by Mia Taylor
She also noticed how Kit's hand had tightened when Hristek suggested her death. As if he wanted to say something against it, before Morytania had interrupted.
“Don't you think it wise that we understand what we can from the human?” Fran put the suggestion out, one hand tapping nervously upon her thigh.
“Yes,” Morytania replied. “And in answer to your question, young human, it took all of our magics combined to preserve us for longer lives. And all of our magic combined to shield this place from the curse, shield it from the world, as we have been doing for centuries. As you can see, such powerful magic comes with a cost. We may not move, but we can think. We may not do any of the things we used to love, but we protect the descendants of those who were once our family. Here, you see wyrms, humans and drakes in their original forms, before the curse took over and made the world you see today. We are your living history.”
“Although some of us have given our minds to madness,” Hristek said. He scowled, glancing over to one of the female wyrm elders, who muttered something incomprehensible under her breath. Her eyes had an odd, glazed look. “Since it's not exactly stimulating to be here.”
Living relics of the world as it used to be. Before the curse. Isera struggled to grasp that concept, of magic being strong enough to do such a thing. Especially when she thought of her own pathetic fireballs. Before she could ask about this curse, because she had never heard of the loss of magic to be a curse before, Morytania said, “What magic do you possess, child?”
“Isera,” she replied. “My name is Isera.”
Morytania wrinkled her lips. She was unable to move her head, so appeared to have a permanent haughty tilt to her face. Isera suspected that if this woman had once felt emotion, likely it had been drained from her over the centuries, until nothing remained but a shell of the being she used to be. “Very well. What magic do you possess... Isera?”
“Fire magic.” Then, feeling the need to elaborate, she added, “it's not strong at the moment. I've only recently started my training.”
“I see.”
Jealously surged through Isera as she thought of her friends, along with a faint pride. Although she wanted people to acknowledge her magic, she knew the elders would likely be more impressed to hear about soul magic. “I know two people with powerful magic. One is able to rip a soul out of a body and send it back to this Source you mention.” If Source was another word for an afterlife. “The other is able to heal a soul through their voice.”
Alron grunted in surprise. Fran broke into a smile.
“Ah,” Morytania said. “Then your prediction was true, Horek.” Her eyes flicked towards a wyrm elder with black hair covering most of his face. “The magic is seeking to fix itself. It is evolving.”
“Short explanation,” Fran hissed into Isera's ear, “Soul magic used to be the weakest of all magics. From what you claim, it's changed to deal with the current issue of the curse.” Her hair tickled Isera, and Kit gave another reassuring squeeze. Transferring all his confidence to her.
“Magic is like a river,” Horek said, his voice high and reedy. “It will always find a way to reach the sea. Even if that means changing course. Before the curse, soul magic wasn't needed. After the curse – it is likely the only magic that can still thrive. All other magic will be weak.”
“What do you mean by 'curse'?” Isera asked. “I don't know what happened back then. All I know is that magic is rare and wyrms hate us.”
“I tire of this,” Hristek said. “We must rest. We're not getting any younger.” A few other elders echoed his sentiment.
Morytania shot him a filthy look. “Kit, please provide Isera with sleeping quarters, and answer her any questions that she has to the best of your ability. We will need to rest. We have less energy to stay focused for long nowadays. And...” Morytania's eyes glowed a bright green. “Let me help you with that.” The cuffs around Isera's wrists dropped off.
Magic flowed through Isera again, bringing warmth and relief to her limbs. Lessening the headache that pounded through her skull. “Thank you,” she said.
The Old One had closed her eyes, along with the other seven. Fran pointed at the door, and Alron trotted to it, followed by the others.
When they closed the doors, Fran said, “I think that went well.”
“Are you serious?” Kit glared at his sister. “That was awful. I thought they would have finally agreed that we can go into the world, that it's fixing itself. Instead they're probably going to keep us in for another couple of centuries doing nothing.”
“The world isn't fixed,” Isera said. “There's not a lot of magic users, and the wyrms are all messed up.”
“Yes, well, but we could speed it up,” Kit replied. He appeared irritated and disappointed all at once. His foot danced in an agitated way.
Fran held up her palms in an imploring gesture. “You can't blame them. They pretty much gave up their existences to protect us from the curse. And we've all heard the horror stories about monsters maiming and killing others because they're broken –”
“Our kind ruined it,” Kit hissed, jabbing at his chest. “We wanted to take away human magic, to stop the humans from killing us. And instead we unleashed a curse that destroyed everything and broke our souls.”
“You can hardly say they didn’t have a justification for it, though. Those wyrms were desperate, looking for solutions – anything to stop the humans wiping them out.”
“Nothing justifies destroying an entire planet,” Kit said. The heat and conviction slammed into Isera. Whatever subject this was, Kit clearly had passion for it. It clearly drove him towards the world outside. Towards people like Isera.
“Of course not. That’s not what I’m saying. But anyway, you know the world is fixing itself. You heard the hu – Isera. Soul magic is stronger than it used to be.”
“Everyone's still cursed though. The magic's still lost. And it will stay lost until we do something about it! We can’t just sit around here and do nothing. The barrier is down! Who knows if the Old Ones can place it back up again. The world’s going to come to us, whether we want it or not. You think those wyrms in that fort will just ignore it being razed?”
Isera let them bicker, not fully grasping everything they said. She did however fathom that this curse the elders and her companions gossiped about was something that affected everyone. Stripping away human magic. Breaking wyrm and drake souls. Her teacher back at the school, Zannis, confirmed as much from what they saw Seon and Elise do. The wyrms had something fundamentally ruined inside them, that made them incapable of being normal. They hated humans unconditionally, and were prone to darkness, prone to evil.
Kit thought that they needed to prepare for the inevitable. The creeping tide of darkness that would spill into their home. Fran refused to go against the Old Ones. Stood by the policy of preserving their tranquil existence for as long as possible.
Even a place like this couldn’t survive the misery of our world forever.
Isera hesitated when they left the castle, and saw a small crowd of the un-cursed wyrms, drakes and humans that had gathered in front of them. None of them appeared particularly happy to see Isera.
One man raised a fist. “Kill the outsider!”
Alron growled. Kit stood in front of Isera. Isera squinted at the angry crowd, fear back in force.
“Uh oh,” Fran said. “That's not good.”
Chapter Three
Not good proved an understatement. Shrieks of “Outsider,” rang in Isera’s ears, and people pressed in.
“Normally, Narak would calm this mob down,” Kit muttered, now yanking Isera close to him. Too close.
“Can you blame them? They’re terrified of people dying because of the outside. They’ve been isolated for so long.”
“She’s not some virus, Fran. She’s a person. Gah!” Kit grabbed Isera unceremoniously by the waist and hauled her over. This was getting to be a habit now. She sighed inwardly. “Sorry. They’ll probably not attack i
f you’re on me.”
“Or if we do this,” Fran replied. Rapidly, she began to shift into her wyrm form, along with Alron. A silver drake stood on one side, a golden wyrm on the other, taking up an enormous amount of space. The residents didn’t dare come close to this deathlock. And once again, Isera was greeted with a rearside view of the world. Including Kit’s back. His hand skimmed between her legs, sending a jolt of shock there, and she yelped.
Mistaking her yelp, Kit said, “Okay, I know you’re afraid, but don’t worry, we’ll be safe soon!”
“Unhand me!” She squirmed in his grasp, but he clung on relentlessly until she gave up. She considered trying to set him on fire, but honestly, she didn’t have a whole lot of energy left. And maybe setting fire to Kit in the middle of a crowd might just be the impetus said crowd needed to kill her. His hand pressed into her rear as he strode to his home, and she tried her hardest not to get bothered by the fact that there was an uncomfortable warmth now touching a place it shouldn’t.
One hour later, Isera found herself in a bathtub, having already washed away most of the grime on her body. Now she relaxed in the warm waters, resting her head back on a cushion. She tried to forget about the apathy from the others in this town, their mistrust, and being handled in such a rough way.
They hated her. Not because they had corrupted souls or whatever, but because they thought that if one outsider made it in, then others would follow. Their lives would be compromised and ruined. At least, that was what Fran tried to explain. After all the angry shrieking had faded into the distance, and Kit had leaned against the door, breathing with heavy emotion.
An impossible dilemma stretched in front of Isera. Clearly the inhabitants here didn't want her to leave. If she did, she might tell their secrets and compromise their safety. On the other hand, they also seemed to believe she might either infect them or bring trouble with her.
Even in a society preserved in a perfect moment, a bubble of what life used to be before this curse – people had far ranging attitudes. Perhaps borne by their centuries of near isolation, from not venturing into the dark embrace of the world. Protected by eight emaciated beings sealed in trees, trapped for eternity.
She didn’t know what bothered her more. The weird talking corpses stuck in trees, the grumbling mistrust from the citizens, or Kit quite firmly grabbing her ass and squishing her boobs into his back.
People just didn’t touch her like that. It made her heat up and ball her hands to even consider it.
She took calming, long breaths, focusing back on the issue at hand. Not the Kit and hand issue. Obviously.
If her teachers knew about the existence of such a place, they would be eager to plough it for knowledge, decipher its secrets. And for that reason, Isera didn't see her hosts letting her go anytime soon. The same friends she felt jealous of, she also missed. How she longed to be back on that stupid ice covered mountain, with the wind howling about them, and the perfectly ordinary storms they received, and the secure conviction that everything they did was for the greater good.
She hated wyrms and everything about them. The fact that this Fran and Kit seemed to think themselves friendly left a sour taste in her mouth. No, they didn’t think themselves friendly. They were friendly. And it completely messed up her mind.
Now that she had the time to think for herself in a clearer, cleaner state, her fingers clutched the edges of the bathtub. Her mouth tightened.
How unnatural to even talk to them in such a manner. And that Morytania – a human! A human, addressing drakes and wyrms, and all of them deferred to her!
It was all too much. Nothing here worked like it should. No slaves wandered the streets or toiled in the fields. No pinched look of despair haunted the humans, and the wyrms walked amongst them, talking, smiling.
Isera wanted to scream at them all for being delusional. This wasn't how things worked. This wasn't how the world worked at all! All that conviction formed a cocoon around her body, sheltering her.
Wyrms made the world bad. Humans needed to wipe them from the lands to be free again. Not... play nice. Like what people seem to be doing here. Preposterous.
She even dreamed about burning them to the ground, having so much power in her hands that those monsters would catch on fire, melt down to muscle and bone and ashes. Regarding her with fear, like humans did.
Fran burst into the bathroom, holding some clothes in her hands. White fur robes, with what appeared like glitter frosted along the sleeves. “Okay, Isera. Just to show you that I don't hate you, I'm giving you one of my favorite set of clothes to wear. And don't worry about the mob. My brother and I will get through to them. Also they find Alron scary because he’s touched in the head, so we'll be alright here for now. Hopefully the Old Ones will soon reach an agreement to not have anyone harm you as well.”
Isera, who had at first reacted by covering her pale breasts and shrieking in surprise, now squinted her eyes at Fran. What did this wyrm play at? Trying to wriggle into her good graces. The clothes did look rather fancy, all the same. Like those of the people from the courts, with their balls and riches on open display.
“Is it really that bad?” Fran placed the clothes down. “How you humans are treated outside?”
Isera considered Fran for a moment longer. Trying to let go of that fist or fury clutched around her heart. Trying to suppress the automatic yell for that damn wyrm to get out of her face. Her ears popped as she cracked her jaw open. “It's awful.”
Fran sighed. “I saw how you looked at us around you. Like we were beasts that had suddenly learned to talk. Like you were dumped in a group of aliens who talked in a bizarre language.”
“Yeah, actually. You do have talking trees and a fake sky and blue lightning going on.” Isera forced a smile. Fran didn't buy it.
“I know it's confusing. But I hope you'll give us a chance.” The wyrm sat herself by the bathtub without permission. Isera didn't want to shoo her away though, sensing Fran had something to get off her chest. The dark-haired woman threaded her fingers together. “You see, we're what the world should have been. No corruption in our souls. No magic lost to our blood. Just flawed people, instead of cursed ones. There were communities like ours before, ones where all the races got on and worked together.”
Isera reached for a bar of soap and a sponge, intending to wash herself down further, maybe to make Fran feel awkward so she'd leave. After all, Isera did happen to be completely naked in the presence of this woman. “I find that hard to believe,” she said, more as an obligation to Fran.
“Well, it's true. Even if the humans were starting to abuse their magic, starting to conquer places and enslave the drakes and wyrms and sympathizers, not all of them were like that. And we – our ancestors knew that. When our Old Ones discovered about all the drake and wyrm magic users combining together to curse, they tried to gather who they could. They created sanctuary that would protect the innocent from harm. Today, you see the result of their efforts.”
An interesting story. Isera harbored her doubts, but it did seem to fit in with Zannis's narrative, and what recent discoveries they had made with the fabric of magic, and of souls. Blasts, Isera had even witnessed Elise's friendly interactions with that wyrm lord and his daughter. Like they were friends. Like they didn't want to gut every human they saw.
Isera still remembered a time when that lord killed one of the servants for even daring to suggest something that contradicted his will.
As for Seon, they were now sending that woman out to small, outside villages and estates, letting her rip the souls from the wyrms, letting her seek out all the lost ones who wandered the realm between the living and the dead, screaming for release. Her friends were changing the world, piece by piece. Whilst Isera stood and watched. Useless. Incompetent. Except if people happened to be struggling to light a fire.
“If you left this place to burn down that town that built nearby, surely you must have seen what the world's like now?”
At this, Fran
appeared irritated. More like the expression Isera expected from her kind. “Truthfully, we've only been able to leave the confines of the catacombs in the last twenty years or so. But even then, we're given strict orders not to go too far, in case we lose the protection of the Old Ones and revert to a cursed state. We noticed that fort being built in the last year, observed the wyrms there, and our Old Ones deemed them as a threat to our existence.” She tapped the edge of the bathtub. “And then they found you. Living proof that the curse is weakening. But not gone. Living proof that magic is evolving – but not yet returned.”
Honestly, why couldn't she just leave Isera to bathe in peace, instead of confronting her with a headache's worth of information? Isera just wanted to eat, drink and sleep. “I see,” she replied. “Look. As much as I appreciate that you're trying to fill me in, I need to rest right now.” Isera's stomach chose that moment to crunch in. “And eat. Like, badly.”
“Right.” Fran nodded. Her golden eyes appeared faintly disappointed. “We have porridge. We can put that on right now.”
She left the bathroom. Isera didn't relax into the warm waters just yet, emotions mixing inside her. Fran's disappointment bothered her. It seemed unfair, somehow.
What did you expect? Some prodigy come to save your people? I can't even save myself.
True, she might have encouraged Fran to keep talking. But only because she didn't want to anger her captors into anything drastic. That was something conditioned into her mind. Let the wyrms talk. No matter how bothered you are, don't show that displeasure.
Well, she'd shown it. And Fran didn't behead her for the insolence. Neither did Kit swat her unconscious for wriggling in his grasp. Though it did cause him to grip tighter on her ass, subsequently infuriating her more.
Isera sloshed the water around in the tub, before sponging herself down and drying off with a towel Fran had provided. She placed on the clothes, liking the way they fit snugly onto her body, ate the porridge, and fell into a deep sleep with a full belly on a wooden cot with feathered blankets afterwards. She needed the time to process everything. To figure out what it was she wanted to do with the situation. Aside from escape. Aside from treating everyone with suspicion.