Redeemed, Heather Fledderus [early reader chapter books TXT] 📗

foreigners out and kept the kingdom hidden from view. Although she called it a Queendom, not a kingdom.”

“Gris, get to the point.”

“I am. Something caused the spell to fall apart. The ruling class was wiped out by rebels in a Civil war that was more like a civil one-sided slaughter. There was a tenuous peace for about twenty years and then they got ravaged by the empire that surrounded them. Aranea was completely destroyed.”

He took a long, slow draught of his flask. “Anyways, what makes you so interested suddenly in bringing up the past?”

“Something the girl said. Called Sylvia’s coma an Aranean incantation. Any idea what she meant?”

“Nawp, but those Repellers have always been their own kind for most things. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Wanderer were their ancestors. Most Repellers are illiterate, so they have an oral account of history. Maybe the same Wanderer I knew ended up joining them. Anyways, I’m gonna snap up these last few hours of daylight and take a nap.”

“Gris, how old are you?”

Griswold turned to look at him and laughed. “I lost count after my two hundereth birthday. Didn’t seem worth keeping track anymore. Have a good sleeping night, Clarke. You look like you’re not getting any younger here.”

“Ah, rub it in, why don’t you? Have a good working night, Gris.”

The door opened and the door-jam slid back into place as Gris dematerialized. Hilroy waited for a full minute before rising from his seat. Waving a hand at the door, he murmured an incantation and it slammed shut, the gargoyle pushed out of the way. He strode over to the bookshelf and trailed a finger along the volumes. Finding the one he wanted, a blue leather-bound book with no title or other markings aside from a cresent moon embossed in the corner. He returned to his desk and flipped it open, mindful of the worn pages. Tight handwriting filled the unlined pages, written in ink that had begun to fade over time. It was a journal of sorts, though it was filled with more than mere thoughts. Inventions, events of significance, all sorts of goodies were stored in it.

And the Minsitry didn’t know about it, which made it that much more priceless. He thumbed through the book to where it fell open naturally- several pages had been ripped out. He had tried everything to restore them, but without the actual pieces, there wasn’t anything that he could do about it.

The unnamed author had seemed to have come to some sort of moral issue. Before the missing pages, all the journal talked about was life in a small village filled with what was referred to as Vigils. Perhaps they had been the makers of the famed Vigil blades, of which only a small dozen remained. One of them was even on display in the school, outside the Blademaster Zeref’s office.

The topics after the missing pages seemed to have taken place years later, the location also changed. It was here that the writer spoke of Aranea. After what Griswold had told him, this seemed to happen after the ruling class had been wiped out. The book ended with the person being a healer in a small village, with detailed notes on different plants that the writer had experimented with. There was no mention of the ruling class.

The language itself was nothing fancy, nothing to hint at it being written by a male for a female. Maybe it had belonged to the Immortal Witch. Maybe it had simply belonged to someone who had grown up during that time. The incantation he had placed on himself, the one that enabled him to read it in the first place, was a rare one and hardly understood by those like him who knew about it.

He studied the remnants of the torn pages for a moment longer. What had caused the writer to rip them out? What secrets did they contain? And why had entire sections before the missing pages been blotted out? They spoke of something he hadn’t thought possible. They spoke of Faeries, and not too kindly of them either.

Other than the book he held in his hands, there were no other written mention of the race. The writer had spoken of them with contempt, but familiarity as if there had been many of them. He sighed. Perhaps there were other books like his, held in secret by others, protected from the world. But why had the writer tried to blot out the Faeries?

He studied the passages that he had Cleaned again, but the Faeries were only mentioned in passing, with comments like “blood-sucking”, “Good-for-nothing”, “Parasitic”, and “Vile” preceding them. When he looked at those particular passages without his incantation, he could tell that the language carried more colourful metaphors that simply could not be translated into English. What about the Faeries had made the writer hate them so, to the point of trying to completely erase them from history?

He sighed. Always more questions. Always no answers for them. The writer had introduced themself as the Banished One. Perhaps a former member of a Repeller clan. If Repellers had existed for so long. That was the real reason why he was so interested in Zen- to find out more about her clan history. How long had the clans been around, what was their version of history? He had her for two years, he wasn’t going to give that up easily.

He closed the book and returned the spell bindings around it, preserving it until he would read it again. The spell was nothing unusual. He had it on all of his books simply to keep from drawing another Diviner’s attention to this one. He returned it to the shelf and removed the spell from his office, unsheilding it.

He turned his thoughts to more present matters. Sylvia was awake now. No doubt her father would be coming sometime in the next year, but no earlier than in a month’s time. The man was busy, but his coming was inevitable. Perhaps she would be able to answer a few of the questions that had been buzzing around in his mind. How had the three of them known to look down there in the first place. Candace had been absolutely useless on that count. He knew that the four had somehow gotten involved in something, but she was tight-lipped about nearly everything. Sylvia rambled for hours about the most mundane of topics, he was sure that he could guide her far looser lips in the direction of the Stone.

The Society wanted answers. They had even threatened to remove the Stone from its hiding place, to relocate it to a more secure facility. But as Zen had proven just this past summer, even the banks weren’t safe from being cracked. Better to keep it close at hand to one of the Wings. Sylvia would definitely have answers for them all.

Zen vs. the Detention

September was probably the longest month that Zen had ever lived through. Potions sucked, charms sucked, anti-magic sucked, battle tactics sucked to the power of infinity. The bed was uncomfortable and the Forest of Mysteries was in fact, off limits. Who knew?

Of course, she seemed to be attracting detentions like a fire attracted moths. It wasn’t anything she did really. Showing up late for class had not been by design- she had been ambushed by a pack of lesser Grimwore. It had been harder than she had expected- there had only been five of them, but escaping the forest without killing them had been difficult. She was out of practice, and paid for it with a detention with Professor Atworth, professor of charms, which was also one of her less favourite classes.

Detention was actually where she was now. Stuffed in a classroom during extracurricular time with several other students ranging from first years to fourths. Apparently, fifth and sixth years absolutely refused to do anything fun. And there was only one first year.

Ever since she had found out that Zen was being served detention on an almost daily basis, August had somehow managed to become the first year’s trouble maker. Just the other day, she had “accidentally” blown up a small, worthless statue in the hall of the immortal witch, a statue that had turned out to be an utter fake. It had been Zen’s favourite- the nose had been only a tad bit off, and it had been more on the complimentary side. Most of the statues weren’t even historically accurate, but far be it from her to correct the centuries of artists who carved what they imagined.

She fingered the textbook that she was supposed to be reading. Professor Atworth expected an essay on the history of charms-casting, focusing particularly pre-Guild Wars era. And the textbook was ridiculous, speaking of wizards and mages and guilds that she hadn’t even heard of.

August, sitting beside her, was supposed to be perfecting her technique of charms-casting in general. “Los nacht et tabulem,” she declared, waving her hands at the feather in front of her. It moved slightly, but Zen felt the small draught that trickled through from the window that was open just the barest of cracks.

Zen slammed the book shut, pulled free a sheet of paper and began to write, careful to maintain her handwriting. It took years to perfect a unique style, and at this early stage, she still stood the risk of dropping back into an old habbit. It probably didn’t help that she still used her old writing style for her journal, but old habits died hard, and that was the way that Boromir had taught her to write. At the thought of the man, a chill swept through her body, like a ghost had just walked through her.

She finished the essay in about half an hour, leaving another half before detention finally let out and she could return to her den. August was still working on the stupid spell.

August groaned and dropped her head onto her desk with a loud thunk. “I hate this stuff,” she declared loudly.

Professor Atworth flicked her a silencing glare before returning his attention to his book. From where she sat, Zen couldn’t make out the title, which meant it was probably something boring. She turned her attention back to August. “What spell are you trying to cast?”

“I’m trying to make the thing float. Light objects are supposed to be easy, but I can’t get it to work. How come the flashlight hands spell was easier?”

“Because that one required very little magic. Manipulating yourself is nowhere near as difficult as manipulating something else. Everything is in groups of three for magic, if you think about it, even if eight is supposed to be the magic number. There are three types of casting- spells for inanimate objects, incantations as preset instructions for a specifc effect, normally on a person, and jinxes, which are forbidden anyways so we don’t really learn about them.”

August groaned. “You know, if the whole Grimwore hunter thing doesn’t work out, you’d be an excellent teacher here. I can just picture myself dozing off as you start talking about all the magics there are in the world.”

Zen cuffed her none too gently across the back of the head.

“Ow!”

“shut up and listen. This is your life now. You