Heliopath’s World: Ildieu: Jasper: The Arrival of Kestrel (part 2)
Part 1
Convincing Kestrel wasn’t going to be easy. She’d been raised in the Black Hollow and everyone was taught to view anyone from the Grey Gardens with suspicion. They were nowhere near as wary of the other houses, which had always made Jasper wonder what had happened when the Hollow was first created and why it had been in the first place. Questions with no answers, as always, because they had lost too much of their history, from the time before Ildieu as well as during certain periods during their time in the city. Like everyone else he had theories about why it was lost and all of them had at their base the power of a black mage.
Thanks to Ash they knew that a male black mage, something that hadn’t been seen in at least a century, had death magic, which was a magic he refused to use. He could use it, if he wanted to, but he didn’t. The man was trying to be a diplomat in a city where fighting was the normal way of sorting things out and that made him someone that Jasper would follow no matter what. Even if Ash did, in the end, make the wrong choices when it came to Kestrel, because they both knew how hard it was going to be to have her in the Gardens. Falcon would want her back and would do anything to make that happen - which started Jasper thinking about who she might be once again.
A sister, maybe. That made more sense than a cousin, especially after what happened to Ash’s father, unless the old leader of the Hollow had simply killed her father and taken her on as his own. It was unusual for anyone in the Hollow to turn against family, but that was what everyone said Falcon had done, in order to become the leader, because how else would all of his brothers and his father have died in such a short period of time. Jasper shook his head. Trying to be diplomatic with a man like Falcon was never going to work. He was too certain that he was right about everything to ever listen to Ash’s arguments, to Ash trying to convince him that there were mages outside the city, to Ash doing his best to prepare Ildieu for what was coming even though he could easily have stayed outside the walls.
Jasper listened to Ash’s thoughts as the idiot made the choice to carry Kestrel up to his room by himself, which was easily the stupidest thing he’d done since making the suggestion that someone should kidnap Kestrel. Shaking his head Jasper made his way up the other set of stairs, knowing he’d beat Ash up there normally, but he was too focused on thinking about what their next step should be. Especially as Ash’s plan to put Kestrel in his room would mean hearing her thoughts would be more difficult that it would have been if she was in another room, but at least it would stop her from contacting Falcon.
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.