When His Magick Exploded ✓

3: "The things I do for their aesthetic pleasure."

Rounding the corner onto familiar terrain, Cypur left the hustle bustle of nightlife behind him. Familiar sett roads mingling with gray-stoned houses with brick roofs surrounded him. Cormeia Town was a town of the rich and the elite of the elite. If he passed the square and its evergreen fir tree, he would come upon a lane with towering three, even four-story houses lining the way. Each would be decorated in early Carnival celebration of lanterns and colorful ribbon. The tallest house was the Cromlight house.

He took a deep breath and prepared to go home. He would act as Sorcerer as he possibly could. That meant not lowering himself to anyone no matter the circumstances. And with the verdict today, he had to act twice as Sorcerer. His family's reputation was on the line, not just his.

You can do this. He assured himself, adjusting his cape, and trying to get into that mindset. The world was in the palm of his hand. He was in control. No one could go against him and no one else mattered. Only he and the family name mattered. This was the aesthetic ethics of a Sorcerer. Shielded heart. Calm and collected. No tears, no panicking. Stiff and stoic. Sturdy and stable.

At that moment, he spotted a raven, twice the size of a normal one, lying on its side breathing heavily with its beak open. One of the wings twisted back at an awkward angle. Animals had short lives and died easily. Life's cycle. Normal process. Cypur kept his gaze forward and made way to the line of houses.

The raven opened its beak and let out a wheeze. "H... me."

Cypur froze. Did he just hear it speak?

"Please." The voice of the raven came more clearly this time and it sounded like a female. The raven flapped its wing. "Please help."

Cypur was alone in the square with the raven as far as he could see. He couldn't just leave her here. He shook his head. Sorcerers never just helped. They did everything out of aesthetic ethics. Wasn't he a Sorcerer? But his heart wavered. He wished it didn't. The side of himself that he believed made him weak, was calling out to him to help the raven without anything in return.

He found himself kneeling before the raven and he stopped. The raven had purple eyes and only one type of raven ever did.

"You're a Rauvuren!" He backed away. The Halfhuman type raven-like sub-specie were extremely rare and known to have had a hand in the chaos and evil that happened in the world two years ago. They were known to have purple eyes and to transform into ravens so they could fly. But what was a Rauvuren doing in the Fourth Ring? As far as he knew, most of them were jailed in the Fifth Ring forever.

"Please," the Rauvuren rasped. "Please find Wescherlie in the Trude and give this to her."

The Rauvuren lifted its body with a groan and underneath was a little brooch. "Take this," it said in a sharp, cutting tone. Cypur tentatively took the brooch. The next moment, a flash of purple lightning zipped across the Rauvuren's body and then it was still. Slowly, like a Sorcerer's death, its body turned into white sparkles and vanished. Only an ashy outline of its body was left.

Did the Rauvuren kill itself? He wondered. Why would it do that?

He recalled the Rauvuren's last words. Wescherlie in the Trude. He had never heard of anyone living in that desolate foggy place after Rauvurens left. When he turned the brooch over, a soft lavender light enveloped the surface. An insignia of two ravens beneath a wreath appeared along with a sprawl of small letters.

"Lady Wescherlie of Rauvuren Trude?" he whispered, and the light turned from purple to blue. A keyhole emerged. It was lock magic, but the old kind where the code was more complicated than the ones Sorcerers used today. It meant there was something inside the brooch. Cypur put it in his pocket to study later. It clinked against the omnia.