A Baron of Bonds (Conduit of Light #2)

1. Rev

Chapter 1

Rev

“You cannot think of Felgren as just a forest. I’d guess by now, something in your very soul understands that it is not. Something ancient speaks to you. Don’t ignore it. Don’t ever dismiss it. It is what makes you a channeler. It is what makes you whole.”

I cupped my hands into the clear waters of the stream. Tadpoles had hatched a few weeks prior, and I scooped a few of them into my hands, careful to not harm their budding legs.

I had all four of my channelers hanging on my every word. They crept closer, gaining a glimpse at the small creatures I held.

I loved each of my pupils already. Perhaps that was one of my greatest faults—loving so easily. It had caused great pain to many, myself included, when I loved and trusted the man who I thought of as my father. Baron Heimlen, the Baron before me, had murdered thousands of channelers in Hyrithia in order to train the one woman who could save it.

Regardless of my past, these four young channelers had found their way into my heart, and I wanted nothing more than to teach them and protect them from themselves—from the world in which we lived where heartbreak and suffering had once been my only companions.

I knew these wounds, and I knew their purpose, but I would not see these four make my mistakes. I would see them thrive and prosper, finding themselves useful in society outside of this forest and living to their fullest potential. I would teach them to always listen to the people they would serve out of the goodness of their hearts. I would teach them to use their gifts to make the isle a better place to live, and grow, and love.

Those were things I had always had an inkling of, even as a child. And those were the very things Karus had brought out through loving me. I recalled those seven years without her here—just a shell of the woman she was—and I remembered planning our future as Barons. Even if she did not accept, even if she could not bear to take the role of the man who betrayed us both, she would still inspire me to do better. Because of her, I would be a better Baron.

I eyed Ilyenna, watching her carefully as she swept her hands through the river rocks. Debris from the bottom swirled and encircled her spread fingers, winding up her wrists. Her conduit ring was a tangle of silver and gold, wrapping around her forefinger in a littering of aquamarine stones which shone in the midday light of the sun. I’d been looking for a lapis conduit for years. I was fairly sure I had found one.

“Do you know, Baron Revich, what happened to that tree?” Talon, the first male channeler in decades, stood sure-footed on top of two large river rocks. His light brown skin looked warm in the sun. His two black braids fell in thick bands down his back as he pointed across the stream to the wall of boulders that rose high before us.

Water trickled through the forest from the Vitra River to the north of Felgren. Years past, this wall of rock and river water fed life into the largest maple tree I had ever discovered in Felgren. Its blackened bark and wood now shone smooth atop the outcropping. Fine shoots of green, new life of the tree, swayed slightly in the afternoon breeze.

“I will tell you a story, Talon, if you’d care to listen.” I smirked, jumping over the stream to lean against a nearby tree, hands deep in my pockets, ready to lose myself in one of my favorite stories. Karus had agreed to telling the world about what had lead to our present, saying there was too much to learn from our past to keep any of it hidden.

Talon hopped off the rocks with a swiftness and agility I admired. He and I had been training together in physical strength these past few weeks. Building the muscle back into my body felt right. It helped with the nightmares, too, as by the end of the day, I was exhausted from the energy of a man five years younger who could outrun, out climb, and out balance me.

I had him in arm wrestling, though. Where Talon was toned and lithe, I was building back the dense strength I used to hold. I had begun filling into my clothes again. The garments no longer hung from me in a representation of the disarray of the man I had become.

Ilyenna rose from the water and joined Talon. The redheaded twins, Rell and Renn, fixed their skirts around their knees and sat side by side as they always did. Their bright brown eyes glinted with mischief on their freckled faces as they whispered to one another.

“Once,” I began, lowering my voice and relishing in their captivated attention, “a beautiful young channeler was brought to this very stream. She was led here by a strikingly handsome man who was young, foolish, and recklessly in love with her.”

“ Karus .”

The whisper came from Ilyenna and the sidelong look Talon gave her was hard to miss. I had wondered about those two for a while now.

“Yes, though, she had a different name then. Ash’Arah was the name she was born with, but not the name she chose.” I cleared my throat, my chest tightening as the memories of that beautiful young woman seven years ago filled my head. “I brought her here to think. To rest. She had just made a discovery I will tell you about another time, and I could only think of this place to take her. I loved it here.” I gestured around them. “The stream, the tree, towering as it once was, would glisten in the sunset. Its leaves were massive, bigger than my hand.”

I held it up to show them. They waited for me to continue, and I tilted my head back against the tree, looking up at the dark clouds beginning to form in remembrance of that fateful day. “I asked her to show me. I asked her to let me in, to show me the power she held. I wanted to see what she could do. I wanted to know why my rhyzolm had led me to her in our greatest hour of need, revealing her to be the strongest channeler on the isle.”

“She did that ?” Rell pointed to the tree, mouth agape at the mere idea that a new channeler held enough power to burn it.

“Not to start. The first thing she did was tell the tree to bloom. Thousands of its winged seeds engulfed us, settling in on the shore, the rocks, her chestnut hair…it was unlike anything I had ever seen. And she did it without much thought at all.”

“Then why did she burn it?” Talon asked, looking back over his shoulder. “Why would she have it bloom and then kill it?”

I chuckled. “It is not dead, Talon. Its shoots are strong and green with life. She burned it, yes, to show me the destruction she could inflict.” I stepped forward to the edge of the stream, gazing up at the tree’s blackened husk, the promise that it fought to live evident at its base. “But,” I continued, looking back at my channelers, “even the most broken things can find their way back to a life worth living.”