Blood & Shadows

Eight

"Can't you just break the tethers? You're a powerful sorceress," Geraent shouts at me as we all sit around the fire in the middle of what used to be the temple to the united godhead.

"The tethers are threads of fate according to the book I found. It's something that once it's done cannot be undone," I explain for what feels like the thousandth time.

Vrythien's been oddly silent staring off into the night. He's the only one out of everyone who hasn't taken their turn at stupid questions.

"You cannot undo what's been done, fine. But can you stop it from activating at the whim of this other?" Vrythien asks, poking the fire with a stick. "Alter the spell around us somehow?"

Can I? I fall into silence thinking. Walking back to the horses I take the book out of the saddle bags and open it, reading as I return.

"Maybe," I sigh and sit on the ground, flipping through the pages, pouring over the script explaining how this other created the tethers.

Hours pass and I don't move from my spot by the fire as I lose myself in the dead sorcerer's notes... until I come across script so neat it reads like a prayer.

In Razeth's name.

"Razeth." As soon as I say the name something claws through my mind, demanding my attention as though by speaking the name I invoke the memory.

I sit at a cafe in Saelis's Watch at cliff side. Below the cerulean waters churn as the gulls cry above. In my hand I hold a book, studying the spells there in. A stranger breaks my concentration as they sit across from me. Orangey wizard robes with a bright red sash. His hair is auburn waves that brush his shoulders, and his eyes sparkle like polished amber.

"I'm not the sort to do this," That voice as thick and sweet as honey seems so very warm and inviting. "But you are the most exquisite creature of shadows and gold. It would be amiss for someone not to tell you that today." He grins at me a pleasant smile set in a pale face with a ginger beard. "I'm Razeth. Soon to be High Wizard of the Red." He holds his hand out and as I lock eyes with his amber gaze my stomach sinks.

"Fuck!" I choke out, tossing the book from me like it's grown hot to the touch.

"Everything all right?" Vrythien asks, eyeing me carefully. "You have that I'm going to send my shadow army to murder everyone look in your eyes again."

"Razeth. That's who will benefit from the spell."

"Razeth? Saelis's Watch's most powerful wizard? The youngest high wizard of the red ever? That Razeth?" I nod to his words and Vrythien cackles. He literally throws himself back into the dirt and laughs like a mad man until he's left wheezing. "Of course, of fucking course it is." He adds once quieted. "Part of me isn't surprised not one iota but...fuck if it wasn't nice to have hope for once."

"He's who..." I can't finish it only partly because I don't really know everything he did. "If it's the last thing I do Razeth will die by my hand screaming."

Vrythien sits back up and glances at the other two sleeping. "As powerful as he is why are we still alive?"

"He's a wizard using a sorcery spell. We have to be physically present, and hear his voice. The magic will fight him. But I believe his aim is to become an actual god."

Vrythien snorts. "Of course, he does. To be fair I do understand it. If you can make yourself a god, why not do it? I don't think I'd care one way or another if I wasn't wrapped up in it." He picks at his nails and shrugs his shoulder as though it's nothing.