Gorion ka’Vardin ran. He darted through the ancient forest, faster than any normal man, fueled and sped on his way by the spells he had cast. He made no more noise than a night-hunting owl, and looked like nothing more than a shadow flitting through the deeper shadows of the night. Hidden by magic, he did not think he would be caught, but he was not safe yet, and he was still less than a mile and under a minute away from Til Tavathem.
Suddenly there was a terrible roar, and the night was lit up by a huge pillar of blue fire that shot out of the ruins of Til Tavathem like a volcano. Gorion looked back, but did not stop running. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the flame was gone, leaving its image burned in Gorion’s sight, and he knew that Lord Kilitherananonillifaratha and Lady Llanathalaranalethynim were dead, as were their attackers.
Gorion looked down at the baby girl tucked safely in his arms. She was now the last of the High Blood. The last lymer.
“And the Creator shall send you a deliverer from among the leaders of your oppressors.” He murmured the words softly, a part of the prophecy that had sent him across the continent to find this tiny child. She was sleeping now, her little face looking completely human. He sighed. Of course she looked human, but she was still lymer, and the spell would only last until she became old enough to use her own magic.
Gorion laughed softly at that thought. Only. It would be almost than sixty years before she hit puberty, and her magic would not surface for ten or twenty years after that. Gorion was only thirty-three, the youngest Master Wizard alive, and he would be on his deathbed before she was an adult. But, if it was his purpose in life to raise and protect the salvation of the world, then so be it. There were worse things to have as a legacy.
He had wondered, when he took the test to become a Master at twenty-eight, if the Creator had a special purpose for him. He was the youngest Wizard to become a master in well over a hundred years, and he had felt sure that there was a reason. Now he knew that reason. It had taken him five long years of research and travel, studying the prophecies in depth, talking with the top scholars in the world, and finally traveling across the continent to the eastern edge of the ruined Elven Empire, but it had paid off. He had done his part to fulfill the prophecy. He had saved the girl from the hands of the enemy, and from death, and was now taking her away to “be raised as one of the People,” as the prophecy said. Or at least, that is what he would try to do. He had to raise her himself, and in isolation, because if even the tiniest hint of her existence got to the enemy, they would resume their hunt and not stop until she was dead.
He shuddered at that thought. He would spend the rest of his life with no one but this girl as company! Then he shook his head. If that is what was required of him, so be it.
“And the number of Man’s days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”