Igniting A Flame {Kingdoms #1}

Forty-Four

Lukas thought Raenwood would be jauntier. Despite the lush greenery and thriving taverns, there was something barren lurking within the local's weary eyes. A place with no magic or iron willed ruler, a curse forever associated with their culture. He supposed there was something torpid about being the odd kingdom out. The area where gods deemed unworthy of such elegant magic. He noticed Aethran healers only travelled through the town a few days at a time, offering a limited service for those who need it. The only immortal power they could harness. If only they knew the charming, tawny haired man and fetching brute persistently by his side were descendants of a kingdom long lost to them.

Lukas dreaded awakening this morning to the glistening sun and patches of dried mud stuck to his new, thin, white shirt. Not because the light was blinding or the ground too sodden, but his head throbbed. After he had flailed his arms across the teeming boulevard, slammed a privy door in his face and blacked out among the stench of filth, Yevvi had found him and dragged Lukas to camp. His stomach churned recalling the mix of confusion and disgust plastered on his face, making their current situation far more tense and awkward. Thankfully, Arvin had rushed to Lukas's side with a jug of fresh water and inquisitive green eyes. They had questions, indeed. And he had never made so many pathetic excuses at once in his entire life. Tired, stressed, a little sick from the rain, anything swift and simple to distract them from the glowing purple vein running from his wrist up to his forearm. Lukas didn't need an examiner to decide that this thrumming vein was not his, but a certain devious woman from a far realm. Right then, he made the decision to attempt to shut off his mind from Khandi, to take a break from her incessant prodding. He had enough, anyways.

To tear away the thick tension sizzling between Lukas and Yevvi, Arvin had kindly taken it upon himself to discuss their plan. The conniving warrior had swiped loose gold from unsuspecting travellers and drunkards euphorically singing bawdy tunes, barely enough for the cheapest and shoddiest ship. Lukas had thought such a gallant companion such as himself would spit at the swindlers who shamelessly swipe from the innocent. Desperate times, desperate measures, he supposed.

They planned to slip from the camp at the brink of dawn in the following day and board the first ship to open their services to Sora. Arvin had said that since the prophecy had grown popular overnight, it was only a matter of time before others started connecting raven hair and golden eyes to the only boy known on earth to possess such a unique combination. He shivered, recalling his time ambling through the streets, ordered to listen in to casual gossip. Some raved in protest of how dastard and threatening this prophecy rumour was to their very hinterland. Others calmly hissed their descriptive plans of torture they'd inflict for the cursed half-breed king-to-be. Gleaming sickle to flesh flashed through his mind, eyes of empty flames. He tried and failed to wipe his time in the cell from his mind.

Now, Lukas gulped down the vigorous wind as he neared that lustrous orange head of hair. Arvin had practically forced him to endure lessons of controlling his magic from Yevvi. Lukas did not seek atonement nor desired to suffer the stilted conversations between once friends. He discarded his sword, whose namesake upheld a mighty god, by the pile of belongings just before the open area. Estof remained strapped to his waist in case of emergency, or the wrong words said by the man he now faced. Yevvi glanced to him momentarily, nocking an arrow and drawing back the string. He watched as the wind paused, the distant trees like eyes of deep green. A shrill whistle echoed through the vast arena, the arrow soaring far and delving into a branch jutting from the largest tree.

Lukas spied the ardent face gleefully grinning from his rested position against a rock formation, those onyx eyes shining from a mile away. He loathed the way Dolf beamed with a young guard's enthusiasm, the way he bounced up and down when anyone approached him. He often dreamed of walloping the young man, to show his fearless dominance. Yet, Lukas knew he would horribly fail and somehow that irritated him more than the disgustingly radiant joy coiling around Dolf like a shield. Yevvi waved at the rested man before waltzing over to Lukas, his own annoyance like a shield too.