Magika [Completed]

Chapter 5

What is this? Aldeheid  looked down at his marked hand. The jagged lines that denoted him as a magician were stained red. He tried to rub it away on his pants to no avail.

He was in the trial chamber again, he place he was a little too familiar with. Sunlight rained down on him, illuminating the pedestal and cauldrons. A spider's web of cracks covered the walls, floors and ornate glass of the skylight. Chunks and slabs of stone were helter-skelter around the room, making it look as though an earthquake had shaken the place.

Or an Aldeheid.

"Help!"

Aldeheid looked up and saw Gwen trapped under a slab of concrete. He lunged for her, only to be yanked to the ground. His foot was shackled and chained to the pedestal - the only thing in the chamber that wasn't crumbling. He grabbed the chain and pulled until his arms were weak.

Dust and debris pelted him from above, and large pieces of stoned nicked at his skin.

"Aldeheid!"

When he looked up again, it wasn't Gwen he saw, but Amalie. Her hazel eyes were misty and she had one hand outstretched, reaching for him.

His heart beat and frantic rhythm in his chest as he strained to reach her. The crashes and booms of falling debris filled the chamber, drowning out the sound of his pulse roaring in his ears. Come on, he pleaded silently. Their hands were nearly touching, just a hair's breath apart.

"Please," Amailie begged.

Aldeheid clawed at the ground in a desperate attempt to drag himself closer to her. He would reach her, even if he had to tear his own leg off.

A deafening boom rebounded through the chamber, and the shadows of large slabs of stone appeared around them. And that's all the warning he got before the room came crashing down.

Aldeheid awoke with a start, sitting upright in his bed. Sweat dripped down his face and his breathing was heavy. It was just a nightmare. It was wasn't real. He laid back on his bed and twisted his earring as he stared up at the ceiling of his chamber. 

After a few deep breaths, he set his mind on other, more pressing issues. Like the fact that he had to find a new home. He only had two days left to decide where he was going, how he would get there and what to do with all his belongings. The moment he'd returned to the Bastion the day before, he'd begun sorting through everything.

His chamber was a mess. Tomes, scrolls and loose sheets of parchment stood in heaping piles and stacks like monuments of wisdom. He'd horded them over the course of his life, some bought, most gifts from his former mentor. There were a few he'd read so many times that he knew them by heart. Yet there was always more to learn, always more to know.

Like that cape's name.

His mind kept going back to her, that woman in the orchard. What was she doing there? Was she alone? Did she have a magician? He hadn't seen any jagged lines through her mark, but that didn't mean she wasn't training with one.

Aldeheid flung the bedding from his body and swung his legs out of the bed. The cold floor under his bare feet made him more alert as he rose and stretched. I need to forget about her.

His eyes drifted towards the window. The sun was out, it looked like a perfect day to go for another walk. Perhaps to the Phantom Orchard again. 

A knock on his door pulled him from his thoughts.

"It's us," Berard said, before coming in with Anha in tow. He glanced around at the mess that was Aldeheid's chamber. "I see you're getting things together."