The Girl, The Rat, And The Five Whiskered Snow Dragon

Chapter 14

The Hunt

When Kalin's throat was bitten by Ransom's blade, he felt all the rage he'd ever felt before in one quick moment. That boy would not be the death of him. He transformed from the wraith into his elven self, but the gash across his neck remained. The blood oozed from his fingers as he lifted his hand to his neck to stop the bleeding. Warm red plasma came spilling over his lips as he forced out the hushed words of a healing spell while he hurtled toward the ground. The wound closed. The assassin could feel the life still inside him, no longer rushing out from his unfastened neck. He righted himself in the air and harnessed the power of the wind to guide himself quietly to the ground; he couldn't control the wind well enough to fly, but he could use it to retard his fall. He landed nimbly on his toes with a scowl on his face.

Somehow, he felt like the boy had survived the fall; it was a feeling in his gut, and his instincts were seldom wrong, in fact, they had always saved him. The boy was out there, and if he was dead, he would find him; if he was alive, he would kill him. The boy had already lost an eye—perhaps that would be his memento: the one eye. Yes, an eye to keep watch from a jar on his shelf of mementos. An eye which would witness all the death that was yet to come. He'd never been bested before; it made the boy a sort of anomaly, an interest. Kalin felt a sort of disgust; a bad taste filled his mouth when he thought of what happened. He'd failed, and he never failed; not even a scratch had he gotten from all his assignments, and suddenly he was nearly killed? It was the gold trinket, not the boy. He'd been surprised by it; he'd been caught unprepared. Perhaps he'd not taken this one seriously enough. Who was this boy? He couldn't go back to Nimren to find out. He would have the boy in chains when he came before the throne, the boy in chains and nothing less.

Before he became Nimren's first and only apprentice, Kalin had never worried about acquiring the position. To be the apprentice was his and his alone to lose. It was as if it was his right, as if there was no other capable, no other comparable to his skill. No other with his ambition, his endurance, his will; but slowly, as he rose to power and held Nimren's approval, the fear of losing his position began to haunt him, the fear of another taking Nimren's affection. Why was Nimren so adamant about collecting this boy alive? There had been no other in Kalin's experience who had commanded Nimren's attention so, had him salivating, and there was something in Nimren's countenance which he'd never seen before. Was it worry? Surely Nimren didn't see something in this boy which he hadn't seen in himself. Could Nimren have someone he thought better to be his apprentice?

What is a man if he can't hold his position? What is a man if he isn't the best at what he does? To be the best or nothing, there was nothing else in life. He was one of the youngest to ever come to Umbrosia. When he saw the awesome power Nimren wielded and the ease with which he commanded it, Kalin never thought of a home that might have been, he never considered what his life was before Umbrosia. He only cared for power, he only cared to be master of his own destiny, to control the inescapable gravity of fate which jerked and pulled so many powerless others, but not him, never him. Kalin took a step and then began sprinting through the forest, the balls of his light feet pounding quickly and silently over the earth. The boy was near; he would find him.