A Clash of Magics by Guy Antibes (read this if txt) 📕

“Marna and I are history.” Whit threw himself into the only stuffed chair in the space.

“You know what I say about history,” Naman said.

“It is always better to leave it behind.” Whit put his hands to his longish brown hair and grabbed it in frustration.

Naman smiled, a bit sadly as he had started to do when Whit’s mother died. “Right. You can look back, but don’t carry it with you.”

“Sometimes that’s hard to do,” Whit said.

“Tell me about it. At least we still have a good roof over our heads.”

Whit shook his head. His father had once been a popular history professor at Herringbone University when he met Whit’s mother. Their differences couldn’t destroy the love that had developed between them. Naman, a sky elf, gave up teaching to help his wife run Whistle Vale after she inherited the chief’s position from a distant relative when Whit was three years old.

Now that their connection to the village was severed, they both faced ostracization from the villagers. “Let’s get another coat of lime on the walls and then tomorrow starts the last week of study for your entrance exams into Herringbone.”

“But the cost,” Whit said. “You can use that money once we have to leave.”

Naman sighed. “We don’t have much to rely on, but we will have to make do. At least we will have some furniture to use when we leave, and you already have most of the books you’ll need for your first term.”

Whit wasn’t as excited as he once was to attend university. He could almost pass for a wood elf, from a distance, but both his father and mother warned him that living in Whistle Vale after he graduated wouldn’t be tolerated. He knew how true those words were now that his social life had crumbled away to nothing.

“If you are moving away from the village, why are we resurfacing the walls of our hut?” Whit asked his father as they began lugging out the plastering tools from the outside shed. “No one else whitewashes their huts like Mother did.”

Naman laughed and ruffled Whit’s hair, a little lighter than his mother’s dark brown hair and without the characteristic green highlights. “Your mother asked me the day before she died. My promise.”

Whit frowned. “No one will appreciate our work. You know that.”

Naman nodded. “Your mother will, wherever she is.”

Another sigh. Whit nodded. “For mother, then. Maybe we can go over inscribed wards. I could use some practice with those.”

It was Naman’s turn to sigh. “That is a wood elf specialty, but I don’t think anyone in the Whistle Vale will teach you more of their secrets. You might know enough to give you a tiny advantage over the sky elves at Herringbone.”

As the two of them began to apply another coat of plaster on the round cottage Whit had known as his only home, Naman traced a magical inscription on the wall, and then Whit repeated it. Naman’s work was inert, but Whit’s would help preserve the whitewash.

Whit heard footsteps approaching from behind.

“Do a proper job.”

Whit turned. Terakir Hogan, Marna’s father walked up and bumped into Naman. “Useless sky elf,” Terakir said. “We never did see what Oleana saw in you. Or either of you, now that Whit is full grown. We had to put up with her, but we don’t have to endure your ilk in the village any longer.”

“We will be out of your hair soon enough,” Naman said. “Give us a week to get the chieftain’s hut cleaned out. You’ll be the one taking over.”

“As it should be,” Terakir said. “I want you two out of the village before daybreak.”

“And if we aren’t?” Whit asked, angrier than his father appeared to be.

“No one with sky elf blood will be alive in Whistle Vale after the sun comes up.”

Whit’s heart sunk as he heard grunts of agreement from the others in the little crowd backing Teraki up.

“Then you can finish this up yourself,” Naman said, dropping the bucket filled with thin plaster. It sloshed onto Terakir’s pant legs and that was all it took for the other wood elves to close in on Naman, who stood taller than the stockier wood elves. “You don’t want to fight me. There will be injuries on both sides.”

“Don’t think we haven’t taken that into account,” one of Whit’s former friends said as he stepped up with a pad of paper and a thick pencil and began scribbling.

“Get behind me!” Naman said to Whit.

Whit’s father began to move his fingers and then his arms in circles. As the first ward hit them, their defense, a ball of water, surrounded the pair. A flash hit Naman in the chest before the water shield solidified. The next ward shredded the barrier of water, but it drenched the men attacking them, pushing them to the ground and water splashed back onto Naman and Whit that extinguished the flames just starting to catch on Naman’s clothes.

“We have to run!” Naman said, clutching his chest. “This is madness!” he muttered as he coughed and grabbed Whit’s sleeve.

They ran toward the main road, a few hundred paces down from the village. Naman’s hands never stopped producing a flow of water behind them. The dirt road began to turn to thick mud slowing their assailants. When they reached the road, Naman slowed up. He was a mess. His bare chest was exposed from the large, burned hole in his shirt. Neither of them had any money on them and their only possessions were the clothes on their backs.

The traffic on the road now became their protection as they quickly walked between a few wagons and others traveling by foot. Whit looked back at the turn off to the village. Their pursuers raised their