by Cara Violet
“I’ve just lost my …” she began, but then thinking about the fact her pastry was wasting on the ground had her reeling. “Hey, what’s that?”
“You like necklaces ma’am?”
“I’ve already got one.” But her eyes had darted from the man’s obvious broken nose into the thin, long glass cabinet of jewellery; a large gold pendant staring back at her. It was as big as her hand, but it was the detail engraved that had her transfixed.
“This pendant represents our history.” He said in his hoarse tone.
And so it did. He had opened the draw from his end and pulled out the item. Up close, divided into the equal parts, like a cake had been divided in thirds, the ornament held an engraving of the three Rivalex species.
“You see ma’am, at one time the Necromancers did trade with us.”
Her brain faded out. She had gone back to one of Dersji’s lessons: The Necromancers don’t associate with the Giliou and Gorgon, Kaianan.
She had been told the Necromancers despised the Giliou for disallowing them to share the gold that sat beneath Forsda’s footsteps. But like the Gorgons keeping timber to themselves and trading for coin, the Giliou capital was doing the same with their gold reserve. Forsda was a rich city, everyone knew that, however the home of the Necromancers, the Sile capital, not so much.
“If it wasn’t for Silas Silkri and Kan’Ging,” The old man croaked, “perhaps we would have never had someone like the Defeated King come between us. Can you see that?” He had pointed to the Necromancer at the bottom of the pendant. Above him, the Gorgon and Giliou figures engraved shone against the gold. Kaianan brushed her fingers over the Necromancer; strong with a blade, the figure was smiling all the same, an equal to the others.
Silas Silkri? Kan’Ging? No way. The forefathers of Siliou had nothing to do with this. “That was eons ago and no one knows the truth surrounding the Defeated King nor his reasoning,” Kaianan admitted.
“Oh, but he was someone who re-awakened the Silkri, young girl … and someone was game enough to leave prophecies around …”
The prophecy about her, about the Mark on her shoulder, he was implying. The one Kaianan tried every day, not to think about, yet the whole galaxy if not the universe wouldn’t let her forget.
“I think you know all about it.” He slithered out with slanted eyes.
Kaianan yanked her hand away from the pendant and turned. This man was as bad as her overzealous mother constantly dishing out sceptical explanations. The lectures were endless. Kaianan had no time for five hundred assumptions, not then, not now.
“Don’t think we aren’t watching you!” The shop owner called out behind her as she slammed back out the door, bell ringing, and almost bouldered someone over on the street.
“Hey!” she tried not to fall completely on top of him.
“Kaia? Is that you? I’ve been looking for you every—”
She’d elbowed the man in the chest and sent him, and a flurry of his blue robe, back. How many people had recognised her? She just wanted five minutes alone, five minutes to be someone other than a Princess of Layos and five minutes to indulge in her berry pastry and not be tormented by some ridiculous notion that the forefathers of the Siliou, or the Defeated King had anything to do with the Rivalex feud or her Rivalex Mark.
She hurried onward toward the Manor, certain she was running abysmally late.
“You’re late.” Dersji Brikin ushered out, twirling his wooden blade in his hand.
Kaianan was expecting his snarky attitude, but she wasn’t in the mood for it. “I was out, I told you.” Her equally as snarky reply made his jaw clench and, ignoring him, she readjusted her white tunic sleeves. It took her less than two minutes to dress once she gotten upstairs to her room, and a whole, other minute to get back out here, to still be late.
Dersji began pacing back and forth across the Manor grounds. He was a lot taller—well compared to her measly five eight—and the way he strutted about, his white robe and brown hair bouncing around behind him, anyone would think he’d just won the annual beauty pageant, taking down reigning champions Fabric Haus. He probably hadn’t expected her to be so unpleasant either, especially when he’d given her some time off. But Kaianan never liked his brash arrogance, not at this time of the morning after what she’d been through, not at any time really.
Then in an instant of her blinking her eyes, he’d stuck his hand out in front of him, swiped through the atmosphere, and began curving the Siliou.
She gasped.
Dersji caressed his fingers through it, and in fine form the Siliou moved with him and lit his hand up in Kan’Ging aura; a purple fire skin wrapped around his left hand, glowing lavender sparks as it curved diagonally across his fingers; he shot sinful eyes toward her.
Kaianan’s heart raced and she hid the anxiety from her face. In no way would she let him know how nervous she was. Besides, what the holom was he doing?
“Don’t make me use this against you,” he said and as quickly as turning the Siliou, he dropped it and the flaming aura around his hand dissipated. “Get your blade out now.”
Kaianan, heartbeat slowing, fumbled for her scabbard—the morning’s events still sore on her mind—and finally she extracted her metal blade.
As soon as she graced the weapon, Dersji threw his robe down, fastened his armour and headed for her. In a blur, she lifted her arms up in some sort of protective stance but he manoeuvred past her weak attempt, and Kaianan felt a huge thud on the back of her head, the force sliding her figure into the dirt.
“Was the trip to the commoners’ market worth it?” she barely heard Dersji snigger out.
She clutched her fingers into the bits of weedy grass and looked up; anger consuming her.
Dersji brushed his long brown locks back off his face and checked his top knot, having hardly altered his blank demeanour after he whacked her—holom, in the seventeen years since his arrival at the Manor he’d hardly altered at all, and Kaianan was sure that egotistical side, that immortal vanity of his would never change.
As his laughter reached her ears, she shook her head and shot him wicked eyes.
“Come on little Menial,” he said playfully, “you’re on the brink of coming of age and there is so much for you to acquire. The day is fresh with heat from our suns, and still you swallow soil?”
“You think this is funny?!” She spat grass out of her mouth, trying to sound regal.
He paused. “Yes, comical to say the least.” Then, doing the pompous noble thing, he extended his hand.
She refused that and stood on her own, wiping the dirt and soot off her orchid Felrin chestplate which contrasted with the white of Dersji’s Liege armour, or as the Felrin called it, Felrin Stealth. Yes, everything in Felrin had a fancy name. Dersji would remind her daily that he himself was fancy, but he also made it clear the Liege wore white Stealth chest armour and the Menial, the unskilled amateurs adorned orchid ones.
“Did you enjoy your nice treats?” he said condescendingly. “Get caught stuffing your face? You know what I’ve told you about overindulging, Kaianan.”
“What? Coming from you. I can’t compete with your debauchery, can I?” His jaw dropped when she said it. Was this to make her feel guilty? “Oh, just leave it alone, old man. Let’s go again.”
Dersji put his jaw back in place. “What has gotten into you, you seem a little more tightly wound this morning, why is that?”
“No reason.”
“Lies,” Dersji breathed out sinisterly, “I see it in your face.”
“Well …” she began, allowing all the morning’s events to flood back to her; the elusive shop owner, the historical gold pendant, the previous trade agreement, “… why did the Necromancers sever trade? Why is it they loathe us? Is it because of Kan’Ging and Silas Silkri? Is that why the Defeated King turned against us? Because of the forefathers of aura?”
Dersji paused, the muscles on his jaw rising from his cheeks.
“I’ve been over this w
ith you already,” he got out through clenched teeth.
He had already been over this with her, starting with their antiquity lessons ten or so years ago. Kaianan let her memory come back to her.
‘The auras of the Siliou have a rich history, Kaianan.’ Dersji had told her, that lesson in the Manor library, even presented her a graph of the auras that could manipulate and curve the Siliou: a triangle diagram titled: The Way of the Aura, with the Kan’Ging aura at the top, and everyone else’s below it.
She’d stared at the damn thing for ages, and the first question out her mouth was: ‘what does Kan’Ging mean and why’s it at the top?’
Dersji explained it to her, sitting beside the younger Kaianan, in her two sizes too big, Felrin Stealth whites, orchid chestplate, black slacks and leather boots.
Usually, auras didn’t have names, auras were just a simple extension of a person’s ability in the Siliou. However, when individuals trained for eighteen years and were successful in trials, they were ranked in their own culture. The list of trained aura users was varied. Dersji had given Kaianan some species’ titles she’d already had some history on. Xandou for example was training to be a Giliou Shielder. The Gorgon did not train their people in aura at all, and subsequently relied on the Giliou for protection.
Kan’Ging was different; with Kan’Ging you could control other objects. In the beginning, Kan’Ging was the first Felrin Shiek to realise he had the gift to do more than just fire a few aura beams or enhance himself in the Siliou. Kan’Ging could curve vast amounts of Siliou to the point he could shift planets.
To accommodate for the growth of the Felrin warrior using the Kan’Ging aura, the Felrin set up the Liege Verticals to be taken after the Shiek Verticals. Kaianan jotted ‘Liege’ under Kan’Ging on the graph so she would remember. Dersji also reminded her, to become a Liege, you had to share a bond with one as a Menial before you could advance. She added that as well.
‘But what about the Silkri?’ the words slithered from her younger mouth, away from the two Gorgon guards at the library door. She hadn’t seen that on the graph, but Kaianan knew her neighbours to the south inherited a well-known Silkri aura. Why had it not been on the graph?
Yes, indeed, Dersji explained … the Silkri aura was able to manipulate the Siliou as greatly as the Kan’Ging … Silas Silkri, well, he was like Kan’Ging: patriotic, talented, and had an extremely powerful ability to manipulate the Siliou.
She scribbled Silkri alongside the Kan’Ging and noted the Drake title.
Dersji wasn’t pleased. He told her that the Silkri aura was used to hurt Kan’Ging. Silas Silkri was the reason for Kan’Ging’s death. They both died in a historic battle of aura versus aura which saw them blow up a planet in the process. History books regarded it as the tragic event of the forefathers of aura, one hundred thousand years ago, and said from this the Universal Order was born ensuring it never happened again.
‘Why did it happen in the first place?’
The story Dersji gave her for the battle and deaths of and between Kan’Ging and Silas Silkri: ‘it was all a diplomatic misunderstanding.’ Kaianan had asked Xandou about it; he’d told her Dersji would avoid speaking truth in some things to protect them. But the history of the forefathers was the same story across the universe. He wasn’t lying about the misunderstanding.
The real concern was what did the deaths of the forefathers of aura have to do with the Defeated King, one thousand years ago, separating the Necromancers from the rest of Rivalex?
‘So did the Defeated King have a diplomatic misunderstanding too?’
This time Dersji went quiet and just reminded her of her Rivalex history, about the rogue Necromancer King—Warlowes. How he broke from Felrin authority and tradition and used the Silkri aura, like Kan’Ging in its power to control others, to push his agenda and in turn, morphed himself into the Defeated King.
He made her recite a poem from the book: The battle of the Hunted Gorge.
The auras gone from times of old,
The Defeat of a King to be foretold,
Hunger for greed and our world dominance,
Couldn’t separate three species from prominence.
He used his aura, fought against the others,
But the Felrin came to save our mothers.
Lesson learnt in history,
No matter how much you hunger for poverty,
You’ll feel the wrath of those in charge,
Elected to keep the warmth in our hearts.
“The Silkri aura is extinct, Kaianan, it died when the Defeated King was killed a thousand years ago.” Dersji’s words broke her thoughts, his tired face regarding her in the present. “He awakened the aura, turned against the people who opposed him and tried to take over Rivalex …. the Felrin had to step in …. your current trade is sufficient now.”
“He still left a plaque about me in the Hunted Gorge though, didn’t he?” Her voice thick in high-pitched sarcasm. “And weren’t you there?”
“What?” Dersji raised an eyebrow.
“Did you see what happened to the Defeated King?” Kaianan said again. “Did you see what the Felrin did to stop him a thousand years ago? Did you find out why my ancestor, Medusa, died?”
“No, I was not there. I knew nothing about your planet until I arrived here, you know this. It was because of you I had to learn it.” Dersji turned his back and began scrapping his wooden blade through the ground in a line separating them. “It was another three Liege who stopped him, madam. And they killed him trying to save your ancestor.”
“How?! They used Kan’Ging to kill him.” His eyes narrowed at her outburst. “Who were they – er, sir?” she said mockingly, giving him the civility he so desired.
He didn’t answer. “Silkri Drakes have been few and far between since then, Kaianan. You should be counting your lucky stars because of the Felrin.”
“Counting lucky stars? Because of the Felrin? Sir, I’m beginning to think if we didn’t develop auras at all we’d have proper trade terms between the species on Rivalex.”
Dersji laughed and shook his head, rotating back to face her.
She kept quiet. Dersji was giving her a look to tell her he’d had enough debate. His pompous know-it-all attitude wasn’t to be pushed. She knew the line, he’d literally just drawn it between them and she didn’t want to cross it.
“I don’t know,” she muttered out, “it just seems like there once was a time when we all got along, when we didn’t use aura to overcome others, when only trade did matter … Perhaps, if things got better on Rivalex we could realign with Sile … trade again.”
“Ha!” Dersji sniggered. “Hogwash! Wishful thinking on your part, but you are the Princess, to-be Queen of Layos, I suppose you can work out trade terms with anyone you like when you’re in charge.”
“I will …” she spoke valiantly, also having a thought of fear run through her that she would have that much power. “Will I always have to follow the Felrin?”
“Kaianan, you already know the answer to that.” He was again twirling his wooden blade round his fingers. “Elected to keep your hearts warm, remember? Their governance has and always will be the way of the Felrin Galaxy. Unless of course someone else is elected. You will have a vote in that.”
Kaianan nodded, recalling the poem. The Felrin saved them, she wasn’t disregarding that, maybe she was. This was the system of governance her people had always known, perhaps she shouldn’t be questioning its validity. It was surprising to her, Dersji, the normal cynic, was actually defending it.
“Enough chitchat. The Felrin will always be a belligerent thorn in my side that we can talk about at any time.” Dersji sang, twiddling his fingers out in front of him. “Right now, are you ready to get beaten by an old man?”
“I’d never let you.” Her voice a derisive falsetto.
But Dersji’s expression didn’t falter and a shiver ran down her spine at what exactly was going on his mind.
Dersji stood back, twisted
his body side to side to get in a good stretch and breathed out.
After that faithful night at the Manor, things had moved fast and dramatically for Dersji. The Gorgon King and Queen had questioned him on his long-term intentions with Kaianan and explained the people could not know about their bond—whatever it was. The Felrin Congress were completely dismayed a Gorgon boned with a Liege, unforgivingly interrogating him on why and how it happened, and Dersji himself, was in denial.
It had taken him a whole two years to finally accept Kaianan was his Menial. Not that any of the other parties would ever accept it, yet it wasn’t like they could do anything about it. The Gorgon couldn’t hurt him, and aside from the Felrin Liege threatening him, they had actually re-established his orders to stay with the girl until they deemed it appropriate for her to pass the Shiek judgements, the Verticals.
Dersji saw it as a confirmation they wanted him to remain alive. That, and they saw that this was just as bad punishment if not worse than them detaining him.
As Kaianan grew up, Dersji tried not to like her, he tried to belittle her and distance himself as best he could. He was undeniably bitter about the whole situation. He’d drank himself stupid for an entire month as a consequence. But time took over, and day after day with her became somewhat worthwhile.
He hated, that under his skin, deep in his blood, his scars from the past had begun to heal. That banter with her, and teaching her about the Kan’Ging, gave him purpose. Further, Dersji learnt Kaianan, unlike her mother and father, was eager and hungry to learn more about the foreign practice. Her aptitude as a Gorgon may have not been as good as he hoped but she had determination. In a way, her unbreakable passion, displaced or not, reignited his own.
“You going to focus on your aura today?” Dersji watched her brooding face shake in dismay; she was as entertaining as ever. “Put your party planning aside and focus, Menial. We’ve got the Verticals ahead.”