‘Don’t be deceived by its looks,’ says Dad. ‘It’s a mindless beast, and this one in particular isn’t worth any pity.’
I’m about to speak when a sharp pain erupts in my arm. ‘Urgh! My damn arm won’t stop stinging.’
Dad sighs. ‘Leonie, it doesn’t itch. You can’t even feel it, plus it was inserted into your hand not your arm. You’re being paranoid.’
‘You would be to if you’d been tricked into having some thing put in your arm!’ On the day of my awakening, when Harriad had put the strange stamp-like object he had over my hand, he’d actually inserted a device into it. Apparently it’s so small you can barely see it with the naked eye. The device is used to track Chosen, usually who live in the human realm, but since I’m so ‘important’ or whatever, I would have to have one, too. Harriad told me that it’s impossible to take out, though I’m not about to rip apart my arm to test that theory. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled when I learnt the truth this morning.
‘Let’s go back inside,’ says Dad. ‘You’ll catch a cold out here.’
I look at the kytaen and meet his penetrating gaze. I almost flinch at the brutality of it. I think back to when I first saw him, how hateful his eyes were. Maybe he has the unfortunate attribute of looking grumpy even when he’s not; Dad’s the same. But if not, seriously, is he trying to intimidate me? If he is, I’m not going to let him, even if he can turn into a huge gargoyle demon.
‘Are you coming in?’ I ask, looking back at him as if he wasn’t so hostile.
His eyes narrow, considering me.
‘You want to become the next abominable snowman?’ I continue. ‘Actually, you could probably pull that off in your other form, but that’s beside the point. Come on, you can either be depressed and warm inside or depressed and cold out here.’
He remains reluctant for a while, but soon concedes. I give him a welcoming smile as he steps into the temple. I, of course, only get his cold stare back.
‘Where exactly does he sleep?’ I ask Dad. ‘I know he protects me and all, but I’m not sure I want him in with me or anything. No offence,’ I add to the kytaen. ‘Maybe the room next to mine?’
‘Kytaen usually sleep in an arux,’ Dad replies.
‘A what?’
‘Arux. It’s an old word for slumber, I think. Like a dog has a kennel, a kytaen has an arux, though much bigger.’
‘Oh…’ I’m not sure if I like the idea, but if it was designed for kytaen, then I guess it can’t be bad. ‘So, I finally start training tomorrow!’
‘Just bear in mind you’ll be approaching your training carefully,’ says Dad.
I huff. ‘Careful? I’m the last Pulsar, I’ve got to kick it in to gear ASAP.’
‘No one expects you to rush your training, Leonie. Besides, you’ve had such a short time to digest an impossible amount of information and now you’ve just received a kytaen. If I were you, I’d be pulling all my hair out by now.’
‘What’s left of it,’ I mutter, but luckily he doesn’t seem to hear me. ‘Besides, my stress threshold is pretty high, proven by my lack of panic when a massive energy wave exploded out of me.’ I give him a curt smile.
‘Arrogance is a clear sign of immaturity.’
‘Hypocrite. Isn’t pushing your supposed wisdom onto me a sign of arrogance?’
We stare at each other, a battle of gazes that neither of us ever wins.
‘Still,’ he continues, ‘we need to take your training step by step. In a few days you’ll be performing a soul-binding, and it’s sure to weaken you for a while.’
‘Do you know why your abilities haven’t surfaced yet?’
That voice. I turn to look at the kytaen, his hard gaze settled on me. His voice has a rough edge to it, as if fenced by barbed wire, and yet within is a voice as succulent as sun-warmed honey, and, I don’t fail to notice, full of dignity—not the voice of a shield, and not the voice of a mindless beast. Dad looks at him outraged, as if he is a servant who’s interrupted a conversation between lords. Before he can say anything, I say, ‘No. I’m told that when they do, they’ll be awesomely powerful.’ I grin in delight over the thought.
‘It doesn’t matter how powerful you are,’ the kytaen says, looking at me as though disgusted, ‘it’s whether or not you have the strength to control it. One day you’ll be expected to use your magic to protect the Imperium, the Chosen—that is a Pulsar’s sole purpose. When you come across your enemies and you don’t know how to control your magic, you might end up killing yourself, as well as hundreds of innocents.’
‘Kytaen!’ shouts Dad. ‘You go far from your place!’
‘Dad,’ I grab his arm, ‘it’s OK. It’s fine. It’s fine.’
‘How dare you speak to her like that?’
‘My God, Dad. Will you listen to yourself? You sound like some wronged duke!’
He takes my hand off of him and turns away. ‘Ridiculous. You would have thought it out of all of kytaen would know how to conduct itself.’
‘I’m sorry—’ I begin to say to the kytaen, but his eyes bore into me, judging and unyielding, and it unsettles me to my very core.
KORREN
ALL WE OWN
‘You’re seriously making him sleep in that?’ the girl says as Orin leads me outside. ‘This… I mean… come on! This is ridiculous! Look at it! It’s practically a shed! No, it is a shed!’ I continue to be surprised by the manner in which she talks, so rough and yet open. Pulsar are usually guarded with their words, speaking only when it’s vital.
The two argue with each other for a while before the girl throws up her hands and storms off. He sighs and walks down the steps of the temple towards the arux.
‘She’s being ludicrous,’ he mutters.
The girl is ridiculously unaware.
‘All right,’ I remember her saying, ‘well, I guess I have no choice but to freeze out here with you.’
But if she had known since birth about the ways of the Chosen, I wonder, would she act differently? Would she still attempt to defend me, a mere kytaen, despite acknowledging the absurdity of it?
Why did her father never tell her about the Chosen world until she awoke? He’s Chosen, and his parents were probably Chosen and their parents, and so on. There are few Chosen born to ordinary humans, though when they are, it is usually due to ‘breeding’ with a certain Chosen generations before. Sometimes the magic resurfaces in a child who might be distantly related to their Chosen ancestor, and the reasons for this have never been realised. They are taken away from their parents when they awake and are brought to the Imperium.
However, this girl’s family is Chosen, so why did he hide it from her? To protect her, shelter her, give her some years of peace, despite the fact that he could have received a severe punishment for not disclosing the existence of a relative? It couldn’t have been because she is a Pulsar, as you never know what your child will be, be it Zero, Phobien, Throne or Pulsar. Even if you’re a Zero, you could still end up birthing a Pulsar.
So why has she never known who she is?
The arux sits at the side of the temple, a whole stretch of plain before it. The sun brightens the endless landscape, seeming to invite me out there into the vast wilderness that surely every kytaen longs for. I stare at it for a moment, thinking of running, because I could: Orin would not be able to keep up with me. But then, it’s useless thinking of freedom. I can’t run. The Imperium would find me in a second. Kytaen have nightox stored in them, inserted when we are created—saying born is frowned upon by the Imperium. We’re not mechanical; we’re made of blood and flesh and magic. But when we’re created, Replica insert nightox into our bodies. They can find us anywhere.
The arux has been cleared out. All that remains is a bench for me to sleep on. I’m used to sleeping in the absence of luxury, but this is surely a contemptuous act on the Imperium’s part. My previous keepers never treated me exceptionally, but I still had a comfortable place to sleep within the arux, with individually made rugs to accommo
date my elemental form and a bed for my humanoid one. To see this bench, this affront, lights a fuse in me that threatens to become an inferno.
I control it. After all, my life is not my own. Unlike mortals, we kytaen know the reason we exist: to be dominated by the Chosen, to serve them. We don’t deny our fate. Tools can’t do such a thing as defy their purpose; how can you go against the very fabric of your being? And there is no rest from this existence. No, never that. Our fate is tied to the Chosen for all of time, for my kind has been deserted by Death: He loves only mortals.
Eternity is not a kindness given to us by the stargods, nor is it our curse. We are not worthy of contempt or favour, of curses and blessings. We just are. Our hearts pump lifeblood to our limbs so that we might destroy our enemies; our flesh can be pierced and torn, the magic in us healing inflicted wounds; and breathing is as necessary for us as for any other being that needs to live, but that is only a literal sense of living. You can bleed and sweat and struggle, and yet your heart can be nothing, no one. So how can we call ourselves alive? All things alive die. We can’t die so easily. We have no end. No destination. No final stop. So we dream of death, of peace, of an end to this endless cycle, for dreaming is all we own. We exist to obey without question, without contemplating our dismal existence, without a thought of rebellion.
Except for me.
So I can stand this for a few days, the unyielding cycle of servitude. I won’t be here for long. Soon I’ll be greeting Aris again. Soon, once I break that girl.
LEONIE
LABYRINTHS OF CHAOS
At midnight I decide to go to the kytaen. I grab a blanket from the bed. Sneaking out isn’t as hard as I thought. Though I see Thrones guarding certain shadowed hallways that lead to my room, there are enough opportunities to get by them unnoticed. I sneak by, my feet silent against the marble, and whenever one of the Thrones turns in my direction, I quickly hide behind one of the walls or statues. I manage to get to a hallway where there are no Thrones and tiptoe towards where the Breakfast Room is. The doors to the room open like they did before, and I hush them as they creak. It’s not dark inside the room, the fake stars glinting above my head. There isn’t any food left on the table, so I go to where the Magen exited with our breakfast this morning. The kitchen is smaller than I thought it would be, resembling the old kitchens I remember seeing in Windsor Castle. I guess Magen like things the old way. I grab a piece of leftover bread I find and make my way out of the kitchen.
I gasp when I see a flash of black, and hide behind the door. I let my heart steady itself before peering out. There’s a man wearing a black cloak, his face concealed by a scarf and hood. He stands near the table, looking up at the stars. After a moment, he turns away and exits the room. I sigh in relief that he didn’t see me.
I leave the room and go down the darkened hallways. I can hear the distant sound of hymns, and I shiver. Why do Magen have to be so creepy? I see the doors that lead outside, and I slowly open one of them.
I regret being in my pyjamas as soon as the wind hits me. I’m about to reach the shed—I refuse to call it an arux, since I’m sure ‘slumber’ doesn’t come easily there—when three silver orbs draw my gaze. Except, they’re not orbs.
They are moons.
‘Wow!’
Harriad told me about the moons before, and to be honest I didn’t think too much of it, but looking at them now, standing under their soft, glittering light, I can’t turn away. They are smaller than the moon in the human realm, and each one hangs behind the other. I had thought that Duwyn was another planet, but Dad said it was another realm. Well, you don’t need to look around to see how different this realm is to the one I grew up in; the air itself tastes of magic and stardust. It’s hard to imagine that if I were to walk outside the Temples of Elswyr’s vicinity, such a beautiful night would be full of terror.
The cold bites at me again, so I force myself to look away and run towards the shed. I open the door without knocking. It’s dark, but the moonlight filtering through the small window provides enough light for me to make the kytaen out. He’s not looking at me, though he seems annoyed at my presence.
I stand stiff, my earlier confidence waning. It’s not his beauty that reminds me to be nervous of him, but his unknowness. It’s easy to forget he isn’t human when he looks human, and that he is in fact another being altogether, one I didn’t know existed until yesterday. I remember the fiery gaze of his bestial form, hostile and unrelenting, enough to set me alight. His eyes still reflect this aggression, but it’s not as severe. I squash the anxiousness down into a dark place, and smile.
‘I sneaked you these,’ I say. I show him the bread and blanket.
He glances at them. ‘Why?’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Unless surviving’s become an old fad, I was brought up to believe eating is kind of a priority.’
He stares at me for a moment. ‘I don’t eat.’
‘Wow! Wish I could be a hard-core dieter like you, but then, I kind of enjoy living.’
He answers me with a dark look. I stay unflinching. I will not be intimidated.
‘If you don’t eat, what then? D’you leech off me?’ I ask. ‘Drink my blood?’
He says nothing in reply, but his nose crinkles as if in irritation.
‘Don’t talk much; I see,’ I say. ‘Hey, don’t worry; I may be the great, extraordinary, phenomenal Pulsar, but I don’t bite.’
He narrows his eyes. Well, it’s something at least. I’m determined to get him to talk, or at least to grumble.
I step closer to him, and he moves back. ‘So, you have some grudge against Chosen, or just me?’
‘Both.’
Eureka! He speaks! Antagonism is the key to his dialogue.
I carry on. ‘We only just met so I can hardly believe that. Can’t really say much in defence of any Chosen, though, since I didn’t know I was one until the other day.’ I pause for a moment. How can I keep this conversation going? ‘Where d’you come from?’
He doesn’t answer, so I repeat it to him several times before he replies, and in a very harsh voice, ‘Chosen came before kytaen, and the Chosen were the ones who made a promise with Ehlmand before my kind existed.’
‘Ehlmand?’
‘She is the god of all kytaen,’ the kytaen replies.
‘Who is She exactly?’ I ask.
He creases his forehead in defiance.
I lean towards him, pursing my lips. ‘I’m your keeper and you’re my kytaen. You have to do what I say, right? You have to answer my questions, right? Isn’t that the gist of things?’
‘You’re not my keeper until the soul-binding. I won’t follow your orders until then.’
‘Something tells me you won’t even after that.’
He doesn’t deny it.
‘Typical, really,’ I say, ‘that I end up with a kytaen with anger issues. I mean, any moron could tell you’re carrying something miiighty heavy on your shoulders.’
He grimaces as if a spark has ignited inside of him. ‘I don’t give a damn what the Imperium do to me. If you ever ask about that sort of thing, I’ll—’
‘What? What could you possibly do to me?’ I laugh mockingly, if only to hide my shock at his enthusiastic reaction. ‘I don’t care about your past, so don’t worry about that.’ A pause. ‘All right, that’s a big fat lie. I am interested. Like, why were you confined?’
He stiffens.
‘No one would tell me,’ I say. ‘Care to share?’
He considers me for a moment and then looks away, scowling. This guy has really mastered the scowl.
‘OK. Territory not to be breached. Gotcha.’ I say. ‘Oh, right. My name’s Leonie, just in case you didn’t know. What’s your name? D’you have one? You must, right?’
‘…I do,’ he says.
‘Sooo? What is it?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Sure it does.’
‘I don’t need a name.’
‘What? I can’t just call
you kytaen forever. Unless you prefer me to come up with a name. You look kind of like a Kevin to me. Maybe a Harry. Yeah, you have a Harryness about you. Oh, how about Leonidas? I loved the 300 movies—’
‘My name is Korren.’
‘Korren?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hmm. Not sure you can pull that name off, but I guess it fits.’
He continues to scowl. I’m seriously starting to get the feeling I’m not wanted.
‘You never did tell me what you eat,’ I say.
‘…You weren’t exactly wrong with what you said,’ he says. ‘Kytaen are leeches. When we make a soul-bind with our keeper they give us half the energy of their soul. In a way, obtaining a kytaen is equivalent to giving half your life away.’
I feel cold, my face losing its warmth as the stream of moonlight settles on me from the window. The words sink in: giving half your life away… giving half your life away… giving half your life away… away away away. I forget how breathing works for a moment. OK, so Dad never told me that.
‘I don’t require food when I’m in Aris: Ehlmand constantly replenishes a kytaen’s energy when within Her sanctuary,’ Korren tells me. ‘When we’re with our keepers, we have no means of survival other than through a soul-binding. A soul-binding isn’t just a kytaen’s declaration of allegiance to a Chosen, it’s also a Chosen agreeing to sustain the life of the kytaen in return for their protection. The soul has an unimaginable quantity of energy, so it’s only fair for a Chosen to give half of that in exchange for our guardianship. Your soul energy can sustain us for exactly 84.5 human years, not that Chosen tend to live that long—especially Pulsar, the underfens’ favourite meal.’
Away away away. ‘So… so I’ll die young because of you?’ I ask.
‘If that’s how you like to think of it.’
I try to say something that conveys this sudden horror building up in me, but all I say is, ‘H-how enlightening.’ And not the good kind of enlightening.
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