But that person dying of a heart attack… a weird coincidence.
Or that some of the regular stall owners who came to talk to her parents were saying they were getting nightmares, about shadowy beings reaching for them in the darkness, and sometimes they woke up and thought parts of their bodies were missing.
Or the strange, wracking pains Elena experienced from running her magic so much, like a hot knife was sliding through her body, causing her sometimes to just keel over and clutch at her stomach in a silent scream. Garek said he felt something similar, too, so maybe they better cut down on the magic.
Neither of them did. The power was too addicting. The thrill beautiful. And they had to be together, experiencing one another’s emotions and thoughts, Garek promised her at one point they’d be together forever, and she agreed, because she always wanted to have a forever person.
But the pains got worse. More people died. More people outside their control were partially slipping into the shadows, some of them returning, missing limbs.
Terror through the market, visitors dropping, and Elena remembered her mother cornering her one day, demanding what was happening – and on reflex, Elena curled into the shadows to escape the admonishment. Her mother had stood there with a big o on her lips, eyes wider than dinner plates.
When she materialized again, her mother had seized her dirty hand, and when cleaning it, spotted the mark upon it.
“You’re Bonded,” her mother had whispered. “Who to? Who to? Show me, now!”
Elena took her furious mother to Garek, and her mother grew paler and paler, watching Elena and Garek together.
“You shouldn’t be developing your magic so young. And Bonded… that young, that uncontrolled...”
“We’re fine,” Elena had said, though she knew they weren’t. She was starting to think those deaths in the market were because of her. Because she was too addicted to being with Garek, using the magic.
She just couldn’t stop.
“A Bond enhances your magic, you understand that?” Sue had crouched to face Garek, who didn’t appreciate an adult telling him off. “If you keep using your magic like this, it’ll have serious repercussions.”
“What’s that mean? Reper-cushion?” Garek had retorted, sullen.
“It means a lot of people will be hurt. Including you two,” Sue had replied, trembling slightly as she spoke.
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” Garek said, his hard, dark eyes on Elena’s mother, blonde hair a scraggly mess.
“Yeah, we’re not doing anything wrong!” Elena piped in. “We’re just having fun.”
Sue had run her fingers over her lips, staring between the two children. “How long have you been Bonded for?”
Neither child answered, until Elena, compelled to answer her mother, reluctantly said, “seven months.”
Sue’s face went blank. “And people have been complaining about nightmares, missing limbs, and untimely deaths for six.”
Both children glanced at each other.
“Maybe if I get antimagic bracers...”
“No!” snarled Garek. “You won’t take the magic away from us!”
Elena felt his fear, his anger, and when he slipped into the shadows, she followed him as well, convinced in that moment her mother intended to strip everything away.
Her mother tried to follow, but was unable to.
Garek and Elena stayed cloaked in the shadows, running over to the gates ten minutes away, that led to the different realms.
“She’ll take your magic away,” Garek said, quivering with anger. “Adults are all the same! They want to keep us quiet and not let us do anything.”
“Yeah,” Elena agreed, heart pounding fast. “Yeah, she wants to get those antimagic things.”
“You can’t go back,” Garek said. He then held onto Elena tightly. “I can’t lose this. The magic. You.”
“I don’t want to lose it either.”
Both children had decided then and there that they would hide in the shadows, steal until they had enough to buy a place of their own in another realm, and then hide there, so they could continue to practice their magic in peace, without interference of adults.
Adults, after all, were the enemy. Not allowing them to have their freedom.
But my mother cares, Elena thought. But then she remembered how angry her mother was, and decided life would be much better with Garek. He didn’t mind her doing bad things. He didn’t yell at her for it.
She and Garek hid with each other for two weeks, constantly using their magic. Things got worse in the market. The pains in Elena’s body intensified. When Garek felt pain, she felt it too, and she’d been waking up drenched in sweat, throat dry, lips parched, but unable to stay away from the magic, from Garek.
She needed it.
Both her and Garek were sleeping wrapped in each other’s arms one night, cloaked in their magic, and she woke up at one point, watching him shake and sweat in her embrace, feeling tremors under her own skin. She missed her mother, but refused to leave Garek’s side. And now she was convinced all those people hurting and dying in the market were because of her, but she still couldn’t stop.
A strange, treacle-like sensation crept over her body. It started at the tips of her toes, and crept over her skin molasses slow, until seeping into her head. Panicking, she stepped away from the still slumbering Garek, stumbling outside the near empty inn and the bed they had occupied without permission, the sensation burning in her like a fever.
The last thing she remembered was falling flat on her face outside the inn, cheek pressed against cold marble, and the magic sputtering out of her, leaving Elena visible to anyone who passed.
“It had to be done at a distance,” Sue was saying, as Elena emerged from unconsciousness, out of the revived memories, of all the shit she and Garek had done together, and their dangerous, reckless need to be close, to abuse the magic, to harm others. “I wanted to put the antimagic cuffs on them, but of course, they’d disappeared. Elena wasn’t coming back home. I couldn’t find her. And everything was getting worse. So my only solution left was to find someone who could neutralize her from a distance.
Listening to her mother, Elena felt an incredible wash of shame and guilt. She understood exactly why her mother did what she had to. Because Elena wouldn’t have listened. For crying out loud, she’d run away. Acting out some feverish obsession with magic and Garek.
Stirring up from the ground, Elena glared at her mother. “Fuck, mom. Why didn’t you tell me this?”
Sue sighed, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t believe me. You’d instead be convinced I ripped you away from that boy out of spite. You weren’t always a nice child.”
You got that right, Elena thought, insides writhing in guilt. She was a horrendous child. “How the hell did you put up with me, mom?”
“As mothers try to do,” Sue replied. “And fathers. He knew a little less of your situation, but you better believe he was worried sick when you vanished like that. And…” Sue sighed, before saying, “your out of control magic was poisoning him as well. He was having nightmares about missing limbs. It would have continued progressing from there.”
Fuck. Elena folded her hands in her lap, an icy chill sprouting through her veins. She was… she was awful.
Garek, also awake, was rubbing his head, before he touched her by the bare skin of her forearm. The nausea that usually followed the act was gone. Instead, the connection fizzled to life, flickering through her like it did all those years ago. Along with the connection, so did emotions, and it was super confusing, to say the least, to not only feel Garek lodged in there with her, but Nicole as well.
“Man,” Garek said. “We were terrible kids. Terrible adults, to be honest,” he added mildly, mouth twisted in a wry way.
“Terrible adults linked to a queen dragon who has called herself Nicole,” Yvonne said, “With the future of all of Albalon in your hands. Taking River’s End is one thing. But securing the hearts and minds
of the dragons and preventing future wars… that’s another thing entirely.”
“Not really the kind of people you’d want that kind of future of the world placed on,” Elena said lightly, though inside, she felt cold, a little numb, a little… self-loathing of herself.
“Another thing,” Sylas said, after crouching in front of them to make sure that they weren’t disorientated, “the magical strength between you two is unusually strong. Generally, two shadow witches who are Bonded make for bad news. You tend to suck into each other’s darkness, and it pulls everyone else around you into it. But… you have a magical being that requires magical energy to thrive. So as long as this Nicole is around, you should be able to find some balance with your magic. She’ll just need to eat it out of you.”
Well, that sounded… ominous. “So you mean she’s like some giant flying leech?”
Tara sighed. “You didn’t just call a queen dragon a leech, did you?”
“Maybe.”
Garek tamped down on a laugh. Elena smiled, but the influx of returned memories and magic left her exhausted, and her thoughts drifting slightly. It’d been so long, she hadn’t realized she’d been using her magic at half power. Far too long to be cut off from the source. Far too long to be missing a part of herself.
“Guess we’re gonna be big damn heroes,” Elena said, rubbing at her eyes. “But whoo, I feel like I’ve been hit by about a dozen shots of alcoholic regret.”
“Alright, we’ll carry you if you can’t walk,” Janus said with a kindly smile, though his blue eyes seemed sad to Elena.
“What… what was the secret they didn’t want you guys to talk about?”
As Janus gathered Elena in his arms, and Garek was supported by Tara and Yvonne, he didn’t say anything for the moment, his lips tightly pressed together. Then, before any of them activated their waystones out, with Sylas watching them from the light of the fire, Janus showed his palm to Elena. “I’m Bonded to my twin sister,” he admitted, quiet enough so that no one else could hear. “I hide the mark, but it’s here on my palm. And since, well, marriage between siblings is frowned upon, and… marriage is compulsory if you’re a royal unicirim… it’s not the best situation.”
Elena’s eyes went wide at the sudden confession, and she examined the prince incredulously. She wasn’t sure why he chose to confide in her, but all the same… “Do you… do you both…?”
“No,” Janus said. “We’re not intimate that way. We know and feel everything about each other, but… we plan to marry separately.”
“That’s…” Elena shivered. “That’s awful.”
Janus smiled, but didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to. The rules the royals had set down for themselves worked against Janus and Tara. Likely they faked not being Bonded, acting like they still needed to find it, just to keep up the pretense that people wouldn’t look at them and think their relations as incestuous. Sure, they spent a lot of time together, but that was normal for twins.
Exhaustion crowded Elena’s brain, befuddling her thoughts further.
What a shitshow this all is, she managed, all the same, because one thing was for sure. Out of all the people she could pick to be responsible for the future fate of Albalon, she didn’t think this motley crew as top of her list. Bonded twin royals, two reckless, morally compromised thieves, a water witch who wore too much paint on her face, and a dragon with a perfectly normal earthen name, with a less normal future – if she survived long enough.
Elena fell asleep in Janus’ arms, oblivious to the journey they made back to Albalon.
10
Garek
“So… you want us to do what?” Garek said, horrified and alarmed at the request being given of him from the royals.
“Did I stutter?” Janus raised an eyebrow, smiling at the two thieves and their queen dragon.
Garek wished he had stuttered. Or said something completely different from what came out of his mouth. “You want us… to cloak… your army… in shadows. So you can sneak up to River’s End. That’s insane. You know how much energy it takes? There’s thousands of soldiers!”
“We’re somewhat aware, yes,” Janus said, now running a long-fingered hand through his blonde hair. Garek, already sporting a headache from last night’s excessive drinking due to not being able to process his own newly re-acquired memories and emotions, and also unable to process being too close to either Elena or Nicole, because they added a whole extra dimension of confusing emotions on top of everything. Bad enough he needed to process his own mess. He didn’t want anyone else digging into his skull either. Not without some appropriate time given to process everything.
“Well, you should know that what you’re asking is virtually impossible.”
Tara, sitting down on one of the four armchairs on offer within the little cabin they stayed at, on the fringes of the Realm Market, sighed. “I’ve been told differently. By both Sue and Thorn, and both of those are experienced shadow witches.” She raised one delicate finger in the air, and Garek found himself searching for her palm mark, even though she’d hidden it from display. Janus had told Elena, and Garek picked up what Elena knew shortly afterward. Both royals accepted they knew, and Garek wasn’t sure what to make of such a secret, but had no desire to act on it.
“Your Bond enhances the magic within you,” Tara continued. “And since both of you have the same magic, it means those powers intensify. Then you have a Bond to a magical being, who siphons some of your magic, but in turn, gifts you with far more than you’ve taken. So altogether, that’s… a lot of magic. I mean, I can practically smell your magic from here, and my amazing ability is turning into a unicirim. And getting people to like me.”
“To be fair, that’s a magic in itself.” Now Garek paused in his pacing. “You seriously don’t have any magic? I thought everyone who was a part of the Bond possessed magic.”
Again, Tara sighed, and Janus gave a small smile as he said, “Our magic is already the transformation into unicirim. And when our partners are the traditional kind, witches, we absorb some of their magic. But when both are unicirim… well. You don’t find many unicirim who also have magic beyond their shifting. So, you’re a special pony, Garek.”
Special… Garek had heard that used in referring to him. More than once. A thief that could utilize the power of flight and invisibility achieved a lot more than a thief who had neither of these things.
“Thank goodness for being special,” Garek muttered. He began lightly pacing again. “Are we being paid for this?”
“You are, actually.” Tara nodded. “Figure it might help you feel freer than us ordering you around.”
“I appreciate that…” Garek rolled his eyes. A part of him still wanted to stubbornly refuse any kind of offer these people had made, given the way they started with him. Though at the same time… when he really thought about it, he wasn’t sure if life before had been any better.
Before, he was a thief contractually obliged to jobs. Now, it seemed he had the chance to be a hero. That word wasn’t one he ever thought suited him. It never would… but then again, he never exactly expected to be asked to help in one of the biggest military operations of modern Albalon, either.
“You’ll have time to practice, of course. We’re not monsters,” Janus said with a grin. “I’m sorry for the way things were done. Regardless of reasons and justifications, I do wish we could have met in better circumstances. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some lingering resentment going on there. I can’t say we’ve treated you the best.”
“Eh, I’m over it, now,” Garek said. It was mostly true. The royals left him to his own devices soon afterwards, giving him the option to continue sitting there and wallowing, or follow the tug at the back of his mind that led to Elena or Nicole.
Elena. The memories he’d made with her recently contrasted vastly with the memories of the past, still fresh and raw in his mind.
Even back then, he knew he’d been intrigued by that fierce, devoted
little girl, who was prepared to give up everything to be with him. He knew it, he exploited it, even, knowing that whatever he said or did, she’d be right there at his side. He’d abused her friendship, selfishly wanting to throw away everything for him. To run away from the orphanage, the Realm Market, and find somewhere different where they could use their powers to take from others and live together like adults did.
He hated the contrast of his child self to the self he was now. Even though so much had been stripped from him, it was a reminder that once again, he wasn’t a good person.
It was one thing knowing it and joking about it. It was another to feel that conviction deep in his bones, poisoning the parts of him he thought had been untouched.
Each stray reflection on his past, on who he was now provided a problem. Only way to process it… would be to confront the past. Accept. Move on, preferably not poison his liver in the process. With a sigh, he bid his farewells to the royals, intending to seek out Elena. To have words with her.
He found Elena easily, since he was connected to her completely. At least she was no longer the pushover of years past. He couldn’t bully her into his schemes. He needed someone like that – who wouldn’t bend to his will.
Elena was out in the woodlands with Nicole, who had now grown too big to hide. She was almost the size of an exile dragon now, and likely wouldn’t stop growing until she outsized most traditional dragons as well. Elena was clad in a light blue dress with fur seamlines, white leggings beneath the blue, boots, and a cloak with a hood that was pulled up to hide the frizz of her hair. Nicole’s creamy gold scales glinted in the dappled light that filtered through the trees, making her seem as if she was made out of pure gold itself, worth more than what entire empires could muster. His heart skipped a beat at the sight, at the simple emotion of seeing these two together, of knowing their connection to one another. Nicole was stretched out on the ground, front arms crossed, wings tucked in, tail twitching.
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