Red Magic: an Adult Dystopian Paranormal Romance: Sector 6 (The Othala Witch Collection)

by JC Andrijeski

As one, the lizards began moving again.

  Gone were their haphazard and languid movements from before, however.

  Now they were clawing at the walls of the pit, digging their long talons in where they could, trying to climb the glass-like, sheer sides. They pulled themselves up slowly, laboriously, but with a mindless-seeming determination, one which did not take into account the height of the walls, the slickness of the black rock, or the inadequacy of their heavy bodies.

  Soon, in addition to climbing the black rock, they began climbing on one another in their desire to reach the top of the sheer walls. I watched in awe as they methodically stacked their brightly glowing bodies. One would climb as high as it could, then the next one would climb him and so on, repeating the process. At each turn of the wheel, they collectively closed the gap to the top by yet another length.

  I was still staring down, my arm clutched by Evie on one side, when someone grabbed my other arm in a much stronger grip.

  “Maia, you cannot stay here!”

  It was Donal.

  I looked up at him, saw a kind of wildness in his eyes, along with the sharper, hawk-like look I remembered from before. Jerking my gaze off of him, I turned my eyes and head back towards the pit, and now the lizards were even closer, so close I could see their faces more clearly. Once I could, I let out a low gasp.

  “I’ve seen one of these before,” I said.

  “That’s impossible,” Evie began, but Donal held up a hand, telling her to let me finish.

  “In the Water Market.” I looked at Donal, whose mouth had firmed to a narrow line. “They had one there... they were selling him. He was chained, then he fought them and they put him in a metal box.”

  I didn’t add that the creature in the Water Market had spoken to me in my head, prior to its being imprisoned.

  Nor did I mention that it fought them because it wanted to remain with me.

  Frowning, I looked down at the climbing lizards.

  “He wasn’t gold and scarlet like these,” I added, my voice now holding a trace of doubt. “He was green-gray, and blueish in parts...”

  “Then he wasn’t a fire lizard,” Evie retorted, a faint relief in her words. “You saw something else, princess. Fire lizards glow red and gold––”

  “––Only in the planet’s heat,” Donal said, cutting her off and giving her a sharp look. His stare returned to my face. “Are you sure it was the same, Maia? Except for the color, was everything else the same?”

  Thinking before answering, I glanced down at the pit. “Yes. The eyes are definitely the same, and the tongue... and the shape of the face. The teeth are the same too. He was roughly the same size, and had the same length of tail.”

  “You keep saying ‘he,’” Evie said, sounding annoyed. “What, ‘tis a personal friend of yers, princess? How could ye possibly know its sex?”

  Frowning, I looked down at the climbing lizards, feeling a rush of affection for them I couldn’t explain. It was so strong, I found myself fighting tears I couldn’t explain either. I remembered that same familiarity striking me in relation to the lizard in the Market.

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I just know it was a he. I could tell you the sex of all of those down there. I don’t know how. I just know.”

  Donal gripped my hand tighter, but unlike Evie, I didn’t feel any anger on him. Rather, I felt a near-reverence through his fingers. I couldn’t understand it, and didn’t try.

  Instead, I looked down at the fire lizards.

  They were still trying to climb to reach me.

  I couldn’t lie to myself about it anymore. They were climbing to me.

  Moreover, a part of me wanted them to.

  Choking on that same inexplicable emotion as it burned in my chest, I spoke to Donal and Evie again, without considering the wisdom of my words.

  “I should have freed him,” I said, my voice thick. I met Donal’s gaze, as if asking him to tell me I was wrong. “He asked me to free him... why didn’t I? I could have bought him. I could have used my mother’s ring. I could have had you use your magic to take him later.”

  Donal only stared at me, as if unsure how to answer.

  Then, together, the two of us looked down into the pit.

  He never let go of me, the whole time we stood there.

  Chapter 16

  THE X FACTOR

  WEEKS PASSED, WITH little change in my routine, although everything else about me changed.

  Donal continued to show up at my door every morning, sometimes with Yanna and Miggs in tow, sometimes with others, but never alone. I found out the red witches and warlocks he brought to escort me and eat with me were all members of his fighting team, Squadron 9, or “Phoenix Squad,” as they were known around the compound.

  Yanna joked that Donal was bringing me into his squad in any way he could, permissions from the handlers be damned.

  Phoenix Squad were known by everyone I soon realized.

  Donal led them, and seemed to function as a bit of a hero to a lot of the younger witches and warlocks, especially those who aspired to fight on the front lines.

  As for me, I’d managed to gain myself some notoriety once more, seemingly without even trying this time, and in spite of doing well in all my courses.

  None of my new red witch or warlock classmates mentioned the incident with the fire lizards to me directly, but I heard the murmured rumors as I passed. Donal didn’t bring it up to me either, but I saw him give cold stares to a few who whispered about me when I was in earshot. Even with Donal’s protective hovering, however, it was impossible to entirely ignore that I’d been a topic of gossip around the compound since that day.

  My teacher, Luna, did speak to me about the fire lizards, but only to ask me not to visit there again, not until they understood more about the creatures’ reactions to me. She’d obviously spoken to either Donal or Evie or both of them about what they saw, because she asked me directly if I could hear the fire lizards speaking in my mind.

  I admitted that I had, but only the one time.

  She then asked me if I’d ever communicated with them that way.

  I admitted to that, as well.

  She asked me next if I’d commanded them to climb the crevasse wall.

  Shaking my head in unfeigned horror, I told her that, I did not do.

  My answers didn’t seem to satisfy her, but I got the sense she believed me, that she didn’t think I was lying to her, or even withholding information. I couldn’t tell what her reaction meant, truthfully. Our conversation ended before I could get a read on it, or on her; but then, I still couldn’t read anyone at the Black Fortress the way I could Donal.

  I gradually improved in the magics, day by day.

  I got stronger in my body, too. Stronger than I’d ever been, or ever thought I could be.

  I noticed the talk of field tests and putting me into combat stopped after the day after the incident with the fire lizards too, however, regardless of how good I got. And I did start to get good, if Luna’s praise and increasingly difficult challenges for me were any indication. I graduated from aiming fire balls and shields to magic-imbued swords and guns and knives, and eventually to hand-to-hand fighting.

  Donal watched all of those sessions, but never once was I paired to fight with him. He always chose someone else as a sparring partner, no matter what the weapon. I knew it was likely because I wasn’t good enough yet, but it still annoyed me.

  The silence around putting me on the front lines bothered me more, however.

  My mind couldn’t help connecting that silence to the incident at the fire lizards’ pit, although I couldn’t help thinking that had to be absurd.

  Despite all the rumors about me, I still made friends.

  It seemed everyone wanted to meet me, in fact, even with the whispers, and all but a few seemed genuinely friendly. Evie, among all of them, seemed the most afraid of me, even treating me with open suspicion at times. I had no idea what she told herself happened that da
y over the volcanic pit, but it seemed clear enough from her behavior that it spooked her.

  She didn’t trust me after that; moreover, she seemed to view me as dangerous, although I had nothing to support that theory but a gut feeling.

  Either way, it was a bummer. I really liked Evie.

  Donal remained my constant shadow, but we still rarely spoke.

  Even when we ate breakfast together, getting him to talk about anything apart from military maneuvers was like pulling teeth. Most mornings I didn’t even try, but for some reason, I woke up that morning determined not to be thwarted.

  “When do you go back to the front lines again?” I asked him, as soon as we sat down.

  I made my voice hard, nearly a command, perhaps in the hopes he might give me a straight answer if I made it clear I was serious.

  He glanced up, a flicker of surprise in his dark eyes, his spoon poised over a bowl of porridge he’d ordered alongside his bacon and eggs. Frowning slightly at me, he let the spoon finish its journey to his mouth, chewing and swallowing what it held.

  “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “Soon.”

  “What is soon?” I asked. “A day? A week?”

  He shrugged a second time, and now his eyes were puzzled. “Does it matter?”

  “Why are the fire lizards so important, Donal?” I said, switching the subject without bothering to answer his question. Still, his flat question irritated me for some reason, and that irritation likely showed in my voice. “Yanna said before that the Capitol control them. How? And how do the fire lizards keep the red witches and warlocks trapped here?”

  Donal stiffened a little at the mention of the lizards, glancing around us.

  Seeing no one in earshot, since his two squad-mates had already left for the training field, he swiveled his gaze back to mine.

  “They hold our magic, Maia,” he said simply. “There is a shield over the Black Fortress, controlled by the white witches who control Heaven’s Sky. They can use that to cut off our access to the fire lizards while we are outside the fortress. We cannot survive without our magics. And they always have some of us outside the fortress, fighting or doing some other type of work. So if those of us in the Fortress were to rebel, they would cut off those on the outside from access to the fire lizards. If they stayed cut off long enough, they would certainly die.”

  My throat tightened. “You know this as fact?”

  “Aye,” Donal nodded. “It happened before.” He grunted, again glancing around for witnesses. “We don’t talk about it, Maia.”

  “But they died? The red witches and wizards outside the fortress?”

  He lowered his spoon in exasperation that time, letting it clatter to the top of the table. “Yes. Many died, Maia. Including at the other towers, where they have no access to lizards of their own. One of the towers in the south was even overrun.”

  I frowned, thinking about his words. “But wouldn’t that put the white witches in danger, too?” I said. “Don’t they depend on you for their own safety and survival?”

  “Yes.” Donal leaned closer to me over the table, his voice cold, but so low I had to strain to hear him. “Yes, it would put them in danger. But would you let them kill half of our number, just to get in a war with the white witches themselves, Maia? Is life so terrible here, that it would be worth butchering babies... allowing humans to be overrun by ravagers in the thousands, even in the tens of thousands, when they’ve done nothing at all to harm us or our kin? Underworlds below, most don’t even know of our existence, Maia. Could you really live with their deaths? All of them? Because I couldn’t.”

  Clasping my fingers together at the top of the table, I looked away.

  I couldn’t live with it either. Of course I couldn’t.

  Donal knew that. That was why he said it.

  Shaking my head though, I frowned harder, thinking about everything he’d said.

  “So you’re telling me,” I said, finally speaking aloud. “They justify enslaving you by calling you vicious, violent and bloodthirsty animals... but they only manage to control you because you’re unwilling to kill at the levels they would force you to, in order to escape?”

  “Us,” Donal said, his voice hard.

  I gave him a bewildered look. “What?”

  “You said you.” His gave me a flat look. “It’s us, Maia. You’re one of us.”

  Before I could respond, he leaned back on the bench, his expression hard as he surveyed mine. “But, yes. That’s pretty much the shape of things. Which is why I called them bloody hypocrites when I first met you... and why you surprised me so much, by not being one.”

  He paused, his black eyes sharpening still more.

  “That’s not blood, Maia. That’s you. Most raised in that place would have thought about things exactly like the rest of them. They wouldn’t have thought twice about leaving me in that crate... or about turning me in. Even if it meant my death. You didn’t do either of those things. I admire you for that. I did then, and I still do.”

  I stared at him, startled enough that it took a few seconds to register his words as a compliment.

  Before I could recover, he’d already grabbed his tray in both hands and risen smoothly to his feet. Stepping off the metal bench with one stride, he walked to the dishwashing station at the other end of the kitchen and left his tray, his food only half-eaten, without speaking to anyone.

  I watched him walk towards the rectangle of sunshine that marked the wide, roller-metal doorway that stood open most of the day. The combat training field stood directly to the other side of it, where I knew he’d spend the rest of the day, whether I did or not.

  He didn’t look back at me as he entered that light.

  But I felt his mind with mine anyway.

  I HEARD THE next afternoon––not from Donal himself, of course––that he would be leaving in two days. Ravagers had broken through one of the outer defense perimeters in the north, and were trying to scale the wall there. Many were being turned back by Heaven’s Sky, but not all of them. The situation was getting serious, from what Miggs told me.

  They had at least one squadron of red witches up there already, a team I heard called “Eagle Four.” Apparently they needed backup.

  Donal’s Phoenix Squad was chosen to go.

  I admit, I couldn’t decide how I felt about the information.

  I tried to be excited with the others, but the information hit me in the gut, in some way I couldn’t fully explain to myself.

  Some part of me wished to go with them, of course.

  I told myself it was because of my desire to log real combat experience, and had nothing to do with Donal himself. I’m not sure I quite believed it, though.

  By then I’d argued with Luna a few times already about my status as a potential field operative, as she called them. That day, I broached the topic with her again. I didn’t ask outright if I could go with Donal and his team, but the subtext was one she clearly picked up on.

  After giving me nothing but vague refusals for the first few rounds of our discussion, she finally admitted they had my status on hold for any field operations whatsoever. She wouldn’t say why, exactly, but clearly it had something to do with those damned fire lizards.

  She told me that going on a mission with Donal’s team, given the dangers they faced, even compared to normal operations crew, was strictly out of the question.

  They could not afford to have such variables out in the field, not with so many lives at stake.

  I was an X factor in their eyes, she said. An unknown.

  Seeing my reaction to her words, Luna tried to temper them. She told me I was potentially too valuable to be used in such a way, that my status would only remain on hold until they could determine the extent of my abilities.

  But I knew that was only half the story, if it factored into their decisions at all.

  I heard others speculate that it had something to do with the “Ilric’s Blood” I carried in my veins. I did not know
how to think about that, either.

  In the end, I found myself wandering in the jungled part of the compound, without really admitting to myself where I was going, much less thinking about why. I followed that white sand path through the palm trees with a nearly empty mind, and for once, Donal did not shadow me on that trail. I knew it was because he was likely in briefings that whole afternoon and evening, getting ready to take his Phoenix Squad to the northern edge of the district to fight and possibly die a few hundred miles away from here.

  I knew I was being ridiculous.

  Even so, a part of me was angry. I was mostly angry because I still hadn’t managed to figure out a way to talk to him. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say to him. Truthfully, I wasn’t even sure if talking was really something we needed to do at that point, other than to acknowledge there was nothing to talk about.

  I hadn’t felt angry at him in weeks. At that point, I wasn’t even sure I’d ever truly been angry at him, not if I were being honest with myself. My frustration with Donal had more to do with him keeping a wall up between us in the time since, not his actions at the Capitol, which I more or less understood.

  Family, after all, was family.

  I wondered almost if it was he who couldn’t forgive me, for preventing him from returning to the Fortress with his sister.

  I shoved the circular thoughts from my mind when I could once more smell the hot, mineral-laden air of the gash in the stone and soil. Although I hadn’t thought consciously about coming here this day, once there, I didn’t hesitate, but walked directly up to the lip of the stone pit.

  This time, I didn’t have to speak to them.

  They all looked up as one, the instant I looked down. They stared at me, mostly unmoving, their black tongues flicking occasionally from between their black lips.

  I stayed there for I know not how long, watching them, as unmoving as they.

  They didn’t try to climb the walls that time, but I felt the connection there, and some part of me could not help but rest on it.

  They were a part of me, for better or for worse.

  I knew they were a part of all red witches and warlocks.