by Lily Luchesi
I was not a child—I stopped being one the moment my mother screamed until her throat was raw as she was being destroyed from the inside-out by the magic that had been in our family for generations.
It took all my willpower not to look away when the High Priestess approached me. I kept my hands balled into fists, standing as straight as I could. Don’t show them fear. Never.
“Magic caused the Great Famine,” I said, remembering what Hugo had told me. “We can never let anything like that happen again.”
“So, you agree magic must be bound?” The High Priestess halted in front of me. She towered over me; when she was sitting down, I hadn’t noticed how tall she was, but now she seemed like a giantess.
“If that is what it takes, yes.” I still hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true.
Altheia lowered her head until she was at eye-level with me. “Why do you want to join us, become a Red Priest?”
I licked my lips. “That is between me and the Red God.”
The woman blinked slowly, trying to gauge my intentions, I assumed. Then, after staring into my eyes for several minutes, she pulled back and whirled around. “Very well. Cullyn, bring Saleyna to one of the acolyte cells and hand her some robes. Her training will begin tomorrow.”
Cullyn grimaced but bowed his head. “Yes, High Priestess.”
He moved to the door, and I turned to follow him, but then, the High Priestess said one more thing. “Saleyna Loxley of Bellhaven. I hope you don’t disappoint us.”
I gulped, but before I could even formulate a response, Cullyn grabbed my arm and roughly pulled me onto the hallway.
My stomach felt hollow, as if my insides had been carved out and I had become an empty vessel.
Cullyn shut the door to the High Priestess’ office and strode down the hallway.
As I chased after him, I realized that Reyna’s assumptions hadn’t been accurate at all. I wasn’t just walking into the belly of the beast, and it was far from the safest place for someone of my kind to hide. Everyone here loathed me and my kind, and they would do everything they could to bring me down as soon as the opportunity arose, even the High Priestess. And honestly, what else had the Brotherhood of Whispers expected?
My one advantage was the Red Priests’ own arrogance; never, not in a thousand years, would they suspect their runes were failing and that some of us still had access to our powers, albeit limited.
I contemplated this while Cullyn escorted me through the hallways. After what seemed like an eternity, he paused in front of a door, opened it and walked in. I followed him, gasping as I saw how small the room was. Claustrophobically small, barely one meter wide and two meters long. The only furniture in the room was a bed.
“What’s wrong, magic-girl?” Cullyn sneered. “Too tiny for your liking? Obviously, you’re used to more luxurious quarters.”
I shot him an angry look but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of replying.
Cullyn’s smirk vanished when he couldn’t draw a response from me. “I will come back with your robes.” He rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
With the door closed, the room seemed even smaller. Like a prison cell, potentially even worse. The only window was so narrow I couldn’t even look through it. I tried to breathe, but it seemed as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the miniscule cell to fill my lungs.
I sat down on the edge of my bed, keeping my head between my knees. The room is not that small, I told myself. There’s enough oxygen in here for five people, if not more. This is just your claustrophobia speaking.
As I finally started to get control of my air flow again, tears stung in the corners of my eyes, and I cursed Sebastian for the thousandth time that day, cursed him for forcing me to come here, to the last place on earth I wanted to be, and surrounded by the very people who despised my kind.
Stupid, stupid Sebastian.
Chapter Six
Cullyn appeared again about half an hour later, and brought me my robes, some bread and a bowl of water. He didn’t say anything as he dropped them off, turned on his heel and disappeared, locking the door behind him.
I put the robes on. The fabric was crude, the color a dull grey. I guessed you were only allowed to wear the red robes once you were a full-fledged Red Priest, and that the acolytes had to wear grey. After a few hours, I ate a piece of the bread—it was so dry I nearly broke my teeth on it.
Even if I wanted to escape to Hugo, Cullyn had locked the door. There was no way out. Once one signed up as an acolyte to the Red God, there was no going back.
The room had no candles in it, so as soon as the sun sunk behind the horizon, it was pitch-dark inside the cell. I lay down on the bed, pulling the covers up to my neck. Besides being as dark as the pits of hell, it was also freezing cold.
I had never missed my own bed, my own room, more than in those moments.
After tossing from side to side over half an hour, trying to fall asleep, I realized I must have fallen asleep somehow after all, because I had transported from my tiny cell to an even worse place: a cage.
The cage was suspended in the air with iron chains. A storm raged outside the cage; that was the only way to describe it. Thunder, lightning, rain…beyond the cage, I could see nothing but the storm, no matter where I looked. The storm raged up, below, left and right, surrounding me.
“Who are you?”
I hadn’t noticed the man inside the cage with me, so I practically jumped out of my skin when he spoke.
He wore black leather pants and a matching black shirt. His eyes were as dark as a bottomless well. He was beautiful—not just handsome, but beautiful. If the most talented artist of the Seven Kingdoms combined the best traits of the handsomest men in the Kingdoms into one statue of perfection, that statue wouldn’t even be half as beautiful as this man was.
I was so busy staring at him I forgot to answer his question. “Uhm…” I said eventually, struggling to find the words. What was it he had asked again?
“Who are you?” he repeated.
“I’m Saleyna.” I still couldn’t tear my gaze away from him. At first, his beauty had made me overlook it, but upon closer inspection, I saw the marks across his face and neck, similar to the rune on my forehead, except he was completely covered in them. The faint lines of the runes looked like a piece of art, making him look even more breathtaking.
“Who are you?” I asked. My mind felt clouded, overwhelmed. I knew this was a dream—it had to be—but it still felt very real.
“I’m Veritas.” He seemed as entranced by me as I was by him. “How did you get here?”
I shook my head, keeping eye-contact with this mysterious man who was no doubt the most beautiful specimen I had met in my entire life. “I don’t know. One moment, I was sleeping, and the next…”
“You ended up here,” he finished my sentence for me. His gaze traveled up to my forehead. “You’re a mage.” He didn’t say it with disdain, as the Red Robes had; he was merely stating a fact.
“Yes, I am.” I didn’t bother denying it.
“Then that explains how you got here,” he said, although to me it didn’t explain anything. “I like your name.” The smirk on his face made an armada of butterflies tumble around in my belly.
“Thank… thank you,” I struggled to say. “You… your markings.”
It wasn’t a question, but somehow, he still managed to figure out what I meant. “To keep my magic locked up, same as yours,” he explained.
“But there are so many…” I kept on staring at him, like a lovesick teenager who had never seen a man before in her life.
“The Red Priests struggled to keep my magic locked up, which is why they also imprisoned me in here.” Here, in a cage surrounded by a storm.
I had never heard of anything like this. Of anyone so strong and powerful that he had to be branded multiple times just to contain his magic. I stared at the stranger—at Veritas—in awe.
“It’ll be dawn soon,” Veritas sai
d. “Not that anything ever changes down here, but I can feel it.”
“Is this place real? This isn’t just a dream?” I frowned.
“It’s real, all right. But it’s not on the same plane as the rest of your world is, mage. It’s in the In-Between.”
What the heck is the In-Between?
Before I could ask him, Veritas shook his head. “You’ll wake up soon. You must come find me, Saleyna. Not in this world, but in yours. Find the In-Between and find me. You’re my only hope.”
As he looked at me, his eyes shining brighter than diamonds, despite their dark, infinite color, I wanted nothing more than to help him. I had to help him. He needed me.
But helping him, a magic-wielder who was also, apparently, extremely powerful, could jeopardize my entire mission. It could mean I had to risk my own life.
Before I could ask how I should find this In-Between, I woke up.
The storm clouds were replaced by the brown stone of my cell, Veritas was replaced by a sullen-looking Cullyn, and the cage was replaced by my bed.
“Time to get up,” Cullyn said harshly. He looked as if he would rather spend an eternity in the slave mines of the Empire than spend a day tutoring me.
As I got up and followed Cullyn, my mind lingered on the stranger—Veritas. Had he been telling the truth? If a magic-wielder so powerful existed, maybe he was the key to solving all this, to overthrowing the Red Priests, to making sure magic was only used scarcely so another Great Famine could be avoided? The key to saving myself, my brother and the entire Brotherhood of Whispers?
Or had it all been a dream, after all?
“I don’t have all day,” Cullyn complained while I tried to keep up with him as best as I could. “Your training starts today, so hurry up.”
My stomach knotted from worry about my ‘training’ starting today.
Whether Veritas was the key to solving all my magic-related problems or not, all I knew was that I had to keep my magic a secret at all costs. No one could find out; as soon as Cullyn or one of the other Red Priests had the faintest idea I still had access to my powers, they would execute me before I could even try to persuade them otherwise.
I had to keep my magic hidden and refrain from using my powers, no matter what.
Chapter Seven
My first day in the Red Keep wasn’t exactly going as I had expected. After Cullyn, the gruff Red Priest who had decided he hated me the moment he laid eyes upon me, woke me up early in the morning, he guided me through the labyrinth of corridors.
My nerves increased with every passing second.
I was in the lion’s den. In the very place where my existence was frowned upon, occupied by people who wanted nothing more than to hurt my kind and ban us from using our magic forever. People who despised magic so much they were willing to kill for it.
Cullyn led me to an area outside, away from the main courtyard, through an archway built into the building on the east side. The sun was rising from behind the building, casting its golden rays over us . It enveloped me with a glow that helped warm the chill that had settled in my bones from spending the night in a room that could barely be considered more than a cell.
At the end of the graveled path sprouting from the stone archway, stood an enormous greenhouse. It stretched at least twenty meters in length, and was easily six meters high, a spectacle of glass with a dome on top reminding me of a lighthouse.
Cullyn and I walked inside through tall glass doors that squeaked when Cullyn pushed them open.
“Marletta,” Cullyn said as he addressed the woman standing in the back of the greenhouse. “This is the new acolyte, Saleyna.” He said my name in the same tone someone would talk about disgusting food.
The woman turned toward us, the sunlight hitting her freckled face. She wore the same red robes as the other Priests, but hers were covered in dirt stains. A twig was nestled in her ginger, curly hair and as she walked toward us; I could spot filth under her nails too.
“Nice to meet you, Saleyna.” Marletta bowed her head slightly, smiling at me. She didn’t seem deterred by the mark on my head, and she looked friendly enough. Her friendly manner was a stark contrast from the way Altheia and Cullyn had treated me. “I’m the Head Herbalist. I teach acolytes all there is to know about herbs. We have a whole garden here designed to help people combat illnesses, heal diseases.”
All the things people asked mages’ help for, before magic was banned. We too relied on herbs for healing, only tapping into our magic when there was no other option to heal someone’s wounds or cure someone’s illness.
“The other acolytes will join us soon,” Marletta said while she rubbed her hands clean on her apron. The apron had once been white, but it now looked like a mix of grey and brown. “You don’t have to worry if you’re not that familiar with herbalism. My motto is: what you don’t know, you can learn.”
I liked Marletta’s straightforward approach. So far, she was the only one in the Red Keep who didn’t treat me like a leper because of the brand on my forehead.
“If she’s anything like her kind, that won’t be an issue,” Cullyn muttered below his breath, but loud enough for me to hear. Coming from anyone else, it might’ve sounded like a compliment, but from Cullyn’s mouth, it was obviously an insult.
I balled my hands into fists. Of course, the moment my mood improved, Cullyn had to ruin it, as if he had made it his personal mission to thwart me every chance he got.
“Cullyn, the acolyte is in good hands,” Marletta said while she put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure you have other duties to attend to now.”
It sounded like a command more than a remark, and it made me smile.
Cullyn sulked, but he turned on his heel and stalked out of the greenhouse, leaving Marletta and I alone.
I swirled around, taking in my surroundings. The greenhouse was gigantic. A spiral staircase led to the upstairs floor, where a steel balcony circled the entire roof, offering a three-hundred sixty degrees view of the outside. The downstairs area was divided in four areas by a hexagon-shaped terrace in the middle of the greenhouse. One wooden table stood behind Marletta, like a teacher’s desk, whereas behind me, eight similar tables were lined up—for the acolytes, a title which now included me.
In each of the areas grew a variety of plants, from trees to herbs and practically everything in between.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Marletta asked, chuckling at my awestruck expression. “It took years to get it into this shape. When I first came here, it was barely more than a ruin, and all the plants had died. Rebuilding it took forever.”
“Why was it in such a horrible condition?” I asked, dumbfounded by how the Red Priests could let something this beautiful go to waste.
“Most of the Red Keep was,” Marletta explained. “Twenty-or-so years ago, when I joined the order of the Red Priests, it was nowhere near as popular as it is now. We lacked the funding to maintain the upkeep of the stronghold. I made it my personal mission to restore the greenhouse.”
“Well, you should be proud of the result. It’s magnificent.”
Marletta blushed. “Thank you. Now if you don’t mind, could you help me carry those pots over there?” She gestured at eight stone pots standing to the side of the hexagon terrace. “Please put one on every table.”
“Sure.” I walked after her and grabbed one of the pots. It was a lot heavier than I had expected so I groaned while I carried it toward a table.
“What are these plants?” I asked while I dropped down the pot with a dull thud. The plant had greenish-yellow flowers, dark green leaves, and a slightly darker-colored circle in the middle of the flowers. It looked vaguely familiar, and I was pretty sure I had seen it before as a climbing plant in hedgerows and woodlands.
“You might recognize them,” Marletta answered. “It’s a good season for white bryony.”
She shot me a curious look and I was wondering if she was trying to figure out if I recognized the name of the plant or not. Bryo
nia Alba, as it was also called, was an inexpensive surrogate for Mandrake and had a lot of medicinal properties ascribed to it, but that was about where my knowledge ended. Mother had stopped teaching me about herbs and their healing qualities when I got branded and my magic disappeared. In fact, when I thought about it, she stopped teaching Sebastian and me pretty much everything since then.
The first few years after the Red Priests marked me, I blamed my mother for not stopping them. She was the one who had held back my arms while they put that branding iron on my forehead.
But then, as the years went on and I saw the toll it was taking on her, with her own magic trying to kill her from the inside out, I knew that all along she had just been trying to protect me. If I believed Sebastian’s stories, the powerful Wizards from the days of old sometimes got destroyed by their own wayward magic as well, when it became so powerful that their veins turned black and their eyes spit fire. No matter from what side you looked at it, it seemed like magic was more of a curse than a blessing.
The double glass doors of the greenhouse opened, and a small army walked in, all of them clad in similar grey robes as mine. The other acolytes were talking to each other when they strolled in, but the noise stopped abruptly when they noticed me.
“Ah! Welcome,” Marletta said, clapping her hands. “Can each of you please find a spot behind one of the tables? Oh, and this is our newest member Sarleyna,” she briefly introduced me. “I will not bother reciting all your names to her since I'm sure you can all introduce yourselves after class.”
Despite her friendliness, Marletta had a no-nonsense attitude. She jumped right into the topic she wanted to teach us about, without going on for too long about my status as a newcomer. I kind of liked that, though—being the center of attention had never been something I particularly enjoyed.
I waited until the other students had each occupied a table and then went to the remaining one, moving behind it.
“Today I will teach you about white bryony,” Marletta said. “White bryony is said to have enormous healing qualities. It can heal everything from malaria to indigestion, even pains in the chest and headaches. According to one of the oldest legends surrounding white bryony, if you dig up the plant it will shriek horrendously, which supposedly causes people to die from the obnoxious sound.”
