AN: Jasor Salord is a certain type of man. I'm not sure how often he will narrate, he's almost impossible to work with. If these were essays on how they spent their summer, well, even his effort in that shows a great deal of his character.
Jasor Salord saw something that couldn't be. He saw the son of a boy he had killed in third year standing at Magi Yole's desk, staring back at him as if he knew. He, at least, got his reading list filled while Magi Yole wasn't at the desk. His research was safeguarded, even if the image of the boy burned into his mind.
The boy had been a second year. Aloof but far too friendly, following Jasor around and always with an excuse. Nothing was ever out of place. Everything had been oh so perfect.
Too perfect, the boy had likely been a shield choice for the Seven. Jasor executed him before he could share secrets with the Seven that would have gotten him killed.
Hadn't mentioned a child... maybe he hadn't known.
Nillon was caught up with Lugh doing research on Hellgates because Naena threatened to throw him into one. It made sense for Nillon to do the research but not for Lugh to support it. Even if a Seven spell could work against Salord blood and Nillon told them about Sentinels, they had no reason to look deeper into Hell unless they knew something about Naena.
The day Trathor performed his spell, Jasor followed in because he knew the university would be emptied. He went first to Naena's dorm, but he felt the magic there. Strong, powerful, driven into the stones of the building and uncrossable. The magic was unlike anything he had felt before. The raw power of that magic swirled around the dorm, erasing everything that attempted to reach in. He was aware that the spell could be triggered by the barest touch.
Jasor spent some ten minutes outside Naena's room, trying to come to terms with the fact that his bastard daughter was stronger than any mage he had ever felt before. He had thought himself over his head with Theon but had managed.
But Naena?
The kind of magic that had gone into that spell was nothing to be trifled with.
Instead, he went to Graydon's room. Barely more than a prison cell, the Pan heir had almost nothing in the room. Jasor had seen Seven bring practically their entire bedrooms to the school, but not Graydon. He brought a quilt protected by a woman's touch—no cast-off magic could attach to the quilt—and three contraceptive spells in his nightstand showing a vague but careful spell allowing all actions during.
That nagged at him even as he wedged a stone into the bed between the mattress and the frame. He had taken the stone from Nillon. While he wouldn't be able to retrieve it until the next summer, that wait would pay off tenfold.
He left the dorms, headed into the main building and to the salon. He looked over what she had done. The destruction she wrought.
The magic here felt different from her dorm, but a maelstrom could do that. Weaker than what was done in the dorm. His report said she uttered the words 'place glow here' before she went off. The term once applied to a spot in a spell where the glow would go to complete the spell. Yet as he leaned back and looked up, all he saw was protection and keeping spells.
So, he left the salon as he turned it over. If it wasn't the term itself and not a place where a glow might go, then she must have made some other connection. She must have seen one of those spells.
Where could she have seen such a spell?
He went to Trathor's office. There he placed the open letter written in Trathor's hand addressed to himself but unsigned.
Then he left through the main entrance as a Kaulu stood there with a cane. The cane caught his attention first. He knew it was magic and an heirloom but had never seen nor read of such a creature before. The spells carved along the cane warped and vibrated as he walked by.
When he looked up to take in the Kaulu's face and commit it to memory to add to his list, he saw that it was the Kaulu representative. Who had looked upward as he entered yet looked down and met his gaze. Steady and firm, the Kaulu representative appeared almost curious as Jasor walked past him. He made it to the door before he felt...
Kaulu.
The voice whispered just in his ear, causing him to hesitate and turn as he watched the Kaulu and realized his mistake. This was not a representative but a member of the central line. Slim, average of height with brown eyes, no hair on his chin and a head full of thick, dark hair. The only thing off about the man was the heirloom cane.
If not for that cane, Jasor might have simply walked by and not noticed him in the least.
He performed his research across the following weeks, returned the books the usual way, then took a teleporter to Riverend. There, he approached the Hanged Man, went around the back and met with the child holding a golden nugget. The child took him to Blackmarsh, leaving him there. He stood just south of the teleporter landing. He looked up at the Kaulu estate, trying to commit it to mind, when the Kaulu representative appeared.
Jasor recognized him from the day Trathor ran his spell.
Beside the man stood a shorter, younger man, lean like the Kaulu was but wearing no pants, just what appeared to be the Kaulu representative's jacket.
No one could answer as to the new representative's name.
No one had been updated.
The representative headed toward Blackmarsh as his travel companion stiffened. He saw the companion's head turn just slightly, turning a little toward the northeast. For a second, Jasor considered moving forward and ending the wildling.
Nothing else would be dressed like that except a wildling of exceptional talent. Otherwise, the Seven would have taken the time to sort things out on the other side rather than quickly sweeping them off before anyone could get a good look at them.
The wildling headed after the representative. There was something... dismissive about it.
Jasor frowned at that but turned and headed south. He stepped onto the quickened spell, spun out between the stars and gasped back to life as a draconian breathed into his mouth.
"In case anyone was wondering, I do not appreciate travelling like that," he snarled as he shoved the draconian away and stood. "This had better be good, or your eggs will be boiled."
A draconian crouched before him.
"Wyver sends his regards."
"Fuck off," Jasor said. "What is this about?"
"A warning from his lips to yours," the draconian hissed. "The dragoness rises."
"Hiss a little more on your 's's next time if you really want to sell it," he countered. "You didn't call me for prophecy. If you value your tongue, you'd best speak true-true."
A draconian term that basically meant cut the shit, but was a threat at the same time. If they blathered again, no one would blame him for stabbing an idiot.
The draconian held its hands away from its sides. It was nearly impossible to tell their gender unless they illusioned themselves. Even then, sometimes the males dressed as females and vice versa.
"Your father's spell was spun inward as you spun out," it said. "Wyver warns that you will feel a strong presence while within her sight."
"Tell me something I don't know," Jasor said. "That's it? That's all you've got? Wyver passes on a warning that I've known for weeks? Good job. Tell that old fuck he still owes me."
"Proof-true."
"Insistent little fuck aren't you?" Jasor countered. "The end of year ball for the students. I attended, throwing my weight behind her not having a guardian. We laid eyes on each other. I knew the dragon was coming, and knew the only way to turn it back without her being hurt physically or emotionally. I went into action to warn Luk-fucking-Pan about the dragon. She made it to him first. I know."
He could do no wrong by his child while in her presence. He had no idea if he could keep secrets or lie, but he was familiar enough with the feeling, the rulings. He had lived under those rules for nearly half of his life. As soon as it happened, he knew.
But out of her sight, he was free to do as he might.
"Have you actually got anything useful to tell me?"
The draconian hissed and took a step back.
"Didn't think so," Jasor said as he straightened his clothing. "Now one of you dumb fucks is going to take me home."
And they did, properly, this time.
He didn't think ahead about that sort of thing, just acted. Easier that way, easier to pass spells, lies, and tests if he didn't think about it before, even if he were doing it.
He returned to planning his father's funeral, hoping he could bury the old fuck before the new year. He did his business, carried on public life, and met with several lords, raging as loud as he could about them taking advantage of his family. He made his demands. He pushed Theon as her guardian, expecting someone to question him.
The mage was a known murderer. An unhinged alcoholic more likely to kill off the students of his magehood than teach them anything.
And the only one to question his choice?
Luk fucking Pan.
No one else thought to poke, which meant that it went through the conclave, through the council, through a vote in the Seven and several supposed trips to the home to identify problems, and the overwhelming consensus was that Naena had to stay with Theon. Both because he could control her and because he was the only one who might survive her.
As Luk whined that that wasn't what Theon was there for, Lugh told Luk to shut up.
Lugh had never been the smartest of the families.
Should have known when to shut it and listen to the Lord of the Seven.
Jasor's goal had been to create a legal gap between them. He even demanded a non-magical review, was granted it, and upon meeting Theon not knowing he was a mage and then again knowing, they still agreed.
What kind of idiots was he dealing with?
Unfortunately, he accidentally legalized their relationship, pushing them closer together. The Seven couldn't even separate them after Jasor insisted on the additional reviews. Not without gross negligence or outright rape.
And Jasor knew that couldn't happen.
He had gone to the Cape. Worked his way in, questioned about and found a man who stared and gaped about but the spells were still working firm. Her work.
And him reliving the last moments of his life over and over as he put a hand on her and told her that he was hungry. She told him where the food was, and he tightened his grip.
She left him a drooling husk, forced to relive that moment over and over again with the understanding that she had done that to him because of what he had done to her.
Didn't even make any sense. So the man wanted to wet his cock, why was that a bother?
But now he knew.
As the school year drew closer, he heard the whisperings.
Jurin Theon Lyleon.
Theon had walked into the council with one name and left with three names and two new levels of protection, with Kaulu and Lugh both stepping forward and arguing the right to overreach. One for war mages, one for a healing attempt.
Jasor had walked in and been informed in no uncertain terms that if he interfered with Nillon, everyone would be executed. They had demanded to see his band and he showed them.
And somehow left unscathed.
The council was failing, he decided as he escaped their usual whining.
He set up his plans, created redundancies. Spent some time with his father's young wife, showing her what a real man could do. Pleasure mixed with work.
He received a letter advising him that the dragon prince had been banished from the estate. Three days later he received another saying the prince returned home only to immediately leave with Lord Pan for Lugh territory.
As the school year approached, Naena was nowhere to be found. Luk and Graydon Pan were alone in Lugh territory, nowhere to be found. Meaning they didn't visit the Lugh estate, but instead disappeared somewhere in the land.
Trathor was settled, renewed by the Seven with a shortened spell to reflect the shorter duration of his spells.
The lords were returning to their estates, ready to take on the year once more. Students across the land were getting ready to return to school
Everything was in order.
Yet Jasor found himself thinking about the son of the student he killed.
He couldn't stop thinking about the boy.
Until the night before school began, when Trathor returned Jasor's letter to him along with the typical start of school letter advising of various changes to the staff including the Kaulu representative being replaced with Trild Kaulu.
Trild Kaulu had performed so perfectly that he outshone the heirs. He went for the executioner position only to lose it to Graydon Pan. Rumour was, that was why his grandfather crippled him, shattering his left knee. Crippled Seven, even that close to the main family, were usually retired and used as tutors and teachers. Trild would likely be pulled from the field once Andle's heir was born.
He'd be little more than a nanny with a fancy title.
The trouble with Trild was that Jasor had blessed little information on the second born. Heirs were easy. Second borns, not so much. Jasor still didn't know the name of Graydon's younger brother, about to enter the field himself, or the names of any of his sisters.
This was by design, Jasor knew.
But he hadn't planned for Trild, and what he knew said Trild could stand his own against Graydon, before he was crippled.
With only hours left to plan, and not enough information to know, Jasor went into action changing his plans and adding more.