Mage's Apprentice by Sean Fletcher

Author:Sean Fletcher [Fletcher, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Epic Worlds Publishing
Published: 2019-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

The Discovery

There was surprisingly little pain. She felt separate from her body as she sank back into herself, letting the darkness take over.

She saw a man and a woman standing in a bright, colorful garden. It was summertime. The sun scorched the earth. The flowers were blooming. Beyond the white fence over her shoulder, Aspen could see a glittering lake. A single, secluded road rounded gently through hills of green.

This wasn’t her memory. The people in front of her weren’t her Mom and Dad. They must have been Isak’s. She must have picked up the last bit of the memory Isak had been giving Car and now she was getting to watch them as they slowly ran out of her mind. Even now the figures were disappearing. The entire scene leaked away like running watercolors. Then it began reforming into another.

“I’m warning you. Back off.”

This was the Isak she remembered as a child. His tattoos were not as vivid as they were in the present. He couldn’t have been more than a year older than when she’d first met him in the alleyway, but there were multiple cuts and nicks covering his skin. His expression was fierce and deadly as he stood his ground in the corner of an abandoned room, blocking the way of the two men.

“Isak!” Eve tugged on the hem of his shirt as she struggled to stay standing. Her ankle was swollen. Sprained, maybe. “Isak, I’ll just go with them. You don’t have to—”

“Listen to her, kid,” one of the men said. He took a step closer. “Just let the girlie come with us and that’ll be that. Nobody gets hurt. ‘Specially you.”

Isak ground his jaw. He stepped more in front of Eve.

“Ah, don’t be like that, kid.” The second guy almost sounded sad. “Ya really gonna do this?”

“Start running, Eve,” Isak said. He pushed her away before bringing up his hands and slamming them against the ground. The magic Aspen was used to seeing from him flared to life beneath his feet.

But there was something wrong. This magic was weak and unfocused. It curled from the ground into his hand, but instead of solidifying into a dangerous force it merely sputtered and died.

The men laughed. Isak was still staring at it when the first fist collided with his jaw. He sprawled to the ground. Blood poured from his lip.

“Stupid—little—brat—” one of the men said. Aspen could see now that they weren’t men at all, but trolls. Their gray skin was covered with bits of branches growing up and down their arms. Wide jaws like bricks expanded from bulbous skulls with tiny, malicious eyes deeply set in their sockets.

“That was supposed to be our sacrifice this month,” the other troll said, giving Isak another kick that made him whimper and try to cover his head. “Pretty little thing like that? Would have made Jarjur very happy, that would have.”

The first troll bent over and grabbed the top of Isak’s head, lifting him up so that he was dangling in front of them by his hair.

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