The Lightning Knight

MAGIC WASN’T REAL Magic wasn’t real, not anymore. Not like it used to be, or like it was in the fairy tales. Even the mention of magic was forbidden. Or at least, it was supposed to be. “Magic isn’t real,” I repeated to myself even as doubt crept in. It was only the stuff of myths and old books, and yet, it was the only explanation I could think of for my current predicament. I didn’t know where I was or even how I had arrived at this dark place. Maybe this was a dream, but an intangible voice inside me contradicted that idea. Something moved through the air, shimmering with faint light and vibrating, playing tricks with each of my senses. I smelled the charred aroma of a fire and heard the echo of soft taps of rainfall on stone. My mouth watered with something both sweet and savory, and a warm embrace coiled around my entire body. It was utterly intoxicating. I wanted it to never end. My final sense was the one that betrayed the mirage. In one of his many attempts at imparting his wisdom, my brother once said, “Never trust what you see.” Of course, I was blindfolded in the middle of the Forest of Kel and I was nine years old, but the lesson stuck. I hated to admit it, but in this moment, he was correct. An image of a face appeared before me; a face I saw every time I closed my eyes at night. She appeared radiant and wonderful and… impossible. She was back home in Starfall City, where I’d left her, hundreds of miles away. That’s how I knew none of this was real. The illusion collapsed and the tastes, smells, sounds, and sights disappeared. I found myself returned to the dark room, my feet bare against a cold stone surface. I searched in all directions, peering into the darkness, seeing nothing but the emptiness that surrounded me. I wasn’t one to panic, though now would have been an exceptionally fine time to do so. “Hello!” I yelled, curious if the absence of light meant an absence of sound. My voice echoed along the stone floor, and maybe even against the walls, if this place had any. “Can anyone hear me?” I hoped someone or something would answer my call, but none did. I took one step forward, and suddenly the ground lit up around my foot in a blaze of white light. It faded as quickly as it had burned, and by the time my eyes had adjusted, I was once again in darkness. I took one more step, lighter this time, and just as I had guessed, the illumination along the floor was not as pronounced, lasting much longer and not dazzling my eyes. As fleet footed as I could, I ran forward, swiveling my head from side to side in search of anything. I stopped suddenly as a freestanding door with no wall nearly laid claim to my face. Before the light completely faded, I pushed open the door and entered, stumbling onto the floor of what appeared to be a library. Books and scrolls adorned the walls, and a large fire flickered and danced, lighting up the entire room. “He’s not ready,” a soft voice echoed. The voice sounded almost familiar, although I was sure I hadn’t heard it before. I stood up quickly, looking for its source, only to find empty furniture and more books. “He will have to be,” a second voice replied. This voice seemed weary, as if it had lost hope long ago. Or maybe I had lost hope? My chest heaved with emotions. Despair and rage pounded against my heart, but they felt foreign. Not my despair and rage, then, but someone else’s. “Your Knights were destroyed. He was to be the first, but it’s too soon! Who will guide him?” The anger in the soft voice was rising even as my foreign feelings increased to match. “You will,” the somber voice said as a hand pulled on my shoulder. I turned and the library shifted too, turning like a kaleidoscope until all that remained were two chairs and two people to match the two voices. I had many questions, so I remained standing, unable to move for fear that even the slightest breath would shatter this fragile reality. “That was not the future we saw,” the figure with the soft voice argued. It was a tall woman, dressed in an outfit I had seen only in paintings of the long-extinct Elven people. The man standing next to her took one of the seats, crossing his legs and directing a fierce look at the woman. “We have no time left—” “And who’s fault is that?” the woman interrupted. Her soft voice had lost its warmth and was now rather stern and annoyed. “Um, hello? Hi, I’m Oliver. Nice to meet you both. Love what you’ve done with the place. The whole books and not books anymore thing, it’s all a real mind-bender. Quick question if you will, can someone explain what’s going on here?” I had never been shy of using my tongue even in the most precarious of situations, be it in a fight or with group of strangers or… whatever this was. The man turned back to me, quickly measuring. “Quartermaines,” he spat, shaking his head. He stood quickly. “Listen to me carefully,” he said. The floor beneath him turned into a river of stars and heavens, flowing from left to right in constant motion. The man bent down and touched the floor, creating a bright point within the stream. “There is a boy, a boy from Starfall City. He is the key.” The woman joined in, though her demeanor softened when addressing me. “But first you will win your match. We have seen it.” “My match?” “Against Sir Declan. You will win, and the future will solidify as we have foreseen.” Her eyes darted back to the man still kneeling in the river of stars. He looked away, shame flitting across his face. The woman continued. “You will only remember pieces of this moment. Like a dream, this will fade, my child. You must remember to find the boy.” I shook my head, a haze settling in that made me feel like I was about to fall over. “Find who?” The man stood and shook me by my shoulders, staring into my eyes. “Po. You must find Po. Protect him. He is the key.” “The key to what?” I asked as I felt the pull of the ground below me. “The key to...” But the woman faded from view. The chairs and two figures swirled as I fell for what seemed forever, until suddenly my eyes opened to a familiar sight. I lay on the dirt ground, my body annoyed at the clumsiness of my fall, and a faded memory flirted at the fringes of my mind. I tried desperately to hold on to it, but the more I tried to grasp the vision, the more easily it slipped through. Only two solitary words survived: magic and Po. But magic wasn’t real, and I had no idea who or what Po was. “Di-did you fall asleep again?” Yokel grabbed my arm to lift me back up. “Only for a moment,” I replied teasingly. I squeezed my hand and felt my uncle’s necklace, which was once hot, grow cold until it turned to dust altogether. “Let me ask you a question.” My friend was shuffling his notes furiously within our dimly lit tent. The notes leapt from his hands. “Ye-yes, Oliver?” He dove toward the ground, grasping at the pages while a single word forced itself through to my throat and I clumsily relayed my question. “Magic. What do you know about magic?” Yokel looked at me wide-eyed, pausing in his frantic attempt to collect his meticulous notes. “I spend all this time preparing a-and you…” He began arguing with himself for a time before giving in to an answer. “Magic isn’t real, you know that.” His answer had an air of finality, but his gaze remained on the ground. “But what if it was?” I prodded. He knew more than he was letting on; he always did. Yokel was the most well read and knowledgeable person I had ever known, and I had known quite a few people. “Children’s stories,” he replied almost too quickly. “What if they weren’t?” I agreed with him, and yet I wanted to be wrong. Yokel sighed. “We shouldn’t even be speaking of this. What if someone overheard us?” “The Black Sun aren’t going to take us away for talking privately in a tent, Yok.” “No, bu-but what if someone else hears you talking about... it?” That someone else, of course, was Roc. Magic was a sensitive topic around him, being that it was the reason his parents were gone. For years, High Queen Amukamora had obsessively hunted any and every hint of magic in all of Soraya. It would have been easier to collect every grain of sand from the seas, but still she persisted, and for hundreds of years she had success. The High Queen was known to hate magic more than anyone, and she had been sent to Soraya from a distant land by the Nine Gods themselves to rid our world of it. They’d blessed her with eternal life, and she used that life to further her quest. Her Black Sun Battalion was charged with destroying all rumors of magic and all the people related to it. Before the High Queen, all the kingdoms and queendoms of Soraya were splintered and separate. Magic was used by those who could summon it for all manner of tasks, including waging war. The legendary Knights of Nine were said to help quell those wars and protect those who used magic, but the Knights had been defeated by the High Queen and were never seen again. Or so the children’s stories went. How much of that was true and how much was embellished was up for debate. What wasn’t, was the High Queen’s ongoing war against all things magic, even if it all seemed a fool’s errand. Magic was nothing more than lies and rumors, meant to trick those desperate enough to believe in it. But rumors, true or not, have consequences. One of those rumors brought the Black Sun Battalion to Starfall. Everyone joked about it, children and adults alike. We all knew there was probably no such thing, but people still pretended their sword or shoe or stick was the famed magical object. The Black Sun didn’t like the joke and destroyed any thought of a magical object in Starfall. In the process, a riot broke out, a building burned down in the Narrows, and Roc’s parents were collateral damage. All in the name of preserving the safety of the kingdoms. Magic wasn’t real because the High Queen said it wasn’t. Commanded it wasn’t. There were no magicians, no spellcasters, no witches or warlocks, wizards or mages. No one could do magic, and she made sure no one would ever try. I let the dust from the necklace fall to the ground, contemplating what I knew to be true in my mind and what I felt to be true in my heart. I stared at Yokel, knowing he knew more, because of course he would. But we weren’t in Mercyhold to talk about things we weren’t supposed to. We were here to finish off a summer of tournaments with an undefeated season. The discombobulation of Yokel’s notes and my taboo questions were wreaking havoc on his analytical mind. He would break sooner rather than later if I pressed. Smiling slightly, I bent down to help gather his notes, handing them to him and forfeiting the argument to allow my oldest friend this small victory. Yok fumbled for control, and the entire portfolio fell once more from his desperate grip, showering the cold dirt floor with its contents. Utter defeat visibly washed over his body. “Yok, I’m sorry,” I said, giving his shoulder a friendly squeeze. “N-no, it’s n-not you,” he stammered, fighting to control his frustration. His skinny body seemed to shrink even more. “It’s all here, I just can’t keep it straight.” He sighed heavily. “Yok,” I whispered, letting my voice carry along the stale air. “Just breathe.” “But I can’t just, with, with, and...” He waved frantically at the scattered information at our feet. I grasped his other shoulder firmly, pulling him around so I could peer directly into his eyes. Cutting through the wall built against the mockery he’d grown accustomed to, I saw the young boy I met over nine years ago at a party among the high nobles, a place where neither of us felt we quite belonged, though our family names would suggest otherwise. A small, skinny, bespectacled boy stood nervously next to his mother’s hip as she mingled with the other noble families. His white-knuckled hands clung to her dress, and his eyes darted from towering adult to towering adult.