by Brindi Quinn
The hidden delight now fully exposed itself.
“Well, well. I’m surprised. But sooooo happy.” Carn fluttered her lashes. “Now that you remember, what will you choose, Nyte? Will you fight me, or will you indulge in the dark pleasures once again?” She reached out and brought her hand under his shirt.
Gross! I know she’s older than me, but she looks like a child!
“I will . . .”
Ardette was ready to move, I could feel it in his stance. His whole body was tensed and alert, waiting for a sign.
“. . . indulge myself.”
Whether or not that was the sign, Ardette reacted. Using his saber as a spear, Ardette threw it at Carn, but Nyte sprang in front of her and kicked it out of the way. It landed on the floor before her desk in dull clink.
“Ha!” cried Carn. “Now our dinner’s weaponless! What a wonderful turn of events! Go roast that dragon, Nyte!”
“Move back, my cherry pit!” Ardette gave me a shove, pushing me out of the way and into the center of the room as Nyte charged him.
“Ah!” I let out a yell. “What are you doing?!”
Still grinning with sinisterness, Nyte planted a heavy punch into Ardette’s face. Ardette pushed against Nyte, but he didn’t seem to be fighting at full force.
“Hold still!” ordered Nyte. He pushed Ardette’s face into the floor, and then he looked over at me and said, “You are next, sacrifice!” Still reeking of wickedness, he reached up with his free hand and drew it in a slicing motion across his neck, but for some reason, it didn’t look quite right. With his fingers together and an extra fling at the end, it looked more like a . . .
Chop?
Nyte turned away from me and called over his shoulder, “Would you not like the first taste, Carn?”
She’d been watching the fight just in front of her desk with a giggle on her lips. At the invitation, she took a step toward the fighting pair – and away from the scale.
That’s when I understood.
It had been a chop. Darch’s secret chop. A signal that there was a Druelcan near. This was all a distraction, and Nyte was signaling me to make a move!
“Goody!” squealed Carn. “How sweet of you to share! Why don’t you bring him over?” She shifted her attention to me and let out a cackle. “Aww look at her, she’s all bent out of shape!”
Carn was referring to the fact that I’d turned my face from the fight and had hidden it in my hands. To accompany it, my shoulders were shaking in faux distress while I tried to look pathetic. It wasn’t very difficult since I was already such an emotional person, and therefore, the fight, no matter how fake, really did get to me a little.
Carn thought I was whimpering, but in reality, I was mouthing the words to a mist bomb and pulling all energy from the remaining rainsong into it.
“Ring of power surging through time,
Endcalming ways, endcalming ways,
Parting the path, surging the sign,
Endcalming ways, endcalming ways.”
“KYAAAH!”
When wind started up, Carn knew that something was wrong. With a snarl, she took a step back and reached for her scale, but that was exactly what I’d been hoping she’d do. Along with the wind, a yellow ring of mist had seeped from the floor, and I was already pushing it around the scale. By the time Carn’s hand made contact, the mist had already started to turn to putty.
“BOO! BOO, BOO, BOO!” She tried to pull her hand away from the sticky mess, but it wouldn’t give. “Nyte!” she whined. “But you remember! You remember the indulgence of darkness!”
“I remember nothing!” Nyte shot her a disgusted look before shielding his face in anticipation of the bomb.
KABOOM!
A moment later, the scale exploded into a thousand white shards. I’d been hiding my face in my cloak, dreading the aftermath of the spell, but even as white flecks fell around me, there was no flesh to accompany it.
There was no sign of the girl either.
“Damn!” Ardette hit the floor. “Damn, damn, damn! Little bitch disappeared before it went off!”
“Seriously?!” I let out a groan. It had all been for nothing. All of that fake fighting and Nyte-seduction had been for nothing. “But wasn’t it the scale’s power that granted transport? So does that mean that she used it, but left it behind?”
“Yes,” said Nyte. “It was a miniature portal, but it will never be used again.” He brushed from his shoulder a few remaining pieces.
Nyte helped Ardette to his feet. I hurried over when I saw that his cheek and nose were trickling shadow.
“Here, Ardette, let me fix that for you.”
“No!” he pulled his cheek away. “Don’t waste it. You’ve got to be getting tired by now. He sighed. “I’m just glad you caught on before he beat me to a pulp.”
“You have my apologies,” said Nyte. But he was grinning a little.
“It was all thanks to that chop,” I said. “We’ll have to thank Darch later.” But there was still something I was confused about. “Hey, how did you know her name, Nyte? Does that mean . . . are you really starting to remember things?”
The two of them exchanged a humored side-look.
“My, you aren’t very perceptive, are you?”
“Huh? Why?”
Nyte pointed to Carn’s desk, and I saw it. They were right. I wasn’t very perceptive.
“Oh my Creator. You have got to be kidding me.”
Her name was etched into a small plate on the front.
Nyte patted me on the head.
“Well then,” said Ardette, dusting himself off, “better not to stick around here. Creator knows where that little psycho’s run off to. Let’s see where this lift takes us, shall we? I’ll bet it’s somewhere fun.” He retrieved his saber and threw Nyte’s sword back to him.
“Alright,” I said. “Let’s go before she comes back with reinforcement.”
Ardette pulled the lever, and the golden wall slid down, revealing a tiny room, the floor of which was the lift. The three of us stepped in. Ardette put his saber’s handle into a small hole that was identical to the one in the drainage pipe and gave it a twist. Another loud click later, and we were rising with the floor.
A cranking and grinding sound accompanied our rise. We ascended for several minutes up to what had to be the top of the tower. There, a great burst of steam was released, and the rising platform stopped. The wall slid open.
I was blinded by a blast of red light.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Heart of Salvation,” cooed a woman’s voice. “Is it finally time for ad’ai?”
The air around us erupted in chime-like laughter before everything went dark.
~
When I opened my eyes, I was under a binding spell. My hands were at my sides, and my body was stiff, but I was propped up on a bed of purple and gold inside of an extravagant room of equally purple and gold accoutrements.
I wasn’t alone.
“What are you doing here, Heart of Salvation? Have you come to release your song? Or have you decided to become my sacrifice? You must know I cannot retrieve my song until I kill you.”
A woman in a long black veil and with words like song was standing by the window, staring out across her kingdom.
That hatred lost no time in sifting back into me.
The Mystress!
What a depraved and selfish woman she was. Stealing my sister. Kidnapping Nyte. Forcing the Westerlands into unrest. All for the sake of lost land and forbidden power! Now, more than ever, I knew that I had to make her pay. For all the things she’d done, she’d pay. I’d make certain of that. I’d lost a decade of time with Illuma all because of her. I wouldn’t let her steal another day!
She was before me now, and it was the perfect opportunity. If I could deliver the Song of Salvation, she’d be defeated. The only problem was, I didn’t know how to release the golden brick of Song. Was now ad’ai? I didn’t feel any different. Maybe if I could just get up and catch
my bearings, I’d be able to figure it out.
But I was being restricted by an Elven binding spell, and Nyte and Ardette were nowhere to be seen. I tried to wiggle my toes, like it might help in some way, but they were stubborn. The binding was still fresh. What could I do?
“Well?” sang The Mystress. “Speak up. What is your intent? I admit I was quite surprised to find you here. After all, my boys have been searching for you far and wide. They practically overturned that ghetto known as Crystair. And when my insider at Yes’lech informed me you weren’t there either, I was certain you’d returned to the Elves. But to find you here, of all places . . . well, I guess fate’s on my side.” She laughed. Delicately. Beautifully. “So, what I want to know is why? Why would you be stupid enough to come HERE? Was it to assassinate me? Or to surrender? Or maybe you came to free your moon?” She didn’t look away from the window. In the distance there was a leftover flash of weak lightening.
Outside, the majority of the storm had passed, but within my body, the squall was just beginning. Overturned Crystair? Insider at Yes’lech? And to speak of the Elves, who were under Druelcan attack, so carelessly . . . It made my skin crawl!
Shaking with rage, I said, “I have come to do none of those things. I have come to rescue my sister! The sister YOU stole!”
“The little Rosh girl?” she cooed. “Really? I find that hard to believe. She’s been captive for an awfully long time, hasn’t she? Why now?”
“I don’t have to answer your questions.” Again I tried to wiggle my toes, but they weren’t responsive.
“Why now?” she asked again, turning from the window and stomping her foot in frustration. Her question was followed by a man’s cry of pain.
I knew that cry, and it squeezed my heart.
“Nyte!” I wailed and then demanded, “Where is he?!”
She pointed with a long, black nail to the ceiling above her. She snapped, and there was another cry.
“Ardette!”
“Very good, Heart of Salvation.” She clapped mockingly. “I was wondering which of them you preferred. Have you made up your mind?”
“For here I stay and lie awake-”
I started up the song that had been known to break binding spells, but The Mystress snapped her fingers, and this time the scream was a woman’s. My stomach fell.
Rend! She’s got them?! They were found in that pipe? But then guiltily I realized. Of course they were found. They must’ve gone looking for us after we were gone for such a long time! No! This is all my fault for straying from the plan! There was only one thing to do.
“For here I stay and lie awake-”
“No, no, you won’t be starting that stupid song again.” The Mystress snapped twice more, and the cries of Scardo and Grotts confirmed my fears.
“Argh! Stop!”
“Why now?” she asked a third time, taking a few steps towards me. She held her fingers above her head, threatening me with another snap.
“It was the soonest I could come!”
“If that’s the truth, then why have you that tattoo? Isn’t that the tattoo of one you’d given up on? One you thought dead? Why else would you bear a tattoo of memorial?”
“Ah!” At her words, the tattoo around my wrist started to sear hot. Bubbling hot pain. Illuma’s name was burning, and my skin was sizzling beneath it!
“I respectfully mourned her, but I always hoped!”
“Hahaha! Hoped?” In a wild chiming of laughter, The Mystress moved closer to the bed, so that her shadow was over me. “I have news for you, Heart of Salvation. The sister that you ‘hoped’ for? She was sacrificed a LONG time ago. You’re far, far too late. It’s funny, actually, just how late you are. And just why was she sacrificed? So that I, a true being of mist, could be born. It was the only way to call forth celestial power!”
“Celestial power? Y-you’re lying! Illuma’s alive! I know she is! I can feel her!”
I wanted to move my smoldering wrist. I wanted to break free of the binding spell. I wanted to sing a song to blast this taunting destructress away. But I could do nothing but endure the hurt.
The Mystress laughed again, and I cringed. She was taking pleasure in my pain. A true sadist.
I-l-l-u-m-a-R-o-s-h. Each letter seared pain. My body was stiff and unmoving.
The hatred grew, but the golden Song didn’t move.
A few moments passed where The Mystress just stared at me silently while I ground my teeth in endurement, but after some time, it seemed she was satisfied, for she gave her fingers a snap, and my wrist quit burning.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I said, taking great angry breaths through my nose. Though I said so, I was much weaker than I pretended to be. I couldn’t have lasted through much more of it without passing out. Maybe she’d been able to sense that. Maybe that’s why she’d decided to stop.
Either way, she poked me in the chin with one of her long, black nails and said, “It’s no lie, Heart of Salvation. It’s no joke. Your sister’s long been sacrificed.” She scratched her nail into me before pulling it away. “And here’s proof.”
With a sudden, dramatic tearing motion, she ripped the veil from her body. It fell the floor around her in a black, slinking pile.
When I saw The Mystress’ true face, my heart stopped for at least a few seconds.
Standing before me was a beautiful woman. A uniquely beautiful woman with hair of deepest violet and silver eyes that weren’t milky or dull, but that shined like the moon. She was lovely and mysterious and familiar.
The emotions within me were conflicting and messy, each of them fighting to be expressed, so I simply felt nothing but shock.
And then, after the initial shock had settled, my stopped heart started up once again, but it was short-lived. For after my mind had caught up with my eyes, my heart was soon to follow, and when it did, it broke. In that moment, my heart, at least a part of it, broke.
Illuma had not been captured by Druelca as I’d been led to believe. Illuma was Druelca. The sister that I’d so desperately tried to rescue was standing before me, wearing an expression of sinister delight. The true Judas was found.
“Ill . . . Illuma? But that’s impossible . . .” My mouth fought to form the words. For so many reasons, it was impossible. “No.” I would have shaken my head if I’d been allowed to move. “The Mystress is an Elf. You use Elven magic! I’ve seen you use Elven magic! So it’s not possible! Illuma? Illuma . . . How . . .”
She was enjoying my pained, confused, and unaccepting reaction.
“Now here’s a little test for you, not-so-smarty pants,” she cooed. “Whose warmth do you think is in me?” For fun, she shot a blast of red light into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I let out a cough and struggled to catch my breath.
“You see, my Elven power is all thanks to my Nyte,” she continued. “I took his power a long time ago. No, I guess took is kind of a stretch. More like he gave it to me. Imagine my surprise when I found out he’d also taken a liking to my sister. Guess even good boys can develop a twin complex.”
Took his power? My Nyte? I let the words resonate in my head. “How . . . how could you?” I asked in a meek voice, still not accepting that this was my sister before me. It most definitely was, yet I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t believe it. There was something wrong. It was a trick. A dream. An illusion. There was no way this was happening!
“How could I? Please. The Elves were meant to serve us! They are nothing more than toys. Why else would we be able to access their power so easily? They come from earth, but we, we are the moons’ daughters! We are the descendants of angels!” She threw her head back in a dramatic display of rapture.
I didn’t know how to come to terms with what was happening. This was my sister, but it wasn’t my sister? I could see some of her through whatever it was she’d become, but the thing she’d become was stronger than the part of her that once was. Had the mist done that to her? Had she been corrupted as the rest of Druelca had?!
>
In a whisper I asked, “Why, Illuma, why? Why would you accept being the Heart of Havoc? Why would you willingly choose to bring others pain? That’s not who you are!”
“You’ve been so mislead, my poor sister. They call me Heart of Havoc, but it is only a title. My Song will bring the land back together! I am the ultimate salvation!”
She shot a blast of red at the wall and the shelf it held crashed to the floor.
She had been corrupted. She was insane. That’s when I knew: this creature of mist wasn’t Illuma . . . not fully. It was my sister’s humanity that had been sacrificed. She’d been sacrificed to whatever this was – this woman before me who no longer had a sense of humanity. This woman before me who found her identity in ‘The Mystress’. Those broken pieces of heart continued to fall.
“You're crazy!” I yelled. “If the land is allowed back together, Farellah will be destroyed! And not just Farellah! Thousands of people will die!”
“So be it!” She stomped her foot. “I’ve caught the interest of an angel – just like we always wanted! And he’s offered me a flower of the night! See!” She pulled up her sleeve, and upon her arm was a glowing purple tattoo. A midnight flower’s petal. “When I accepted it, the angel showed me the way! Across the great ocean, there is a land that will make Farellah look like muddy mire! There are powers we’ve yet to discover! The power of innovation and invention are at our feet. We need only grasp them! And I will do it for the good of all Sapians! Lusafael will deliver us all!”
With this rant, the tattoo on my wrist started to burn again, hot with that same mist. I let out a shriek and tried to search my mind for a plan. I had to sing an ariando even if she tortured the others. She’d kill us all anyway if I didn’t do something.
The pain was intense, and my skin was blackening. I was going to attempt a song – any song – but then something happened.
A feather from some unknown part of my person rose into the air. Little did I know, it had been clinging to me since the beginning, since the first time I’d met Grotts and Scardo, and it now fluttered onto my arm, landing lightly just above my tattoo.
