Wolves of Empire [EPIC DARK FANTASY] [Book One Complete]

Eleven

Tali

Kaltoren, Drasken

15th of Satimus

When she was roused in the small hours, Tali at first feared an attack. She'd been woken in such a fashion when Verden had been toppled, and for a moment thought herself still aboard the Shifting City. Her chambers were far too opulent for that nomadic settlement, however, and the knocking on the door to her wing was insistent, not panicked. If something assaulted Drasken's capital, she assumed there would be more commotion.

The Jalin stood in the hallway beyond her rooms, his hand raised to knock again. He pulled back, almost sheepish, and offered her a smile too awake and energetic for such an early morning. Donned in a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, she again snatched glimpses of the intricate black tattoos whirling across his arms and around his neck, where they terminated just shy of his jawline.

"You're moving into Ren Câdern today," Fell said. "I thought I'd take the opportunity to get an idea of your skills, before your formal education begins."

Tiredness made her snap at him. "This early?"

His smile never shifted.

Thankfully, she had no possessions to gather, only the clothes she'd been given when she'd first arrived. The rest of her wardrobe, Ren Câdern uniforms included, already awaited her at the College. She was about to step out into the hallway and join the Jalin when he dodged around her and closed the door to her quarters.

"I need space for this," he said by way of explanation. "The hallway's too narrow."

"Space for what?"

"Worldstriding, of course. How else did you expect to get halfway across the city?"

She'd assumed they'd either walk or take one of the many roving thunderships Kaltoren employed as public transport, but when she said as much to him, the Jalin snorted a laugh. "That would take more time than either of us have this morning."

She strangled a glimmer of fear as he beckoned her to his side. The only two times she'd worldstrode had ended disastrously, and both times she'd felt like an apocalypse had snared her. She had no more desire to repeat the experience than she did to fling herself from the top of the Kronhus.

Fell gestured softly, stroking the air in front of him so that it seemed to part at his touch. Within the seams of the world, Tali saw a kaleidoscopic maelstrom so blinding she had to look away. The sweep of power didn't take her as it had the first time, nor did she feel herself peeled apart layer by layer, the aasiurmantic storm stripping her of her every component. Instead, as Fell wrapped a hand around her forearm and steered her through the portal in his wake, the pulsing aasiurmancy lapped at her skin like warm bathwater and suffused her.

The Jalin's hand was a physical anchor, the only source of solid sensation in a roiling void. Aasiur intoxicated her, until she stumbled along in a cloud of confusion, her vision lost to the lights, her senses lashed smooth.

And then it was over. From one blink to the next, she was no longer being towed through the infinite darkness beneath the universe's fabric, but on her hands and knees in a room that wasn't the one she'd just been in. Fell's palm was on her back, and though she felt the urge to vomit, she locked her mouth and let him drag her to her feet.

The energy from his portal faded in visible waves, and Tali took a moment to regain her composure. She cast her gaze around the unfamiliar room, trying to orient herself. To think, she'd flung herself to an alien planet, and halfway across a continent, yet this short leap—not even one side of a city to the other—still jarred her so deeply.

"Trust me, you do get used to it," Fell said. Even though he spoke softly, his words smacked her ears as if bellowed. "Mages have it harder because they can comprehend the magic. 'Stride a mortal and it's nothing more than a fun ride for them, lucky bastards."

The room he'd conjured them into was a huge, empty expanse. A circle of glass in a domed roof allowed a dim slash of dawn light to stain the stone floor and cast feeble illumination against the room's furniture. Ahead, a spiralled staircase led up to a raised platform overlooking the bulk of the room. Beyond that rolled the dawn-dark spread of Kaltoren. The rest of the room was bare in the middle, with bookcases and desks and cabinets pushed to the edges where they wouldn't interfere.

"Welcome to my humble abode," Fell said, throwing his arms out in greeting. "You're currently standing in Ren Câdern's highest level. You've got several thousand students and tutors beneath your feet."

Tali swallowed another surge of vomit and nodded.

Having no doubt noticed her dumbstruck expression, he said, "My son will give you the grand tour after we've finished here. He'll show you where you're staying and where your classes are. It's a bit overwhelming, I know. I can still remember, three centuries ago, first arriving at this tower. I nearly pissed myself in fear."

"I might just do that," she mumbled.

An entire tower, many hundreds of feet high, dedicated to the training of Drasken's next generation of immortal mages, and Tali now numbered among them. Tali, who'd never attended a class where she wasn't the sole student, who'd never been taught by someone she didn't already know, who'd only ever been given a summary education of most subjects.

She was as ignorant and helpless as someone who couldn't swim throwing themselves from Alzikanem's harbour during a storm.

"If I, a humble peasant boy from the very edge of Drasken, can fight my way through an education and claw my way to the top of the hierarchy, I have no doubt you, Helleron Boratorren's niece and the girl who helped fight off an immortal, can as well." Fell reached out and patted her shoulder, the gesture just fatherly enough to remind her of her uncle's absence. He took a step back, as if to assess her. "But before you become the next Jalin, or whatever it is you have in mind, I need to know what you can do. Throw whatever you've got at me."

The Jalin couldn't know the extent of her abilities, so she'd considered the matter of how best to display her aasiurmancy for some time. The fireball she'd thrown at one of Katja Westervelt's mercenary thunderships had come most naturally; passing herself off as a pyromancer would be best. Recalling her scant knowledge of magic, she closed her eyes and loosened her stance, imitating the trance mages in training had to submit to in order to conjure. As she pretended to grasp into the aether, she called upon the node of power pulsing within her. In the absence of danger, it reacted slower to her summons, its empowering of her a sluggish trickle rather than the rapid rush she'd grown accustomed to.

Lacking even the most rudimentary training, the fireball she flung at the Jalin was uncontrolled and sputtering, its smoke trail more substantial than the flame itself. The Jalin raised his hands and threw up a wall of air, dispelling her attack with the same amount of energy it might take to sigh. As the smoke dissipated around him, he folded his arms across his chest and flashed her another smile.

"Not bad," he said. "Is that how it first manifested for you?"

"Yes," she lied.

He bent into a posture of combat readiness. "Do it again, but try and split your magic into two fireballs, one after the other. One from each hand, if you can."

Tali heaved in a breath and faked the trance again, this time having to reach deeper to net her magic beneath her influence. It wrapped around her soul like frayed rope, pulled tight around her even as she scrabbled with mental fingers to prise it free. When she succeeded, the node of aasiur within her ejected itself from her with the force of a mudslide, and she stumbled to her knees in its wake. It wasn't the two fireballs Fell had requested, but rather a seething hurricane of flaming energy so hot and bright it burned deep blue.

The Jalin stepped back beneath the onslaught, his shield of air spreading the ethereal flames to either side of him, where they snatched at his wooden furniture and ravenously feasted. He spread his arms wide, redirecting his aeromancy until two separate streams whipped at the fire tearing at his belongings, extinguishing it before it could cause irreversible damage.

He didn't rush to help her up, instead regarding her with mouth agape and brows raised.

"What was that?" he demanded.

Tali rose to trembling feet. "I panicked," she said. "I thought it was going to turn on me." Her throat was tight and her lungs leaden. That hadn't happened before. Maybe because she'd never had to force the magic.

Fell considered her for a long moment, his eyebrows yanked into a frown. He seemed to come to a decision because he straightened and clapped his hands. "Let me try something," he said. "I'm going to fire a stream of aeromancy at you, and I want you to contest it with your pyromancy. Have you got enough aasiur left for that?"

"I think so." In truth, she didn't know her limits. Where the average mage could manage one major attack, or a handful of the size she'd already conjured, she might be able to continue unabated, or at least until the toll of it knocked her unconscious. She'd been told mages unravelled their own minds if they continued to conjure beyond their natural limits and wondered if such a restriction applied to her.

The aeromancy Fell whipped her way was a gentle breeze at first, only intensifying when fire erupted from her palms and joined with his conjuration in the space between them. Fire and air clashed, magical energy coalescing around their contest as Tali continued to pour flames into a miniature hurricane that devoured it.

The onslaught strengthened again, until her fire flashed back towards her face and the bite of the wind inspired pain. She felt it, the full might of a force of nature levelled at her face, crosswinds ripping around and under her guard and prickling at her skin with cold, sharp fingers. Her fire rippled along her arms, and she had an image of herself set ablaze by her own magic and burning to a charred husk. Panic erupted within her and she grasped blindly outwards, snaring the magic composing Fell's attack.

The world tilted, then spun away altogether, reality chased into oblivion as her head collided with the stone floor. She forced herself to her elbows and blinked away tears, her heartbeat thudding in her ears.

The Jalin crouched on his knees beneath the raised platform. Around them, the room had been destroyed. What furniture had been spared her fire had been shunted against the wall and splintered, the detritus thrown around as if in a storm. Tali numbly realised several shards of a wooden desk had grazed her arm; blood welled up beneath her sleeve.

The look Fell shot at her was one an outmatched opponent might give their would-be-killer in the seconds before they're dispatched. "What did you do?"

Tali remembered the fight with the Novhar, and the way she'd channelled his own fire back into his hands. She'd used his own aasiur against him, a thing her uncle had told her wasn't possible. Or, at least, not possible for someone without Novhar blood.

In her hysteria, she'd taken the Jalin's aasiur, the air he'd speared at her, and thrown it outwards.

"I felt the pull of what you were doing," Fell said as he climbed to his feet. "Like I was a fish you were reeling in. How did you do that?" Something approaching delight replaced his cornered-prey expression.

"I don't know," Tali admitted. "I… panicked. I thought my fire was going to consume me."

The Jalin clapped his hands together again. "I suspected you were special."

"Suspected?" A cold feeling gripped her chest. "You tried to overwhelm me on purpose?"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Fell scoffed and glanced about to his destroyed possessions. "I must admit I didn't expect a reaction quite that explosive, so I suppose I deserve all this. But yes, I did it on purpose."

Her fists clenched instinctively at her side. "Why? We could have died."

"Hardly. But I needed to know. Heller wouldn't have sought out my protection for you if you were just a simple untrained mage. You're not an Arisen's child, are you? Not even the Arisen themselves can manipulate another's aasiur."

So, her secret hadn't even lasted her first proper encounter with the Jalin. If she revealed the truth, would he, as Shira seemed to fear, look upon her not as an aspiring student, but as a weapon he could turn against his enemies? Would her hopes of freedom in Drasken be cut cruelly short, as everything else in her life was destined to be?

Fell beckoned to her, and she followed him up the spiralled staircase to the raised platform. By virtue of its elevated position, it had been untouched by their exchange, and he gestured for her to take a seat at the desk crouched there as he searched through its drawers. At the Jalin's insistence, she shrugged out of her coat and rolled up her shirt sleeve, baring the wounds along her forearm. They looked like the swipe of a monster's claws, and for a moment she recalled Erun's taloned hands and wondered what injuries the strange creature could inflict on her.

Fell wiped away the blood and wrapped a bandage around the limb, then looked up from where he crouched at her side. "What are you, child?"

Though she knew he'd physically lowered himself beneath her to give her the pretence of power, she was disarmed enough to acquiesce. "My mother was a Novhar."

The words felt good falling from her mouth. It wasn't until she'd released her secret that she understood it had been curdling at the back of her mind; to share it now was freedom of a sort.

She glanced down at the Jalin, unsure what to expect of a man three hundred years her senior. He rocked back on his haunches, then braced his hands against his knees and surged upright. In stunned silence, he claimed the chair on the opposite side of the desk, his outline cast in fiery shades of early morning orange.

"You're certain?" Fell asked.

She nodded. "As certain as I can be. The Novhar who's been chasing me told me of her."

"Novhar?"

She clamped her mouth against a secret already spilled. In the brief elation at sharing her identity with someone else, she'd forgotten Fell had been kept ignorant about her pursuer and believed an Arisen hounded her.

"A Novhar came to Alzikanem and tore the island apart. Not an Arisen," she elaborated. "I was the one who worldstrode myself and Shira to Sinnis, where he found us again. It was there he told me of my mother, and how his allies killed her for having a child with a mortal."

Fell raised a hand to his chin and chewed on a fingernail, his other hand tapping absently at his desk. "Heller must hate me, to draw me into something like this and lie about it," he said to himself. Then, he awarded Tali his attention. "The Novhar chases you still, yes? I should be flattered your uncle thinks I can stand against such a creature. Not that I won't try, of course."

"You don't seem as surprised as I was, when I was first told."

He chuckled softly. "There are mages among the nobility who were alive in the dying days of the Novhar Empire. The mythical epochs of deep history are less fantastical when you have first-hand accounts." He flattened his hands, silencing his tuneless tapping. "This is, however, the first I've heard of a half-Novhar child. It certainly explains how you were able to directly manipulate my aasiur."

"It does?"

"Humans are made of aasiur," Fell said with the tone of one who'd delivered such a lecture before. "They take the energy from the Gnostic Planes into them and manifest it in the physical world."

"And the Novhar?"

"The Novhar are made of something else entirely. 'Made' being important because the first generation was constructed, not born. They can tear aasiur straight from the Planes without having to take it into themselves. They aren't bound by the same rules as mortals." He thumped his chest. "You draw from within yourself, don't you? It's why you felt so weak when you fought against me. I suspect it's a hybrid version of aasiurmancy, mortal and Novhar, bound together so that you form your own aasiurmantic source." An absent smile claimed his features and he seemed to gaze through her. "Imagine the possibilities of combat-mages who don't need to rely on the Gnostic Planes. It'd be like a thundership with itself as an engine, no need for fuel."

Is he already seeing me as a weapon?

"What does this mean?" she asked, hoping to draw him back to rational thought.

His eyes sharpened as he looked at her once more. "It means, Tali, that you and I are going to have to explore the extent of your abilities. This is unheard of, and it might give us the knowledge we need to better defend against your pursuer and whoever else is aimed against Drasken.

"It also means you'll need to learn standard aasiurmancy as the College teaches it and do your best to emulate it. No one else can know about what you are, not if there are truly immortals after you. To the rest of the staff and students—to anyone who isn't me—you'll need to remain the mundane child of an Arisen."

Continue the lie, then. Strive to hide her abilities as her father had striven to hide her for most of her life. The deception didn't gall because she was used to it by now, but a part of her had hoped she'd be safe enough with the Jalin supporting her to reveal what she was.

"And then?" she pressed. "What happens after I finish learning what I need to?"

"That would be up to myself and the Varkommer," Fell replied, somehow answering the question without really acknowledging her. "You'd be an invaluable weapon against our enemies. Even more so if we can now count Novhar among them."

There it was, then. The word from his own mouth.

Weapon.

―

For an hour or so after, Tali and Fell sparred. The Jalin took great delight in watching her disperse his aasiurmantic barrages, and even applauded her when, on one occasion, she slammed a wreath of his conjured shadow from existence by trapping it in her palms.

His interest in her had gained a suspicious edge now, though he seemed ignorant of the discomfort he'd caused her. When a knock rang out on the almighty doors to the Jalin's quarters, she deflated in relief.

The young man who slid across the threshold was a near-perfect reflection of the Jalin, albeit half the physical age and not quite so tall. He was brown-haired, and gangly in a way that suggested he'd one day equal his father in height, and his face possessed the same softness, as if his expression would fall more easily into a smile than a frown.

"Tali, allow me to introduce my youngest, Benjamin," Fell said, extended an arm to draw his son in.

The boy inclined his head in the shallowest nod. "Call me Benji," he said. "I'm here to show you around the College, if the Jalin no longer requires your presence."

"We're done for now," Fell said, and waved his son away. "I'll summon you here whenever I have the chance to mentor you, Tali. Otherwise, remember what I said, and apply yourself to your studies."

Pretend to conjure correctly, he meant. Don't let anyone else know she was a Valhir.

She bid the Jalin a stilted farewell, then followed Benji out through the twin doors and into an open courtyard beyond. It was a picturesque scene, monastic enough to remind her of the secluded little courtyard in her father's estate on Alzikanem. Not that anything of that place would remain, she reminded herself. It was all rubble and ash and dead bodies.

"So, how are you finding our glorious city so far?" Benji asked, flashing her a glance.

"Big," she admitted.

He snorted. "It's twice the size of Empyria, if you can believe it. Big might be an understatement."

A large fountain marked the courtyard's centre, around which five overbearing statues were arrayed. She wandered towards the fountain and circled it, studying the stone faces for familiar features. Her father had once told her of Empyria's Path of Triumph, along which were displayed the marble statues of the Imperium's most important historical figures. The Iron Wolf himself was among them, though Endarion had shown no pride in the accomplishment.

"Who are they?" she asked.

"The first Varkommer," Benji said. "Darin, over there, was an Arisen godking. He ceded from the Theocracies and became the first Keizer of Drasken. Then there's Aharon, his favoured general. Kora was his niece, and Ranka one of his most steadfast allies." He halted beneath the final statue and looked up. "And this is Vala, Darin's sister and the first Jalin. As you can imagine, she's my father's favourite."

Vala's statue drew Tali's gaze for reasons she couldn't explain. The warm smile and soft eyes, though carved from dead rock, inspired a strange kind of yearning within her. Not that it made any sense; she'd never heard of the woman before, let alone seen her image to be so struck by it now. Feeling foolish, she turned away.

"My father said you were from the Imperium, yes?" Benji prompted.

"In a sense." Her hand shot to her horns. "My mother was a Tharghestian. She died during its conquest, and my father took me home with him." Not exactly a lie.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Benji said, and gestured her away from the fountain. "I find it ironic a nobleman from a nation that abhors magic would sire a child with such magical potential."

Tali bristled. "This 'potential' means I've spent the last few months being hunted down like a wounded animal."

The young man stepped back and raised placating hands. "I didn't mean it like that. It just struck me as odd that my father would agree to personally mentor you. Must mean you're powerful, that's all."

"No, just a favour to my uncle," she replied, deciding on the lie for convenience. If Benji thought she'd only earned Fell's patronage because he and Heller were friends, the boy wouldn't question her abilities or watch her too closely when she conjured. Nepotism could be her shield.

Benji looked like he wanted to challenge her but averted his eyes and accepted her words. "Okay," he said, and steered the conversation to other topics. "I'm a first-year, so we'll have most of our classes together. I'll show you the basics today, but I should warn you that Ren Câdern is a maze, and a big one at that. If you just stick close to me over the next term, you shouldn't get lost."

"First-year?" Tali echoed. It rankled to have her lack of education exposed so blatantly.

"As soon as a mage awakens to their power, they enrol in a college at the start of the educational year. They are first-years, most between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, because that's when awakening is most common," Benji explained. "The first two years are mandatory, and everyone goes through them at the same pace. The three after that allow you to focus on your specialised branches. After that, you can either specialise further, or learn other branches in pursuit of immortality. That can take decades, depending on the person. Most mages are only here for the standard five."

Decades? Even five years sounded an infinite stretch for someone who'd only been alive for sixteen. If she ploughed through Drasken's standard education, she wouldn't be master of her own destiny until she was twenty-one. Wouldn't be able to return to her uncle's side. Wouldn't be capable of protecting herself. To her mind, that half decade represented a prison term.

"Pah, don't look so worried," Benji chuckled. "If my father's mentoring you, I imagine you'll be done far sooner than the rest of us."

There was a hint of challenge in his tone, as if he again wanted to question her about why his father had elected to take her on. She ignored him, and in response he shrugged and led her across the Jalin's courtyard.

Ren Câdern turned out to be just as labyrinthine as Benji has suggested. Rather than the individual towers decorating the rest of Kaltoren, several squatter buildings slammed together in a tangle comprised the College. Benji's directions did nothing to guide her through the hollow stone innards of the endless hallways. Where her father's estate on Alzikanem had been closed and cramped, the College was open and airy, it's corridors many feet higher than warranted, the halls and classrooms dizzyingly spacious.

"All of Kaltoren's towers were built by Novhar," Benji explained as he led her down towards the first-years' dining hall at the College's base. "Everything was made bigger to account for their larger frames."

So soon after her conversation with the Jalin, the word Novhar held a significance Tali didn't wish to confront. Her companion hadn't noticed her unease because he continued. "Strange, to think these hallways are tens of thousands of years old. We walk in the footprints of immortals, in every way."

Entry to the dining hall was permitted through a wide archway, and so early in the day was relatively empty. Ranks upon ranks of tables stretched from one wall to the other, and along the back was what Tali assumed to be the kitchen.

"All of the first-year wings are down in the bottom ten levels of the College. The longer you stay here, the higher up you move." A violent laugh cut Benji's commentary short.

When Tali glanced over to the source seated at a nearby table, she saw Renna's familiar features scrunched into a jeering expression.

"Ah, you found my friend. How kind of you." She jumped to her feet and approached. "I'll take over from here."

Benji looked like he wanted to argue, then settled for shooting Renna a grimace. He looked back to Tali. "We'll share most classes, so if you need any help, just ask."

"She won't be needing your help, kolmas." The last word was barbed, fired at Benji's departing back. Tali watched him leave, then let herself be steered over to Renna's table.

"Kolmas?"

Renna chuckled. "Old Drasken for 'third'. Did Benji not tell you? Oh, he didn't? How deceptive of him." The other girl settled down on her seat as if preparing to tell a story. Dressed now in the College's robe-like uniform, she looked less streetwise than she had on their first meeting. "Right, so what's the major problem you run into if your entire noble class is immortal? Overpopulation, of course. In Drasken, nobles can only have two children."

Tali looked back to where Benji had disappeared, already suspecting where Renna's explanation headed.

"You have more than that, one of your kids has got to give up the pursuit of immortality. That, or they're sent to live with a mortal family, depending on how important their parents are." Renna hooked her thumb towards the archway. "Our dear old Benjamin is his father's third child."

"But not his mother's?"

"Therein lays the loophole. Anyone else, and it wouldn't fly. But because it's the Jalin and the Keizerin, Benji gets to skip around school learning what we learn, when by rights he should be barred from magic or foisted onto a poor peasant family, because both his older brothers are already immortal.

"Everyone thought his mother was barren, so his father had two kids with another woman. Keizerin adopts them both, the Drakaarens get their heirs, everyone's happy. Only the Keizerin isn't quite so barren, and out pops Benji. So, what do you do? Well, you look the other way."

"It sounds like you don't like him that much," Tali stated.

Renna thumped the table. "It's my obligation. His father killed most of my family, drove me and my father out into the Karhes. Now my father's got to serve the Jalin, and everyone looks at me like I'm a smear of shit on the cobbles. It's only right Benji gets to feel some of that, being as entitled and protected as he is."

Though she said nothing to contest the other girl, to Tali's eyes the situation was familiar. Benji's circumstances were separated from her own only by the fact his parents stood by him, and both still lived. Like her, he wasn't supposed to be alive, his mere existence apparently a challenge to some, an insult to others. Also like her, he was a pariah among his peers, and though he wasn't hunted down for what he was, she didn't imagine he enjoyed the insults.

And what of Renna? Just as much a pariah as the pair of them, though a careless attitude and boisterous deflection formed her armour. As selfish as it was, Tali felt a bit better knowing she wasn't alone in her loneliness.

"Don't feel bad for him, though. His daddy's the Jalin; if the insults hurt him that much, he'd have had me expelled by now." Renna looked again towards the vacant archway. "I don't actually mind him, to be honest. Wouldn't say it to his face, of course." She returned her attention to Tali, her mouth curving into a wicked smile. "Now, tell me all about your session with the Jalin. I want to know what branch you are, and how impressive your magic is."

Tali heaved a sigh, then prepared the same cycle of lies she knew she'd have to make her reality, if she planned to blend in here.