Magistaire Chronicles: Shadows of the Past

Chapter 26

The air smelled of tea leaves and tasted of sugar, a telltale sign of where Elies was. Leaves the color of amber draped over his head while the tree to which they belonged sat at his back. It pulsed slowly as if breathing, and its golden roots stretched far beyond his line of sight and past the horizon. Drifting from the sky at a snail's pace were balls of light, which turned into saplings when they touched the ground.

"A sight, is it not?"

Galdraenae sat at Elies' side, grinning at him when he turned to her. "Whisking me away to gods know where again?" Elies asked.

"Again, this was your own doing, and you're here because it's familiar. You sought to reminisce," Galdraenae replied. "On what once was."

"What once...?" Elies frowned. "I've never been to this place. Not in this life, anyway."

Galdraenae shook her head at him. "You have," she said. "You and Celeste are there right now."

"The Scourge?" Elies gasped. "This is...?"

"The way it once was." Galdraenae flashed him a sorrowful look. "The way it was supposed to be."

Elies held out his hand and watched a dawnet flower blossom in his palm. "What happened to it?"

"The one you call Hazelmere destroyed it. Corrupted it, unable to control her gift." Galdraenae's eyes darkened. "She was cursed, doomed to spoil and impair everything she touched—it's why the lords of Erezeren locked her away." She ran a hand on the tree's trunk, to which it gave and glowed with each trace. "This tree was her cage."

Elies stared back at the woman with wide eyes. "But something went wrong."

Galdraenae gave a single nod. "You freed her. It was a must, of course. Mages were few and far between back then, and even you couldn't quell the threat of Shadowhands alone." Her lips twitched with a frown. "She destroyed these lands and nearly destroyed you, too."

"But?"

"What better way to stop a curse than with another curse?"

"Madness!" Elies stammered.

"You made a deal," Galdraenae said with a sigh. "With the Great Darkness, Erina." Disgust twisted her face. "To free her from her curse, you agreed to damn her to a life of magical ineptitude."

Elies furrowed his brow and looked away from her. "Does it haunt her? Even now?"

"It does," Galdraenae said. "She can never use magic to take a life, not in this life or next after that and so on. Be it man, beast, or otherwise."

Elies clenched his jaw. "Then I'll protect her!" He rose to his feet. "Send me back."

"I didn't send you here, remember? Do away with this place and return whence you came."

She cut Elies off before he could ask how.

"Repeat after me."

*******

The hoarse cries of goblins jolted Elies awake, the young man opening his eyes to see the Hob Goblin standing over him. The beast's mouth gaped, and it reared its club above its head, stopping mid-swing.

Y—Y'vanakaka!

The mountainous goblin sputtered and backed away, only for Elies' glare to freeze it in place. The surrounding horde released Hazelmere's hair and limbs from their grasp and stepped away from her, some stepping backward while others hesitantly stepped forward.

The Hob's fear vanished as quickly as it came, however. It ground its teeth together and squeezed the life from its club, giving it a hard cleave.

Z'hul Ujma!