Silver Silence

A Light Warning

Once they escaped from the castle, they stole a carriage. Sonia drove it, of course, since she was the only one among them who wasn't supposed to be in a prison cell. Siles and the rest hid within the carriage, the window curtains hiding their faces from passerby. He didn't need to push the curtain aside to know when they had escaped from the city. The horse's hooves no longer clicked against cobblestone; they thudded against dirt. And he could smell the cow manure.

The farmland stench seemed to stick with the carriage even after they reached the strip of forest separating the two kingdoms. Siles felt ill, but it was nothing compared to the nausea he had felt in the Southern Queen's dungeons. He was okay, now. Everybody else had recovered just fine, so he had to be fine. Besides, he hadn't seen the strange lights since they had reunited with Sonia.

Halfway through the forest, the horses slowed, then stopped. Siles placed a hand on the hilt of his stolen sword. Knuckles rapped against the carriage door. "We're across the border. Someone swap with me. I'm tired," Sonia complained.

August, Penelope and Brigitte all looked to Siles. He resisted the urge to sigh. He was tired, too, but none of them cared about that. He opened the door, stepping out as Sonia shoved past him to step in. He took her place at the front of the carriage and whipped the horse back into motion. Their journey would have been quicker if their carriage had had multiple horses, but a grander carriage would have been tougher to steal. Siles breathed in the fresh air and searched his surroundings for a distraction. In the carriage, he had watched August. The view outside wasn't nearly as interesting.

However, about an hour after they had left the border forest behind, Siles saw soldiers. They were training. And it was pointless. Rivers of fire, shards of ice, and twisters of wind all pierced the air as the soldiers prepared for battle. Even though their powers were nothing compared to those of the Councilmembers, the soldiers still relied on their magic more than their swords. They were going to lose the war, and it was going to be terrible.

Except they were still training. Siles watched the soldiers, their unblemished armor shining in the afternoon sun, their faces unscathed by enemy weapons. They still laughed. Their smiles still reached their eyes. The war hadn't started, yet. August still had time to call it off.

The joyous thought of calling off the war almost distracted him from the light. It was harder to see with sunlight subduing its effects, but it was there. Taunting him. Siles tried not to stare at it, as if pretending it wasn't there would make it leave. He didn't want to consider what it could mean. He didn't want to be sick. But it was irresistible. He couldn't help but watch it in the corner of his eye. And he noticed a pattern. Every time an element burst from a soldier's hand, light flashed around their head. In fact, the light began before the magic burst forth, as if predicting it. Siles thought of August's light. It had risen every time he had mentally spoken to Sonia. It fit the pattern; August's light had come when he had used his magic.

If his theory was correct, then he had developed a power, and the Southern Queen's poison had triggered it. Siles chuckled to himself. The Southern Queen had tainted the very person she had believed to be pure. Though the humor didn't make his newfound ability any less pointless. Magic was already visible through its results; he didn't need a light to tell him about it.

By the time the night had reclaimed the horizon, Siles had decided to ignore the light. It wasn't a hallucination, and that was all that mattered. He was sane. He was home. He rushed the horse along the Royal City's cobblestones and stopped at the iron bars of the castle gates. The guards stared at him with wide eyes. They looked as if they had seen a ghost, and in a way, they had. Siles wouldn't have been surprised if the Southern Queen had claimed that he and August were dead.