Page 35 of Legends of Sorcery
“Hi there,” Arion said.
“You really know my brother?”
Arion laughed. “Yeah, Garron’s a good friend. He’s helped me out a lot these last few weeks.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Micah stared up at his brother with wonder in his eyes as they reached the royal dining room and the four of them entered leaving Micah in the hallway still in shock.
Lunch was uneventful and a little boring. Zallon joined them, and Arion was quite content to let him take the lead on conversation. His friends seemed excited just to be there, but the second the King rose to leave, Arion was bolting for the door.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Zallon asked him.
“I want to go to the stables and check on Callia before I head back.” It was true, but he also wanted to check on Valaria and secretly hoped she’d be there.
“Very well. I’ll see you back at home.”
Staring down at his hands, he as grateful to be bandage free, but they were still sore and a little red. He remembered what it had felt like and wondered if he had just held on a little longer if he could have removed the magic. Or had he only imagined he could because he had wanted to please Valaria?
He hated knowing that she had been upset with him. He couldn’t explain how he’d made the choice with her in mind, not without admitting feelings for her. Besides, none of that mattered now. His decision was made and there was no going back now.
As he approached Callia’s stall, he heard the princess talking to her.
“I know he’s not mine, and can’t ever be, but to just give up any chance of love? Why would he do that? He’s going to wind up being a smelly old wizard stuck in a basement somewhere studying scrolls when he could be doing so much more with his life.”
“Is that how you really feel? Maybe I like studying scrolls and not bathing,” Arion defended himself.
“I’m having a private discussion with my friend. You aren’t invited to join in,” Valaria said.
“She’s my friend,” he pointed out. As if agreeing with him, Callia rose and walked over to him. He petted her lovingly. “I’m okay, girl. Just a little sore.”
“You can’t just take all my friends away. I need someone left to talk to,” Valaria complained.
“Is that what this is really about?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I like having you around, and now you’re going to be busy doing apprenticing stuff and won’t have time for me.”
“I promise you, Valaria, I will always make time for you. Besides, if Zallon’s being tough about it, you can just pull royal rank on him.”
Chapter 14
Arion hadn’t expected his life to change much with his acceptance as apprentice. After all, he’d been groomed for the position most of his life. Turned out Valaria was right to be worried. Zallon immediately launched into his training and was occupying nearly every waking moment of his time.
They worked on one antidote after another testing and failing with each trial. Every attempt thwarted.
Arion had refused to allow him to test on Callia. As far as he was concerned any other unicorn could be used, but not her. He couldn’t stand to put her through any more pain than she was already experiencing and after his first try that had left his hands encased in fire, he refused to do that to her again.
When nothing seemed to be working, Zallon had him back in the basement researching in the room of dark magic looking for answers that could help the unicorns.
Inside the room there were relics deemed dark. They gave him goosebumps. Some of them made eerie sounds. The entire place gave him the creeps. There were several bookshelves packed with old texts about curses, hexes, and various other dark magic spells, potions, and on and on. Everything a person would want to know about dark magic was in that room.
Even though his instincts told him to stay away from the room, he listened to Zallon and studied everything he could on curses. Nothing even came close to what they were dealing with.
After days being locked in there to the point he thought he’d go mad, Arion finally stumbled across something of interest. Inside one of the books on channeling demon magic, there was a folded-up piece of paper. It had clearly been ripped from another book and hidden there.
The paper talked about a spell that when cast could slowly smoother it’s victims in darkness. It mentioned how the person would at first appear to be sick. On closer examination other symptoms, such as high fevers, or boils coating the throat, would disguise the root of the real problem. By the time the magic was discovered, the victim would have died seemingly from natural causes. It said the spell could be cast against humans or animals.
