Despite the horrible torrent of rain, Sebastian dragged me to our cousin’s, Fiona, home; with the vague message: Fiona had to tell me something urgent.
I still felt drained of energy, but I let him drag me along, despite the soaking weather. The anger was still coursing through my veins, as sharp and destructive as it had been the moment I heard that horrible ‘thump’ which, as I had predicted, kept me awake at night.
But the moment Sebastian and I entered Fiona’s home, before I could even take off my cloak, I already felt something was wrong. For one, her already small house was even more cramped than usual because of the three people sitting around the table.
Fiona got up when we entered, but the other two stayed seated.
A man and a woman. The man had a nasty scar running down his face. The woman looked to be in her forties, with brown, curly hair and an unremarkable face. Her eyes were soulless, hard, the eyes of someone who had suffered too much. I imagined, eventually, all of us would have that same haunted look in our eyes, but it still sent shivers down my spine when I gazed at her. Both the man and woman had a rune engraved onto their foreheads. Like me, they had possessed magic once.
“What is this?” I asked Fiona and Sebastian, anger flaring through me. I had an inkling of a thought, and if my suspicions were true, then I had every right to be furious.
Fiona held her hands out, trying to calm me down. “Just hear them out, Saleyna.”
“No.” I shot a dark glare at the woman and her companion. “I already told you I want nothing to do with this.” I turned toward the door, but Sebastian’s hand on my arm stopped me.
“Give them a chance, please.” Tears glittered in my brother’s eyes as he turned toward me. With his light-brown hair, straight nose and slightly round face, looking at him was like glancing at my mirror image. My hair was longer than his, and my eyes were slightly greyer, but it was obvious to everyone right away that we were siblings. Sometimes, he reminded me so much of my mother that it hurt.
“Why?” I asked Sebastian, my voice barely rising above a whisper.
“Because it’s time to put a stop to this,” the woman spoke. She hadn’t moved, her hands still clenched on top of the table.
When I turned to her, she barely tilted her head toward me. “You know it as much as I do.”
“I don’t know anything,” I said through gritted teeth.
No hair on my head doubted what this woman represented. The Brotherhood of Whispers, a rebel group of former magic-wielders operating in the shadows of society. There had been rumors about an underground resistance brewing for the past years, and Sebastian had gone to some of their meetings, although I always warned him strongly against it. But I had told him more than once that I wanted nothing to do with any kind of resistance. In ten years, despite revolts, despite people trying to bring down the Red Priests, nothing had ever changed, so why would I dare to hope that someday something would?
“They have moved from marking us to executing us.” The woman clenched and unclenched her hands, and I could sense her anger, a blade that had sharpened each time she witnessed the Red Priests inflicting horror on her brethren. “You were witness to all the executions in the area,” she said to me. “Why?”
I glanced from her to Sebastian and Fiona. My cousin stared at the ground, a blush appearing on her cheeks. So, it was Fiona who had betrayed me.
“Why ask if you know the answer?” I fired back at the woman. “I’m leaving.”
“I used to be like you,” the woman blurted out. She got up from her seat, and for the first time, I saw the vulnerability on her face. The hurt behind it. “An Empath,” she clarified. “I could feel other people’s emotions as sharp as my own. I could take their pain, siphon it away, help them. Now, I’m like an empty vessel, a painful memory of the person I once was.”
I tried my best to keep my gaze blank. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”
“You go there to take their pain. Their fear. That means that you still have your powers.”
Panic made my heart race. It was bad enough that Sebastian and Fiona knew my secret, but this woman whose name I didn’t even know? Who worked for an organization I wanted nothing to do with? This encounter seemed like a one-way ticket straight to the executioner’s block, and I had no desire to suffer the same fate Aife had.
“I don’t have any powers,” I said blankly. “Your information is wrong.”
“You can trust her,” Fiona tried, but I held my hand up, stopping her.
“I told you I wanted nothing to do with this, and you pulled me into this mess anyway,” I warned her. What I didn’t say out loud was how much her actions betrayed me.
“We have a plan,” the woman said. “A plan to stop them, but we’ll need your help.”
I felt that anger pulling at me, squeezing into my heart until I had no emotions left but wrath.
“Whatever plan you have…” I spat out the words, resting my palms on the table and staring straight at the woman, “it will fail. I can tell you that right now. You think no one else had plans?” A dry laugh escaped my throat. “You think the magic-wielders just succumbed to the will of the Red Priests without a fight? They all fought. They all failed.”
The woman met my stare, her expression neutral. “Just because they failed, doesn’t mean we should not try again. If we stop fighting, if we give up, then all is lost.”
“How many more need to die before we take action?” Fiona interrupted, grabbing my arm. “Our powers are gone, but you still have yours. You can still do something.”
“Barely,” I reminded her while I yanked my arm away. “I barely have any powers left. I can use them to help ease someone’s pain, or take away their fear, but that’s it.” I shook my head, turning back toward the woman sitting at the other end of the table. “I can’t help you.”
“You’re all we have,” Sebastian said. “At least hear out their plan.”
I felt like an animal trapped in the cage with nowhere to run. Joining a rebel group equaled signing my own death warrant. With my remaining powers, I was already walking on thin ice, risking discovery just by walking out my door—as soon as one of those Red Priests had an inkling of an idea that I still had magic, they would execute me without hesitation.
“We cannot defeat the Red Priests in open battle. Fighting against them means fighting against the crown, and none of us are willing to risk that,” the woman said. “The High-King, for all his flaws, is still our High-King.”
“So, you draw the line at treason,” I said sarcastically.
This woman was too calm, her expression lingering between neutral and mild amusement, the kind of deadly calm that clung to those who had nothing left to lose. And if experience told me anything, it was that people who had nothing to lose, were the most dangerous people alive.
“That is why we plan to destroy them from the inside out,” the woman continued as if I hadn’t interrupted her at all. “For that plan to succeed, we need someone to infiltrate the Red Keep.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. The Red Keep was the heavily warded castle in the Lowlands where the Red Priests’ order was housed, and where they prayed to their vengeful Blood God. Infiltrating the Red Keep, the stronghold of the order, was like walking into a lion’s den, except you wouldn’t be facing one lion but dozens of them.
“You’re insane if you think I’m risking my life like that.” I wrapped my cloak closer around myself, ignoring the shiver that ran down my spine. “That’s blatant suicide. Only a complete idiot would go along with your kamikaze plan.”
The woman chuckled. “You call it suicide; I call it brilliance. Tell me, with those remnants of powers you have left, do you feel safe when you stand outside with the rest of us, forced to watch the executions of our own kind, knowing that any moment your powers could be discovered and you could be next?”
“Of course, I don’t feel safe.” I stared her up and down, wondering where she was going with this.
“If
you were a Red Priest, no one would ever question you again,” the woman said. “No one would ever wonder if you have any powers you shouldn’t have. What better place to hide a mage than within the very cult that despises them?”
I frowned. “They would watch me twenty-four hours a day. I would have to hide my powers all the time.”
“Until they trust you,” the woman said. “Then, no one would doubt you again. Once you’re wearing that red robe, you’re as safe as a babe in a crib.”
There was some truth to what she said, but doubt still nagged at me—not because I was actually contemplating doing this, because I absolutely wasn’t, but because I saw no reason why she needed me for this task, and not any random mage-rebel, powers or no powers. Anyone could infiltrate and slip information to the outside.
“Why me?” I asked, trying to read the woman’s expression. Would she answer truthfully or not? “Anyone can be a spy.”
A sly smile appeared on the woman’s face. “Because, before they hand you those fancy red robes, there’s a test they ask acolytes to complete. In this test, your intentions are exposed; your true intentions.”
“And Empaths can hide their emotions and intentions,” I finished for her. “Which is why you need me. But I don’t even know if those skills still work for me, so I can’t help you. You’ve wasted your time coming here.”
I turned on my heel, ready to leave, when Sebastian took my hand. “Tell her the rest, Reyna.”
So, the woman’s name was Reyna. I hoped to never hear that name again. Sebastian’s alliance with the rebel group was a part of my brother’s life I wanted to stay as far away from as possible.
Reyna coughed, clearing her throat. “We already sent a spy, months ago. He was the one who provided us with the information about the trial.”
“I presume he’s dead?” I tried to keep the tremble from my voice, while I glared daggers at Sebastian, furious at him for dragging me into this.
“They sent his mother a gift: his head in a box. He gave his life for the cause.”
“He and so many others. If this story is meant to inspire me to take up the job, then I’ll have to burst your bubble, but it has only confirmed what I already know. This is suicide.” I didn’t even bother to turn around; my conversation wasn’t with this woman, Reyna, but with my brother. He needed to understand that any alliance to these rebels meant suicide, one way or another.
“I understand your reluctance, Saleyna. We are all afraid of death, some more than others.” Although I didn’t look at Reyna, I could practically feel her shrug. “You were our best candidate, but I understand if you’ve seen enough death for a lifetime.”
I nodded, letting out a relieved sigh at the prospect of finally being able to get away from here. The walls of Fiona’s tiny cabin were closing in on me, and I felt claustrophobic, barely able to breathe.
“Given your answer, we’ll have no choice but to go with option two.” A seat shoved back, and Reyna and her male companion got to their feet.
Sebastian looked at me pleadingly, tears lingering in his eyes. “Please forgive me, sister,” he said, still holding my hand. “Please forgive me.”
The horrible truth dawned on me seconds before Reyna spoke the words. Anger, hurt, pain, all of it rushed through me like a tornado, a vortex of agony.
“Luckily, your brother Sebastian already volunteered to infiltrate the Red Keep, if you were to refuse our offer.”
I felt as if all the air was pushed out of my lungs, as if the ground vanished from underneath my feet. This had to be a nightmare… But it wasn’t a bad dream, it was just as real as the terrible image of my mother, screaming at the top of her lungs as she was being consumed from the inside out. Just as real as the memory of that red-hooded Priestess branding me and locking up my magic when I was only a little child, as real as the knife stuck in Aife’s third eye.
“No,” was all I could say, so quiet it was barely more than a whisper. “No.”
“Someone has to make a stand.” Sebastian looked down, unable to meet my gaze. “I can’t sit around and do nothing while this scourge takes away everyone we love. I can’t wait until the magic devours you, as it did with Mother.”
“This is suicide. There are other ways.” Although I couldn’t think of one, but I was willing to say anything to make Sebastian abandon this stupid idea. “We can flee the Seven Kingdoms. There must be a place where magic is accepted.”
Sebastian let out a humorless laugh. “Where? In the Empire, ruled by the Mad Empress? In Tenebrae, overrun by the Darklings? The High Kingdom used to be a haven for mages from across the globe, but since the High King banned magic, it’s not safe anywhere. Nowhere. Not anymore, and never again, unless we do something about it.”
“Do what exactly?” I hissed as I dug my fingers into his arm. “Commit treason against the High King? Go against his ruling?”
“Make him see magic isn’t as dangerous as he thinks it is,” Sebastian replied, undeterred by my panic.
“The High King believes what the Red Priests told him.” Reyna’s sudden interruption startled me. After Sebastian’s horrible revelation, I had forgotten anyone else was in the room. “That magic was sucking the life out of the earth, ruining our crops, destroying the harvest. In the middle of the Great Famine, they persuaded him that magic was the cause of it all.”
It was a story I had heard many times before, told by the town’s elders during nights spent around the campfire, or during our annual harvest fest, when they thanked the Gods for the crops growing and the bounty provided by the earth itself. Years ago, before I was born, a Great Famine had wrecked the High Kingdoms, eviscerating half of our population. People were starving, the soil was dying, everything people planted, withered away.
The Red Priests made a sacrifice to the Red God—it was always mentioned in uncertain terms what exactly this sacrifice was, but the Red God was only paid by blood—and the Red God told them magic was sucking the life out of the earth, which was why she could no longer provide us with food and prosperity.
As a result, magic was no longer tolerated. Neighbors frowned when mages performed magic, even though the magic-wielders tried everything they could to explain to others that magic wasn’t the source of this problem. The Red Priests convinced the High King, who outlawed magic and who allowed the Red Priests to use their markings on us, to lock our magic up inside, another gift provided by the Red God.
No matter how much I hated the Red Priests, as the town elders told it, their assumption had some merit to it. Once they started restricting magic, the crops started growing again, and the next harvest was so successful that it immediately ended the Great Famine. But those who lived through it, who saw their children starve to death, and who believed the Red Priests that magic was the cause of it, they would rather die than see magic restored, and I couldn’t blame them.
Which was why I never wanted to side with the rebels, not in a thousand years. Because, as a child when I still had access to my powers, if I had learned one thing about magic, it was this: it always came at a price.
And if used in a big enough quantity then, despite my magical brethren telling me otherwise, I was certainly willing to believe it could drain the earth and destroy everything in its wake.
“You think it’s not?” I raised an eyebrow at Reyna, challenging her.
“I believe we can’t jump to conclusions. To err on the side of caution, I have no qualms with the High King ordering mages to limit their use of magic, not at all, and definitely not until a Conclave of Mages further investigates the matter. But to ban all magic for a conclusion made by a bunch of Priests with not a grain of magic coursing through their veins? No. To lock up our magic so that we are destroyed from the inside out?” She shook her head, her curls bouncing as she moved. “No.”
It felt as if in a matter of seconds, my world was turned upside down, and a heavy weight was pushed onto my shoulders. I didn’t want to infiltrate in the Red Keep. I didn’t want to work for these
rebels. But if I said no, and Sebastian went ahead with this plan… He stood no chance. He didn’t have his powers. They would discover his true intentions and kill him, and I could never forgive myself if that happened
I swallowed hard and looked my brother in the eye. Since our mother passed away, it had just been the two of us. He was one year older than me, but it had always felt as if he was the younger one, as if I had to take care of him.
Take care of each other, had been my mother’s last words, before all that escaped from her mouth were wordless screeches.
“I’ll do it,” I said, more to Reyna and her silent male companion than to my brother. “I will infiltrate in the Red Keep and get you the information you need, but that’s it. I don’t want to be involved in any other schemes. What you do with the information I provide is on you, and you alone. My brother and I will not be involved in anything.”
Sebastian opened his mouth to protest, but I squeezed his hand as hard as I could. “Those are my terms.”
A smile crossed Reyna’s features, and sent shivers down my spine. Even though I couldn’t read her intentions—it was always more difficult with fellow mages than with regular people—there was something sinister about her smile.
I had a sinking feeling that from now on, nothing would ever be the same again.
“Agreed.” Reyna extended a hand toward me, and I shook it, feeling cold to the bone, and wondering if I hadn’t just signed my own death warrant.
Chapter Four
Two weeks had passed since my encounter with Reyna. The first few days after, we didn’t hear anything from her, and I was beginning to hope she had found a more suitable candidate for her mission and had forgotten all about me. Then, her still nameless, male companion had showed up with an instruction letter, and I realized I had been a fool for ever agreeing to this plan.
Fiona and I still weren’t on talking terms, and I had let Sebastian know I was livid at him as well. We barely talked although, since we lived together, we were obligated to hold the occasional conversation, but I kept it limited to things like ‘please pass me the plate’ or ‘good night’. Sebastian had forced my hand, and he knew it. He knew—and now Reyna knew, too—that he was my weakness, my brother for whom I would gladly risk my own life, but preferably not because of a risky situation he had put himself in.
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