27 – The (Not Counterfeit) Vitality Charm

Arielle managed to get an exeat approved for the following day.

It was the last day of the weekend, and she didn’t want to delay the charm production as she didn’t know how busy the rest of her week was going to be.

Once the exeat was approved that morning, Ari asked Rava to accompany her, and the other woman was all too happy to agree.

“There’s someone I wanted to meet up with anyway,” she said.

“Who?” Arielle asked, but Rava merely winked and said, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Arielle didn’t understand. What type of secret would only be relevant when she was older?

Or perhaps it was a legal requirement that people under the age of eighteen were not allowed to know certain things.

Either way, after breakfast, she and Rava boarded a two-decker ferry that sailed to their destination.

The helmsman stood at the top, controlling the movement of the boat, and there was one other student on board, the boy who had been duelling with Selena.

Telip was his name.

She’d heard someone else call over to him the last time she’d been at the library, though he ignored the boy and walked off, so perhaps that wasn’t really his name.

But Selena had called him that during their duel, too.

So maybe he’d walked off because he simply didn’t like the company.

Right now, he sat alone, reading from a book, with his legs crossed and a finger propped on his temple. It gave the impression that he’d blocked out the rest of the world and was totally engrossed in the text before him.

Ari thought to do the same. In fact, she’d brought The Vacu Paradox along with her in a satchel, partially because Khor City, where they were headed, had some ties to the old clan of Vaelor.

Essentially, there were seven major continents and about twelve minor ones, a drift of lands from east to west, with the easternmost continents being the least populated and the westernmost continents being the most populated.

The world was said to have started in the east and moved west, migration following the distribution of essences, with the most powerful nations commanding the highest concentration and therefore, attracting larger movements of people every year.

The easternmost continents were also where the original essences were discovered. Calor was found in Titan’s fury, a mountainous region in Pyronis; Massa was discovered deep in the Shardling Enclaves of Mireland; Vitae in the soil of the Wildlands; Luxa was in the sky castles of Luminous Peak, and Vacu was in the depths of the sea next to what was now known as Remnant Valley.

While noble families retained ancestral land and castles in those historic locations, most of them preferred to live in western cities and within abundant ley lines.

Remnant Valley was where the vacu-dominant noble house of Vaelor originated. After everything that happened, it was currently the most deserted Kingdom, with its people having fled to seek refuge in other cities and populate remote islands.

One of those islands was Khor, then a small fishing village that was slowly growing into a metropolis. In the year 150 AE, the island was attacked by trolls emerging from a dimensional split, and the monsters nearly decimated all on the land until they were saved by the Black Knight–a Vaelor legend.

Her book went into detail about how the Knight cut the beasts down in fell swoops, saving hundreds of citizens.

Khor City, mostly made up of non-essence users, had dubbed the Black Knight their national hero, and they’d built temples in his honor and in honor of King Vaelor as well.

So when the House of Vaelor and its lands fell to war and famine, this was one of the places the remnants came to.

It was a lucky break for Ari that it was so close to the academy. Arielle was curious about what the place would look like and what the essence distribution would be. She’d noticed that essences tended to be higher in places populated by their dominant users. For example, Fenway had the largest amount of Vitae in the atmosphere, with small portions of Massa and Calor. Stonehold had more Massa and Luxa than anything else, and so she assumed that she would see a lot of Vacu essences in Khor.

As the boat cut through the water, the breeze blowing through her hair, Ari read of the 100-year war between the House of Draco and the House of Vaelor, and how the Abyssal Drift had swept through the darkness, saving people on the brink of death.

Either that or he was killing them, while the Death God claimed their souls.

The book couldn’t decide which story was true, so it simply told both of them.

That’s frustrating. Arielle thought. Why did people tell such contradictory stories, especially about the Drift specifically?

Perhaps it was the source that was the problem. Maybe one of them was lying.

She made a mental note to check who actually told these stories. There had to be something in the library that revealed it, or perhaps Professor Woden would know.

“We’re almost there,” Rava mentioned, and Ari looked up from her book.

She could see the city gliding closer, an overcast sky pressing down on the tall historic buildings.

“Is it going to rain?” Arielle asked.

“No,” Rava said. “It always looks like that. I think it’s the Vacu curse waiting to claim it. You know a lot of Vacu-dominants used to live there, although not so much anymore.”

Arielle didn’t respond because she didn’t have a proper one to give. Instead, she focused on the three tall slender towers, capped with pointed roofs that reminded her of castles in the distant eastern lands that she’d seen in storybooks.

“What are those?” she asked Rava.

“Temples,” Rava responded. “One for the Unholy Trio, one for Black Knight, and the other for the Great Balancer.”

“The Unholy Trio?”

“You know, the Drift, the Hollow Priest, and the Death God.”

“I see,” she said. So they too had temples here. “What about Vaelor? I thought he had a temple.”

“It got destroyed in an earthquake,” she said. “It was the only thing on the Island that got completely demolished by the tremors.”

“Interesting,” Arielle murmured, although in her mind it was far too many coincidences to make sense. Perhaps, there really was a curse.

The docks spread before their eyes, lined with wooden stalls, piled with different types of fish and sea vegetation.

Dozens of craggly faced old men stood around, skinning fish with deft fingers, yelling things at each other, throwing items that the recipients caught without looking, moving with the practiced ease of traders who had been together for a long time.

The noise and the fish reminded Arielle of home. She inhaled the scent as she stepped off the boat, and it brought her some comfort.

One of the men shouted above the din. “You! Girl!”

Ari caught him staring directly at her, and she pointed at herself. “Me?”

“Yes. You want sea trout? Only two silver.”

“No, buy from me,” another man across the way said. “I’ll give it to you for only one silver. And I’ll even add some lovely fish eyes for the lovely lady.” He waggled his eyebrows toward Rava.

Arielle shook her head.

“That’s not the right amount for trout, by the way,” she said. “In Fenway, freshwater trout that size would only be about two copper. You’re selling it for five to ten times the price.”

The second man looked stunned, then recovered quickly. “Ah, but this is special trout. The best in all the lands.”

“It doesn’t look special. It looks about two days old, mildly salted.”

The man frowned as the first one laughed uproariously. “She knows her stuff.”

She nodded about to give them more advice on their pricing, but Rava pulled her in and said, “Stop talking to them, Arielle.”

“Why?” she turned to Rava. “I’m just trying to inform them of how overpriced their goods are.”

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“They know. You’re from Erynwall, so they assumed you were a noble who didn’t know the proper price of trout. That’s why they’re trying to cheat you.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

Rava sighed and pulled Ari along as they left the docks, ignoring the various calls shouted their way.

As the town opened up to them, Arielle instantly tensed at the crowd that streamed down all the streets, thicker around what looked to be a marketplace.

There weren’t as many people as there had been in the Axiom Stone Market, but it was far more than she was comfortable with.

However, she was prepared for this, for the noises and the smells and the cacophony of sensation that would torment her for the next hour or so. It was a market after all. She could handle it, although an hour was her limit for being in a crowd like this.

She’d tested it before, and she knew that after an hour in the crowded market, she would be ready to scream.

The scent of the sea still cloaked them, overpowering the scent of spice, herbs, and dried meats laid out on the streets.

“You need to be very careful here,” Rava said as they walked. “I wouldn’t call it a crime-ridden area, but there are a lot of shady characters, and people eager to part a fool with their money.”

“I’m not a fool.”

“I know that, but we don’t want to give them the impression that you are. So just don’t make eye contact with anyone and don’t respond to anyone unless you’re actually going to buy something from them.”

“Alright,” Arielle said. Back at Fenway, not making eye contact was forbidden. Meeting people’s gazes was a sign of respect and honesty, and so if you didn’t, you would be assumed to be dishonest or disrespectful.

Many had made that assumption about Ari when she was young, until her sister had coached her on slowly increasing her frequency and length of eye contact.

It was still tough for her, but she always forced herself to hold it for at least a full second before she let herself look away.

So a market like this probably suited her better, and she was glad that she could ignore people without being rude.

“Where are you going by the way?” Rava asked as they entered the market and were assailed by noise. She had to raise her voice and pull Arielle out of the way to avoid being barrelled into by a wagon.

“The apothecary,” Arielle responded.

“Oh. Are you making potions or charms?”

“Charms.”

“Hm. I thought that wasn’t till the second year.” She pointed to a narrow stall wedged between two awnings. “Go there. That’s where Woden typically gets his. And I’m supposed to escort you since you’re a first year, but it’s not like you’re an ignorant noble who’s never been out on their own before, right?”

“Right.” Arielle concurred.

“Good. So you can find your way around. Once you’re done there, you can go to the town square. It’s very quaint; there’s an inn that makes very good mutton and lots of bookstores that you can visit. Not to mention the temple if you’re feeling religious, although there’s a price for admission.”

Arielle nodded. The bookstore was the place she really wanted to go to. She didn’t have a map or any true idea where anything was, but she felt comfortable enough exploring on her own. And she could simply ask if she was lost.

“Okay,” Rava said. “Then I’m going to visit a friend. We’ll meet in about half an hour at the docks. Actually, let’s make that forty-five minutes. Oh, and don’t tell Garrick by the way.”

“Tell Garrick what?”

“Precisely.” She snapped her fingers. “Good girl.” She patted her head before striding briskly away on the cobbled streets.

Arielle stared after her for a few seconds, still wondering what she wasn’t supposed to tell Garrick.

Then she pushed it to the back of her mind and began toward the apothecary, ignoring the several other people who called out to her with things like “Student, come here, I have something for you,” and “Pretty girl. How about a hairpin?”

Arielle reached the apothecary, walked up the wooden steps, and knocked on the door.

“It’s open,” came a deep voice.

She entered and headed straight to the counter, where a man with his back turned to her ground something with a mortar and pestle.

“Hello,” she greeted. “The weather is lovely. May I purchase herbs?”

The man stopped, turning to frown deeply at her. “Are you blind?”

“What?”