Magika [Completed]

Chapter 15

Wylerra, 100 years ago...

Every cape needs a magician and every magician a cape. A tradition as old as Magika itself. But perhaps Aldeheid wasn't meant to have one. It had been a week since his gambit of cape trials, and he couldn't so much as blink without seeing capes dying at his feet. 

How many did I kill? Forty? Fifty?

He remembered wishing at one point that the gods would strike him down and end the madness. Countless times he'd wanted to run from the trial chamber, end it all. But then he would look at the Queen and imagine the horrible things Baldavin would do to her.

So he'd kept going. The capes had kept falling. And with each one that died, he felt less like himself, and more like a silent bystander in his own body.

"Aldeheid!"

He jumped, banging his knee against the stone table. His earlobe was throbbing and blood coated his thumb and forefinger. He'd been absentmindedly twisting his earring, so much so that it had dug into his skin.

Droplets of blood stained the documents in front of him, and for a moment, he forgot where he was. It was the curious faces of the Council members that snapped him out of his trance.

Baldavin sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just get out. You're no use to us like this."

The King didn't have to tell him twice. He was up and out of the chamber without a word. The stone walls of the castle were as quiet as the snowfall beyond its windows. Aldeheid took random turns down random halls, not knowing or caring where he was going. And like his body his mind drifted around aimlessly.

He couldn't do this anymore. Baldavin needed to find a new Sahn Cera and he needed to find a way out of this nightmare. But there was nowhere to go, not during winter. The thaw wouldn't come for some months still, which meant he'd have to endure Baldavin's torture until such time.

And then what? Where would he go? What would happen to everyone else? Would his act of defiance be used as an excuse to hurt them? No, if he left then they were all coming with him. The Queen, Wenry, even Jayer and Jetei. They'd find a new home somewhere else, somewhere warm where they could forget Wylerra and the tundra.

Aldeheid stopped by a window and leaned against it. The frost coating the glass cast the view beyond it in a haze of white. Still he was able to see the snow covered rooftops with smoke curling from their chimneys.

He stood, hunched over, as though someone had dropped a lead weight on his shoulders. His breathing was labored and his legs shook with fatigue. He wasn't sure how long he'd been wandering around, or what part of the castle he was in.

Two servants locked in idle chatter came down the hall, and Aldeheid couldn't be more grateful. He could ask them for help, to call a medic, to stop the hall from spinning. 

Their footsteps seemed to slow as they neared him, their echoing chatter becoming louder in his ears. The sound invaded his thoughts and rattled his bones, making his legs weak.

A glint in the corner of his eye drew his attention, as a servant entered his peripheral. He tried in vain to move as he saw the source of the glint – a double-edged dagger. Yet his body refused to budge.

The servant grabbed him by the neck and slammed him face first into the wall. A shockwave of pain radiated through his skull but that was nothing compared to the punch of the knife entering his back. The agony of which was amplified when the dagger was twisted and yanked out.

Like a mighty tree, Aldeheid fell. Blood welled up his throat and leaked from his mouth, with even more spilling from his wound. Through a haze of double vision he saw the servants retreating down the corridor, leaving him to die.