II

   Floriane Isgar threw up her hands in frustration. “You can’t just leave,” she told her daughter for the tenth time.

Alyssia’s patience was running out, but she dared not raise her voice to her own mother. She had come home to change into traveling clothes and pack… not to fight about her quest.

“Mother I need to pack,” the mage insisted. “Emmalee will be her soon and then we have to go.”

“But why?”

“I can’t tell you,” Alyssia said. “All I can say is that It’s a secret quest from the king himself.”

“And he’s sending you and Emmalee out alone…”

“We won’t be alone,” Alyssia interrupted. “We’re meeting others in different places.” She pulled her satchel closed around her clothing and provisions. “You have to trust me.” Now that she wore a tunic and pants the dagger she always carried hung in plain sight from her belt, along with pouches of herbs and other spell ingredients.

“Your brother won’t like this…”

Alyssia whiled around. “Is this what all this stalling is about?” she asked. “You’re yelling at me to stall for time. Arden will come home and get the truth out of me and then make me stay? He understands duty to his kingdom, mother. He’d agree to let me go, trust me.”

“I just wish you’d tell me what you’re getting into,” Floriane pressed. “You have Master Ives’ book and maps and…”

“I am not a child.”

“But Emmalee…”

“Yes?” a voice asked. A younger girl walked into the bedroom. “Were you talking about me?”

“We need to go,” Alyssia said.

She hurried the other girl out of the room and then out of the house. Emmalee’s horse was already packed and Alyssia made quick work of saddling her mare and securing the provisions.

***

After riding in silence for ten minutes Emmalee began to get antsy. “What are we doing, Ally?” Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement. Emma didn’t get out of the guild headquarters much. Since she became an orphan after her mother passed in childbirth she was raised by her father’s guild, even though he had been killed in the attack when Viggo had gone rogue.

Alyssia smiled at the pet names. Not all the journeymen and women got along so well with their apprentices. Some were hard on the younger students of the guild for their own good, strict rules and discipline made for good lessons.

But Alyssia didn’t quite agree with that. She thought that an apprentice would listen and pay more attention to a friend, someone who guided them and praised their good work, not chastise them with harsh words over one mistake.

It was better, Alyssia thought, to show the apprentices the correct way to do things when they made a mistake. Not lock them in the work room until they figure it out on their own, like her teacher had.

Emmalee was fifteen, ten years younger then Alyssia and the girl was flourishing with in the guild. And even though not everyone agree with Alyssia’s training methods her apprentices were always the best when they took their journeyman tests.; second only to Master Ives’ apprentices.

“I think we’ve far enough away from the house,” Ally said.

She reigned her horse and dismounted. Emma followed suit and tied both sets of reigns to a tree branch. Ally sat cross legged on the ground with a book in her lap and Emma quickly moved to her side.

“We are going to retrieve the four sacred artifacts of this kingdom,” Alyssia said.

“But they’re just old wives tales… Aren’t they?” Emma asked.

“No,” Ally replied. “Apparently they’re real and we have to find them before…” she quickly trailed off.

“Before what?" Emma asked.

Ally sighed. "Before Viggo Thorsteinsson does."

“The one who killed my father?”

Yes,” Ally answered. “I’m sorry Emma, sorry that you’re involved.”

“It’s alright,” the girl replied. “I’ll be fine.” She straightened her posture before uniting and rebreeding her long red hair, something she always did when she was nervous. “What exactly do we need to find?”

Flipping open the book ally started to point things out on a two page spread. “First, there’s the Healing Stone. It’s a blood stone half encased within hematite. It’s purpose is obvious.”

“What’s this?” Emma asked, pointing to a cross shaped design. All the sides were an equal length and had stones at their tips.

“ ‘The Four Pointed Cross’ ,” Ally read, “ ‘has the power to control the elements. On it’s North point is a Tiger’s Eye stone, which corresponds with the element of Earth. On the South is the Fire stone, Agate. To the East is Sugalite, the Air stone and to the West, corresponding with Water, is an Aqua Aqua crystal .’ ”

“Look at this,” Emma said, sliding closer to the book. “Virtus Super Bestia Baculus, Power Over Beasts Staff.” She studied a drawing of a staff with intricate runes and spells carved on it. “The incantations and spells can give you the power to control animals. And the quartz point on top of the staff amplifies the power of the spell.” Her face went serious. “We have to find these fast.”

“Tell  me about it,” Ally said as she read over the last paragraph. “Emma, this dagger is called Vesica of Mortalitas.”

“Power Over Death?” the younger girl asked.

Ally nodded. “There’s a calcite stone embedded in the hilt, to represent the Angel of Death.”

“What does it do?” Emma questioned after a moment of silence.

Ally went white as she read. This particular artifact was never mentioned in the tales she’d been told. There had been a four artifact mentioned, but none of the tails had gone into detail about it, and now Ally knew why. It was easily the most dangerous of all of them and paired with the other three magically enhanced items it would, indeed, make the wielder immortal.

Ally’s voice cracked as she tried to speak. “It grants the wielder the life force of all those who parish upon the blade. When you take a life with this dagger it adds his or her years of life to your lifespan.”