Abaddon Summer

Chapter Ten

AN: This is the only planned instance of riding with a Lord. Once they reach red book secrets, we can no longer carry on with them. I wondered why he'd agree to it and figured it was for Theon and to show the struggle to watch this happen as a father. 

This is the last chapter for the summer. Returning in the fall will be Theon, Graydon, Maeno, Trild, Kal (the war mage), Selifer, Alena, Jasor, and on rare occassions, Nillon. Nendan is still auditing the elemental magehood but has reached his red books. 

His summer began with the ball, with him coming upon Graydon, the silver spell knife out and ready, moving upward as Naena spun out magic just a dragon's distance away. His summer began with his feet locked in place as if encased in ice as Graydon did what they drilled into their boys.

His Hell began with Graydon's blade just shy of his neck and Naena preventing the loss of life.

But his damned feet wouldn't move.

He knew their place in the world. The duties they held, the things they had to do to ensure the sun rose another day. He knew that and thought he was at peace with it but seeing Graydon there about to cut his own throat and throw his soul at a dragon to cast it back after the life he'd had?

That was when the first pains began, but he ignored them in favour of the immediate.

Theon's, "That wasn't a fucking pirouette," jolted him out of his frozen stance. He turned his head as Drune stepped up beside him. Kaulu took control of the scene, with them immediately dismissing it. Naena had obsessively researched the Bard, and she had been practicing a large spell. She had even asked if she could perform such a spell and was told it was impossible.

For several days after, no one saw Naena or Graydon. The servants left food outside the door, and it was retrieved. That was as much as any of them cared. Then, one morning, Luk walked around a hedge—headed for his reading spot with a cup of tea—when he spotted Naena and Graydon sharing a seat. Her practically in his lap, comfortable and laughing at something he said. Graydon had an easy smile on his lips, an arm wrapped around her shoulders.

And it broke his heart.

There was no precedence. Luk knew he could argue that, but the lords would never accept a sword and shield married. To lose both lord and lady if a job went wrong? No, it'd never pass a vote.

He knew he should have clipped it then and there, but he could hardly blame either of them for a moment of happiness in the cruel lives they faced.

So, he slunk back and gave it several moments as the sound of her giggle drifted off to nothing. Then he dragged a foot on the pathway before he stepped back around the hedge.

He tried to connect with Graydon and felt like he failed. As Trathor's spell came up, the pain returned, and he worked through it, clenching and unclenching his left hand as pinpricks worked their way up. When Theon gave him an opening, he took it. He went immediately to Ewer and asked for a pack but then stressed that he could not, under any circumstance as Lord Pan, allow the use of any heirlooms of magicked items that a shield might normally use because he could not by law do that.

Ewer had always been a smart man.

He worried, though, so he flitted out to check on them often.

Because of their connection, Luk could use any of Theon's spells, but the flit only worked if it was directly to or away from Theon.

During one of those flits, instead of going home, he found his way to a small cottage near Riverend. Where a young woman waited for the birth of her first child and the return of her supposed husband-to-be. Carrying a bloodwood chip, he explained everything to her. She'd never speak of it to anyone but her husband-to-be unless she uttered the words. Then the chip he planted in the cramped one-room cottage would alert the necessary Pan members.