I. Nice Night for a Tumble
Magic tumbled out behind Hawke’s voice, the softest vibrations through the air Vahn could trace if he wanted to. The song thrummed against the energy of the tavern’s common room during the late afternoon crowd. Numerous tables were already taken by various locals and travelers to head off a dinner rush (making a rush of their own, Vahn supposed). Gold sunlight slid inside from the balcony doors thrown open wide to invite the breeze inside. The room was warm with spiced drinks, mouthwatering roasts at every table, and Hawke.
He bounced before the room’s hearth, fingers gliding across his lute, creating song. Never once did he miss a note despite the multiple cups he’d already downed from patrons galore buying him refills. His voice cascaded from his lips, the magic from it weaving its way through the room like ribbons, and it was so smooth and exact, Vahn wanted so badly to touch it. Learn how it was doing what it did and most of all, find out what exactly it was. Wild Magic had barbs and went its own path like lightning upon the air once released. Magic up above was rote, controlled, and too constricted to move as freely as this.
Whatever it was, it flowed along the smooth words from Hawke’s own lips, highlighting what a talented bard he was. His energy was infectious, making even Vahn bounce, and the room was simply alive with his song. It was one of the bawdier ballads given how the room reacted to it, but Vahn had lost track of the words as his focus honed in on the magic from Hawke’s smiling lips.
It couldn’t have been a blend of magics. Hawke had never been to the Floating World as per his own admission. Then again, he didn’t quite admit knowing power was there in his throat. Sure, the man couldn’t rise a spell, but his voice was its own kind of spell. One so unknown and foreign to Vahn, he just had to learn one day what exactly it was doing and how it worked.
Vahn attempted to write it down, capture its intricacies, but he couldn’t keep up. He had no idea what to write and it vexed him so completely, all he could do after numerous attempts was watch Hawke against the fuzzy firelight. It took everything he had to ignore the urge to walk up to him and feel his throat as he sung. The urge to dissect it somehow between his fingertips.
Quickly, Vahn looked away, his cheeks flushing. The cider was going to his head. He should stop thinking about it and just enjoy the song.
Too bad it ended as soon as Vahn resolved to actually listen. The riff ending the ballad shook Vahn out of his addled thoughts and the crowd around Hawke clapped energetically, practically drowning out any lingering magic voice in the air. Coins plinked into the cup laid out at Hawke’s feet (how he hadn’t tripped over it as he bounced around was a mystery) and he bowed to the room, grinning wide. Hawke even blew the room many kisses, of which Vahn had to hide a snort in his glass when Hawke made eye contact and blew him one too. Maybe they were both a little addled.
“You’re all truly too kind!” Hawke said, his voice cutting through all the chatter. Magic chased after it, prompting Vahn to peer back up. A few patrons were giving him more coin as he passed their tables. “Thank you, thank you!”
The room became what it was before Hawke took everyone’s attention and waitresses surged through it again to collect plates, hand out more food, and even refill glasses. Hawke made it back to their table before anyone ran him over and he sat with a decided plop, nearly tipping over if Vahn hadn’t helped right him. Hawke sheepishly smiled in thanks and placed the mug of coin on the table.
“Your voice is truly enchanting,” Vahn said, tongue working of its own accord.
Hawke coughed into his drink. “Hey now,” he teased. He settled his cup down and leaned his chin on his palm. “Don’t you start telling me pick-up lines too.” More magic drifted out with the words, but it was a soft trickle at best.
Vahn gripped his mug so he didn’t give in to the temptation to rush Hawke to feel his throat. He remembered how tense Hawke had become the first time he’d tried. Not again without asking. “How often do pick-up lines work for you?” he asked instead.
Hawke gave him a guilty look before laughing and Vahn snickered. Plenty of times, it seemed. On the journey here even, Hawke had been quick with smiles and flirty words whenever they stopped at a place for a real meal. So far, it had obtained free rooms, free dinners, and many times Hawke had the opportunity to bed worker and patron alike. It was interesting, to say the least, being with someone so carefree like Hawke. Not a worry in the world.
“I saw the way you were watching me, you know,” Hawke said and Vahn hummed assent as he dropped his gaze to the scribbles in his notebook. Nothing substantial, just how his body had reacted to the voice. A little embarrassing. He conveniently covered it with his arm as he grabbed his mug. “Like you wanted to tie me down and dissect me or something.”
Vahn almost spat out his drink and Hawke laughed so good naturedly, Vahn was glad he wasn’t offended.
“Hardly!” Vahn insisted, his voice doing a funny lift even he saw the lie in. “I was merely enjoying the lyrics. Nothing more.”
“Uh huh.” Hawke leaned closer, grinning much too wide, and heat was creeping up Vahn’s body with the way Hawke was watching him. “You a fan of ogresses and naughty princesses, then?”
The heat went right to Vahn’s face and he tried to cover it, but it was too late. Hawke’s laughter told him enough and Vahn couldn’t help his own bubbling out of his throat. “I misspoke,” he acquiesced. “Maybe not the lyrics. I just liked listening.”
“So, if I went up there and just read some drivel, you’d be giving me that same look?”
If it made magic sing like that too, yes, but Vahn swallowed the words and gave Hawke a noncommittal shrug. It was enough to make him return to his seat to take another large gulp of the cider that had been left at the table for him by a passing waitress. This one smelled a little stronger than the last.
“Hey.” Hawke’s smile had dropped when he settled the cup back on the table. There was a thoughtful, worried look there instead. “You’re good, right? I know you’ve been pretty tired lately. I bet I can get you a room now, if you want.” He nudged the coin-filled cup at Vahn and winked. “Bet this’ll even pay for a full bath complete with relaxing soaps and bubbles.”
The thought was sweet. Even sweeter still Hawke noticed Vahn hadn’t been sleeping well despite his attempts to hide his insomnia. Ever since they’d left Larkspur, sleep had been evasive. When he found it, he was always thrust into a nightmare where he watched Luven’s head pop into the bloody mess it became over and over again, unable to stop it. There should have been a better ending for that whole scenario that didn’t leave a man dead (deserved or not), a girl traumatized, and an entire city thrown out of an illusion they had made home. A High Magician would have been able to do it cleaner, but the very same insistence soured thinking of what Luven had said. High Magicians didn’t care; Larkspur was an out of the way city. It would never affect the Floating Cities, so it may as well not even exist.
Perhaps it was affecting him so viscerally because it’d been a while since he’d seen something so ghastly. The last time, he’d immediately been given something to dull the memory. Now, it was so stark and real. Sometimes he woke up thinking there was still blood on him until Hawke told him he was clean.
He also hated how it affected him so noticeably. Hawke was never fooled.
“I’m fine,” Vahn tried, dodging the look Hawke gave him. “I truly do like seeing you prance and preen, so I do not wish to retire early.” He smiled at Hawke, glad when Hawke smirked back. Vahn rested his chin on his palm and leaned forward on the table. “You are truly energetic today, though. More than you have been before.”
“Being buzzed does that for a guy and they sell really good drinks here.” Hawke’s new cup was empty now, but he still didn’t seem too affected. Even his words were clearly enunciated. He rubbed a hand on his throat and Vahn felt a spark of magic there, reacting to his touch. If only Vahn could do the same and he quickly buried that thought. “Makes singing easier.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Excuse me…”
A little, quaint voice interrupted them and Vahn and Hawke turned to see a girl near the table. Couldn’t have been much older than Molly. She had traveling clothes wrapped around her slight frame and her straw-colored hair was in two braids down her shoulders. She was watching Hawke with absolute fascination and hardly contained her glee when Hawke faced her properly in his seat.
“Do you take requests?” she asked. “My daddy and I caught the end of your last song and I think you have such a nice voice.”
Hawke’s lips tilted into a soft and warm smile. “For you, sweetheart, of course. What do you want to hear?”
The girl’s eyes sparkled. “Do you know the ‘Dragon and the Maiden Fair’?”
“It’s a classic!” Hawke grinned. “I know it by heart.”
The girl was practically vibrating now. “Could you play that for me? Please? My daddy can even pay you if you want!”
“Oh, well, in that case, I’d be a fool to say no.” He winked at her and gazed over her head as she all but skipped back to who must have been her father. Hawke waved at him and the man waved back, sheepishly shaking his head like he hadn’t realized his daughter had gone off to request a song.
As Hawke stood, he leaned toward Vahn, words there on his lips, but Vahn urged him on. “Go, have some more fun,” he said. “I’m going to get some air on the balcony for this one. No more dissecting you. I promise.”
“Aw, but I like it when you’re dissecting me,” Hawke teased and Vahn shook his head, trying not to smile. Hawke winked and pulled his lute back in front. “After this song, I’ll come join you. My voice is gonna go hoarse at this rate with all these requests!”
Vahn doubted it would, especially the way Hawke eagerly headed back to the hearth with the beginnings of the ballad on his lips already. The crowd immediately recognized the notes and many began clapping in time with it. Hawke’s voice came as clear as it had before, this time about dragons and maidens, and the room’s energy renewed with the song.
The ballad was Vahn’s favorite, especially the way Hawke’s husky singing voice maneuvered its way through the lyrics. Magic flowed from his lips and delightfully played with the room—even Vahn—and it quickly became overwhelming. It was seldom Vahn found magic he couldn’t understand. If Hawke had strolled into one of the Floating Universities and belted out a song, many of the students there would have already tied him down to figure out what the magic was.
Vahn remembered his fingers on Hawke’s throat the first night they met. The power latent there beneath his pulse. How it was growing upon the air now as something new and wild. Vahn blinked with the mortification he would have been one of those students who would have tied him down. Hawke was his friend. Not a subject to be dissected.
Gathering only his mug, Vahn made for the open doors leading out into the balcony that stretched around the back of the tavern. Fresh air was nice on his flushed skin. No one was out here tonight, not with the slight chill upon the air once away from the hearth, and Vahn drank the solitary in to sober up.
It was a nice place. The town sat against the edge of a valley and the tavern’s balcony overlooked it. Legend had it that the valley was actually a crack in the land made from a great battle long ago. Vahn wasn’t sure how true that was upon gazing downward; anything that would make that kind of mark would require a tremendous amount of magic. The likes of which haven’t been seen since the Floating Cities took to the skies. As it was, all that grew down there now were thick throngs of trees full of nettles and brush Vahn was sure had thorns all over the place.
The sun was dipping down below the farthest trees in the distance, casting orange streaks through the sky. Further in the distance still was one of the floating cities glimmering against dusk as it drew toward Westin Spire City in the north. A connecting city where travelers could come down from the floating islands or for merchants to come up. It made Vahn uneasy being so close, because it meant he could happen across a High Magician if they deigned to come down and he was definitely not ready to show what he’d learned thus far. It wasn’t much and he’d have to explain why it took him so long to master Solar Magic of all things.
With a deep breath, he tried to expel the worries and leaned against the railing. The magic ghosting off Hawke’s voice trailed down his exposed neck like soft fingertips, tempting him to go back inside with it, but he resisted it and sipped his cider.
It hadn’t been very long since they left Larkspur in a rush, those pulled free from the illusion so rudely searching for someone to blame. And, all right sure—they were to blame, but it was better this way. As promised, Molly and her mother took them to the first fork in the road and though Marla offered to take them farther, Hawke decided the wind took them the opposite direction. Then it was just them on the road.
Vahn hadn’t minded it; he liked the aimless wander. They’d slept under the stars the first night, and then after that, went from quaint towns to bustling ones following the wind, and finally, they came here. All the while, however, Vahn hadn’t been able to find a hint or pull of magic to learn more. Frustrating to say the least, but he’d begun writing a rudimentary chapter on Illusion Magic and learned a few spells as a result. All he’d managed to do on his own was disguise objects, but with enough time, he was sure he could disguise himself entirely like Luven had been doing to Larkspur.
Vahn shook his head. No more thoughts of Luven. He wanted to sleep tonight and if he dwelled, Luven’s head would appear in the dregs of sleep and drag him back awake with something that still felt too real.
He turned, wanting to watch the dragon moon rise over the tavern’s tiled roof when he sighted two girls an arm’s length from him. Both startled, brown eyes wide, and stared at him as though they’d been caught in the act.
Of what, Vahn wasn’t sure, but goosebumps rushed down his arms.
“Uh…” Vahn swallowed. “Can I help you?”
The girls barely glanced at one another before they dove at him. No time to incant a spell—Vahn was in too much shock, honestly—and the girls’ combined weight hit him, throwing the three of them over the railing and into the valley below.
Branches tried and failed to break Vahn’s fall. Nettles scraped up and down his skin as he was whipped back and forth from tree to tree. Each time he tried a quick spell—something—his breath was stolen away with a branch slamming into his chest. The girls were coming down with him, but on glances between branches, they were practically gliding their way down like acrobats. Vahn finally lost sight of them and then there was the ground. Coming up fast.
He had to do something. A spell choked out of his throat—some garbled words he knew he wouldn’t recall later—and Wild Magic swept underneath him as a gust of wind. It left him suspended for a moment, all momentum gone in an instant, and then dissipated. He hit the ground hard before he’d recovered enough to brace himself and the world went white from the pain.
When Vahn got his wits about him, deliriously as it still felt like he was falling, he felt a hand in his pocket. It drew back just as soon as he noticed it and a girl huffed.
“Shit! He’s got no cash anywhere!” she said. “You said he looked rich! All he’s got are these stupid gemstones!”
Trapped starlight and sunlight, good for a pick-me-up. Vahn mouthed the words, the air still gone from his lungs to properly explain what they are. More than stupid gemstones. He should move, he distantly knew that, but the ground was preferable to standing right now.
“Not my fault!” another girl argued. She sounded much like the first, down to the inflection in her words, but her words were surer. “The bard was flirting with him—thought it was for money not company.” A rush of gardenias lowered next to Vahn and hands lifted his wrist. “This is gold, right?”
“Ooh! I think so!”
“Then help me get them off!”
The fingers tightened around his wrist and another set gripped the bracelet, sending a shiver oscillating through him. Vahn snapped back to his senses before the bracelet misconstrued an attempt at thievery as him trying to take them off and tightened into a vice as a result. He flung his arm at the girls and they immediately let go with shouts, falling on their backsides to get away from him. One stood up just as fast, drawing a blade from her belt, and stood in front of the other girl.
Vahn paused, catching her gaze, and held it as he considered his options. Yes. The girls who threw him over the rail were mugging him. Both had dark hair a match for their eyes, each done in twin braids down their backs. They wore colorful traveling clothes befitting a few traveling troupes Vahn had seen visiting the university once. Both girls were panicked, but one clearly had a steadier head on her shoulders, hence the dagger. Maybe they weren’t used to mugging people.
All Vahn needed was one incant. He’d stun them long enough to get away.
He opened his mouth, drawing power of the air ghosting across his skin, and Dagger Girl gasped.
“HE’S A MAGE!”
Her declaration caught him by surprise, making him falter on the words, and they dogpiled him at once, cutting off the spell. Vahn kicked and shoved as they did, trying to cast a damned spell, but the girls were merciless. One knee found his groin and as he was reeling from that, the other ripped off the belt his notebook was normally attached to (distantly, he was glad he’d left it at the tavern). Then, he was pinned to the ground, facedown, a hand clamped tight over his mouth. With quick hands, he was gagged with his own belt and with even quicker hands as he was pulled up on his knees, his wrists were bound with one of the girls’ sashes.
The girls stepped back, like they wanted to admire their handiwork, and Vahn glared at them. Couldn’t cast a spell this way; garbled sounds could either do the trick or blast his arms off. The knots were too good on his wrists, so even they were useless in front of him.
The girl without the dagger grinned. “Can’t cast your magic now, can you?” She paused, eyes wide, and shot Dagger Girl a wild look. “He can’t, right?”
“Jake certainly can’t when he does that one tied up trick where we gotta gag him,” Dagger Girl said, eyeing Vahn up and down like she expected him to wiggle his way out of the restraints. “I don’t think this one can get out like he can.”
The other girl flipped Vahn off, laughing, and Dagger Girl sighed loudly. The other one quickly dropped the tough girl act and both of them studied him. Vahn dutifully studied them back without anything else to do given he was still on his knees.
“So…” the second girl mumbled. “Jake was gonna hire a mage, right?”
Vahn lifted his eyebrows.
“Yeah…” Dagger Girl was nodding. “We could just bring him one. Much cheaper.” She sheathed her dagger finally and looked Vahn up and down. “He’ll do.”
“This means we didn’t screw up!”
The girls high-fived, grinning at each other, and of all the things, began to walk away. Leaving him on his knees. They came back too fast for Vahn to get to his feet and run. Not that it would have done him much good.
Dagger Girl dragged him upward and dusted him off. “Don’t worry your pretty little face off.” She gripped the sash keeping his hands together. “Jake’s actually reasonable. ‘Sides, you’re cute. He likes cute.” She tugged him forward and started walking. “Daylight’s wasting. Let’s get a move on!”
It was already practically gone, leaving them with scant light where shadows thickened between the trees. The other girl had a little lamp against her sash and lit it with a practiced touched. A feeble flame grew inside and she took the lead, humming a victorious tune.
Vahn chanced a glance upward. He couldn’t see the tavern from down here, but beyond the girl’s off-note hum, he caught the steady plucks of Hawke’s lute as the sound drifted. Maybe it was his imagination. Maybe it was hope that Hawke would notice he was gone.
But for now, all he could do was follow the two girls and hope for the best.
🙡🙢