"Yes," Mira nodded. "Rinax is the first of the Vilỳ’s and the last unpoisoned of the creatures left. Edmund, the mad king, mutated the rest into horrible vile things that were more likely to rip you apart than kiss you. That was what I was bitten by, on the day the war began and Prague was destroyed. It’s what you were bitten by, Gemma. Those bites were different than the bites from the Vilỳ that were captured, and that the Queen was able to partially tame and heal. They give a different power than their mutated selves, and their healthy ancestors. They all awaken different magic. Different strengths, different focuses. The diseased Vilỳ for example no longer give eternal life, and their healed counterparts no longer awaken the full breadth of power. If we had known that the magic would be as weakened and diluted as it is, we might not have tried to heal the creatures at all."
"Diluted?" I leaned even closer; something was hidden there. I wasn't going to miss it.
"Yes. Those bitten by the partially healed and tamed Vilỳ after the Gauntlet do not possess magic as strong as those bitten by the diseased Vilỳ from the war, and they do not possess magic as strong as those bitten by a healthy Vilỳ, such as Rinax. Who was the one to bite the Queen."
"So you are saying I am more powerful than Gemma?" Eddy said, sparking fingers forgotten as he gave me a wide toothy grin.
"And that I am more powerful than the Chosen?" My magic buzzed, stomach twisting with possibilities as if my magic knew what was said, and what it meant.
"Not exactly." Way to throw water on my fire, Mira. "It all depends on how long you sleep. Which is why the Queen was here last night, and why I am here this morning."
She held out her hand then, palm up, as she stared at Ed. We both stared at it as if something was going to happen. She better not have that freaky Drak magic too, or else I was going to take myself straight out of here. Hide in the bathroom or something.
"Give me your hand, Ed," she whispered with a gasp, as though her voice was made of magic.
Eddy gave me a look, like I was going to tackle her down and protect him or something. My three run-ins with Eternals have taught me one thing, however, they always have a way to get what they want. I sat back against the headboard, feet up, arms crossed.
"Go ahead, Ed," I taunted. "I want to see what she does. Can't be any worse than what the Queen did to me."
He gave me a bit of a scowl before he tentatively dropped his hand in hers, a gasp pressing past his lips as she stared at him. I expected sparks, lightbulbs to burst, skin to catch fire. Something. There wasn't a damn thing.
"How disappointing."
"Why is everything so hot? Why are you stabbing me?" Eddy gasped, he was clearly trying to pull his hand back from her, but even with her light touch it was clear that she wasn't letting him go anywhere.
I was on my feet in seconds, even though I was pretty sure what was going on. It had been this painful when the Queen had centered my magic a few weeks ago, although I could have sworn she did that to him last night. Didn't matter. One step out of line and I would throw Mira against the wall, anyway. Deal with the repercussions of that later.
"What's going on?" I snapped, Eddy still struggling against her.
"I’m monitoring your magic. Checking strength, ability. Making sure everything worked right last night when the Queen came to center your magic and pull you awake," Mira answered. Well, I was right on one of those things.
"What the hell does that mean? Pull him awake? I thought you said that everyone slept for different times?"
"Yes, well, your friend Ed here is a special circumstance. You're smart, Gemma, you surely put it together by now that no one knows of Rinax's existence." I had, but I wasn't about to show any more cards than that. I gave her a nod and sunk down to the bed just as she released Ed's hand.
He reeled it back in like it was on a fishing line, frantically rubbing his palm.
"You received a bite from the first Vilỳ, Ed, the last real Vilỳ. That's a lot of magic. We would rather that information not get out. Instead of allowing you to sleep as long as you would otherwise, we pulled you awake so that you can start school with the rest of your peers, and hopefully with the same amount of magic." She smiled. Ed and I exchanged a look.
This whole thing was starting to feel like a trap. And we had walked right into it. Wooed by the chance to continue a revolution. A revolution on puppet strings.
"So, you used some special pumped up thing to bite him? Great. What do you want in return for this great gift?" I spat, jumping up from the bed again. "No one just gives people who tried to blow you up superpowers."
Mira looked like she was about to laugh, "Think of it as a show of good faith on our part."
"That doesn't answer my question, what do you want in return?"
"We want the same things, Gemma, Joclyn has already explained that to you. This is all only to help in that. To help heal our world."
"Nothing is ever that simple." I scoffed. Mira only smiled before she stepped back to her guard, one of them handing her a small pouch. The black velveted bag was so small I probably wouldn't have noticed it if the guy hadn't heaved a sigh of relief on its hand-off. Like Mira had taken a thousand-pound weight from him.
"Well, either way. You'll be happy to know that your magic is in working order, Ed, even with the early awakening." She gave Eddy a tiny grin, "that's only part of why I am here, however." Mira's smile faded as the guards took one simultaneous step forward. Screw this badass standoff, I took one back too.
Mira spread her palm between us, emptying the bag into her hand. Tiny little pebbles spread over her palm, they looked like little more than dust. Haunted, frightening dust that might have been mined from the souls of the damned. The stuff almost seemed to be glittering. Pretty glitter, that judging by the racing energy that was assaulting my veins, I should be very very scared of.
"I don't know what that is, but I am not interested." I took another step back.
"One of your conditions to keep your magic and attend the academy was to have your magic bound. This is a piece of an omezující stone." She looked at me like I should understand what she was saying. No, like I was supposed to be scared. Well, I had already had that down, and with her tone, the fear was growing.
I screwed my face up, pushing the knot in my stomach away. I refused to be scared of a bit of dust.
"And what are you going to do with the Omjuki, Omzi... with that stuff?" I had run out of room to step back and had now backed myself up against the night stand, which was great because now she was stepping forward closing the gap between us.
"When embedded in your flesh it will restrain your magic enough that you will be able to learn to master it. If you do that, if you prove yourself worthy, then the stones will be removed."
"And how… How do you plan to embed them?" God, that sounded awful. No wonder my voice was stuttering. I took a glance at Eddy, hoping he hadn't caught that. The worry in his eyes promised me otherwise.
"Have you ever heard of a Štít?"
15
Rowan
My parents loved their jokes. Or rather, they loved torturing me and my siblings with things they thought were funny. Seeing as Talon was over forty years older than me, Dramin only a few decades younger, and my little sister barely eight. I was all they had right now.
Which was probably why I was being forced to ride to the first day at Imdalind Academy in a horse-drawn carriage that I was sure was a relic of my father’s childhood, thousands of years before. The thing reeked of dust, mold, and that sweet perfume old ladies use to cover up the smell of dust and mold.
Although that stench might be from the girl who sat across from me.
Sia Demarco.
The girl who had ‘faced the terrorist’ and been given an ‘honorary enrollment for her heroic efforts.’
It was all bullshit, even if she didn’t know that I knew that. I had seen enough of her ‘heroic actions’ in my dream to know I wanted nothing more to do with her than I did with my father
’s homemade Listy. His favorite leaf stew was foul and always made my stomach spin, just like the scent that was coming off her. She had clearly bathed herself in some perfume meant to ensnare me.
Not that she had to try, I had already been commanded to ‘escort’ her for the first few months. Although, my first assessment of having been sold off to some girl in a ‘royal match’ was beginning to feel more accurate. Especially considering that her parents had been on hand to see us off, snapping pictures and demanding I put my arm around her as well, kiss her cheek, hold her hand, and many other atrocities. They got none of them. With a sniff from her mother and an eye roll from mine, they closed us in a carriage that felt like something you would see in a wedding march.
Or a funeral dirge.
I was going to go for the latter. It was going as slow as one, perhaps I could use a bit of magic and prod the horses that dragged us along to go faster.
I sighed and shifted my weight, still trying to dodge her intense stare. She really needed to find somewhere else to look.
“So, Rowan,” Sia began, clearing her throat with a sound that I was sure she thought was ladylike. I shifted my weight, but didn’t turn, choosing instead to keep staring out of the draped window as if there was anything to look at besides trees. “Are you excited to begin your training at Imdalind Academy? I am sure it’s been a long wait to gain your magic like the rest of your family.”
She sighed like the love sick crown chaser she was, her eyes glazing over until a tiny laugh cracked from the back of my throat. She narrowed her eyes at me, a bit of her father's scorn shining through.
Oh crap, she was serious.
My magic was part of me. It was naive of her to think otherwise. I wasn’t interested in correcting her, however, there were too many other questions that came along with that.
“Yes, I am excited to be there with all of you.” My throat burned as the lie slid through it, but it pacified her. She was back to smiling and sighing and leaning against the old springed seats as the carriage bounced along.
“I am so honored to be able to go to the Academy. I wouldn’t have made it through the Gauntlet, not after what I ran into.”
She was back to sighing dramatically, crossing her legs slowly and allowing the blue, grey, and red plaid of her crisp uniform to pull above her knees. I was going to be sick, and I had weeks and weeks of this to look forward to. I was suddenly wishing I hadn’t slept for the last few days. I had five days before I would need sleep again, and would be able to lock myself away from this mess.
It couldn’t go fast enough.
“I couldn't walk away from that. So many more people would have gotten hurt if I wasn’t able to intervene,” she continued after a few minutes when I didn’t respond.
Shame. Looks like my attempt to continue this trek in silence was not going to happen.
“Yes, it was an unfortunate circumstance,” I said, keeping my voice monotone and my focus out of the carriage. “I am glad it was not worse, so many people could have been killed if you hadn’t intervened.”
My focus darted over to her when she sighed dramatically again. It was like she had sprung a leak, or had bad gas, no wonder a bright smile was spreading over her face.
Gas or not, I had to admit Sia Demarco was pretty, if only because she hadn’t inherited her mother's sour expression. Long chestnut hair hung over her shoulder, a bit of red catching in the light. Her eyes shimmered in a blue-grey that I wasn’t sure was natural, but stood out against the few freckles of the bridge of her perfect nose.
She knew how beautiful and desirable she was, and that confidence only added to the beauty. It was the smug, rotten, lying soul behind the glint in her eyes, however, that was making me wish we could get there. Then I could lock myself in my room and away from all the baby Chosen.
Away from her lies.
“Yes, I was so very lucky to have been there when I was. Luckier to have run into that girl so I could try to stop her. I wish I knew more of what to do. I didn’t know there was still illegal magic in the world. I wasn’t prepared.” She sighed again, leaning forward as she looked at her hands, little sparks jumping between her fingernails.
Luckily, she seemed to control it okay, I didn’t need to be extinguishing a burning carriage while frightened horses careened down the street. I put a shield around the carriage anyway, not that she noticed.
“Well, now you will learn about your magic and know what to do in the future. And she will know how to control her magic so that things like this don’t happen again.” I chose my words carefully, turning back to the window in what I hoped was a conversation ending action. Too bad the sound of a deflating balloon from the other side of the carriage was making a grand return.
So much for the raging beauty. Her lips had pursed, her nostrils flaring as she breathed.
“Is that why the terrorist was allowed to enroll in Imdalind Academy, Rowan?” I guess she had inherited her mother's sour expression after all.
“I don’t believe the girl to be a terrorist. A rebel maybe, but nothing more.” I was trying to be calm and indifferent; she clearly wasn’t taking it that way.
Her eyes flashed darkly as she sighed, leaned forward and whispered so low she must have been concerned the horses would hear seeing as they were the only ones within fifty kilometers of us.
“A rebel? You can’t be serious?”
“I am.” I looked right at her, letting my magic wash over the air in an angry wave that although she couldn’t detect she still flinched. “She was standing up for her people. For their rights. For what she thought was right.”
I wanted to add that my parents had done the same thing, that I would do the same thing, but she looked about ready to explode. Instead, I bit my tongue, straightening my suit jacket in a need to keep my hands busy.
“She maimed hundreds of Goldens. Your people.” I wanted to tell her that they were all our people, and that none of them were, but that previously controlled magic was starting to smoke. “I saw the blood. I felt that pain.”
“The great war between magic was worse,” I mumbled going back to the window. They were some of the first images I had been cursed with, nearly ten years ago, back when I thought being a Drak would be fun.
I still heard the screams sometimes.
“If she wanted to kill you, she would have.” I spoke in full voice, turning back to her as the carriage hit a pothole and we both went bouncing. “She’s been blowing up massive buildings for months, and somehow you came out with a few broken bones--”
“It was a broken spine,” she cut me off like the injury was medal worthy. I waved her off.
“You were surrounded by Eternals with powerful healing magic ready to help in case an accident like that happened.”
“It wasn’t an accident!” Magic flamed behind her eyes, and I knew I shouldn’t back off. But her lies, her delusions, I couldn’t let them rot between us.
“No one died, Sia. No one walked away with anything more than a bone still bound by magic to mend. She knew what she was doing, and her message was loud and clear--”
“If I didn't know any better I would say you and your family were on her side.” Her lips curled dangerously and I cringed, pressing myself back into my chair.
Damn it.
Some poster child I was, I was already failing on the whole smoothing things over with the Chosen thing.
“We are on the side of our people.”
“Then will you be on my side? I’m yours. I’m your people, Rowan.” She reached her hand out to me in greed of contact, her overly manicured fingers twisting in a longing that I couldn’t give her.
That I didn’t want to. Tucking my hands against my sides, I leaned forward, eyes wide as I stared into her.
“I already am.” I forced a smile that I had seen Talon give a million times, trying to master that darn sex on a plate voice. She visibly shivered so I must not have been that far off. Either that or I looked like a creep.
There wa
s a reason Talon was born first I think; he was better at this stuff.
“Then act like it, Rowan.” She snarled, the acid in her voice seeping past her painted on grin. I nearly pulled away.
“I am. I believe there is good in everyone. Her. Me. You.” I put special emphasis on that last bit.
“There is not good in everyone, not everyone can be redeemed.” Her smile faded as she leaned back again, arms folded over her chest like she was proud of herself. It made my stomach twist.
“My Aunt Wynifred killed an entire race of people before she defected to our side of the war, thousands of years before either of us were born. My father forgave her and without her help everything would have been lost.” I knew at once I had said too much, that bit of our history wasn’t exactly public knowledge.
Her face broke into shocked awe, the greasy grin pulling at my magic dangerously.
“Is that why the girl is being enrolled in Imdalind Academy? Because your family believes there to be good in her? That it was an accident?”
“Only time will tell, I suppose,” I paused, my head beginning to spin as her eyes grew hard and angry. Being trapped in here with her was a mistake, being trapped in this role, in the world, was a mistake.
Perhaps she would understand if I bolted out of the carriage and flew myself the rest of the way there. Doubt it considering she was still under the half-seeded delusion that I possessed infantile magic as well.
“I’m amazed that your mother’s magic didn’t show her what had happened. Everyone says that Drak magic is the most powerful of all. I wish I had been able to see it in action.”
I froze against the hard-cushioned seat as though I had been carved into them.
“It’s not as amazing as you would think,” I said under my breath, slinking down in my chair as she prattled on and I got myself under control.
“I swear I could feel her power in the air when I was speaking to her. Like a dark buzzing fly inside my head. Did you ever feel that?” She paused, obviously trying to bait me into conversation again, into giving away more information about my family.
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