Elven Legacy

Chapter 37

Day 7

Noah

It was still a solid hour before sunrise when, sick of staring with eyes wide open into the shadows of his narrow bedroom, Noah got up. There was something febrile about his movements, something pivotal about this moment, this day.

He felt, maybe, a bit like how Bryani must feel before getting on the stage to perform one of his plays. But it was a great feeling. 'Friendly flutters,' Bryani had once called them.

There was a liberation deep down, in the pit of his stomach, and something unlocked and freed in his mind. It felt good to have reached a decision. You're about to get some catalyst-powered back-up, Jaden and friends, whether you guys want it or not.

The night was at its coolest and quietest point, when not even the ghost of distant chatter wafted from Sun's End, or anywhere. Perhaps a vague, distant tinkling of chimes, but that was all. The city was sound asleep – it was a shadowy hush he could feel more than see as he carefully pushed a window shutter fully open. The sandstorm must have died off completely at some point in the night. The crescent moon shone fiercely down at him, flanked with her myriad starry sisters. After breathing in the brisk pre-dawn air, Noah left the window's side, and got to work.

Soon, both his bedroom and the combined kitchen and living area of the small house became filled with scents like saffron, cinnamon and vetiver, from the aromatic candles Noah lit up with easy, tingling rushes of magic. With the stimulated state he was already in, the catalyst's energy leapt out to do his bidding, as swiftly and naturally as moving his feet or hands.

Hart Delun homes were rarely furnished with lamps, there was simply not much of a need for them. Kili, however, certainly had a love for decorative and fragrant wax candles. She was on really friendly terms with the chandler down the street, he knew.

If he was honest, the heady scents made Noah a bit queasy. Good thing he didn't have Jaden's elf-descendent senses right now.

In candlelight, he got to packing, darting about the room in a frenzy, drawing items from corner shelves and desks.

Scabbarded sword and shoulder strap to carry it, tooled leather belt with his throwing knives already in the sheaths, and a couple more knives he could conceal elsewhere. On the wall, hanging from a protruding nail, the swirling design of copper and silver of his chakram gleamed in candlelight, catching his eye, and he snatched that too, adding it to the pile on the table. Also, some dark red-dyed cloths for blade cleaning purposes. Oil and whetstone for the sword.

Maybe a coil of rope. 'You never know when you're gonna need rope,' Dharkan had once told him. Apparently, that had been a piece of advice from his Assassins Guild mentor.

Noah couldn't find any rope – decided he'd get back to looking for that later.

Then he moved on to more practical, day-to-day items. Coin pouch, spare clothing, waterskin, shaving kit, and the like. He went back and forth between his bedroom and the main room a couple of times, dumping stuff on the table. Found his canvas backpack too – perfect. And also, his metal and leather flask, which he could get filled up with rum at Sun's End later. Just in case he felt homesick, somewhere along the way.

Snatching up a random candle, he moved over to the dusty bookshelf – neither Kili nor himself were particularly strong on cleaning, as it turned out. Getting more disciplined at that had been on Noah's to-do-list for a while now.

It just never seemed to become the top priority on the list, for some reason.

He glanced at the shelves now and, somewhere in the mess of leather-bound books, scrolls, pieces of parchment, decorative bowls and other odds and ends, found what he was looking for.