by Kade Cook
Shadows outside the shower door play tricks with his eyes, making him think help has arrived. But his sight is mistaken. Vaporish visions of Gargons harbor within their folds nearby, threatening to breech the Veil between Earth and Erebus as Gabrian’s Magik thins the barrier between the two divides.
A swirl of light appears, mixing with the clouded dark vapor, and washes away bits and pieces of the Gargons’ trickery. Vaeda steps out of the bend of air followed by Ethan and Arramus. An eruption of coughing takes over the silence as they cover their faces when they come into direct contact with the hovering toxins tainting the air.
Tynan suffers a breath and inhales to expel his warning to them. “Stay back. It is toxins of black Magik.”
“Botah.” A hushed word slips across Vaeda’s lips, and immediately, she is transformed into sparkling dust while Ethan’s body shivers. His flesh reacts to the attack, attempting to repair itself from the continual invasion of dark toxins.
Arramus releases his human form and shifts. His skin colours to an autumn hue, warming to his internal temperature, and melds his form into the fiery Magik that dwells within. He steps inside the bathroom on the tile floor, not as affected as the others by the deathly fog.
“What is going on?” Ethan croaks out between coughs.
With a shallow inhale, as the toxins seep into his mouth, Tynan replies, “I don’t know.” His words come out a chalky whisper under the duress on his vocal chords. “One minute she is burning up alive,” he muffles out through the cloth in his sleeve, followed by a handful of coughs, “and the next thing I know, all of Erebus breaks loose.” He coughs again, and stares at them through bloodshot eyes.
Vaeda’s mirage glides closer to where Tynan and Gabrian lay, trying to assess the oddity of the situation, and she gasps, lifting her hand to cover her sound. The beautiful Shadow Walker she so desperately adores is merely no more than a shell of a man cloaked in sunken blacken skin that is wearing thin. Tynan’s flesh shows of festers, puss oozing from them in the erosion of toxic mist seeping around them from Gabrian’s form.
Tynan lifts his weary bloodshot eyes and sees all that he has become in Vaeda’s gape, but he does not care about himself, only the child killing him in his arms.
***
“Surrender Isa,” Gabrian hears in the void just before the slivers of soul-numbing pain tears through her limbs, and she lets out a pain-filled shriek.A bright pristine collage of whiten-blue shards of light burst forth across Gabrian’s body, her violet swirl now replaced by a haunting and deep royal blue.
***
Arramus steps to the shower, feeling helpless to aid the Schaeduwe Guardian. Droplets of water from the shower sizzle and mist as they fall from the head. He turns to look at the mess of souls huddled on the floor of the tub, surrounded in a violet haze. Then it shifts colour as toxins withdraw, slowly dissipating and retreating from the chamber. The mist that clung to the glass walls around them whiten and scatter. They reach for the glass, growing fingers as they vein out in an array of icy shards.
The walls become a canvas of Isa art. Layer by layer, it devours the room, burying it beneath an icy wrath as Gabrian’s body sparks in a lethal borealis of Magik. Stalactites form under the soaking cloth draped across Gabrian’s flesh and frozen crystals of whitened strings of Isa Magik attach to everything around her. Each and every droplet of water that had once run free is now captured and imprisoned, her uncle as well.
Tynan’s blackened, tattered skin fades under the assault. Clutching hold of his flesh, it snakes rapidly all over his body, covering him in a web of ice, sharp and deadly. He bellows as the frost creeps into the crevasses of his wounds, digging deep and prying them apart as they expand within the cell of his existence. The coldness of death has taken a new shape. His skin, tendered from fire and unworldly toxins, cracks against the frozen kiss and tears at the seams, releasing crimson tell of the unspoken abuse.
The Elders are helpless to aid and only watch the display of violent chaos taking place within the frozen glass walls. Arramus pushes out a wave of his own fiery Magik in hopes to hold back the frozen cloak encompassing the shower, but it is no use. The warp of Isa Magik is too absolute. It feeds off of his attempt and thickens its assault on Tynan’s prison.
As the warm crimson laces over the fractals of frozen life, banding together in his desperate claim to live, Tynan cries out. His voice is filled with a mixture of emotional and physical torment, and Arramus halts his aid. It is only making the situation worse.
*
The voice softly whispers once more in her ears, and she cries out, “No, no more, please.” But her plea is lost within the void as hushed words are spoken. “Surrender Boragen.”
A surge of energy bursts forth, in a speckled array of exit points all over her body. Her life force sways around her in a light, smoky cloak sheared by each spear of light. Tears leave a trace of her pain down the sides of her temples as she feels it depart her soul.
*
In the midst of Tynan’s torment, Gabrian’s eyes open almost in response to her uncle’s plea. Her pupils dilate in a black rage. Her jaw drops and a wispy current of light grey smoke exits her mouth and rolls across her lips. It twists and winds in an elegant dance, closing in on her uncle.
Tynan’s eyes narrow. He winces from the tyrant of pain ravaging him from within, watching the spectacle of illusions in front of him with uncertainty of what the hell will come next. Clutching Gabrian closer, he braces for the worst.
As the smoky aura floats and lingers across his mangled flesh, the sharp jagged edges of the constant pulsing pain eases and dulls, no longer tormenting from within. The barrage of constant torturous waves slowly subsides, smoke swirling and clinging to his tattered skin. The white frostbitten and broken crust darkens as heat is returned to the ends of his flesh. It meshes the crevasses and melds the cells back together, leaving nothing in its soothing wake but dried blood and a glistening path from his lids to his chin where Tynan’s tears run freely down his face.
The room is silent. Eyes dart frantically over each other but no sound escapes to ease the void of noise. They jolt and cover their ears as pain shrieks from Gabrian’s mouth, and she wrenches her body upright, rigid under her sudden duress. Her eyes flare out in a golden hue then dim again, shifting to an icy blue. Her head tilts to gaze at her uncle and she lifts her sallow hand to cup his chin. Pressing the edge of her lips to curl upward, she looks up at him, making his heart burst with pain.
He smiles back at her and starts to speak just as all colour bleeds out of her eyes. Nothing remains but a vacant cloud of blue as her body collapses once more into Tynan’s arms. Gabrian’s skin cracks and melts away in blisters and sores, pocketing with the puss of ruin. The weak grey aura flares timidly and returns itself to its owner before finally letting go of its hold on her—disintegrating before its master stiffens in one last shudder in the Schaeduwe’s arms.
No aura, no movement. No breath.
Tynan roars, searing his throat with his angst and bounds up out of the shower, laying her body on the floor. Barely able to see her through his tears he yells out, “Ethan, help me.”
Ethan rushes to the girl’s side on the floor and lays his head over her chest, listening. Only the sound of one heart beats in his ears, his own. He stills himself and closes his eyes, searching. Rushing his mind to open to listen for her thoughts, hoping he grasps at fragmented memories— wishing they were real—but he shakes his head, finding nothing. He quickly draws energy strands from his hands and wraps them around her still form, over and over again but the girl’s body does not respond to his gift.
Lifting his head to look upon a devastated Tynan, his lips tremble. “We will get her back, I promise!” Ethan’s eyes are wild with fear as he rolls up his sleeves. “Even if we have to do this the old-fashioned way, I’ll bring her back.”
Tynan stands back and nods, letting Ethan have his space. His tears run and his fists pump, trying to contain his angst of a probable
dark reality. Vaeda slips to his side and touches his fisted hands. It remains clenched but then releases and tenderly entwines around her touch, thankful for the gift she has given. She pats his arm then with one small tender squeeze, lets go and lowers to the floor beside Ethan now pumping hard against Gabrian’s still heart.
Pinching Gabrian’s nose she donates a special gift, breath of Zephyr.
Once.
Twice.
Three times Gabrian’s chest is lifted.
Nothing.
“Ethan,” Vaeda cries out, urgent to give life back to the girl below her. “It is not working, try again. Use your energy.” She slides back, allowing Ethan to hover over where she had just shadowed as he readies for another attempt to start Gabrian’s heart. This time, he surrounds his hands with his own life energy and readies it for impact on the compression.
*
Floating aimlessly with the darkness all around her, the weight of the toxins press the surface of her skin, searching for an opening to absorb her back into Erebus. There is no pain. She can hear the whispers, voices speaking riddles—not making any sense at all—but she doesn’t care. It is peaceful again, and she smiles.
From the wall of darkness, a familiar voice pierces the stillness of silence as Rhada appears and whispers to her, “You must fight for it.” The weight of knowing their meaning breaks her serenity.
Ethan pumps hard on her chest, sending a jolt of his life force behind it.
Her stomach dips as the blow hits her, and she begins to fall, sinking deeply into the darkness below, unable to stop it. Falling, falling, her arms sway at her sides, weightless in her descent. Her body flushes as a sudden rush of heat consumes her, growing warmer and warmer. It swallows her up and the air around her, feeling the flesh melting on her bones.
Wishing for air to reach her lungs, she remains still, unable to move but feels the fire so close. The sting of its teeth tears into her flesh, searing it, and flooding her with pain.
Ethan pumps her chest again, sending a larger bundle of energy with it.
Rhada speaks again as the blast comes, “You must fight for it, Gabrian.”
The heat of the fire within her is lost in the blast, and she falls again, feeling the coolness of the void of fire. Her breath slows as she falls. Moist vapours shine and sparkle in the space above her, leaving white puffs of crystals in its place. The shrill sound of glass breaking pierces the silence as her body crashes through the divides of Magik slicing at her. Her mind screams out but her body remains still. No sound escapes her lips. It tears through her veins, stripping her of every ounce of Magik it had contained, and lets her fall once more.
“But you must fight for it.” The words echo in her ears, over and over, and voices chant the words until they stick inside her head. Something shifts within her. A sweet scent catches in her nose—the smell of grass, of summer blossoms, of life.
There is so much white essence clouding around her, that it tempts her, scattering her thoughts with the sting inside of the unrelenting pain of hunger. Her smoky grey aura swirls madly around her, sealing in all the pain, all the suffering, and all the chaos within. And she falls again, within the void, suffocated with silence, and floats aimlessly into the darkness.
There is no pain. There is no Magik rippling within her veins, only loneliness.
The pull of sadness drapes on her skin, clinging to it and seeping into her heart, twisting inside her chest. The taste of its bitterness bores through her. It is real sadness. Gabrian’s lips quiver as faces of her life float by, each one pulsing with an aching devotion to her heart, tender smiles of the taken, and all those who still remain in wait of her return.
But you must fight for it.
Rhada’s words caress her and she stills within the memories of all that she has lost, all she has been through, all that could be. Tears trickle down, warming her temple once more as she mouths the words, “But I must fight for it.”
Ethan grits his teeth and lends a large drain of his life force in his hands as he strikes down on Gabrian’s chest once more. “Come on, Gabrian, fight!”
Sharp pain jolts through Gabrian as the bottom of her world drops once more. Air rushes into her lungs, and she gulps, feeling life violently thrust back into her body. Claws of mortality tear through, assaulting her vision as her eyes rush open, back from the subtle hues of the underworld and into the light of day.
Chapter Four
Sorting through the Wreckage
“There is something not right with the child.” Ethan rubs the stubble of his shadowed jaw, slowly treading a path in the pine floor of Gabrian’s home. He glances every few moments out the French doors at the ocean as if seeking its counsel for the phenomenon resting quietly in her bed upstairs.
Tynan meets his words with a growl from the kitchen above. “She is alive, Ethan. That is all that matters.” The words are edged in warning as they slip over the Schaeduwe Guardian’s lips. After all they went under and witnessed of the girls return, her existence, in whatever form, is a blessing—one of which Tynan ensures to make them understand.
“Yes, of course it is,” Vaeda coos, lightly touching the side of his arm with the hopes of stilling the nerves of her affections. “I think Ethan is just concerned for her wellbeing as we all are.”
Tynan’s eyes shoot her a cool glance, thinking no one here can even come close to understanding what the magnitude of her existence means. She is all he has left in this world. She may not be of blood but by the spirit of the Realm, she is his family by choice, a choosing just as important to him if not more so.
Ethan stops his miniscule journey in front of the French doors to address Tynan’s concern. “All I am saying is, something is off. She is in there. I know she is. I have felt her mind.” Rushing his fingers through his peppered hair, he turns to consult the ocean again. “It is just that she has no traceable aura.”
“But isn’t that a trait of your Boragen Fellowship anyway?” Arramus hums, entering into the conversation from the corner chair of the living room. “A part of your cloaking ability to mix in, undetected, with the humans? That was Gabrian’s first telling of being part of the Realm. Maybe that is all that has happened. She is cloaking herself, a survival instinct of sort.”
Ethan peeks at the large Egni Elder over his shoulder. “To mix in and take on the colour of humans is one thing, to not have an aura at all is quite another.”
“I have no aura,” Tynan admits lifting his cup to his lips and eyes the others, still stiff from angst riling within his soul. “Maybe somehow the Magik has shifted in her from the horrific ordeal she has just suffered. Maybe the ancients have graced her with our Magik.”
“Maybe,” Ethan mumbles, letting out a sigh and returning to the ocean. “I honestly do not know. The girl has been through hell and back, literally, and it shows on the shell her soul now wears. But what I do know is, the Gabrian who has returned to us from Erebus, is not the Gabrian who entered in.”
Chapter Five
At the Garden Gate
A vaporish form appears just beyond the garden gate. His face is void of the usual pompous smirk instead appearing sullen, marked with concern. With no way to find information, and no way into the house, Adrinn lurks at the edge of the wards Cera had placed around her home and hopes for a miracle. “You must be alright. I need you, Gabrian,” he whispers into the shadows and fades into the night.
Chapter Six
Mirror, Mirror
Tynan enters the room and draws near the bed. His mouth smiles, but his eyes glaze over with dew as he looks at Gabrian. Gently reaching out, he tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear and cups her cheek. “How are you feeling?”
Gabrian peeks at him through strained eyes. The light hurts. It stings her pupils but refusing to lay in darkness anymore, she had asked her uncle to leave open the curtains beside her bed. She forces a smile. The simple act punishes her with pain, but she cannot let him see it or he will make her drink the vile-tasting muddy tin
cture Kaleb brings fresh to the house every day. “I am good,” she croaks out over a raw throat. “Much better today,” she lies.
Gabrian sees all the truth in her uncle’s eyes each and every time he enters her room.
“Can I get you anything?” Tynan sweeps the room, his eyes tracing over every detail of it. He has kept it immaculate—no dust, no clutter, and everything is pristine, way better than she ever kept it—but that was typical of him. “Or are you hungry? I can bring you up something, I just…”
“No, I am fine, Uncle Ty.” She breathes out, triggering a slight coughing fit from the small depletion of oxygen in her lungs.
Her body is a wreck. She has been lying in this bed in this room for what seems like an eternity and her recovery is slow—deathly slow. But Ethan and Kaleb both assure it is to be expected from the otherworldly travels she had gone on. A round trip to Erebus and back is excruciatingly hard on one’s body, not to mention soul.
Lifting from the side of her bed, Tynan straightens her covers and nods, his mouth still holding strong to his façade and gentle smile. “Alright then, I will be back in a while to check…” He stills his words and corrects them. “…to see if you need anything.”
Gabrian plays his game, mirroring the same pressed smile as his, and glances around the room, spying something. “Oh, could you pass me my journal?” she squeaks out. Nearly bored silly within the walls of her confines, the thought of maybe expelling a little of the internal garbage whirling around in her head may aid in the healing process—at least it couldn’t hurt.