Frozen Lakes and Forest Fires

Chapter 2

Alistar leaned against the side of the building, his head tilted back, eyes on the stars above him. He took a slow drag, relieved to be alone again. He had slipped away easily enough, he'd learned long ago how to fade himself into the background, where it was easy to observe people or slip away without being noticed.

When he was a teenager, he would use magic to stay unnoticed. The runes for Stealth, Silence, and Disillusionment were tattooed on the inside of his thigh near his groin, where they were least likely to be found or noticed when activated. He rarely used them now, only when he had to, but to blend unnoticed into the background, there was nothing magical about it. Dark, nondescript clothes, smooth, measured movements, stillness, silence, and a shadowed area to lean in, simple as that.

Silence and stillness he had mastered as a child. He had always been more reserved, happier to let Hammer and his jovial enthusiasm take center stage. Alistar was content to stay slightly off to the side, laughing at his friend's jokes and occasionally join in the conversations. His mother always told him it was important to keep control of his thoughts and emotions at all times. To build walls in his mind, file things away and imagine himself as an iceberg in the ocean. Only showing a piece on the surface and hide the majority below, unseen and unknown.

He had rolled his eyes at her for months, only trying to get her to stop nagging.

Until he set his bed on fire during a nightmare.

He was 6.

4 years before Mages typically present any sign of magic.

She'd told him everything then, about why it was so important for him to control his emotions and tame his mind, about who his father really was. He was not a nameless Mage from a visiting coven, Alistar was not the result of a magical ritual during the summer solstice.

His mother had been on a pilgrimage of sorts, researching Ley Lines, when she "had a bit of bad luck involving a volcano' when she met her Mate. She never told him more than that, "the less you know, the less you have to hide, my love. It's for the best." Instead Alistar learned that there were people in their coven who would torture and kill him just for being born, just for not having 2 Mage parents.

He grew up fast after that, he withdrew further into himself barely speaking to anyone but his mother and Hammer, who refused to be cut out of his best friend's life. He meditated whenever he could, learning how to control his mind and the fire that seemed to burn in his very core.

Once he managed an initial control life got a little easier to control. He was able to compartmentalize easily and his emotions becoming so controlled it seemed as if he didn't have any at all.

"Think of an iceberg child. Show enough that people have an idea of who you are but keep the rest under the surface. If you control your mind, you control your power."

He started training physically as well. Martial arts, boxing and running. Training his body as well as his mind, by the time he was 18 he was as lethal as an assassin, strong, lean, cunning, intelligent, and stealthy. The only Mage his age who was more powerful was Hammer, a magical prodigy. Hammer's curiosity and endless intellect lead him to creating things and academic research. Alistar went into "security", but he quickly realized they were silently building an army.

His knowledge of a Mage Purity Cult was slow to build, rumors at first. Whispers about species of Fae being a plague on the earth, stealing magic from Mages, how other Fae partially shifters are driven by basic instincts barely better than the beasts they shift into. The idea of Mates is scoffed at, knowingly binding themselves to one person is called idealistic and believing in it is no better than believing in fairy tales.