip stuff and didn't get there yet. So you're stuck with manual links.
Keep watching for more to come, but it will probably be November at the earliest.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to the entire gang at The Writers' Block, without whom I wouldn't be writing. It isn't just the editing help. It's the support and encouragement. The brainstorming sessions. The reassurance that my out of control characters aren't ruining my story. The reassurance that my dialogue hasn't dragged on too long and become stilted. For editing--REPEATEDLY--just this chapter, I need to especially mention @thinknzombie and @carolkean. This chapter was pushing my boundaries a bit and both went through and confirmed development and changes, providing essential feedback and support. But when it comes to support, the whole gang is there for me again and again. Thanks for the new home!
