by Lisa Daniels
The darkness of the mountains, even with the stars above, unnerved her.
Neither of them knew if the path they took would even help. Drakes flew. They might be anywhere. This really was a stupid idea. What did they possible hope to accomplish?
However, Seon also felt a strange burning sensation in her, which had nothing to do with the cold. Even though she didn’t know where to go, it felt right somehow, to walk in this direction. To take the left path, then the right.
In the distance, something made a hooting sound. Seon flinched when she heard voices. Isera’s face paled and she instantly turned off the flame in her hands. They huddled together, barely able to see through the trees in the darkness. The voices grew louder. Complaining, judging by the sharp, high tone of them. Drakes, or wyrms?
Please be drakes. Please be drakes.
Soon, they saw a light flickering through the trunk gaps past snow-laden bushes. Beyond these lay a small clearing with several figures, some standing up, some sitting down.
Close enough at last, Seon and Isera saw for themselves the captives in the middle of the clearing near the campfire. Five figures tied up. Edith. Artiz. Master Raka, the one who taught the fire students. Two faces Seon didn’t recognize. There was no Kalgrin.
Seon suppressed a gasp. The wyrms had somehow captured all the drakes, aside from Anya’s partner. Maybe he had escaped, or lay somewhere, mortally wounded. Seon pushed the thought out of mind, and held a palm against her stomach. Isera crouched by her, eyes narrow, one hand on Seon’s back.
Both women saw a student of the school sitting with the wyrm guards.
Sigmund. Edith’s friend.
He laughed and joked with the guards, freely talking about the school and its soft teachers. Seon listened in blank shock as his derogatory words tumbled across the clearing, not caring whether the captives heard or not.
A traitor. A drake traitor.
Isera’s breath hitched in her chest.
“I still don’t know the ability of the new woman,” Sigmund said, drinking something out of a mug. “They’re tight-lipped about it, so I presume she’s important.”
“You’ve done good work for us, Sigmund. Soon we’ll be able to wipe this filth off the planet, preserving our freedom. Our rightful place. We can’t allow such danger roaming the mountains.”
“What about me? I know magic, too.”
“You’re not a human,” a wyrm guard replied smoothly. He gave a rather insincere smile. “You do not defile magic with your presence.”
Of course the wyrms would feel less bothered about drakes holding the power. Drakes weren’t their natural slaves. Seon boiled indignantly, wanting to wrap her hands around Sigmund’s treacherous little throat and squeeze until the life popped out of his eyes.
Isera’s fingers tightened around Seon, as if detecting her desire to rush in. Not yet, Isera mouthed. She shook her head. The flickering firelight from the camp helped them to see their outlines clearer.
How could they do this? The wyrms were awake. Maybe if Isera flung some fire at those ropes or something, she’d free the others. But even if the ropes got burned through, it didn’t guarantee that they reacted in time and transformed. They might be physically tortured in some way, making it hard to shift, or maybe the flame wouldn’t burn through in time, giving the wyrms plenty of opportunity to subdue the drakes again. Her breath started hissing faster.
No. She just needed to be patient.
Something rustled in the darkness. A new voice, frighteningly close to Seon and Isera, said, “Well, well, well. Look what we have here.”
Horror flooded Seon as a wyrm leered right behind them.
With a low, gurgling laugh, the wyrm seized Seon and Isera, hauling them into the clearing.
Chapter Seven
“You are the biggest idiot in the history of idiots,” Artiz hissed at Seon, who stared sullenly ahead, ropes binding her together. “What did I tell you about being careful? Do you call this being careful? Because it seems like you have a death wish.”
“I was worried about you!” Seon snapped back. “And if you were captured by the wyrms, then no amount of waiting around would bring you back!”
“Thanks, but next time, keep yourself indoors and safe. There’s nothing you can do.”
Seon smarted at the words. Her cheeks flushed. Isera lay unconscious, a bruise upon her head. She had resisted a little too roughly upon being hauled to the camp, and one thump to the skull ended her struggle.
She’s alive, at least.
The wyrms appeared delighted with their prizes.
“What power do you have, huh?” Sigmund crouched in front of Seon, grinning. “Why do you hide it so? Must be something pretty interesting, huh?”
“It’s hidden because they wanted to find out if there was a spy in the school,” Seon spat back, even though Artiz glared at her to keep silent. “It’s nothing special. But it made you worry, didn’t it?” The sole purpose of her lie was to make him feel bad. Her heart beat like a drum. As soon as the words had slipped out, she worried that her act of defiance would get her killed. Artiz certainly stared at her with bulging, panicked eyes.
Sigmund’s face colored. He slapped Seon about the cheek. “You’re the lippy one, aren’t you? Well, we’ll find out what you have soon enough. Don’t think I want you to die before you’ve revealed it. My friends here will love getting the information out of you.”
Seon held her tongue to bite back any more remarks she would soon regret. Her neck muscles stretched tight from the effort. Her jaw clenched.
Edith, normally bitchy and arrogant, looked close to tears. Bruises welled on her face from whatever she had endured earlier, and she shivered in the cold despite being near the flames.
“Soon all the rats will be gone,” one of the wyrms declared. “They’ve been scurrying around the north for too long, thinking they’re safe up here. Thinking they can escape from a wyrm.” He smirked, displaying yellow, sharp teeth. He stroked the sword belted at his side. Seon already suspected that the wyrms didn’t want to morph into their dragon forms because in the snows, on such treacherous landscape, those forms proved more dangerous than useful. However, nothing would stop them here. They had plenty of space. They didn’t need weapons.
“To think drakes would stoop so low.” Sigmund now stared at Artiz. Hatred crinkled in his expression. “You have no shame or regard for our kind. We should be united against this filth. Not pandering to them.” He spat at Edith’s feet. She whimpered.
Again, Seon felt the press of Isera’s cold soul. It was a distraction, really, but Seon needed it. She didn’t want her thoughts to stay here, where her tongue might slip up. The unconscious woman seemed less guarded when asleep. That aura around her pulsed stronger. Not sure what use this held, Seon closed her eyes anyway. The wyrms continued to mock them, to call them pathetic and weak. They laughed amongst themselves, optimistic at the work done. Confident that soon the school would fall.
She listened also to Artiz’s heavy breathing on the side.
I’m sorry, Artiz. I don’t mean to worry you so much. Yes, she was stupid, really. The thought sank her down. I just wanted to care about someone. And I didn’t want to lose the one who cared about me.
Seon once again focused on her friend. Now that Seon understood Isera’s soul better, she accessed it faster. The hot burn of vengeance writhed in Isera’s soul. Even unconscious, Isera longed to break free of her bindings and set fire to every one of the wyrms there, even if she didn’t have the power to do so. Her thoughts kept cycling through memories of the estate she worked in, the mines she had experienced on brief moments.
I hate them. I hate them. The dark song pulsed in Isera’s heart. Such awareness. Her mind was already waking.
For a moment, Seon felt nothing but pity there. Nothing but sorrow. Her friend was damaged on the inside. Damaged to the point that revealing the extent of it would bring her crashing down. Seon longed to do something, to fix it… but now wasn’t
the time or place. Seon moved her attention away from Isera, and continued browsing through the other objects she could hear. The other souls she could touch.
The fire was one, trying to spread its warmth to the living creatures around it. The burning logs, happy to sacrifice themselves, knowing they would become part of the ground and feed their brethren. They liked providing life to those who sat around them. The frozen ground, angry at those who stomped across it, wanted to lure them all to an icy death. The trees, frightened of the flames, shrank away from danger, subtly leaning backwards.
Presently, another foreign substance touched upon Seon’s mind. Another soul. Dark and rotten and twisted. A wyrm soul, corrupted by something – something that hummed the same message of hate in it. Revulsion formed in her throat.
Kill humans. Loathe humans. The pulse of hatred throbbed like a rotten heart. The more she danced around this soul, the more she realized it was broken. That hate had something trapped about it, somehow. She didn’t understand how or why – but she knew something big was missing from the wyrm’s soul. Something that distorted the thoughts of the creature, and made it incapable of understanding that humans were not merely beasts to be put down.
The revelation startled her. These souls in their own way were condemned, twisted beyond comprehension.
Honestly, Seon had always found it odd how wyrms so relentlessly hated. Even with humans, you had ones that hated and ones that cared. Same with drakes. Not everyone was good or bad, but a fine mix of both. Sometimes one side might overpower the other. But with wyrms, no matter who they were, they loathed humanity with an undying passion.
All the wyrm souls sounded broken, when Seon cycled through them, using her new awareness to touch upon what she sensed. Twenty-four wyrms, humming that same tainted melody. Marred, beyond redemption.
Then, as an afterthought, she examined Sigmund’s. If the wyrms felt like this, then what about Sigmund? Had he, too, been taken? Was that why he acted like this?
Sigmund’s soul appeared intact. Just opportunistic. He saw a way to elevate himself in society and took it. It disgusted her to touch upon such a dirty mind. He happily turned in fellow students for personal gain. A magic user, blessed with something so rare, so powerful, and he didn’t give a shit about anyone. Not even the woman he was supposed to be friends with, lovers with – Edith. He had used that poor wretch as surely as he used the school.
Conversation continued between the wyrms, who had by now settled back into their grumbles of the cold, of having to sit around and wait for orders, and why couldn’t they just rip into their prizes already. Seon drowned out the voices. She would serve no use in the real world. Maybe she could find use in the souls she felt, pressing against the edge of her awareness. She didn’t know exactly what benefits would rise out of sensing the states of those around her, however. Only that doing something was better than nothing.
She connected faster with the wyrm souls now. Soon, she felt all of them interlinked with her like a dark spider web, trembling in the breeze. She also took in Sigmund’s, wrapping them all together without anyone realizing. Except, a few of them slipped into silence.
“Is it just me, or has it gotten colder?” one wyrm said. A few others agreed, and one went to toss an extra few logs onto the fire, intending to make it bigger.
Maybe they all suffered that chill across their bodies, as if someone had walked over their graves. They continued to complain, even as Seon held them all tangled up. Excitement pulsed within her.
I wonder what this means, that I can do this? None of the souls begged to find their way home. They didn’t claw at her desperately, wishing for her to end their suffering. But what if she could do that anyway? What if she conjured up that door again, and looked to see if they went through willingly?
May as well try. She double-checked that she had all the wyrm souls, and Sigmund’s.
Her blood hammering, and palms sweating in the cold, Seon envisioned the door. The ornamental arch, the reinforced iron. The way it creaked open, revealing the glimmer of light within. She imagined a cozy warmth emanating from the door, like the fire that crackled nearby.
Now what? She gently tugged at the souls. They contracted, now gripping her, when they didn’t before. Come on. Go here. It’s a nicer place than where you are.
The souls clung viciously onto Seon, straining not to get sucked into the doorway. She heard some of them wailing, thrashing like fish in her grip. They really didn’t want to go. Harder to make a soul go through something if it wanted nothing more than to stay untouched. Finally, in a fit of exasperation, Seon threw them one by one through the door, mentally straining with each corrupted soul. Screams rang in her ears, and they all seemed to scratch at her, cursing and spitting. The strongest soul was Artiz’s, however. The scream that came from it was indignant, born out of her audacity of taking a complete soul and shoving it through the door before its time.
Some of the scratch marks from the souls appeared in real life, forming narrow red trails on Seon’s arms and face. Artiz strained to reach her when he saw this happen.
“Seon!” His whisper came sharp, like the cold that flooded the air around them. “What’s happening? What’s going on? Please tell me. Please answer.”
Lungs heaving, Seon took a firmer grip on the last soul and bundled it through the door at last. Another scratch sliced across her thumb.
She shut the door and slumped in her ropes, exhausted. Every limb in her body weighed her down.
“Seon. Seon!”
Her mind felt lethargic, struggling to focus. Her eyelids were practically glued shut as everything spun. “Mmm… okay…”
“That doesn’t sound okay. What happened? Why are you bleeding?”
She waited a few moments to recover, then opened her eyes and looked up.
All the wyrms and Sigmund had stopped talking. They all stood or sat eerily still, unmoving. Isera blinked awake next to Seon at last, and she rubbed her head, a storm brewing in her eyes.
Seon’s heart started hammering faster. They weren’t moving. As if none of them had souls left in their body. Or, well, anything left at all.
It worked? One way to find out. “Hello?” She cleared her throat, because her word came out high-pitched and weak. “Hello?”
Now the other prisoners began to notice. “What’s going on?” Artiz stared at the prisoners, and then at the blood seeping from Seon’s arms. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Why are they acting so weird?” Isera said, after the wyrms showed no signs of responding. They lay as still as statues.
“Um…” Seon said. “It might… have been me.”
Artiz’s eyes widened. “What do you mean? Explain. Now.”
Seon licked her lips nervously, before issuing the explanation of what she did. How she got a grip on each of their souls and encouraged them to go through the door. Just like how she did with the girl with the locket. She also explained their reluctance, especially with Sigmund. Edith let out a little gasp when she mentioned the battle that happened, ending up with these scratches on her body.
When she had finished, and confirmed her power to the others who had been clueless of it, they all stared at her. Frightened. Awed.
“What the fuck,” Artiz whispered. “You just ejected their souls like that?” His jaw hung open slightly.
Seon nodded. “I didn’t know I could do that.”
“Neither did I.”
Isera blinked. “That’s your power? Taking people’s souls? Because that’s a scary power. And way cooler than mine.”
“Not really.” Seon gave a half shrug. “It’s supposed to be that I help the souls find their way home. Like the diseased souls which are like invisible marbles or something.” The prisoners sat silent for a moment, baffled. Seon doubted her explanation made any sense. She really needed Zannis to come along and explain things better.
“Well,” Artiz said, still staring at Seon as though she had suddenly sprouted two extra heads, “assum
ing we have all our marbles here, I guess we better try freeing ourselves.”
No one wanted to move just yet, though. In case one of the wyrms was faking it.
Eventually, though she got a few nervous glances from the other teachers, they started working on getting themselves free. Kalgrin even came to help. He spotted the fire from afar and circled around in drake form, before realizing that everyone was safe. The miniature invasion had been handled by Seon.
Somehow.
Chapter Eight
Back in the school, at first, everyone cheered when they found out that everyone had returned safely. Everyone, except for a missing Sigmund and a distraught Edith.
When it became clear what had happened to the wyrms and Sigmund, the change became almost immediate. Hushed whispers. Stares where Seon walked. She spent an hour recovering in the sick bay, with an elderly man healing her wounds. When she left, she noticed that everyone gave Seon a wide berth. She’d turned from a mild attraction for the other students to something terrifying and unknown, now that people understood she’d taken out twenty-five people by herself.
It turned her into a deadly weapon, and the teachers bowed to her if they passed.
Seon didn’t know what to make of the new attitudes towards her.
Artiz, however, acted proud. He apologized for his doubt to her, apologized for treating her like she couldn’t do anything.
She didn’t blame him. What she did had been stupid and suicidal.
He showed a little more of that pride towards her when he slipped through her door later on that evening, after the whole school had heard Graff congratulate Seon and Isera. There was a little admonishing on their part as well, since they shouldn’t have gone out without permission. So although things turned out for the best, Graff used the opportunity to gently remind people to not break their orders in the future.