Part IV

Endings.

Chapter 63

“Cillia? Have you heard anything of her? Have your contacts reached out to you about her?” Kestrel asked, wiping sweat from his brow. The late summer had bled into Autumn and it was proving to be a strong cold one, but his constant movement warmed the young man.

Soon after that morning on the mountain, Aris had instructed Wallace to bring all of the recruits into the fold. Aris had shed light onto the secret world they all resided in and how he wanted an army. He wanted them as his infantry.

Evrain would bring hell down on them for what they were going to do and it was almost certain that he had spies among them watching them. Kestrel had already found two men on Edrian Woll’s payroll while he had helped Wallace test the magical capabilities of Aris’ men.

Aris had given the duo a choice. They may leave and live but excommunicated from the City Guards and never return to Fiell on threat of death, or they could stay with him and feed bad intel back to the Minister of Defense. They sat on the fence for a day before deciding to join Aris’ side.

The General wasn’t sure why they had, but the looks that they gave Kestrel let him know the former street rat had played a large part in their decision.

Kestrel had become Wallace’s right hand man and would often teach the recruits Memory Magic when Aris sent the elder man out on assignments to scour the city and read its mood. He knew it was a tinderbox and would ignite any day now, but the old man was doing wonders keeping the flames at bay. Wallace was a human firebreak.

Kestrel had helped the grizzled Memory Mage discover that their barracks housed five more Memory Mages. It was a staggering number for a gathering so small, but they took it as a blessing from the heavens, showing them their mission was ordained.

Two were Takers like Aris, Wallace and Kestrel, but there was one Forgotten and two Givers. They were invaluable. Two more men among those injured during the small battle at the gates of the Ravenscroft Estate had also turned out to be Memory Mages. Both were Givers. Dispossessed and disheartened at what had been done to them, they readily joined Aris and his men and soon became some of the most dedicated of all his soldiers. They quickly found the sense of family and belonging that had been ripped from them during the fires that had devastated among the Guardsmen. In them they found a new home. One that they would fight and die for. They wouldn’t let it be ripped from them like their houses and families had been in the fires.

“All I’ve heard is rumors,” Aris answered Kestrel’s question about Cillia. “But rumors are more than we’ve had in weeks, so I’ll take whatever we can get,” the blonde general said in his strange, strict, but informal voice.

Kestrel nodded to Joseph, one of the Givers who’s magic had progressed at startlingly fast rates. The older recruit lifted his hand in salute and took over the session. They were learning to recognize the touch of magic. He drilled them over and over as Kestrel stepped aside and began chatting with General Ravenscroft.

“And what are those rumors?” though nearly a year had passed since he had moved onto Aris’ estate, it had done little to curb the straightforward manner of speaking that seemed to emanate from Kestrel’s core.

“Exactly what we suspected. She was taken by the Inquisitors.”

Kestrel’s heart fell at those words.

“But the good news is that they haven’t began their tortures. They’re holding off for some reason,” Aris said.

A spark of hope lit in Kestrel’s eyes. “Where is she?”

Aris shrugged. He didn’t know. At least not yet, but he intended to find out and he told Kestrel as much. The brown haired man nodded. His eyes were hard as he did so. Aris saw that Kestrel would mow down anyone who tried to stop him from rescuing the young girl.

Cillia had practically been a daughter to him when he was a street rat.

Aris would kill a whole army himself if they were to put his daughters in danger. So he recognized the fire in the young man.

He needed that strength. He needed that molten resolve.

“I’ll tell you when I know,” Aris said. “I promise.”

“Good,” Kestrel turned from his commander and strode back to the sparring grounds that were now being used to teach the members of the Ravenscroft estate Memory Magic.

Aris watched Kestrel immediately take over from where Joseph had left off. He had yet to realize it, but he had the makings of a great commander. Though he was younger than most of the recruits, they listened to him. They hung on every word that came out of his mouth and snapped into action with every order he gave.

He could easily make Captain if he so wished.

Aris caught himself wishing for that. His heart swelled with pride as he watched the former beggar now commanding a whole company of men and falling into the role so naturally it seemed as if he’d been bred for it.

Aris would have to talk to Kestrel about it later. He had already talked to his captains and they had all agreed, Kestrel would fit perfectly with them. He was already one of them. He just didn’t know it yet.

The recruits were getting better day by day. Soon they would be more than just guardsmen and soldiers. Soon they would all be, even those not touched by magic, trained to recognize and fight Edrian Woll’s force of Inquisitors that he commanded under the blessing of Emperor Evrain himself.

“Now ready yourselves!” Kestrel commanded his men. “If you can’t recognize the touch of magic when your attention is demanded elsewhere, your skills are useless. If you can’t use your skills in battle can you really call them skills?”

“No sir!” the guardsmen shouted in unison.

“Good. Now let's fight!”

Kestrel had the five Memory Mages and himself match and spar one on one with those who didn’t have magic for five minute rounds of hard sparring. He drilled the techniques so that they would be aware even when a battle took a long time, and three minutes was a long time to fight. Most fights lasted less than a minute. Sure battles lasted longer but a battle was nothing more than a sustained period of fighting multiple opponents.

He taught the normal guards to always keep their mental walls up as they fought, to keep their mind focused on painful memories so if a Taker was able to snatch their memories in battles, they would be able to direct their retrieval so they were met with the most painful memories to discourage their touch.

Kestrel in turn, taught the Takers to target specific memories. He taught them to engage in clinch fighting. To get in grappling range and when they touched, to target specific memories. To find memories of aching muscles, of a sprained muscle or a weak knee and to target it as they fought. Soon Kestrel was seeing some men falling to the memory sniping of the Takers and some to the more developed of the non-mages who created traps, sharing the most overwhelming and agonizing of memories.

Sephira, who’s mother Corrine had first objected to, soon joined the fray and was invaluable in teaching the non-mages how to deal with magic. Her skill was so good that she even bested Kestrel once in a bout and sent him reeling with a series of painful memories that engulfed him with her touch.

“You don’t have to be a Memory Mage to take advantage of the magic,” she told the guardsmen. “If you can master control of your own memories, you’ll be able to dictate what the Takers are able to see. You can do more than trap them in a maze of memories. You can attack them. You can overwhelm their senses with a wave of your own painful memories. Just because you don’t have magic doesn’t mean that you’re ineffective. It just means that you have to work harder and do a little more to fight back.”

Kestrel beamed with pride as he listened to her. He had found out about Corrine being Sephira’s mother not long after that night on the mountain with Wallace.

Even now Kestrel could see the look of sadness, confusion, and anger in Sephira’s eyes when her eyes fell on Corrine. So much had been stolen from her. Kestrel had lost his mother and that had been torture, but still he found it hard to imagine having her ripped from his memories, his whole past erased, only to be put together with her again as a stranger based on the cruel whims of a dictator.

Still Sephira stood proud and strong. That news could have crushed her. It could have made her into a bitter shell of who she used to be, but instead, she had taken strength from it. She took the opportunity to dive into hatred and self-pity and instead turned it into motivation and a deeper relationship with her family.

She was truly a marvel.

When Kestrel thought he might break from the stress of training the recruits in magic and the constant state of not knowing when it came to what was happening to Cillia, he turned to Sephira. She was his pillar of strength. When he wanted to give up he would look up to her, standing tall despite the waves of the world that threatened to pull her under with the tide.

Together they spent the rest of the afternoon training the guardsmen. They were quickly becoming more than just a peacekeeping force. They were morphing into an army. An army that could change the course of their country and save it from Emperor Evrain who lusted for the destruction of the nation.

When they built their army they would go to recruit more. Some had already heard the rumors and furtively joined the growing rebellion. They had heard of Edrian Wolls' betrayal and how he was behind the fires that had consumed so much of their city and had displaced thousands. They swore that they would make him pay for what he’d done to their families and to their city.

They would destroy those that sought their destruction and Kestrel and Sephira found themselves thrust into the frontlines of the changing of the epochs.