by Iris Walker
White satin, with black scorch marks in the general outline of her body.
“What the hell?” Robin mumbled, eyebrows pulling together in concern.
As she looked at her own arms, she saw the faint glow of her birthmarks underneath the fading purple symbols. Whatever Charlemagne was doing was suppressing her own fire, but not eliminating it.
And she was still burning up.
“I need to go outside,” Robin mumbled. “The snow.”
Harley glanced to Charlemagne. “We don’t know if-”
“It’s too hot in here,” Robin said firmly, staggering for the large doors. “I can’t think.”
“Alright,” Harley conceded.
Robin grasped the doorknob and pulled the massive doors open, peering into the dark hallway.
Harley stepped in front of her with a flashlight, swinging it in wide arcs. Charlemagne followed behind them, dragging his sore bones and shuffling across the floor.
“Why are the lights off?” Robin asked distantly.
“We had to evacuate,” Harley said. “Only a few people stayed back, mostly strongbloods.”
“Darian?” Robin asked, glancing around.
“He’s locked in his crypt, recovering.”
“I didn’t know vampires needed to recover,” she mumbled.
“Doesn’t happen very often.”
They turned down another hallway and the purple restraints encircling her flickered even further.
Robin turned back and looked at Charlemagne, who was a few feet behind her. “Are you alright?”
He gave her a weak smile and nodded. “I’ll be fine, just as soon as we figure out why the bindings aren’t holding up.”
“I’m not trying to break them,” she whispered, planting her hand on the wall as a wave of exhaustion and heat rolled over her.
Harley stiffened, but Robin held a hand up, her birthmarks radiating against the cold darkness. “I’m good. Just need some… cold.”
Robin hauled herself up and continued, the end of the hallway in sight.
They came up on large stone doors that led to a courtyard, and Robin’s heart soared in relief. The heat inside of her mind was surging, pounding between her temples, but she kept it at bay, picturing the freezing, crisp snow against her skin.
A few more steps, and just as Robin thought her legs would melt underneath her, she pushed the doors open and walked into blinding white light.
The cold smacked her skin, immediately clashing with the heat that now surged inside of her. Her lips parted, and she took a gulp of crisp air, drinking it in like water. Robin’s legs felt stronger immediately, and she staggered out a few more feet, falling to her knees in the thick snow.
“Jesus Christ, Robin,” Harley muttered.
Robin opened her eyes against the thick white flurries and saw that all of the snow around her had melted, leaving dewy green grass and recently thawed permafrost around her in a ring.
“That can’t be normal,” Robin called over the howl of the blizzard.
“It’s magical creation,” Charlemagne said. “Nobody knows what’s good or bad until we do.”
That didn’t make her feel better, but it also didn’t make her feel worse.
Robin forced herself up again, chasing more of that deliciously cold snow. Her dress had been soaked from sweat, but the heat still emanating from her body kept it from freezing stiff. Every flurry that came close to her skin melted on contact, turning to rain just before rolling over her and evaporating in steam.
Robin trained her eyes on the large mound of snow over by the hill, about twenty feet further.
“Hang on,” Harley called, catching up to her.
“You’re cold,” Robin muttered, starting for the hill, snow melting underneath her bare feet.
“Yeah, I’ll just stick next to you to keep warm then, little miss campfire.”
“Sure thing,” Robin said with a weak smile. “What about Charlemagne?”
“He’s not really up for the trip,” Harley said, sparing a glance back.
Another surge of heat hit her and she looked down, searching for the purple lights that suppressed whatever inferno was building inside of her. Now, there was nothing but the vibrant orange glow of her birthmarks. “Harley,” she said.
The strongblood was already looking at her. “Don’t panic. It’ll be okay. We’ve evacuated pretty much everybody, so even if you do go supernova, you’ll only fry the squirrels.”
Her heartbeat ticked up, and Robin’s eyebrows pulled together as she fought to control that heat, that rage, mounting inside of her mind.
Another voice pulled her out of the focus.
“Harley!” a familiar British vampire yelled.
Harley tensed in place. “Stay back, Ezra.”
The vampire blurred up to Harley and glanced over to Robin with a concerned look. “You’re going to freeze out here,” he said to Harley.
Admittedly, the strongblood’s lips were blue.
“I’ve got orders,” she said.
“Go attend to the caster. I’ll stay out here with Robin. Only one of us can survive subzero temperatures.”
“That’s not safe. What if you bite her?” Harley said.
“I won’t.”
“Ezra,” Harley pressed.
He flipped on a dime, leaving no room for argument. “No.”
Harley’s brow pulled together in a final moment of hesitation, but she wrapped her arms around herself and ran back to the castle, lost in the frenzy of white.
Ezra now approached her, and Robin’s heartbeat thumped even faster. Her arm shot out as a warning.
“Don’t- don’t come any closer,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Ezra. I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Then don’t hurt me,” he said, sitting on the hill about five feet away from the spot where she’d stopped, braced on her hands and knees, the snow around her melting like she’d taken a blowtorch to it. “I have faith in you,” he said calmly.
“Ezra,” she growled. “Go away.”
“I quite prefer it out here. The snowstorms are lovely this time of year, wouldn’t you say?”
“What if…” Robin groaned as another wave of fear crashed over her, that liquid fire roaring even hotter. “What if you try to bite me? The others couldn’t stop.”
“Incidentally, I am trained to withstand such magical attacks. I spent a great deal of time with the casters, and while I will admit, the allure is certainly present, I think I have enough self-control to abstain from acting on any impulses that may negate my orders to keep you safe.”
Robin squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the steam roll off of her skin. “What if I can’t control it?” she whispered, sure that it would be lost in the wind.
But vampires and their hearing never ceased to amaze her.
Ezra was close, at her side in an instant. He took both of her hands in his and shook them once for emphasis. Robin peeled her eyes open and focused on his face, pale and nearly blending into the snow.
“What if you can control it?” he asked simply, his red eyes holding her in focus, in that moment of utter silence and clarity. “What if you are strong enough?”
Her eyes widened, and Ezra released her hands.
Robin sunk into the ground, laying down on her back and closing her eyes again. She could feel the heat, reaching deep into the dirt below her.
The fire soared, consuming her mind, her every thought, until her body was so distant that she couldn’t even feel it. With every heartbeat, the fire surged, and ebbed, surged, and ebbed. The terror set in, that gulping panic that she’d never find her way back, that she’d never know if Reykon was okay, and that she’d never find him again. She clawed blindly in the fire, looking for any scrap of herself to hold onto.
… Finnigan would be an airplane pilot…
Words trickled in, through her mind, lost in the raging inferno. She clung to them, like a lifeline.
…One boy, named Reed. He favors his mother…
The sound of Reykon’s breathy laugh flooded her ears, louder, clearer than the chaos that consumed her.
…And no girls. I think I would rip my hair out if I had a daughter…
Robin felt a small smile dance on her lips, even through the fire. There was a whole world waiting for her, for the real her, not the one that Calliope had altered. A world with the man she loved.
Run away with me?
Yes. Always, she thought.
That one final sentence from Reykon brought her back to her body, fire still roiling inside of her, but not soaring out of control; instead, it was contained, pressed down, and molded.
She felt the fire turn from large, billowing flames, to liquid radiance, and she channeled them, feeling as they spread up her arms and legs, bouncing back and forth underneath her skin like a thousand fireflies.
The marks.
The birthmarks. That was the pattern, that was the order rising above the chaos that threatened to consume her. She could feel the rage and fire falling into place; a place where it felt normal, natural. It was supposed to be there, contained underneath her skin, boiling within the confines that she allowed.
She ground her jaw together, focusing on every heartbeat, every ebb and flow, until all of that liquid fire had been pushed down, further and further. It began humming, a strange sort of harmony, that dulled as the temperature faded.
Robin let out a long breath, feeling her heartbeat slow, feeling the panic subside.
“See?” Ezra’s voice began, fading as another noise rose in her ears.
The world around her shifted, changing to the cellar that she’d seen in her first fever dream. Instead of a group of casters, it was just one, sitting on the other end of the table, staring at her with a sustained look.
“I knew you’d be back,” Calliope said.
“What are you doing to me?” Robin scowled, looking around.
Calliope held a hand out in a gesture of goodwill. “I’m not doing this to you.”
“Then how am I seeing you?”
A noise thudded above them, and Robin’s head snapped up. When she finally returned her gaze to Calliope, the caster’s eyes were wide.
“Robin, we don’t have much time. I’m connected to you. We’re supposed to be close, together, as one. That’s how the spell is supposed to work. You draw strength and stability from me, channeling my power so you don’t spiral out of control. I don’t know where you are, but it’s important we find each other.”
“You tried to kill me,” Robin seethed.
“No!” Calliope said frantically. “Never. You and I were supposed to leave directly after the ritual. We were supposed to go somewhere safe where you could grow into your abilities. Hidden. Protected. But I was betrayed.”
“Liar,” Robin accused, words venomous. “You made me into a weapon to kill vampires. I’m nothing but an object to you.”
Calliope’s eyes flared with fear and desperation. “I am not lying to you. I made you into a being of immense strength and potential to even the playing field for many, many creatures.”
Another series of thuds sounded out, and sparks whistled past them from the upper level, dust streaming down at a rapid pace.
“Robin,” Calliope said, voice urgent and panicked. “We don’t have much time. This is very important: our life forces are tied together, permanently. There are people looking for me, trying to kill me. If they succeed, then you will die as I do. Our only chance to escape this is to find each other. You must tell me where you are.”
“Even if I knew, I wouldn’t trust you,” Robin said, her brows pulling together. But the look of genuine concern, bare on Calliope’s face, gave Robin pause. She could tell that the caster wasn’t lying.
“Robin, I am trying to help you!”
“No, no,” Robin muttered bitterly, trying to convince herself. “You only care about yourself.”
“That’s not true. Maybe at first, but now I’ve changed. You changed me. Robin, you’re my daughter. Casters aren’t supposed to have such strong… ties… I didn’t understand it at first, but I see it now. We must find each other. I’ll hold them off as long as I can, for you, but they’re close, and they won’t stop until we’re both destroyed.”
“Who?”
Calliope looked to the right, to the wall obscured in shadow, and her eyes widened.
In an instant, Robin was pushed backwards, and Calliope’s body flashed into smoke.
Robin’s eyes snapped open.
“I told you you’d be fine,” Ezra said, a small smile on his face.
Robin sat up, pushing the hair off her face, her heart still pounding from the vision with Calliope.
In her panic, she hadn’t noticed the birthmarks, but they now drew every ounce of her attention.
They were no longer orange, but a deep, glowing red, like Reykon’s arms. Her birthmarks had extended, carving further than she’d ever seen them, covering every inch of her body in racing red lightning strikes.
She extended her hands in front of her, watching them glow, pulsing slightly with each heartbeat.
You did it, she thought in wonder, turning to Ezra, who now had snow clinging to his eyelashes.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
“No,” he chuckled, “but I think you are.”
Robin looked down, and saw that glow subside. The flurries were no longer melting on her skin, but lashing her, stinging as goosebumps prickled upwards.
“Oh,” Robin said, pushing herself up.
Ezra stood in an instant, as limber as ever, completely unaffected by the snow. He extended one pale hand, his red eyes dancing against the white landscape. Robin gave a shaky smile, reaching out and taking his hand, standing on sore legs, and wading through the tornado of snow and ice.
Reykon
As Reykon looked at the woman in front of him, he saw no trace of similarity with the file he held in his hands.
Noomi Trevonair, an elite caster-in-training (so essentially an intern), and one of the up and comers for the Vitalurgical Sciences program at the caster guild. A year ago, she’d held a loft office next to Calliope Dragomir, studying to become head of an offshoot department and train her own prodigy. She’d been placed on some project that nobody knew about (now, clearly, Robin), and had been given every resource that the caster guild had to offer.
But thirty years ago?
Noomi Trevonair was nobody.
Lower than nobody, actually. She was an unsanctioned witch, made in some meth lab magic shop in Prague, meaning she should have been killed by the Legion (caster guild bloodhounds) as soon as she was found. Vampires and casters had the whole unsanctioned creation crap on high alert, Reykon supposed.
But Noomi had never been reported as a bastard witch. She’d been inducted into the Caster’s Hollow as a young pupil, with ‘extreme potential for talent’. The only reason the dots had been connected were because of House Prior’s intelligence, collected years ago and filed away until someone had finally rubbed two brain cells together and had the insight to pull it out and dust it off.
Reykon scowled, flipping through the file once more, trying to make sense of it.
“How does the bastard witch of an infamous rogue caster become Calliope Dragomir’s prodigy?” Reykon muttered.
Dark, curly hair created a grimy hood around her face. She kept her bitter eyes trained on the ground, an icy smile peeking out from the shadows.
“How did you even make it into the Caster’s Hollow?” he pressed, keeping his tone neutral.
She said nothing.
Stubborn, Reykon thought.
He didn’t mind the stubborn ones. His job, his passion, and his skill set, after all, manifested in his ability to out-think his subject.
There was something about the file that didn’t sit well with him; something that was itching at the back of his mind.
She hadn’t been inducted into the Caster’s Hollow
on merit, and she certainly hadn’t been in for prestige. So why had she been transplanted into the elite academy of casters with seemingly no background at all?
More importantly, who had pulled those strings for her?
A smile spread on Reykon’s lips. “Ah, I see...”
Her dark brow pulled together slightly, but she made no move to interact.
That was fine by him; audience participation was generally optional until the last phase of a Reykon Thraxos interrogation.
“Tell me,” Reykon said, closing the file. “Who was it that forced you to spy on Calliope Dragomir’s exciting new project?”
A flicker crossed Noomi’s eyes, and Reykon knew he was on the right track; he didn’t give her a second to calculate an angle out of it.
“I’m going to be honest with you, in hopes that you’ll be honest with me: I don’t like Landon Prior. I don’t like his set up, I don’t like how he preaches inclusion even though his streets are rife with conflict, and I don’t like the weird torture situation he’s got down here. I’m not his agent. I’m Reykon Thraxos, of House Demonte. My only goal right now is to find Robin Wright, the girl that you helped to engineer and bring into this godforsaken world.” He leaned forward, gripping her chin in his hand and drilling his eyes into hers. “I don’t give a fuck about you, who you are, or who you work for. I want answers about Robin, and I want to know where she is.”
Her eyes flared in confusion, and she wrenched her head out of Reykon’s grip.
Hot saliva smacked his face, and he felt every muscle in his body tense in anger.
But hey, he’d struck a nerve. That meant that Landon had been right; Noomi Trevonair did know something.
That was exactly his goal, and he planned to capitalize on it. A wicked smile spread on Reykon’s face, and he walked out of the room quickly, forming his plan as his steps thudded against the dim, rune-littered corridor.
Lucidia
Lucidia was having flashbacks to her mission in L.A., chasing down half-form scum in the alleys. Why is it always the alleys? She found herself grumbling, stepping through puddle after puddle of (hopefully) water. But admittedly, it smelled more like piss. “You said you’re having a vampire problem?” she asked, stowing her irritation.