by J. C. Harker
Despite the crowd, Tharia’s attention was immediately drawn to the Tellurian. She was sitting alone in a booth at the far corner of the tavern. She wore a gray hooded cloak and had her back turned to the entrance. Tharia locked gazes with the brown eyed dragonling sitting on the edge of the booth, and she knew the other girl was watching her through the lizard’s eyes.
As they established visual contact, the sensation that had brought her there turned from a nagging feeling in the back of her head to a powerful urge that screamed to be fulfilled right there, right then. Through sheer will she remained calm, closed the door behind her, and started to walk slowly toward the other Toivoan. Out of the corner of her eye, Tharia saw the locals turning toward her, and she saw their faces go pale as they recognized her for what she was.
“Hello, Sister.” Tharia stopped as the Tellurian spoke. Her heart skipped a beat even though she knew this wasn’t her actual sister. She could never do what she was about to do to Jalo or Brila… at least, so she thought.
“Hi,” she replied, feeling a bit awkward. There weren’t really instructions for how to do this, but she wasn’t expecting much conversation.
“My name is Kaima Erde,” the woman said as she turned toward Tharia and got up from her seat. Her hands and face were also pulsing with runes, though hers were a rusty brown color.
“Tharia Dru,” she replied and sneaked a quick peek at her own hands. She noticed that the pulsing rhythm was a lot faster, and it seemed in sync with the other girl’s.
“Well Tharia, why don’t we do this in a civilized way? No need to make a show and hurt these mortals.”
Tharia, a bit surprised by the turn of events, watched Erde climb onto Kaima’s shoulder.
“That seems… reasonable,” she said. Unconvinced, she stayed alert, ready to react to any suspicious movement. “What do you propose, then?”
“Let’s arm wrestle. Winner takes all, no rematches.” Kaima added that last bit with a grin—they both knew there was no way to reverse the process.
Tharia cocked her head to one side and digested the offer for a moment. Her arms were strong after years of menial labor, but would that give her even a slight advantage? Was her strength even relevant in this battle? Her mom, when asked about Ascension, just said it was something she had to experience for herself. Tharia still suspected some kind of a trap, but decided to play along.
“Alright, that sounds acceptable,” she said. She looked around, trying to see if she could find anything that would give her any advantage.
* * *
After hearing the exchange, young Timmy sighed with relief. Stuck behind the counter together with the bartender, he had curled up on the floor a few minutes earlier. He turned around and, still staying low, poked his head above the bar to see what was going on.
It seemed the few patrons that were still in the tavern, who had likely missed an opportunity to leave earlier, were also visibly relaxed with the peace offering. Some that had been inching their way toward the door earlier now stopped and looked at the pair with rising curiosity.
But it wasn’t just people who were staring mesmerized at the two women flashing with color. Timmy noticed that old Blacky, the tavern’s cat, was sitting near the cellar door. Right beside it and in a few other places there were more cats lurking in the shadows. He recognized some of them, but most were strangers. They appeared out of nowhere and just sat in their spots, quietly watching.
“How about this table?” the green-glowing one called Tharia pointed to a small table near the middle of the room.
Two regulars had been sitting at it. They were playing dice when she entered, and the game was still unresolved as their eyes followed the women. They got up from their chairs and hastily made room for the Toivoans.
“Wooden table, really?” Timmy saw a smirk cross Kaima’s face. “Wooden chairs, wooden floor, metal nails and cutlery… let’s at least pretend we’re trying to play fair here.”
It was hard to notice under the green glow, but Timmy thought he saw a red blush on Tharia’s face for a second or two.
“Well,” she started, “how about we move the table to the fireplace and get rid of all that cutlery.”
“You get the whole floor, building even. I want stone chairs to even out our chances,” Kaima haggled.
“Where are we going to get stone chairs from?” Tharia looked at the bartender, and Timmy noticed he was shaking his head as if to confirm they didn’t have any at hand. “Be reasonable, how about we open the windows? That way I get wood and metal, and you get stone and air.”
Kaima went silent for a moment and rubbed her cheek as she considered the offer. Timmy really didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. The table might have been a bit crooked, but the chairs were perfectly fine.
“Alright, but I’ll make my own chair—final offer.”
Timmy saw Tharia nod, and she gestured at the people nearby to move the table. The two gamblers scrambled to take their things and get out of the way. The other woman walked up to one side of the stone fireplace where the table was placed and pointed her hand at the floor. He was sure she growled at it or something.
A moment later her fist clenched, and as she raised her arm upward a rumbling noise came from below the floor. The place began to shake, and Timmy watched wide-eyed as cracks appeared in the old wooden planks below Kaima’s feet. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the bartender open his mouth in protest—Timmy was used to the man shouting at him for a badly washed mug or a broken dish—but to his surprise the bartender remained silent.
Grayish rock burst from the floor, tearing apart the wooden planks around it. Crunching and screeching sounds joined the crackling noise coming from the fireplace in the otherwise silent room. The stone grew in uneven bursts and in seemingly random places, piling layer upon layer until it formed the rough outline of a chair with armrests on both sides.
Kaima sat in it a moment later, her right side turned toward the fire. The lizard sitting on her right shoulder shadowed her face, but the glow of the runes on the rest of her body competed with the yellow light coming from the fireplace.
Distracted by those events, Timmy didn’t see who opened the windows on the other side of the room. But someone must have done it—he was hit by the evening chill and the flowery fragrance of the evening blossoms.
Something must have amused Tharia as she smiled and walked up to the side of the table opposite the other Toivoan. She sat down and they both took off their hoods. Their bald heads were covered with even more writing.
The flashing colors on the small areas of their skin not covered by scales were hypnotizing. The runes pulsed quickly and steadily. Timmy didn’t need any magical powers to feel the dense, almost tangible energy that was filling the room. But even if he wanted to leave, it was now too late. He felt like a mouse mesmerized by a snake as he stared into the light.
He could only watch as the two powers were about to collide.
* * *
Dru stood up on Tharia’s shoulder, balancing on its hind legs. The lizard was less convinced by peaceful solutions. It hissed and growled spreading its wings in an aggressive pose. She felt its blood boil with eagerness to devour the other Toivoan. Erde also had extended its wings, and restless, shifted its weight back and forth from one foot to the other. It hissed back at Dru with its neck frills raised.
Tharia didn’t waste time, her arm hit the table with a loud thud, ready for the challenge. She smiled at the little trick she managed to pull off: Kaima may have gained air from the open windows, but it also meant access to vegetation for Tharia.
She looked into Kaima’s eyes, round and brown. Kaima’s pupils were dilated and left almost no iris visible. It looked like they were well matched. Tharia was glad she didn’t stumble across an older, more powerful Toivoan.
Kaima didn’t delay things. As she placed her arm on the table, Tharia’s hand joined with her opponent’s, almost instinctively locking their palms in a solid grip.
/> When their skin touched there was a single flash of light followed by a faint electric shock spreading from her hand to every inch of her body. The runes stopped flashing and were now continuously visible with an intense glow emanating from the writing. Tharia realized her whole body, and not just her face and hands, was covered in runes.
But what surprised her most was that the previous emerald and rusty brown colors were replaced by a single deep purple glow. Only their eyes retained their original color. After a moment, she realized that there was still a faint pulse to the runes that matched her heartbeat, but this was much harder to notice with the glow’s increased brightness.
The hissing and growling grew louder, a crescendo of noise building up to a roar. That was one of the last things Tharia saw and heard of the outside. She was focused completely on the other girl. The external world was quickly becoming an unimportant blur.
What looked like arm wrestling was actually a lot less physical than she had hoped. It was merely a manifestation of the battle of wills that was taking place—the hand followed the shift of energy, not the other way around. She realized now how futile all the haggling and planning had been. The battle involved only her own dragon essence against the Tellurian’s.
Tharia felt sweat forming on her palm and forehead. Staring her opponent straight into those brown eyes, she was throwing all she had into this fight. After what felt like ages, she managed to break through the stalemate and started to pull in some of Kaima’s essence.
As the other’s dragon essence entered her body, she felt almost delirious. The thick, sweet nectar-like substance spilled into her veins. The smell of violets filled her nostrils. Slightly overwhelmed by the sensation, she lost her concentration momentarily. The other girl used the distraction to turn the situation around. Tharia not only lost her advantage, but a moment later, she felt her own essence being siphoned away.
At first she was surprised to sense her power leave her. A warmth spread through the extremities from which the essence was first pulled. But the feeling intensified with every split second. Soon, the warmth turned into heat, and that transformed into a burning fire. Tharia felt like someone was pulling her veins out one by one, leaving a trail of raging hellfire in their place.
She felt tears forming, yet she knew she had barely lost any energy. The experience lasted merely a second. But it was enough to tell her one thing—she could not imagine the torment of being emptied completely.
The pain gave her strength to keep pushing back at Kaima’s hand, and Tharia reclaimed her energy. A few agonizing seconds passed, and they were back to where they had been at the beginning.
Tharia was covered in sweat from head to toe. Her other hand clutched at the table’s edge as if applying pressure there could help push down her opponent’s arm. And maybe it did have an effect, because again she was slowly inching her way to victory.
The further she drained the other one, the easier it became. She felt Kaima’s resistance lessen. The Tellurian was almost empty, only her arm faintly glowing with the last of her energy. The runes were still there, but without the light, they looked like burned out scars.
Tears glistened as they fell down Kaima’s face. She was also grasping at the table, but the muscles of that other hand were visibly trembling. Tharia did not want to think what her opponent must have been going through at that moment—she just kept looking her straight in the eye, trying not to look pleased at taking a life away. She had to work hard to restrain the euphoria that came with the newly acquired energy and to concentrate on finishing the task at hand.
And then, out of the corner of her eye, Tharia noticed Erde fold back her wings for a moment before she crawled across Kaima’s back over to the other shoulder. With the dragonling no longer blocking the light of the fireplace, Tharia could clearly see Kaima’s face. The Tellurian’s pupils immediately contracted, turning into narrow slits, and she blinked with an extra pair of eyelids.
Startled, Tharia almost fell off her chair. But Kaima’s strong grip on her hand did not lessen. Kaima had done this once already! They were not equals! Terrified, Tharia realized the snake-like contracted pupils meant she was sitting in front of a half-Ascended Toivoan. And there was no way to run now. The moment their hands had touched they were joined together until the situation was resolved.
This distraction was exactly what the other woman was waiting for. Like sweeping a tablecloth out from under a set table, Kaima yanked the dragon essence from Tharia with one smooth move, and she ended the encounter by pinning Tharia’s hand to the table in victory.
* * *
Timmy could not stop watching. His eyes were blurry from the bright lights, and he felt something warm dripping down his ears—likely due to injury from the incredible noise the small dragons were making. He had tried covering his ears, but that didn’t help much at all.
The small dragons roared and howled inside a shimmering sphere that had formed around the women the instant their hands had met. Flickers of gold and purple filled the air. He sensed something unnatural filling the space and watched as the bubble grew and strangely affected whatever it touched.
Men who were in its way, once touched, fell to the floor. With screams of terror, they had backed away as quickly as they could. Yet they weren’t able to take their eyes off the sphere. Timmy barely heard their voices over the cacophony the dragons were making.
Once the shimmering bubble filled two thirds of the room, it stopped growing, leaving the men cowering against the walls. To Timmy, both women looked like silhouettes made of golden shine. He watched the glow move from one to the other and back.
Then with one burst of light, it was over. The dragons went quiet mid-howl. But the sphere didn’t shatter or explode; in fact, it imploded, settling into a new shape around Kaima.
Timmy heard some of the men fall down to the floor as their will and senses were suddenly returned to them. Being quite far from the center of the action, he was in a better condition than some of the others. Still, he was practically deaf.
Peeking from behind the counter, he was shocked as he surveyed the damage inside the tavern. Many rocks protruded from the floor in various places. All the chairs and tables except the one the women had used were scattered on the floor, toppled over. Huge burn marks above the fireplace went all the way to the ceiling.
A lot of the rocks had moss or even vines wrapped around them. But what had drawn Timmy’s eyes were the tree branches that grew around the lower part of the one called Tharia’s dead-looking body, which was slumped in the wooden chair. He wasn’t even sure if she had legs under the vegetation. Part of the table surface was covered by a sheet of metal. The metal must have been liquid not long before: Tharia’s loosely hanging hand was half covered in it and there were solidified droplets on the floor below.
The one called Kaima stood up, and the other girl’s dragon flew over the table to her. That’s when Timmy spotted some movement at the base of her stone chair. The third dragon looked in his direction with its red eyes before crawling up the stone chair and disappearing inside the woman’s back.
Although the shimmer around her had faded, the sense of power had only intensified. With three pairs of wings and three tails, she no longer looked human. He watched her go around the table and gently pick up Tharia, brushing aside the branches that wrapped around the body. She carried the girl in her arms with surprisingly little effort.
On her way out, Kaima stopped and looked back in his direction. Their gazes met for a moment—her eyes were pure gold, piercing straight through him. She then looked at the bartender and her lips began to move. Though he couldn’t hear a thing, the words echoed in his mind.
“I’ll fix this later…”
And then she left.
Epilogue
Tharia felt a hand gently caressing her head. The air was filled with the smell of violets. She kept her eyes closed as her thoughts wandered to her mother. But although the fragrance matched her memories, she had never exper
ienced this kind of affection. Even through gloves, it was risky for an Ascended to touch her children.
She didn’t know if she wanted to open her eyes, unsure whether this was a dream or some sort of afterlife. Her head was throbbing and all her other senses felt dulled. She slowly recalled the last things she remembered. With her essence taken, she should have died. But yet here she was in what felt like a soft bed with her head on someone’s lap.
“Welcome back.” She recognized Kaima’s voice and popped her eyes open. Just like her sister, even though she spoke quietly, Kaima’s words had this thundering effect to them.
“Oh, my head.” Tharia covered her ears. The headache she woke up with just intensified. Her arms felt weak and all her muscles were aching.
“Sorry, still getting the hang of this…” Kaima whispered, lowering both the volume and the power of her voice. She gently slid Tharia’s head onto a pillow and stood.
Despite all the hurt, Tharia noticed something new. She suddenly felt light. Unburdened. As if someone had taken a huge weight from her shoulders that she hadn’t even realized she was carrying. But with that realization, she also sensed some emptiness inside her, as if not just the essence, but some other part of her was missing.
“Dru!” She sat up abruptly and groaned as the sudden movement caused substantial pain.
“Careful there, don’t be a hero.” Tharia noticed the Ascended was coming back with a mug in her hand.
But what really caught her attention were the three pairs of wings visible over Kaima’s shoulder. They crowned her fragile human figure. It was hard to accept her dragonling now belonged to another.
“Drink this, it will make you better,” Kaima said, handing her the mug.
She must have felt Thaira’s accusing stare as she reached with one arm behind her back. One pair of wings disappeared, and a moment later Kaima brought her arm forward with Dru perched upon it. The dragonling moved into Thaira’s lap and curled up there—she was surprised to feel its weight for the first time in her life.