II. The Wild Hunt of King Elwick
The Wild Hunt wasn’t anything Vahn had ever heard of before. He repeated it to himself, thinking of all the history lessons he’d had to cram into his head while in university, but nothing came to mind. All the while, Hawke had deftly moved Vahn from his lap and was shoving everything they’d spread out to make the place cozy toward Vahn’s bag. Too much at once for the spell to take safely. Vahn snapped out of his stupor.
“Hawke, wait! Doing too much at once might get your hand eaten!” Vahn hurried to stop him and Hawke jerked his hand away from the bag. “The Wild Hunt doesn’t explain anything to me. I don’t know what that is. You’ve got to tell me.”
At first, Hawke didn’t look at him. He busied himself with grabbing a shirt from his bag, and pulling it on. It was another moment still before Hawke looked at him. Eyes full of worry, like someone ready to bolt. “The Wild Hunt is basically Wild Magic,” he said and tied up the front of his shirt. “Wild Magic incarnate. It follows the whim of this king of old named Elwick. Legends says he made a deal with the magic and that’s how he became what he is now. One with Wild Magic.”
Elwick. Elwick. Not ringing a bell. History records in the Floating Universities listed many old kings—from both before and after the islands took to the skies. Vahn had to memorize them for a history course, but Elwick had not been among the names.
“The Hunt is… is like his court,” Hawke continued. “He appears. They appear at his behest. Sometimes they do literally hunt and you’re dead if they think you’re their prey—but most of the time, he uses them and magic to tempt people to be with him. Join him.” Hawke’s words grew faster and more jumbled, frantic, as his eyes darted from Vahn to the window.
A breeze fluttered through, something cold, and upon it twinkled magic as it glistened through the air.
“I have never heard of Elwick,” Vahn said slowly. “Are you sure—”
“Of course, you haven’t!” Hawke snapped, making Vahn jump. He’d spun to face Vahn, desperate. “He’s not a problem up there. You’re fucking floating! People up there never care about what happens down here as long as it never affects them it—”
“Hawke,” Vahn said his name as calmly as he could and Hawke stammered to a halt, swallowing. “I care. It’s why I’m asking. You need to calm down. Take deep breaths.”
Hawke looked as though he wanted to do anything else, but in went a breath and out it came. Expression didn’t change. Between frightened and panicked, like he’d dive out the window if Vahn hadn’t been blocking his way to it.
Air continued ghosting inside. It trickled like little fingers brushing up against Vahn’s back through his shirt, casting goosebumps across him. Like it searched for something. With the touch came a song. Vahn resisted the allure of the unknown no longer and finally turned. The ghostly magic sheen was brighter outside. Like waves upon the air, undulating with the wind. How bright it was reminded Vahn of lamps lit for a festival. He dared to move closer, even as a garbled protest rose from Hawke’s lips. Vahn’s bangles shivered as he neared the window, but remained inert, and Vahn chanced peeking outside.
A glow had descended across the village, a far cry from the soft darkness it had been mere moments ago beneath the moons. Embers glistening inside glass baubles hung suspended in the air on magic alone. Streamers of all colors rippled across the village square, and secured themselves to the branches of the large oak growing in the center. Paint had been splashed on every house facing the tree, but it was a magic illusion, Vahn was sure. Among all the decorations was music as well, like there were a dozen bards outside playing together but as far as Vahn could see, there was no one. The spell for the song was built with carefully plucked magic made loud enough so anyone could hear it.
Definitely Wild Magic. It had the shiver of it and there was such an abundance, it was practically intoxicating as Vahn breathed in.
He drew his gaze over the festivities once more and noticed the young women among everything this time. A dozen at least, probably all the young women the village had, each one clad in a mere nightgown or shirt as they danced with a shadow. Something wasn’t right. Vahn tried to lean out the window to get a better look, but the Wild Magic pushed against his eyes, making them burn, and he had to come back in.
No king as far as Vahn could see, just revelers under a dark night sky. He rubbed his eyes and gazed again, focusing harder, and there he saw it. Magic akin to puppet strings keeping the women and shadows dancing. Careful tugs from a practiced hand to make them turn and sway, all in time to the music.
“They’re enchanted!” Vahn turned and stopped. Hawke had gathered all his things—bag across one shoulder, lute on the other. Like he was about to leave. “Wait.”
“I am leaving,” Hawke said, his voice shuddering through clenched teeth. “Getting the fuck out while he’s distracted. It’s the only time I can.”
“They’re defenseless!” Vahn shot to stand in front of Hawke to block him. “We can’t just leave them—not with how scared you are about this whole thing.”
“Spare me the bullshit!” Hawke shouted and Vahn stepped back, eyebrows high. Hawke had grown so tense so quickly, Vahn hadn’t even noticed. The tremor in his hands. The way his breathing still shook. “All you want to do is go out here to see magic you’ve never even heard of. You wouldn’t give a damn otherwise.”
At first, the outburst shocked Vahn. Then he was angry. His face warmed and Hawke turned gather Vahn’s own things. Making a decision for Vahn. Somehow, that incensed him further. Blood buzzing with magic, Vahn hurried to stop Hawke from touching anything and leveled a glare on him.
“Don’t you dare make this choice for me,” Vahn said and Hawke’s jaw tightened. “I will not let them be taken just because you’re afraid. Whether you think my desire to help is bullshit or not.” When all Hawke did was stare, Vahn waved him off and magicked a pair of leggings from his bag. He pulled them on just as swiftly and snapped his wand at the bag. The glasses still magicked with the Solar Spell tumbled out and he slipped them on.
All of Hawke’s agitation fled, leaving only panic there stark on his face. “Wait, Vahn!” Hawke hurried after Vahn as he passed the bard to head down the ladder. “Please. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t do this—Elwick will eat you alive. He likes people like you and I don’t…”
From anger to desperation. Vahn turned and met Hawke’s stare. The sheen of the magic coming inside wasn’t as bright in the loft with the glasses on and without all the bluster, Vahn could really see how tired and scared Hawke was. All the worry behind the earlier anger too clear now, but it wasn’t going to convince Vahn to turn his back on the village. He buried the hurt, knowing panic made people say things they’d regret later, and set his feet.
“Stay with Josie and Jerome. Keep them safe. I didn’t see her down there with the others,” Vahn said. “I won’t let him get me or you. I promise.”
Bold words he hoped were the truth as he descended.
As his bare feet touched the ground outside, magic washed over him like a wave. Even with the glasses pushing back illusions, the magic itself remained bright and oscillating, like an aurora. A constant stream of spells the Floating World could only dream of performing in tandem like this. Dizzying. Beyond frightening. But wholly enrapturing where if Vahn wasn’t already fortifying himself to resist, it would have ensnared him too.
He kept his wits about him, focusing on what was real, and followed the sheen upon the air as it invited him to enter the halls of King Elwick’s revelry.
The quaint village buildings covered in magic still shimmered brightly beyond the glasses. The ghost of a hand had wiped them down as the spell had been cast; Vahn saw how it was done now. A spell targeting dreams and sleep made vibrant to draw out who the caster willed. Windows gleamed bright, dark glass panes reflecting the ethereal glow magic lingering in the streets.
The shadows from the farm loft had looked like dignified dancers, even with their puppet strings, having been dressed in all sorts of glittering finery of expensive tunics and dresses. But now, peered through Solar Magic, the glamour parted. Bodies mishappen and long, forgetting the proportions of a body between puppet strings jerking them from one dance to the next. Shrouds covered every shadow’s face, reminding Vahn of a funeral, and each one resembled the other. Empty shells of bodies. Had they been real people, once? Vahn suppressed a shudder. The way Hawke had been so afraid, they must have been.
The wind howled, sparkling as it went, and Vahn refocused. Magic weighed everything down, trying to distract him. It pressed into him, like it wanted him to give in entirely. It’d be easy to, especially for someone not used to oppressive magic. All Vahn would have to do was close his eyes and let it lead him to be rid of the weight, but he’d learned how to resist this very thing early on. University always felt as such to the uninitiated.
He breathed in the Wild Magic instead, letting it grow with his own magic inside. Invited it to become one with him. His bangles warmed with a warning, and he exhaled. It signaled the limit of what he could control. The acceptance of it lessened some of the weight and gave him a little reserve. If he exhausted his magic, he could make use of it. He’d be safe.
Everyone else? Not so much if he didn’t get moving.
As far as Vahn could tell, the shadows targeted only the young women around his age, maybe a year or two older. Otherwise, the dancers had nothing in common. Short or tall, pale or dark, all sorts of different features with absolutely no pattern. Defenseless, eyes half-lidded and covered with a glimmering shroud as the shadows danced with them. Magic looped around their arms and legs as strings, trapping them in whatever illusion they’d been tricked into from their dreams.
“I got it! It—” Vahn bit his words back, remembering no one was beside him. Right. Hawke wasn’t there this time; part of him had honestly hoped Hawke had eschewed his own fear and followed him out, just so Vahn wouldn’t face this alone, but it was better the bard hadn’t. This way, Vahn had one less person to worry about.
Freeing the dancers was his primary goal. The second one—the harder one he still wasn’t quite sure how to do yet—was stopping the torrent of Wild Magic from drowning the village.
He strode for the first dancer and there was a thrill fluttering in Vahn’s heart, born of undoing a charm he’d never seen before. Unknown magic at his fingertips. Hawke wasn’t wrong; this venture was in part a pursuit of knowledge because he could never deny that part of himself, but that very same thrill gave him the strength to save people too. Hawke would see it his way soon enough.
The shadow wasn’t corporeal as Vahn slid into its steps. The ghost of a breath receded, its string snapped, and the young woman’s hands slid effortlessly into Vahn’s. Her dream kept her complacent, not even noticing, but Vahn suspected as much. Like Hawke when Vahn was rousing him from his nightmare, there was a gossamer veil drawn over her eyes. Not anything physical, but magic.
Vahn drew his palm over her eyes with a soft incantation.
“Sun, I beg of thee: help her see past the untruth thrust upon her.”
It was close enough to dawn, the spell activated without taking much from Vahn’s own magic, and wiped away the gleam. As the illusion broke, the puppet strings let go, leaving the young woman to fall. Vahn was not strong enough to stop his knees from buckling as her weight hit him and was frantic with apologies as she roused, entirely confused. Thankfully, she accepted the apology and was quick to listen to Vahn’s insistence she find cover.
It only took falling beneath his partner once before Vahn got the hang of waking them. Arm around the back before the Solar Spell and brace himself. The women still stirred with confusion, eyes growing wide at the revelry spinning dizzyingly around them, but thankfully, all listened to Vahn urging them to hide once they were lucid enough.
Over and over again, Vahn made his way through the dancers. The exertion was more than he’d anticipated and he had to take more than a couple deep breaths of Wild Magic so he didn’t faint outright. Even with its help, however, pain began spreading through his limbs and his heart was racing. By then, at least, the women were safe, and the shadow dancers had dissipated.
Vahn turned to find another dancer or perhaps more likely, the source of all the magic, and a new hand caught his from behind. Magic flowed beneath the skin, a vibrancy within the veins, and said magic warmed the golden rings adorning each finger. They shimmered so brightly in response, like they were like prisms.
The hand gripped Vahn’s so confidently, Vahn was too surprised to resist as it spun him around and into the arms of who was, without a doubt, King Elwick of the Wild.
He appeared as a tall man with long, elegant limbs moving fluidly like water. He had a sharp face, a pointed nose, and thin lips painted black. Even his fingers were long as they pressed into the small of Vahn’s back to keep him close. His eyelashes were white, a glitter of colors painted across them, and his eyes beneath absolutely shimmered, irises everchanging in color as magic twisted the pupils into slivers. His long blond—practically white—hair fell in wisps past his shoulders and in the strands were colorful gems, braids, and chains that fluttered along the breeze. Gems and gold even danced up his ears, small chains holding teardrop gems as bright as the ones in his hair. He wore clothes from ages past, like he really was from the time of old kings. Large onyx black pauldrons protected his shoulders and chains were strewn from them and across his chest, each link augmented with magic. A cloak of material resembling starlight draped from the pauldrons, and gossamer capes and scarfs hung around that, creating so many different colors as they crossed and fell. The ends tapered into wisps, betraying the age of the garments, but it added to the whole mystique of the man. Beneath the cloak, he wore a black breastplate matching the pauldrons, and it shimmered violet. His tunic was tapered close to his form, the same black, and across his waist were multiple sashes resembling the cloak and scarfs. The rest of him was also dressed in black, as though he was a shadow himself blending in and out of the magic at will. Together, his appearance drenched him in some other time period. Something far older than what the world was now. But he was here. Real. Tangible.
Magic wove itself throughout his very essence. He exhaled it. He wielded it with a look, a touch, not once an incantation from his lips or a wave of a wand.
“My, my,” he murmured, a voice fluttering up his throat as a soft hum. It sounded so familiar. He tilted Vahn’s chin up with bare fingers, nails glittering black. “What have we here?”
The haze upon the village thickened, the lights too bright now to stare past, and all whispers from the women Vahn had saved became lost behind the music being plucked through the air. The glasses ceased helping; the magic was too strong for it to see through.
King Elwick swept Vahn over the road in a dance, practically carrying Vahn as they went when he stood to his full height. His cloaks wisped around Vahn’s legs, pressing into him as though to wrap him up for later. A frightening prospect. Then Elwick swiped his thumb over the glasses, a sheen from his finger attempting to override the Solar Magic. Thankfully, whatever he’d tried was absorbed. The glasses were doing their best, even if they’d ceased helping Vahn see. Elwick’s lips parted into a bemused smile and the dance slowed.
“I enchanted them,” Vahn said and found his heart flipping as Elwick finally looked him in the eye. The colors in his irises shifted in little bursts, something wholly unreal. “So I could see through illusions. Yours are very strong, I must admit, but I do not think you can break my enchantment.”
The king tilted his head, chuckling, and showed off brilliant white and sharp teeth. His laugh oscillated around them, an unspoken augmentation of some kind—Vahn was sure—but Vahn kept his gaze on Elwick. No distractions.
He was no closer to deducing what Elwick really was except for what Hawke said. Wild Magic incarnate, but that shouldn’t have been possible. Else he’d have to be everywhere, and if he hadn’t caught Hawke yet, then he simply wasn’t everywhere. Ergo, he was not literally Wild Magic incarnate.
Except Vahn had no idea what else he could be with this much magic. Or how a mortal man could have made a deal with magic—something with no mind of its own.
“Do you know who I am?” Elwick cupped Vahn’s chin with long fingers.
“I have been told you are King Elwick of the Wild.”
Elwick hummed, raising his eyebrows. “When my dancers were disappearing, I thought I should meet the one responsible. Who would have thought it was one as young and soft as you.” His fingers drew upward until he ran them through Vahn’s hair, gently brushing it back. “And you smell so familiar. It’s… intoxicating.”
Vahn bit back from telling Elwick how familiar he sounded in turn and filed the information away for later. Each word was a timbre Vahn swore he knew intimately, but also different. Elwick was soft, but sharp. Like it could strike like lightning.
Elwick drew his fingers through his hair again and Vahn’s pulse quickened. It had no right feeling as pleasurable as it did, even when Elwick gripped it to yank Vahn’s head to the side.
“And what of you?” Elwick purred as he tilted his head to follow Vahn’s.
There was a spell there, attempting to drag the words from Vahn in case he didn’t want to supply it, but he had no reason to hide it. “My name is Vahn. I am a Wayfarer Magician from the Floating World.”
“Mmhm. Yes, I see that now.” Elwick smiled. “And what were you doing with my dancers, exactly?”
“I couldn’t leave you to exhaust the poor women of their lives,” Vahn said.
Elwick’s eyes narrowed, the colors flashing darkly. “One of them was given something of mine and has kept it from me. I merely wish it back. You understand, my little magician?”
“You could ask them.”
“Humanity is full of liars and cheaters. I find this more agreeable to retrieving items.” Elwick let go of Vahn’s hair and swept him toward the tree. Within a blink, he’d pressed Vahn’s back to it. Before Vahn could wiggle himself free—he did not want to be trapped with no way out—Elwick had bent over him, blocking off escape. His eyes had grown bright, almost white. “How am I to get this valuable piece of me back if I do not take what the village values? Their maidens are their heart. Their souls malleable still.”
He must not have remembered who took the item, then. More information to file away for later. Vahn swallowed. “I’ll find the item if you leave them alone.”
Elwick took his face again, but his grip was rougher this time. Vahn didn’t resist, knowing it’d be futile, but then Elwick drew his thumb over Vahn’s lips. Magic followed it as it went, the spell trying to slide into his mouth, but Vahn snapped his teeth together to stop it. Vahn would not be silenced again if he had anything to say about it.
The spell dispersed with the motion and the glare Elwick leveled on Vahn in return should have scared him. Made him wither up somehow, but Vahn didn’t shy away.
“And what assurance do I have that you will keep your word?”
“Let’s invoke a Binding Contract,” Vahn said.
Binding Contracts were serious agreements performed between magicians. Both parties would trade a piece of their own magic and if either broke the contract, the foreign magic would ignite within the offending magician’s body to take what it was owed. Many times, it ended in blood. Lots of it. Not a pretty sight. The earliest known Binding Contract was from before the Floating World, so King Elwick must have known about them. His eyes narrowed all the same, so Vahn quickly continued to set the terms himself.
“In three days’ time, I will find this piece of you that you’re missing so long as you leave the village alone.”
Elwick pressed his lips together and peered downward. He brought one of Vahn’s hands up, eyes sparked with idle curiosity, and the bangle trilled. Recognition twisted his smile and he pressed the bangle up to his lips before Vahn could catch the spell.
Numbness pulsed through Vahn’s arm almost immediately. He tried to take it back, but Elwick’s grip was too tight. He yanked it above Vahn’s head and slammed it into the tree. The numbness spread too quickly down his arm and into his shoulder, catching Vahn off-guard, and stole his breath away so he couldn’t even beg for Elwick to let go. As he tried to raise his other arm to deactivate it, Elwick forced it over his head too. He slammed it just as roughly into the tree, but it wasn’t close enough to dispel the numbing enchantment. Vahn was all too aware of the smallest distance between the bracelets, done so mockingly because Elwick knew exactly what he was doing. The numbness continued its hold through Vahn to stop magic that wasn’t even his.
“I cannot make a contract with you, not while these remain. Someone already has claim to your blood. Your body and soul.” Elwick pressed himself closer, bending down so his face hovered inches from Vahn’s own. One hand continued holding Vahn’s wrists so absolutely, and the other forced Vahn to look at him. Vahn’s legs buckled and he was only held up with Elwick hands. “Oh, my poor little dear. Did you not know what they meant?”
Vahn couldn’t piece his voice together for a word. The bangles were assurance a magician couldn’t run wild, especially when in service to someone. Most magicians were only saddled with one—no way to deactivate the numbness as assurance they would listen—but Vahn had two because learning magic sometimes led to accidents.
That was it. All Vahn knew. Did not help one bit.
The bangles burned heavy against his wrists as Wild Magic cycled the one, over and over again to constantly activate it. Honestly amazing, if Vahn wasn’t being punished for it and in any other situation, he would have wanted to study the reaction. He tried forcing his wrists together again, but Elwick tightened his grip. The numbness eked into his shoulders, and down throughout his body, leaving Vahn’s entire body too weak. Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately), passing out was not next. What came after the numbness was a stark sensitivity. Made everything feel too real to handle. In part to prepare for oncoming punishment, but most magicians never let it get this far.
The wind played across his skin, the lights became too bright to stand, and every breath into his lungs hurt. His breathing became labored, half not wanting to breathe and the other half knowing he had to keep doing it despite what his body believed.
Elwick watched him struggle all the while, too interested in the outcome. It would have been fine if he stayed as a spectator, but then he touched Vahn’s neck with his fingers. The touch was too real at once—the press of his fingertips, the pierce of magic in his skin—and then he trailed it teasingly downward. Nails raked pleasingly across his flesh. Against his clavicle as they dared to grow bolder and slide lower, igniting another sensation too intense for Vahn to handle as he was.
And then suddenly, Elwick allowed the bangles to clang together. The chime thundered through Vahn, wicking away the numbness in a flash. Vahn’s magic washed through his body, prompting a great inhale, and left him a shivering, breathless mess. Elwick withdrew and without the old king holding him up, Vahn collapsed. The tree caught him from behind and Vahn braced his hands against it to stay standing, but not once did he look away from Elwick.
A mocking smile spread across the king’s lips as his eyes hungrily roved over Vahn. “I admire your bravery.” He leaned in slowly, magic intoxicatingly blowing from his lips, and before Vahn knew it, Elwick’s hand had shot out, gripping Vahn’s hair. He yanked the magician’s head to the side. “You faced me without a hint of fear in your eyes and yet still, are unafraid. Even as I sapped all your strength away with your own trinkets. Even now as you are, I could do anything I want in your prone state. Yet you are not afraid.” His breath trickled down the nape of Vahn’s neck, making him shiver. “Oh, the things I could do to you, my little magician.” Soft lips pressed against the same spot and Elwick retreated.
The spell was benign. Surface deep. Vahn snapped a hand over it and dispelled it immediately, but Elwick was still smiling as though he expected as much.
A staff materialized from nothing in Elwick’s hand. Gold with rings hanging from the top where a large quartz was wedged. Elwick waved it across himself as he stepped backwards. Air rippled after it, bright and glistening, and the motion parted the haze, laying his entire hunt bare around them. Damned souls of the lives he’d already taken stood there at his beck and call. Hundreds of faces, buffed of who they’d been. Beyond them stood spirits and warriors with weapons at the ready, each one made from Wild Magic. Power cycled through them and the sound became like chains clinking on the wind.
All of them were his entirely.
“In three days, my little magician Vahn.” Elwick stabbed his staff into the ground and his voice echoed between them. The rings hit the staff, creating a dissident chorus of their own, and a spell swirled between them. “When the sun sets and twilight blooms, I will return for the gift I freely gave. If it is not returned to me then, my revelry will surge until nothing is left and your magic will bow to mine until it breaks.”
He pressed the staff to his lips and exhaled. The quartz sparkled with life and the breath of King Elwick ghosted through the town as a spell Vahn hardly felt before it had taken root. All the decorations disappeared, the music ceased, and the Wild Hunt disappeared. It left the village dark and silent until the first rays of dawn spilled across the horizon.
Vahn let his legs slip beneath him until he sat against the tree to catch his breath. His heart was beating so fast, it left him dizzy. He pressed a hand to his chest to quell it. Murmurs and whispers grew around him, but Vahn didn’t have the strength to stand and explain.
He was trembling harder than he thought possible. It wasn’t from fear, of that, he was certain. Absolute fascination in the worst ways. The thrill he’d only just felt earlier had simply grown, exhilaration pushing his pulse to his ears. All of this was absolutely beyond him, but therein was the alluring excitement. He even knew where to start. Someone hopefully still in the hayloft where Vahn had left him.
Gathering his strength, Vahn pushed himself to his feet and hurried toward the farms before anyone thought to stop him. The echoes of Elwick’s staff carried with the breeze kissing his neck. It was a soft and melodic sound of temptation.
Vahn would find his answers and it all began with Hawke.
🙡🙢
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