Page 2 of Bound and Tide

The brazier in the chamber’s center went out.

“Of fucking course.”

Then with a great crack, a stone dislodged itself from the ceiling and came crashing downward. He swiped a hand through the air to cast the rock away before it crushed him, shadows blurred his vision, and the rock…kept coming.

Xander sucked in a breath, scrambled, and escaped only a sliver of a moment before the dislodged masonry landed.

The blood mage panted from the spot he’d withdrawn to on the floor, eyes wide and transfixed on the pile of splinters that had narrowly been his end. “Would have been a messy way to go,” he mumbled, then examined his hand. It was the same as it had always been: deeply tanned skin, slender fingers, well-manicured nails, but it certainly felt different. And that was not good. “Fuck.”

If Xander’s vexation had been an unproven potion, the hole left in the ceiling was the ingredient that made the elixir explode violently enough to singe off his eyebrows. His ambiguous hold on his arcana was not a simple complication he had to wait out, fixable by constructing an oasis out in the dunes, but a rather more lethal dilemma.

His mother was gone, and he had an increasingly sinking feeling she was taking his powers with her.

Fortunately, he knew of a possible solution, but after avoiding that solution for nearly thirty years, it shouldn’t have really been viable anymore. In fact, Xander thought he knew it was a thing he would never have to bother with at all.

Knowing, of course, is funny like that, but if you’ve been reading, you’re already well aware.

Xander sprang to his feet and marched through the Chthonic Tower with more determination than in all the previous weeks combined. Expending what arcana he could muster, he collected the most remarkable of his belongings and used a specialized translocation portal to tuck them into a cavernous trove on the border of the planes. If the tower really did come down, at least something would be salvageable when he had the power to call it back into existence.

He then packed what he believed were the absolute necessities, annoyed to discover that constituted three trunks, five large satchels, and too many hip pouches to be worn fashionably. As he contemplated how he might parse things down, a bursting window narrowly missed slicing him to shreds, so he gambled on just two of the satchels and the most stylish of the pouches. Then he finally swept down the stairs to the Chthonic Tower’s basement.

There would be a loose cobblestone exactly eight paces from the right corner behind the staircase. He took a steadying breath before counting off the steps. Noxscura tickled at his palm as the ceiling above rumbled. There was no time to be dramatic, which was as unfortunate as it was insulting—little in Xander’s life deserved more dramatics when he really thought about it, but thinking about it made him want to give up on the plan entirely, so he put a moratorium on thinking.

Instead, he allowed the magic that itched at his skin to call up a shadow and pry the cobble from the dirt. In the grit beneath lay a piece of parchment, delicately folded and looking crisp and new. A craven part of Xander hoped the elements had ruined it, but his past self had been too precious with the information, his own protection spell too good to have failed.

A shadow lifted the parchment and deposited it into his hand as Bloodthorne’s words danced in his mind: Don’t you ever wonder…

No, he did not wonder because Xander Sephiran Shadowhart had always known, he had just never planned to seek and find. Until now.

Chapter 2

WHENEVER ONE GETS GLOOMY ABOUT THE STATE OF THE REALM

Xander Shadowhart didn’t do horses. They were smelly and stupid and jostled one around, and frankly, there was nothing impressive about riding a horse into town—anyone could do that, and Xander wasn’t just anyone.

But he was unable to translocate since he’d not before been to his destination—and also it was perhaps slightly risky to attempt such complex arcana in his current…state—so Xander was forced to choose a mundane method of traversing the realm. The shortest version of such travel was to avoid the thickness of the forests and the up and down of it all in the mountains by simply taking to the air. As luck, or theft, would have it, Xander was in possession of at least one flying creature.

Griffins couldn’t help but look regal and perpetually pissed, though Xander expected that the one he kept was genuinely both. Its white feathered head and chest were massive, eyes sharp and beak sharper. Golden fur covered the rest of its sleek and muscled feline body. The creature was built for travel with wings that spanned the length of a cart on either side, but it was equally adept at killing, evident by both its eagle-like talons and leonine claws. It hadn’t belonged locked up in the cramped stables at Ukara Grave’s lair, so when Xander had been to her for some specialized weaponry years prior, he’d also obtained himself the haughtiest griffin in the bunch.

Ukara hadn’t said he could take it, but the creature was more than willing to leave its bird-brained flock behind and live a solitary life out in the Accursed Wastes. It came when Xander called, the arcane deal it had made for its freedom from the ancient bladesmith’s stables, but when it landed outside the crumbling Chthonic Tower, its dubious look up at Xander’s home held none of the respect he expected.

“Yes, yes, I know it appears doomed, but lucky you, this means we’re taking a little vacation.”

The griffin knew the meaning of most words but was skeptical he and the blood mage would agree on what constituted a holiday.

Xander settled between the creature’s wings, leaning against its feathered neck with legs slung up along its back. He didn’t need to see where they were going, the arcana in the parchment he now had folded up in his smallest pouch would direct the beast, so he opened a book to pass the time. “Don’t forget the bags, and watch out for the headwinds,” he said as the pages ruffled on takeoff.

It was freezing so high up, which Xander hadn’t accounted for. The Accursed Wastes could be sweltering in the day and frigid at night, but the tower was perpetually kept ideal for lounging about in silken robes and nothing else. His tunic and waistcoat were inadequate under the bracing winds, and when he conjured a handful of fire for warmth, it had trouble staying lit. That was also because of the winds, of course, not…not because of him.

He glanced down at the vial hanging from his neck, full of his blood from before things went awry. A drop of that would conjure a proper arcane flame, but it may not have been wise to squander. The vial his mother had given him so many years ago was one of the most powerful bits of arcana he had, preserving his magical blood and even able to piece itself back together if broken. Birzuma ingrained in him early that to lose it or let it run dry would be disastrous, and seeing as he’d had enough disasters, he simply layered on two cloaks instead.

It was a fraught few days, and when he finally touched down at his destination, Xander was utterly exhausted. The griffin certainly was as well, but blood mages didn’t concern themselves with their mounts unless they were causing problematic havoc. It was a bit of a surprise to the locals to see a lion-bodied, eagle-headed creature twice the size of a horse, but that kind of havoc was Xander’s delight, and the city was metropolitan enough that guards wouldn’t be sent out at the sight of a griffin.

“So, this is the infamous Bendcrest.”

Even with the dreariness of coming winter and his intention to detest it, the city of Bendcrest was…fine. Steepled buildings jutted up in every direction, blocking out the thickness of the forest he’d just passed over and the river that wound through the length of the city. Stone and wooden facades in good order and straight chimneys pushing out regular plumes of smoke loomed over the cobbled streets. He expected much worse as he dismounted, but then there was a squelch beneath his boot.

“Fuck’s sake,” he scoffed, pulling free and splattering mud and dark gods knew what else up his white trousers. “This does not bode well.”

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