This was not part of the job.
The hooded figure stood frozen in contemplation on the shadowed staircase, a civil war raging inside her chest.
She had two choices. One: follow the trail of magic her Sense had picked up, or Two: go back to her room and wait for her colleagues to return like the obedient Seeker she was supposed to be.
She played with the frayed end of her long dark braid, deflecting between options. Ainslee and Fletcher probably would not even miss her anyway, she reasoned. Their assignment did not truly begin until tomorrow, as they had only just arrived at the Three Archer's Inn. This magic was unusually powerful, and the imprint was not one she recognized. Having mostly grown up in Emares City, she liked to think she knew of all the powerful mages there were to know - they had all passed through the palace grounds at some point.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs below her. Twelve hells. Well, seemed like she was going up.
Tucking her hair back behind her shoulder, the young woman pushed herself upright from where she had been leaning against the wall and ascended the staircase, one booted foot at a time, being careful to keep her steps light and quiet. She sniffed at the magic, breathing in deeply - a wolf taking in the scent of her prey.
The couple behind her on the stairs - a giggling girl and a young man - pushed past her in the hall, paying the hooded woman no mind.
She placed her hand on the door, resisting the urge to sneeze. Strong magic always made her sneeze.
A deep rumbling of voices passed on the other side. She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry.
This was not part of the job.
Reason started to burgeon in her mind, a newly formed moth tearing through its chrysalis. The young woman withdrew her hand, pivoting on her feet to turn back toward the stairwell.
The door flung open, with a woosh of fire-warmed air and magic, and the young woman felt someone grab her by the back of her shirt and yank her firmly into the room. Her feet stumbled, reflexes unable to catch up with the sudden change of direction, and the next thing she knew she was on her ass, the source of the magic towering over her - hostility emanating from him just as obviously as the roiling waves of magic were to her Sense.
The woman attempted to scuttle back to the door in her seated position. The tall figure stood over her, his face shrouded in the flickering shadows cast by the fire in the hearth. The weather in Mountainvale in late springtime was hardly balmy, but today it required no more than a light cloak outside, and the fire seemed a bit unnecessary.
The hood of the young woman's own cloak had fallen, exposing her own visage, long waves of hair so dark brown they appeared to be black escaping in a mass around a mostly delicate-featured face. She pressed her back up against the wall as the mage in question loomed over her, magic rippling off of him in an angry static..
He couldn't do anything to her with magic, she reasoned. Unrelated to her ability to sense magic, was her resistance to magic of all kinds. She might feel small effects of the magic, but it would take a very long time to do enough to harm her - and she had not met a mage with the time, nor the magical reserves to whittle her down.
Who was this mage? And curse her for wanting to know. She disliked most feline creatures, but as the saying went - curiosity killed the cat. This was what she deserved for straying from the strict set of orders laid upon her by her commander.
"Who are you?" The voice was a strong baritone, it reminded her of a deep storm wind. Apparently her captor was going to learn her identity before she learned his. She ran through the options in her mind, and decided on honesty. She tried to be as honest as possible in most aspects of her life, to make up for the gigantic lie she was living.
"My name is Blayre." She said simply, keeping the quiver from her voice. Inside she was quaking. "And yours?" She asked sweetly, batting thick eyelashes.
The mage regarded her for a moment, his face still shrouded in shadows, but the glint of pale blue eyes, narrowed in thought, pierced Blayre's own amber ones.
"None of your business." He retorted finally. Blayre internalized an eye-roll. So it was going to be like that.
Blayre felt the mage's concentration falter and his magic with it as their uncomfortable exchange was interrupted by a groan from the direction of the steadily burning hearth. Blayre realized with a start that there was a man, not much older than het, slouched in an arm chair by the fire.
His features she could see clearly - a handsomely chiseled jaw, broad high cheekbones, a prominent brow. Curls the color of burnished copper fell into his eyes as his well muscled form slouched in the chair.
"Ripley, what are you doing over there. Leave the wee lass alone and get this thing out of my arm." It sounded as though the red-headed man was talking through gritted teeth. But the slight lilt in his accent was unmistakably reminiscent of an Islander.
Ripley it is then. Blayre thought smugly, though she still could not match the name with a mage who might be called that. She also wasn't sure about how she felt about being called a "wee thing".
"What's wrong with him? Do you want help?" Blayre asked as Ripley, looking conflicted, glanced between the girl and his fallen comrade. She could see the outline of his face finally, the arched profile of his nose stark against the firelight and the beginnings of a beard standing out in a fuzzy glow on the lower portion of his face.
"You aren't likely to be able to do anything," He started.
"I can go and leave you to your business then." Blayre agreed hopefully, thinking that by now Ainslee and Fletcher would be wondering where she had wandered off to. Thank the stars tonight wasn't the official start of their assignment. The icy look she received from Ripley was enough to freeze over all twelve hells of the underworld.
"You will do no such thing. I am not finished with you. And you offered your help, so now you must follow through."
Another groan sounded from the man in the chair.
With a huff of frustration, Ripley rubbed at close-cropped hair the color of deer-hide, and moved purposefully toward the injured man.
Blayre followed suit, rising cautiously to her feet and meeting Ripley beside the chair where he had taken up his post, reading angrily through a book that he held open in his hand. Blayre strained her eyes, trying to get a glimpse of his left wrist. Mages were almost always left-handed and when their magic emerged, the Crown tattooed them with a mage-mark on their left wrist. She couldn't make out a mark - but the angle was awkward. She would need to get a look from a better vantage point.
"So what is the nature of your injury?" Blayre asked, crouching down to examine the red-head's arm. He was covered in sweat and burning to the touch.
"He was injured in the forest." Ripley replied too quickly. Blayre glared at him.
The man before her in the chair grunted. "I am perfectly conscious and can answer for myself, thank you." he said, his voice strained.
"I'm not sure if 'perfectly' is the word I would use." Ripley muttered, rifling through a large leather pack that was on one of the two cots in the room.
Blayre turned back to the red-headed man. She raised an eyebrow, "So? The injury? How did it come about? Can you show me where it is precisely?"
He opened one gray eye to peer blearily at her "There's something lodged in my arm." and then closed it again quickly.
Oh? She waited for him to elaborate, and when he did not offer any other details, pried further "Were you in an explosion of some sort? Or were you shot with a bow?" There was no arrow sticking out of his arm, but she supposed they could have removed the shaft already and perhaps the arrowhead was embedded.
"We're actually not sure. But definitely not an arrow injury." Ripley answered for the injured man, flipping through the pages of a book.
Blayre rolled her eyes. She gently gripped the man's injured arm, feeling along it from wrist up to shoulder. "What is your name, sir?" She asked, thinking that she'd like to think of him as something other than "the injured man".
"Rory." Ripley answered again for him.
"Rory," Blayre addressed the redhead. "Can you rate your pain for me on a one-to-ten?"
Having a resistance to combat magic meant that she also had a resistance to the good, healing kind. Because of this, all Seekers were trained in basic first-aid.
"We were attacked." Rory said, ignoring her question with a faint shrug of well-muscled shoulders.
"Rory!" Ripley cursed at him. "We don't know this girl. She doesn't need to know all the details."
"If I am to help him, I need to know some details." Blayre said in exasperation.
Rory opened both of his eyes this time, looking her up and down - though it seemed a great effort for him to do so. There was definitely something going on here other than the embedded object. "She doesn't look like a girl. More like a woman if you asked me." He replied, his speech slightly slurred. Blayre hoped that the light from the fire hid the red blush that creeped up her cheeks. Then his eyes met hers, and a strange look crossed his face. "What do they call you, lass?"
"Blayre." She replied tightly.
"Blayre? Blayre Blumore?" He asked. She started, and he seemed to become more awake as he said her full name.
"Y-yes." She said slowly, trying to place where he would know her name from. Ripley looked on skeptically, his scowl deepening.
Rory gave her a lopsided smile. "Should I be insulted that you don't recall Duke Rorrick de Virhea?" Then his eyes closed and he slouched. Blayre glanced down to where her fingers had rested on a crystalline object no larger than the tip of her thumb that protruded from his upper arm. She assumed the pain had climbed to a ten.
Her hand darted out to grab him by the shoulder. Blast it. That was why he looked so gods-damned familiar. They'd both spent time together in the Academy in the capital before Blayre had begun formal training as a seeker and Rorrick had left to be fostered in The Jeweled Isles where his father hailed from. That had been what... eight, nine years ago? They'd barely reached their teenage years at that point in time. .
In fact she was struggling to reconcile that the muscular, god-like man before her was the same as the scrawny freckled boy she had once been acquainted with.
"What's happening to him?" Ripley's fierce panic broke her from her reverie. He was leaning over Rory - Rorrick's chair, flipping more frantically through the pages of the book.
"You aren't supposed to use magic to remove the object, only to heal afterward." Blayre said practically "Do you have anything we could use to pull it out?" She examined Rory's arm calmly, contemplating the best angle to remove the crystalline object. She could still feel magic on Rorrick - or perhaps in Rorrick. "Did you use magic on him before?" Blayre asked. "When I was out in the hall?"
Ripley's eyes focused on her intently, and she saw the hand holding the tome tremble slightly. "How did you know I've been using magic?" His voice was cold. Icy.
Because I can bloody feel it pulsing off of you, you criminal. She thought, feeling a quiet rage rising in her, but she clamped it down and looked pointedly at Ripley's book. "I hardly think that The Sorcerer's Guide to Healing would be of much use to a magicless wielder."
"Oh." He glanced down at the book, some of the fear leaving his eyes for just a moment before he looked up at her again. "You can't tell anyone."
"I can't tell anyone what?" Blayre asked "That the damned second in line is being killed by magic from a rogue mage?" She stood, her anger driving her confidence as she drew herself up in front of the rogue mage in question. "You cannot practice magic without training. It's dangerous, and now it's - it's harming him." She touched Rorrick again, feeling the magic.
Ripley was glancing frantically between Blayre, the book, and his friend, as though trying to piece together what she was saying. "I didn't - it shouldn't have - it was only supposed to calm him. How do you know it's in him?"
"Let me get the damned object out, and while I do that, I need you to find a way to bring the magic out of him." She ignored his question, feeling the soft spot of Rory's neck where his vein pulsed slow and irregular. Not good. Not good at all.
She tore off her cloak and tossed it unceremoniously on one of the cots, fishing through the inner pockets for her small set of tools. One could never be too prepared. Her thoughts darted around. She knew now that Ripley was a rogue mage - he'd as good as admitted to it, but she could feel his suspicious gaze boring into her back as she selected a small pair of pliers.
Rorrick's pulse had become even more sluggish. Blayre stuck her pliers quickly in the waning flames of the fire and moved swiftly back to Rorrick's side. Ripley seemed to have settled on a page of the book, and Blayre caught his attention "Are you still searching, or can you assist me with this?" She demanded, alarm beginning to set in.with a quickening heartbeat and quivering muscles. If she messed this up, this was not just some random citizen, this was Duke Rorrick Vihrea, next in line after his cousin the Crown Princess Briannon for the throne.
Ripley set the book down delicately on a side table and moved closer to where Blayre stood. Blayre motioned for him to hold Rorrick steady. "I'm going to pull on a count of three. He seems to be mostly unconscious, but just in case." Blayre eyed her charge warily. She was not a physician by any means.
This was not part of the job. What had she gotten herself into?
Blayre tapped down her Sense as she moved toward Rorrick's arm with the pliers. Despite that, she still felt the surge of magic as a jolt to her arm as she pulled the object free.
"Twelve hells!" Ripley cursed, snatching his arms away and shaking his hands as though he could rid himself of the shock. He swiftly grabbed at his friend's shoulders to prop him up again before Rory could topple over. The duke hadn't so much as flinched.
Blayre examined the object briefly - crystalline as she'd suspected. It was deep indigo hue and cylindrical in shape with a pointed end. Setting it aside for future examination, the young woman went back to work on tending what was left of the wound. She opened up her Sense again, feeling the considerable amount of magic that continued to seep out of Rorrick.
"What did the book say?" Blayre pressed the mage, who gave her a blank look. "About drawing the magic out of him."
"I still don't understand how you know that there's..."
"Ripley, it doesn't matter. What did the book say?"
The mage swallowed, snatching the book from the side table where he had tossed it aside and perusing it again. "We need someone or something to act as a conduit. But for impalement or embedment of magical objects, it states that after removal of the object, it states that the magic should seep out on it's own - provided it was not embedded too long."
"How long since his - impalement? And what's too long?" Blayre asked.
"It's only been a few hours, he should be ok, I think." Ripley's shoulders visibly deflated and he let out a breath of air, the hard lines of his face relaxing.
"Ok," Blayre stood and wiped sweaty hands on her breeches. She tucked the object into her pocket. "I'll keep this." She said, patting her thigh where the small bulge of the crystal showed.
"You're a seeker." Ripley said, stormy eyes narrowing.
Rory stirred, a rivulet of drool running down the side of his mouth. Blayre placed her hand on him one last time, releasing a controlled exhale when the magic felt as though it was lessening.
"I am," She said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've been away from my colleagues for far longer than I ever intended this evening." Not to mention, she did not want to be here when Rory woke up to find that he had been drooling in front of the bastard of Blumore. It had a nice ring to it, she admitted.
"And you're more than that - you know. I've read about that. Long ago, there were people who could sense magic. They hunted wizards. It was one of the great wars that no one speaks of, but in my father's library there are books on it."
Blayre stood frozen, her hand slick on the latch of the door, refusing to turn and look at the rogue mage.
"Your secret is safe with me, Blumore - assuming mine is safe with you." His voice was cold and brutal as a mountain storm. The evening had been a wave of emotions - a dance between the two of them. Trust, distrust, trust, distrust.
Blayre said nothing, a cold chill running down her spine as she slipped out the door.
Curiosity killed the cat. He would find she was no cat. And she would not go down so easily.
A/N: Thank you for reading chapter 1! If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider voting so that UNMARKED has the chance to rise in ranking and come to the attention of more readers like yourself! Be sure to let me know if there is anything you think I'm doing well, or that could improve the story. AND if, you would like, I would really appreciate if you'd click that follow button at the top of my profile! This will ensure that you are subscribed to my updates on all my work, as well as when I post general updates - I usually post about my progress, etc to my wall! This way you know approximately when book updates are coming your way! Thanks again, and happy reading!