The Lost Redeemer: (Aeonica Book 1) by Musk David

Author:Musk, David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

20

Battle Trauma

Ethermancy isn’t free. It requires an energy source. Fire is a common source, especially for Sanctifiers. But Etherite is the most common source by far.

—From the journal of Lyraina Trelian, page 19

Master Marwyn proved especially difficult to track down. Nahlia started with his office in the masters’ tower, but after climbing five flights of stairs, she found a locked door. No answer when she knocked. No light slipped through the cracks.

Oh well, at least she’d tried.

“Looking for Marwyn?” a middle-aged woman asked as she rounded the corner.

Nahlia nodded. “I had an appointment at five o’clock, but it looks like no one’s home.”

“Oh.” The woman made a swatting motion at the door. “He never uses that office. He has another one in the infirmary. I’d start there if I were you.”

Great. Just another one of the academy’s unspoken rules. Why couldn’t someone write all this down in a student handbook? Nahlia would have started one herself if her circumstances had been more ordinary.

For now, she trudged back down the spiral staircase and through the courtyard.

Whitecliff’s infirmary sat on the school’s southern border where it mingled with the surrounding village. The inside had the same high windows and vaulted ceilings she’d come to expect from these buildings. The only difference was the pungent smell of antiseptic that flooded her nostrils.

She passed between two rows of portable beds covered in white linen and divided by thin blue curtains. Student physicians attended a pair of wounded battleclan students. One had a bashed-up leg, and the other had an open gash on his forehead. Both wore the dark red uniforms of Howler Clan.

Must be Ciena Raider’s way of saying hello.

One of Marwyn’s students directed her toward a closed wooden door, and Nahlia followed that down a long hallway. Another thick-timbered door loomed at the end, and she gave it a soft knock.

No answer. Muffled sounds came from the other side. Clanking glass bottles, boiling liquids, and some sort of machinery.

Great. The Master Physician was absentminded and irresponsible. Good incentive not to get hurt, she supposed.

Nahlia knocked harder.

“Alright!” a voice snapped.

A bolt drew back, and the door opened with a creek. Marwyn could have been anywhere between forty and sixty years old. Pale, slender, and balding, he had a pair of round spectacles on his nose.

“Ah. Nahlia Cole. Arrived in Whitecliff three weeks ago with Raiders.” He glanced at her slate-gray parka. “Battleclan member now. Interesting. Would have guessed scholars.”

Nahlia blinked. She’d almost forgotten how quickly Marwyn spoke. “Yes, sir. I’m here for my—”

Marwyn spun around and hurried back to his desk.

“—appointment.” She slumped her shoulders and followed him inside.

The room smelled like oil, stone dust, and heated metal. Twisted glassware and chemistry tubes covered the tabletops, along with a hundred other strange tools.

Marwyn glanced up at the clock on his desk. “Yes. Five o’clock. Almost forgot.” He took a glass-stoppered bottle and adjusted his spectacles for what must’ve been a precise measuring process.

Nahlia also leaned forward to examine the clock. It was already quarter past five, thanks to her misadventure in the masters’ tower.

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