Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  I opened the door at the last moment, letting him tumble through the doorway. He tripped and rolled, before smashing into the wall across from me.

  River howled in pain, his forehead bleeding. I watched as the shard on his forehead began to buzz, screeching out a horrific noise as blood dripped down over it.

  That feeling of self-righteousness came over me again, and I clenched my fists, trying to stop myself from making the situation worse.

  Think of Ai. Think of Aidan. Don’t do this to yourself … even if River deserves it.

  I took a deep breath and hurried off, making sure to grab what I’d come for. River was still screaming, though now he was cursing me; downstairs, I could hear Mother Annika whimpering as Father Albert gathered his own belongings. He was yelling at her, telling her he’d had enough, and he was leaving the family.

  I didn’t know where he was going, but as he came out of their shared room, I knew I did not want to get in his way.

  Once I was free of my house—would I ever be able to call it my home, ever again?—I took a deep breath, trying to keep calm.

  I could still hear the noise coming from my house, but it was muffled, and I was grateful for the small defense.

  That was before Erika opened the door to her house, carrying a bawling Storm. I was about to ask her what was wrong with the baby, before I remembered.

  In freeing Ai, all of Storm’s pain and suffering was now stuck with her, and that meant she would be in distress.

  “Oh, by the Elders, stop it,” Erika yelled at Storm. She saw me and breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, Skyla, I’m glad you’re here. I need you to take Storm away from me. She’s already driven Stella from the house.”

  Storm was still wailing, wriggling as she screamed.

  “I don’t think I can take her,” I started to say, before Erika began to shake her.

  “Just … stop … crying!” Erika huffed, as Storm began to scream even harder.

  Storm screamed louder, and I felt my heart break at her mother’s carelessness.

  “Stop,” I said, stepping forward. “No, wait, I’ll take her! Please, just don’t—”

  There was an ominous snap, loud enough that even the arguing from my own house behind me couldn’t drown it out.

  Storm went limp. Erika didn’t seem to notice as she handed her roughly to me.

  “Well, it’s about time she stopped,” Erika huffed. “Just take her for a bit for me, would you? Now that the Summer Festival is over, I need to clean up my house and go over my pie recipes.”

  “Mother Erika … I think she’s dead.” I was barely able to say anything as I held Storm in my hands. I tightened my hands around the tiny body and clutched her to my chest, trembling. I nearly fell over as I stared down at her. Storm’s silence, coupled with her wet eyes and pliant limbs, was unnerving, and I was paralyzed.

  I fear you’ve condemned us all.

  Ai’s words echoed hauntingly in my mind, and I nearly choked as I tried to cry.

  “You shouldn’t tell jokes like that, Skyla,” Erika chastised me. “At this point, I’m too old to be a mother. I need to focus on my career, and I can’t do it with a kid hanging around all the time. Just take her and take care of her for me for a few days. I need to work more, and you can think of this as a good practice run for when you apply for children for the Community.”

  I watched as Erika, relieved to be rid of Storm, headed back into her house without a second thought to her dead baby.

  I cradled Storm’s body, pressing her forehead to mine, letting my shard scratch her now-darkened one. “What have I done?” I whispered.

  A thundering noise struck out against the night.

  I held onto Storm, and the earlier pain in my knee as well as the anger I felt at River disappeared as I walked. I didn’t know what else to do, but to return to the caves. Things were getting bad, and I didn’t want to be around when they got worse.

  I was nearly to the tower when I realized it was already worse.

  The tower was lit up, surrounded by bright lights. The Community Elders were gathered around the tower, and they were holding onto long sticks of metal and wood …

  My head began to swim with sickness as I recognized the objects.

  Guns.

  They were using them to fight back the crowds of angry people.

  “We must have order!” Lady Sula’s voice was grave and grizzly as she stood there, in the center.

  I blinked and squinted at her.

  I’d been so busy being shocked by the guns, I hadn’t realized that I nearly didn’t recognize Lady Sula.

  Her face was full of wrinkles, and her hair, once a smooth and shining white waterfall behind her, was curled into white and gray wisps. It seemed as though several bunches of it were falling out as she stood there. She was hunched over, and her fingers were slower to move as she pointed and directed others around her.

  An involuntary squeak escaped my lips; at the sound, I seemed to remember myself, and I hurried toward the caves. I ran, still limping slightly at the pain on my knee, still cradling Storm.

  “Aidan.” I called out to him as I approached the caves.

  “Skyla.”

  There was nothing more wondrous to me than hearing him call my name.

  I rushed over and embraced him. Even in the dark, I could see the lightness of his hair against the darkness of the night.

  “What happened?” Aidan asked, as he looked down at Storm. Even in the dim light, I could see the horrified sadness as he realized the truth.

  “I’m … ” Sorry.

  I barely remembered the word as Aidan took his baby sister in his arms.

  “Your House Mother was shaking her,” I said slowly. “I wasn’t able to stop her in time.”

  Aidan was speechless as he held her, giving her a small kiss on her forehead.

  “I warned you,” Ai said behind us. “The people in the City by the Sea aren’t accustomed to pain or handling the harder things of life.”

  “Aidan and I are still mostly fine,” I lied, thinking of how much I’d enjoyed lashing out at River while trying to ignore the still-bleeding gash on my knee.

  “You’ve dismantled your shard before, and you had some time to prepare yourself for this,” Ai said, pointing to my forehead. “Even before then, you knew, didn’t you, Skyla? You remember the shadows in the morning, don’t you? You remember the memories of things that never really happened.”

  Ai was right. I’d felt something strange and otherworldly about the world before, and now I knew what it was: it was the shadows we carried inside of ourselves, the things we could never separate from who we were.

  I looked down at my hands, remembering how they held Storm. All I felt was numb.

  “The rest of the Community is not so lucky,” Ai said. “They will lash out, fast and hard, and even the Elders won’t be able to rein them in. You must return me to the tower.”

  Darkness grew, pressing in on me and pressing through me.

  “This is bad, Aidan,” I whispered. “Perhaps Ai is right.”

  “This is not right,” Aidan replied, holding onto Storm. “Returning Ai will not solve the problem, Skyla. It will only mask the pain.”

  “He says it’s nothing we can stop, thanks to the Bloodmagic,” I objected. “It’s not fair, but there’s really nothing we can do about it, is there?”

  Before Aidan and I could think through our options, a bright light shined on us from the cave entrance.

  “There you are.” Lady Sula’s voice was scraggly now, much harsher than before. It seemed she was dwindling fast. “Traitors.”

  “We’re not traitors,” I yelled back. “We only wanted to do the right thing.”

  “You wanted to send this town into a circle of Hell?”

  I frowned at her words, but several guards came at us, and before I knew it, Ai, Aidan, and I were all surrounded.

  “Give me that,” Lady Sula said, grabbing Storm out of Aidan’s arms.

  I d
id not want to know what she was going to do with her, but before I could find a way to ask anyway, we were marched up to the tower, away from the caves.

  “Take the boy,” Lady Sula barked. “Put him back in the tower so we can get the Community back together.”

  “This isn’t fair,” I said. “He’s innocent.”

  “And the rest of us are not?” Lady Sula’s eyes narrowed at me. “People who are hurt only hurt others. And those who would seek to make it better always come to a point where they are either hurt more themselves or they can’t do anything for the person in trouble.”

  “We should learn to deal with our own pain, then,” I said. “It’s wrong to use Bloodmagic.”

  “If you want a perfect life, your pain has to go somewhere.” She shook her head. “You don’t know anything about suffering, or about human life, do you?”

  “I know it’s wrong to make people suffer who don’t deserve it.”

  “We all deserve it, Skyla.” Lady Sula’s eyes darkened. “We are all incapable of perfection, and those cracks in the human heart are not able to be repaired without blood and sacrifice. The City’s shards were designed to ensure the most happiness for the most people. Our system is still unfair, maybe, but at least there’s no silly recognition or rules to follow like we had when we looked to religion or politics. We simply are. And we are all happy this way. It’s pragmatic.”

  “You can’t be pragmatic with people.” I looked at Storm, as another tear fell from my eye. “She deserved better. She shouldn’t have died.”

  “Neither should have the others who lost their lives tonight.” Lady Sula handed Storm back to me. “Well, then, show me. What should we do, Skyla? What can we do?”

  I looked around to see everyone was watching me.

  Ai stood, shivering, surrounded by guards. Just a little way from him, Aidan’s eyes were still downcast from Storm’s death, and seeing him so disoriented, I wondered if he was thinking about death.

  Death was the ultimate way to leave the City by the Sea.

  I closed my eyes and saw Mother Annika, with her cheeks stained with tears, River’s forehead as it dripped with blood, and Father Albert’s eyes as they narrowed with hate.

  I turned back to Ai, who looked up at the tower. In the moonlight, I saw his shard glisten with muted power, and I knew he wanted to go back and suffer for us.

  It was at that realization that I squared my shoulders. My arms still cupped Storm tightly, but I walked up to Ai and stood before him.

  “I know what to do,” I said.

  I gave Ai a kiss on the cheek. When I stepped back, I shifted Storm in my arms so I could pull out the shard from his forehead.

  I had to work quickly, before the others could realize what I’d done, before it was too late to undo it. I quickly replaced my shard with his.

  “Take me to the tower,” I instructed Lady Sula. At the sight of the shard in my forehead, her mouth dropped open. Behind her, the other Elders exchanged thoughtful glances.

  “What? No,” Aidan yelled. He started to reach for me, but an Elder stepped up beside him and grabbed hold of him as Lady Sula nodded slowly.

  “Do as she says,” she agreed, and then I was pushed and prodded as I was taken to the tower room and placed in Ai’s former cell. Through everything, I felt Storm’s body bounce against me, as my new shard began to hum, burning into me with a fierceness that overwhelmed me. I looked all around, to see the red spirals of light appearing all around me. For a long moment, I was scared, but as I stood there, holding onto Storm, I was able to relax some.

  I was doing the right thing.

  “Skyla!”

  Aidan shoved past the Elders and stood before me. “Don’t do this, please,” he said. “Stay with me.”

  “I will always be with you.” I reached out, the same as he’d once reached out to me, the same as Ai had reached for me before. “There’s no one I’ll ever love as I love you.”

  “I will find a way to free you,” Aidan vowed, and he grabbed hold of my arm, much like I’d done to Ai earlier.

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter,” I promised, even as I began to feel the shard’s connection to the Community’s ills. A pain rose up in my forehead around my new shard. “I need you to take care of Ai for me. Please.”

  “Skyla, no,” Aidan shouted. “This isn’t right. You shouldn’t suffer for me to be happy.”

  “It’s okay.” I pressed my fingers into his shard. I could hear the whirring sound it made, as the power of the Bloodmagic I felt all around me pressed into him, and I began to use that power to subdue him.

  Already the Aidan I loved was disappearing, as the Bloodmagic took hold of me, and I sought to take on his all pain and troubles.

  I saw all his memories of us together as I took them away from him—I took as many as I could, but despite everything, he still fought me.

  I stepped back from him, but he did not move away from me.

  “No,” he said. His voice was more stoic, but I knew from his eyes that he was still determined to remain next to me, even as his heart was breaking.

  The pain from others started to overwhelm me, and I saw the shadows. There was a rift between love and fear, life and death, pain and ecstasy; I had stepped inside of it, and my body and mind were being torn apart by the raging battle of the shadows.

  But there was more. I had only seen the shadows before; now, on the other side, I was face to face with only light.

  “Oh, Aidan.” I gave him a small smile before I saw his gaze go slack. “I feel so much love.”

  Thank you for reading the stories of Skyla, Aidan, and their Community in Omelas Revisited. If you enjoy dystopian fiction with plenty of action, community dysfunction, and swoon-worthy romance, check out C. S. Johnson’s The Heights of Perdition next!

  About the Author

  C. S. Johnson is an award-winning, genre-hopping author of science fiction and fantasy adventures such as The Starlight Chronicles, The Order of the Crystal Daggers, The Divine Space Pirates, and more. With a gift for sarcasm and an apologetic heart, she currently lives in Atlanta with her family. Find out more and subscribe to her mailing list at https://www.csjohnson.me.

  The Prodigal Son

  S. Wallace

  Sometimes magic drifts away, or it’s user is possessed of a capricious nature. What if the source of your magic, that which you most need was least reliable? This is not just a tale of battle and death but of magic that must be wrestled and bartered, magic that may not serve and the consequence if it turns away from the good.

  S. Wallace

  Al’rashal and Urkjorman learn what couples have learned since the start of time. Parenting is the most difficult job in the world! It takes sacrifice, heart, and maybe a little bit of magic. Can they protect their family, their children or will they learn the one lesson a parent never should? That nothing is more painful than outliving a child.

  Chapter One

  Lost

  Storms followed him. Lightning had marked the day of his birth and he was certain it would herald his death. The thunder quaking the firmament warned that this would be that day. He smiled. The rain, ice cold and constant, smothered smell; the thunder, frequent and booming, demolished sound; and the dark gray clouds cast his surroundings into deep shadows. It was perfect.

  “Come on, cowards! Kill me!”

  One by one they pulled from hiding, a menagerie of beings. Men, women, elves, dwarves, and whatever else—each wore distinctive armor and they wielded a wide variety of weapons. This was not some organized collection of soldiers or brigands, but all manner of beings brought together by common cause. Usually those hunting him were better organized than this.

  There were twelve or more of them and only one of him, but they hesitated to attack. They knew the same thing he did: those were poor odds.

  He charged, hooves splashing through puddles as he closed on the nearest of his would-be attackers. The man held up his spear in defiance for a moment, then turned t
o flee, casting the weapon aside. A swift cut of the heavy iron ax opened the fleeing’ man’s back and sent him crashing to the earth in a shower of blood.

  Now the others took action, anger replacing fear, and courage replacing cowardice.

  Droless’s laughter challenged the thunder.

  He lashed out with sword and ax, deflecting with one and finishing with the other. Always, though, he moved. He’d learned that from his mother. “Nothing with four legs should be still in a fight,” she would say, and she taught him skills to keep him alive—he’d found they worked just as well to take the lives of others.

  His two-legged attackers struggled to keep up, running themselves ragged just to get close, only to fall exhausted and bleeding to the earth. Idly he wondered why they were trying to kill him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t done anything to deserve it. He’d done a lot to deserve it, but which of his many sins was he paying for now? Did he care?

  No.

  Pain arced across his chest. Blood mingled with rainwater to flow over his exposed flesh and down the valley of his abdomen. The sudden pain sent a rush of excitement through his veins and a smile to his lips. Better to die laughing than to kill bored.

  “Yes, like that!”

  He reared to his hind legs and drove his hooves into the chest of the elf charging him, pinning them to the ground and cracking his ribs.

  Someone leaped onto Droless’s back, trying to wrap powerful arms about his throat. He cast aside his sword and reached behind him, struggling to grasp the man on his back as he spun to buck the attacker loose.

  It didn’t work. The man on his back held on, wrenching Droless’s head around and sinking into his right shoulder a thin piece of steel that sent a numbing fire spreading through his chest. Poison!

  Droless threw his head backward, driving one of his horns into the face of the man atop him with a satisfying crunch. He felt the body drop away. The fire seemed to be flowing down his arm and tinged his vision blue.