Dnara grimaced at the memory. “That was an accident,” she admitted. “That man, Jorn, he tried to... He...” Her heart stuttered at the thought of what might have happened. Athan would’ve fought to his death against all those men, and Jorn would have... Her hand moved to the shoulder Jorn had clutched so tightly.
“It was in self-defense, then,” Aldric surmised from her struggle. “He had intention to have you unwillingly?”
“Yes,” she replied tersely, wanting to put the memory of it to rest. When she met his eyes again, she could tell Aldric believed her. It gave her hope that Ishkar’s strange request wouldn’t come at the cost of her life. “I had no control over the magic then. I’m honestly not certain I have full control now. It’s a rather recent development.”
“I see...” His head tilted leftward and his dark eyebrow raised further as he assessed her. “Did you accidently put out the fires, too?”
“No,” she replied quickly but then rethought her answer. “At least, I don’t think that was me. I had expelled the blight from Penna, you see, then it was crawling on the floor, so Beothen tossed the horrid thing into the fire, and it screamed and-” She drew in a tight breath, realizing she’d said too much. Oh, how she wished she had Athan’s oratory gift. “...and that’s when the fires started going out in Lee’s Mill,” she finished more quietly, but then her thoughts turned to Lee’s Mill and all the people there. “Please, tell me, is Lee’s Mill okay? You didn’t hurt anyone, did you?”
Aldric blinked at her and held up an armored finger. “Hold on there. You say you expelled the blight from someone?”
“Yes.” At least this she could say with unwavering confidence.
“Matches the story from the mayor, Commander,” said the soldier standing to Aldric’s left.
“I thought the mayor’s daughter is named Elizabeth?” another soldier asked.
“She is,” Dnara replied without taking her eyes off Aldric. “I expelled the blight from Elizabeth days after I first expelled it from Penna.”
“Faedra’s mercy,” the first soldier muttered. “If this be true...?”
More mutters circled around her as the men shared uncertain glances and the grips on their weapons faltered. All except for Aldric, who remained solid as stone and unmoved by the possible revelation. Aldric held up his hand and the circle went quiet, swords and pikes raising back to defensive positions.
“Quite the claim,” he said. “For a young, untrained mageborne who, as you have admitted, only recently came into magic.”
She had no argument against his statement. “It is, and I wouldn’t believe it either if I hadn’t seen it myself.” Another chill crawled up her skin. “If I hadn’t felt it. The blight is... I never could have dreamed of such a cold, hollow darkness. And its hunger... It wants to devour everything.”
As her words lowered to a hushed whisper, the wind blew through the trees and swept around her like a loving embrace. Dead leaves and pine needles danced across the earth and the men grew agitated, but Aldric watched in unmoving silence as she hugged her arms and smiled. The memory of the blight’s touch faded from her and the wind calmed.
“You control the wind with your magic?” Aldric asked, and it sounded like genuine curiosity.
“It’s not like that,” she replied. “It’s more of a friend.”
“A friend?” His brow knit together in suspicion. “Is it some spirit, then?”
A small laugh lifted from her throat. “A few weeks ago, I thought it a curse. I’m not certain what it is; if it is a wind spirit or merely a magic carried by it. It asks me to follow sometimes, and other times it follows me. It protects me when I’m in danger, like with Jorn, and it comforts me when I’m afraid, like now, as I sit here surrounded by men with swords and pikes at my back.”
Aldric’s hand moved to the pommel of his large broadsword. “The wind would follow your command to attack us, to toss us into the trees as it tossed Jorn into the river?”
“No, I don’t command it,” she argued.
“But it would move to protect you if it sensed you were in danger,” he retorted. “You said so yourself.”
“Am I in danger, Commander?” she asked plainly and Aldric’s eyes widened.
After a brief hesitation, his hand moved from the pommel and lifted in a tight fist to his men then opened. The men around him also hesitated with looks between them, but they followed the command without dispute. Swords were placed back in their scabbards and the pikes were lifted away from her back. Each man took a further three steps backward, meeting their waiting horses at the edge of the clearing and standing at a relaxed attention.
“No,” Aldric finally spoke, and it felt as if it were just the two of them left within the clearing, the torchlight ending before the ring of lantern light began.
He stepped closer to her and knelt, bringing his large form down so their eyes could meet on the same level. Then, after another tug on the red plume by the wind, he removed his shining helm. Shock widened her eyes, but his expression did not change. He was, she assumed, a man who had grown accustomed to such looks of surprise.
At first glance, they were subtle, the signs in his appearance and stature. But, when you put all the small pieces together, they formed an unmistakable picture: his skin a shade too close to weathered stone, his ears more sharp at the tips than they should be, his jawline as strongly set as the Axeblade Mountains, his neck thick and his hair a glossy black tied into braids that gathered at the crown. There, secured within those braids, a single brown hawk’s feather fluttered with the wind’s gentle touch.
Aldric, First Commander of the King’s Guard, was
