Anais Eternal

by Paige Graffunder

  I hung suspended in the air for a moment, and then my magic burst forth again. This time a violent wave of bright white light surrounded me. My magic spoke to me from outside my head for the first time in my life. Clearly, distinctly, and in my own language, my true language. I was too shocked to be afraid. I could hear its voice from inside me, from outside me, from all around. It said, "This is not the way, fix what has been broken, and heal what has been torn asunder." With another flash, the magic swirled and dove back into me, I cried out as my body slammed back into the ground. The place in my chest where my magic had entered aching and sizzling as though I had been seared by hot metal. I scrambled to a sitting position, wide eyes seeking out Tatiana, my filthy hand clutching at my aching chest. When my eyes found her, her eyes were as wide as my own, shock and terror written plainly all over her face.

  "What did you do?" Tatiana whispered in shock, her face betraying her fear. That was a massive amount of power, and there was a Himlani, likely covered in sensors, right in front of us. Not to mention whatever tick-tock nastiness they had spread in the area. I could only gape at her. The Himlani looked from Tatiana to me, but said nothing, only moving enough to scoot back out of the water of the creek. Tatiana shot the Himlani a look and hissed in their language, "Move again and you die." It was a lie, really. If Tatiana thought, they had sensed my magic she would kill them anyway. There was no way she would risk them going back to their kind to spin tales about me and my magic. Before I could fully collect myself, my magic began speaking to me again, pleading, begging me to say yes. I wasn't really sure what it was asking, I didn't understand the word it used. I spoke our language, but this word was new and strange. Before I could think of the rational thing to do, I whispered back to my magic.

  “Yes.”

  Magic flooded my veins, making me feel warm all over, my muscles flexing as though controlled entirely by the rush of power. I rose to my feet, in one fluid motion, lifted by invisible hands, and felt my hair lift in a phantom wind. My already keen vision became razor sharp and crystal clear. From over 20 meters away I could see the speckles of green in Tatiana’s blue eyes, like emeralds sinking into the sea. My arms lifted, my hands twisting and winding in intricate and unfamiliar patterns. Bright light emanating from my fingers, dancing around them. It was so beautiful I almost didn't notice what was happening as a result.

  The Himlani was lifted from the ground, their body held suspended in the air, as Tatiana looked on in horrified wonder. Both sets of the Himlani's eyelids slid shut as their body shifted in the air, and their head fell back. Their injuries, which I could now see were much worse than I had previously thought, began to knit back together. The places where my magic stitched their body back to wholeness their scales became a shimmering bronze, a rainbow flashing over the newly healed scales, as though they had been dipped in oil. By the time my magic had fully pieced together the Himlani, they were striped with the new bronze scales, like the tigers rumored to exist in ancient times.

  When the magic had finished its work on the Himlani, it eased them gently back to the ground. Their eyes remained shut, and their body motionless, other than the rise and fall of their breathing. Tatiana shook herself from her shocked and horrified stupor and shot to her feet charging toward me, following my retreating magic. Within moments the last vestiges of it had retreated into my body, the warmth in my veins returning to the core where I was used to my magic residing. Before I could process what had just happened, she slammed into me, tackling me to the ground, her hands balled into fists around the collar of my jacket. Her terrified face an inch from mine, her eyes filled with bitter, angry tears.

  "You absolute fool! We're both dead now because of you!" she screamed into my face, punctuating her words by raising my shoulders then slamming them back into the damp, cold earth. The force of each impact rattled my teeth. Her knuckles were white around my collar, and her face the deathly pale of one who sees the end of everything they have ever loved looming. Her eyes burned with rage and anger, and a sadness so deep I couldn't process it. Her emotions were an ocean with no bottom, only endless raging storms of fury and grief.

  "They will be here any second to collect us, and we will be stripped of our magic, and then sucked of our blood, with nothing left of us to go to the home beyond." Tears spilled out of her eyes, hot and angry, she lifted me by the collar again and slammed me to the ground before collapsing on top of me, sobbing into my shoulder. I had no idea what to say. She was almost certainly right. That had been a tremendous amount of power, more than I had known I had, more than I had ever seen used. I wrapped my arms around her back and let her cry into my shoulder. Ayesha peered down at us from a nearby branch. She had taken flight after the initial push of my magic but had returned to observe unwilling to leave me for longer than was absolutely required. Tatiana’s shoulders shook as she sobbed against me. I was helpless in the face of her grief. I knew the reason for it but did not share in it, and that bothered me more than her outpouring of emotion. My pragmatic sister did not do things like this, this raw unfiltered explosion of feeling. So, I stroked her hair, and pondered why I was not as afraid as she so clearly was. Had I given up on the possibility of ever living, or did I have knowledge she did not. Something so abstract I myself could not voice it.

  After a few moments when no one came to collect us, I tapped my sister. I pushed myself up to my elbows, forcing her to sit up as well. "Tati, why aren't they here? If their sensors are here, and that one has sensors," I nodded my head to the Himlani on the opposite bank of the creek. "Then why aren't we being swarmed right now?" I asked, looking around the empty clearing as the creek babbled on in indifference. Tatiana blinked and looked around as well, as if not quite believing it. As we gawked at the complete lack of anything happening, a hesitant voice spoke.

  "Wh-what do you mean?" It was the Himlani. Sitting on the bank peering at themselves with a perplexed expression on their reptilian face. We both whipped our heads towards them, and Tatiana shot to her feet, ready to go kill the alien before they could report back to their friends, but I grabbed her hand, drawing her up short.

  "Tati, wait, my magic saved them, asked me to save them, wanted me to save them, shouldn't we figure out why?" I peered up at my sister, who huffed out a sigh of the long-suffering and hauled me to my feet, her displeasure so clear that under different circumstances it would have been comical.

  I turned back to the Himlani sitting on the other side of the shallow creek. "What's your name?" The Himlani seemed to fold in on themselves, shrinking visibly, blinking both sets of eyelids rapidly before speaking again, so quietly I almost didn't hear them.

  "Etachs... My name is Etachs. But what did you mean, magic?" I blinked at the creature in surprise. Tatiana and I exchanged looks of confusion. She shrugged imperceptibly and we both turned back to the alien squatting in the muck.

  "What do you mean, what do I mean, I just healed you with my magic, stopped my sister from killing you with it. How the hell did you think your wounds were mended?" I said, my brow furrowed with puzzlement. Etachs looked down at their now healed hands, and then back up at my sister and me, their gaze shifting between us. Tatiana was beside me still pale but quiet now, her tears had cut rivers of clean across her mud splattered cheeks.

  "But you couldn't have healed me with magic, my-my sensors..." they trailed off. My sister shot me an evil look, and with the confirmation of her righteousness, some of her color returned. Etachs looked me up and down again, then looked at Tatiana. My glamour was still in place, but her face was fully Fae. Her cheekbones, high and severe, her upward tilted eyes large and piercing, her teeth sharp beneath her full lips. Her lustrous brown hair tucked behind her high, long, elegant, pointed ears. Her skin, the shimmering gold of our region's natural skin tone. The Fae are all beautiful in our ethereal grace, but the Fae of our region possess a cruelty of features, all our curves have edges lending to the appearance of harsh cruelty. The kind of beauty that makes you a little afraid to behold
it.

  "You're Fae," they said their eyes flicking to Tatiana, then back to me. "And you?" I nodded. "Then how come my sensors don't work? If you did magic, I should have known..." They trailed off seeming to be talking more to themselves than to either of us. Their gaze dropped again to their body now mottled in the new bronze scales, a sharp contrast to the pale silvery blue of the rest of them.

  Tatiana broke away from me, her footsteps slicing through the silence, her hand snatching up her knife as she strode across the creek. She grabbed Etachs by the hair. "Anais, they know of us. They have to die, regardless of your magic’s foolishness. They must bleed before they have a chance to tell their friends." I knew she was right, but I stared at my sister, uncertain against all that I knew. Tatiana stood brutal, cold, and unforgiving holding this Himlani up by the hair, knife poised and ready to strike. Etachs gasped as my sister yanked them upwards until they were on their inverted knees, the sight both unsettling and fascinating. Etachs was grasping Tatiana's wrist in a futile attempt to get her to let go. I noticed that they were taking care not to damage my sister with their claws and felt myself cave to the empathy gnawing at my heart.

  "I have no friends!" gasped Etachs, trying to twist out of Tatiana's grip. "I didn't even know you were here. I was trying to get away from them." Pink tears began to spill from Etach's eyes as my sister tightened her grip. "I was running from the enforcers when I stumbled upon your home." Tatiana growled at the word and lifted the knife, the wickedly sharp blade hovering at the HImlani’s throat, ready to open it without remorse.

  "We have no home," snarled Tatiana. "Our home was lost long ago, because of you." She shook Etachs by the hair roughly to emphasize her point. The Himlani winced, a fresh river of their pink tears cascading across their scaled cheeks.

  "No," I said. I spoke at a normal volume, but my magic had risen again, and offered a commanding authoritative tone that was so uncharacteristic of me that Tatiana froze instantly, her incredulous gaze sliding to my face. She looked at me as if she had never seen me before in her life. Like I was a stranger who had just said something foul, instead of her sister who had never lived a day without her.

  "What do you mean 'no'? Ana, this thing," she spat the word, "is one of them, and it has to die, or we're both dead." Etachs shuddered and quaked, the pink tears falling like rain from their chin.

  "This one didn't do anything to us, and I think it fears them more than we do.” I cocked my head to the side and regarded Etachs, considering them for a moment. “We will take them with us." I said decisively. As soon as the last word left my lips, the magic retreated again. I had no real choice but to follow the path my magic had carved. I called Ayesha through our bond and she flew to me, alighting upon my shoulder. I picked my pack up from where I had discarded it at the base of the tree and stepped over the creek where Tatiana still held Etachs by the hair. I touched her arm gently, looking earnestly into her face. She stared back at me; her rage unmoved by my plea for peace. I thought for a moment that she would just kill Etachs then and there, but after a moment her stubborn expression faltered and she released Etachs to the ground, whirling around and stalking off in the direction of our emergency camp.

  "Fine!" she called over her shoulder. "But the first sign of trouble, the Beasty gets dead."

  Oak and Willow

  Tatiana twisted through the woods, doubling back frequently to throw off her trail, her pack weighing down on her shoulders. She was running out of time and she knew it, but she kept her pace, if she rushed, she would make mistakes. She had to make sure she couldn't be followed. She had to get back to Anais. She knew, even with her strict warning, that Anais wouldn't leave her, and that was dangerous.

  Tatiana knew, in the grand scheme of things, that her life didn't matter. It was Anais that had to make it. Tatiana knew secrets that Anais would one day also have to know, but the time wasn't right yet. She didn't know how she knew, but she did. Just like she knew the smell of the earth and the feel of sunshine on her face. She knew it like she knew the feel of her own skin beneath her fingertips. As she edged closer to the spot she had told Anais to meet her, movement caught her attention. She shrunk behind the trunk of an oak tree and peered out. A slight shimmer was moving at a quick pace, 15 meters or so in front of her. A cloaked Himlani, probably tracking Anais.

  Shrugging her pack off her shoulders, she set it down silently at the base of the tree. She slunk around the trunk of the tree as she drew her knife and called a slip of her magic to her; using it to silence her footfalls and the sound of her breathing. The Himlani reached the small clearing around the creek, it began to wander aimlessly. It had probably lost the trail. Tatiana silently cursed Anais for not hiding her trail as she had shown her. Hours of painstaking care to teach her how to go undetected while fleeing, and still she was tracked. Tatiana silently cursed, praying that she hadn’t already been killed. After a few moments of this directionless wandering, the Himlani decloaked. Tatiana had never seen one reveal itself before locking onto its prey. With her heart hammering away inside her chest, she stalked forward, knife drawn, her knuckles white around the hilt.

  When she was no more than 3 meters away, she glanced up and caught sight of Anais in a tree at the creek's bank, back pressed to the trunk, remaining absolutely still. She locked eyes with her sister for only a moment, then sprinted towards the alien, closing the distance, leaping at the last moment, crashing into the creature with bone-crushing force. The two of them were falling, tumbling together in a tangle of limbs, the Himlani's inverted knees making it an awkward fall. They crashed into the creek, the near-freezing water soaking them both. The Himlani landed on top, but before it could take advantage of the position, Tatiana growled and flung the alien off herself, straddling them in the shallow water, knife poised to end their life.

  ◆◆◆

  After we had retrieved Tatiana's bag from where she had dumped it, the three of us walked on. No one said anything. Tatiana was still radiating rage, though her glamour was now back in place, softening her features. Etachs was walking several paces behind her, their head cast down, their raven hair like a curtain hiding most of their face from view. I walked beside them, but it wasn't safe to talk until we had reached our destination. Years and years ago, Tatiana had designated several places in centralized locations around where we had traveled before. Each one was meant to provide a haven to wait out trouble for a day or two, but no longer. Hidden entrances to small underground areas, stockpiled with a few day’s worth of potable water, stable foods, tallow candles, and spare supplies. The one we were headed to now was by far my favorite and I was excited to get there, even if the events of the day were weighing heavy on my mind.

  Ayesha was perched on my shoulder, putting her body between me and Etachs, pinning the Himlani with one shrewd and intelligent eye. My magic had quieted, but my chest still ached and stung where it had reentered my body. I felt like I should say something, but the angry set of Tatiana's shoulders as she strode before us silenced me. After an hour or so spent in tense discomfort, the dense forest evergreens gave way to oaks. The closeness of our destination only made me more eager to get there. I was hoping that once we were out of the open that Tatiana would wind down. The grove of oaks lined a small lake, the crystalline water so clear you could see straight down to the bottom. As we broke through to the shore, I spotted the great weeping willow in its bank that marked our destination.

  Tatiana rounded on us, everything about her still radiating rage, uncertainty, and fear. "Are you sure about this Anais?" she said, her eyes cutting to Etachs. I nodded, feeling a little out of place. Tatiana had been the decision maker for my entire life. She had led us and kept us alive, and I trusted her experience. My magic had been clear, but her hesitance still gave me pause. It was clear that my magic did not wish us to kill this Himlani, but I still didn't know if that meant we should grant them access to one of our hidden places. I knew that if I showed this uncertainty to Tatiana she would pounce and Etachs would d
ie, their black blood leaking into the lake like ink in a glass of water.

  My sister sighed and looked down at her feet for a moment. The rage melted away, replaced by weary resignation. She turned without saying another word and plodded on to the willow. I glanced at Etachs, who had their purple eyes lowered to the ground, their own shoulders slumped. I reached a hand out to touch their arm, but they flinched and shrank away from me. A puzzled frown crossed my face, but I bit my tongue and inclined my head after Tatiana instead.

  "Let's go," I said as I started forward, I heard Etachs fall into step behind me. Ayesha pushed off my shoulder and soared into the cascade of leafy foliage. Though autumn was in full throws, the leaves of the tree were just now beginning to yellow. I parted the leaf-covered tendrils with my hand and stepped inside, moving aside but still holding the space open for Etachs. They entered the space, their eyes roving around, looking for traps. I smiled half-heartedly and let the tendrils fall back into place behind them.

  "Just one last thing then we’re safe," I said, before turning and inspecting the bark, looking for the hidden ward. It only took me a moment to find it. We had taken refuge here several times in the century or so since the Devastation. I placed my hand against the place and let the smallest splinter of my magic slip into it. The roots rumbled, then rose and parted from the base of the tree, exposing earthen stairs descending into the soft yellow glow of candlelight. Tatiana had wasted no time. I gestured for Etachs to enter before me, but they hesitated.