Daughter of Azeroth

75 | KHADGAR'S ECHO

The next morning, Idira woke with a start, a blanket over her. A mug of coffee stood on the bedside table along with a platter of fresh fruit. Tucked up beside it, an assortment of sweet biscuits. Only the faintest trace of Khadgar's singular scent remained. She eased up and touched the coffee. Cold. She shivered, not from her inner cold, but from pleasure. Her plan had worked, he had seen her in her shift. Wait. She looked down at the blanket, frowning. Had he conjured a blanket for her or had she done it and not remembered? She had been cold. No. She remembered now, half asleep, she had conjured the thing, sometime after she had fallen asleep. She bit back a curse. Typical.

She cast a small spell and warmed the coffee again. She sipped, enjoying a fresh ripple of pleasure despite her annoyance over the blanket. Khadgar had been here, looking at her again, a small part of her found his private surveyal of her delicious, erotic. She slid her hand under the pillow to pull out his journal, thinking to read her favourite parts again. She reached further in. The pillow tumbled onto the floor, she scrambled under the sheet, frantic, searching. His journal was gone. He must have used the raven while she was absorbed in his journal. She bit her lip, her cheeks burning with shame. How could she ever face him now? He knew she knew his secrets, had read his most private, intimate thoughts, forcing him to return to his sanctuary to remove the book while she slept.

There could be no turning back from this. Whatever slim chance she had had with him was now gone forever. She eyed the raven, despondent.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered to it, though its eyes were dull. 'I only wanted to know who you really are, and now that I do, I want to be yours more than ever. Khadgar, there is only you. I could never love anyone else.'

The raven flew closer and landed on the bed's footboard as though drawn by her words. It eyed her. She sat up, uncertain. Could Khadgar hear her without her knowing? The raven edged along the footboard, flapping its way, awkward, over to the bedside table. It stole a biscuit and returned to its perch on the back of one of the chairs. She sighed, relieved. Khadgar hadn't heard her after all. The bird just wanted to eat. She took one of the biscuits. It was delicious. She smiled. The bird had good taste. She tossed it another one, grateful for its companionship at least. If only it wasn't a bird, if only it was a human, someone she could talk to, someone who would make her feel less alone.

She watched the raven work its way through the biscuit, a wild idea coming to her. She scoffed. It was a ridiculous notion. It came back, stubborn, insistent, taking shape. She toyed with her coffee cup, considering. There had been an obscure text in one of the arcane tomes relating to what she was thinking, but the spells it referred to were another thing entirely. It would never work. Wait. She sat up straighter, her skin tingling. If she could conjure the gowns she wanted with her Light why could she not do this as well? Why stop at gowns? There might not be any limitations to what she could accomplish. A rush of pleasure surged through her. All the time she had spent in Khadgar's sanctuary she had believed herself inferior to him, but what if her awakened and empowered Light had granted her power as great as his? Something such as she was considering would require powerful magic. The magic of an archmage, at least. She jumped up and pulled on her dress, her thoughts racing ahead, thinking of the hurdles she would need to overcome. It didn't matter, now she had thought of it, she couldn't think of anything else. She grabbed another biscuit and ran down the hall to the library. It was time to see just how powerful she had become.

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It took almost the whole day to prepare, time spent checking and rechecking vague texts, puzzling over interpretations, desperate to reassure herself no harm would come to the poor raven, who watched her, curious, as though intuiting the part it would soon play in her experiment.