“What do you call yourself? Where are you from, child?”
Aria refused to answer the second question, and the first baffled her. “I—I don’t know.”
Cassareece squinted in the wavering light from the fire pit, casting half her face in orange light and the other half in darkness. “If I mark you with a name, all will remember it for eternity.” She held up her hand ready to touch Aria’s shoulder, but the girl moved away.
“Tor will always call me Aria.”
Cassareece laughed. “You peculiar girl. I am only here to help you. I brought you some food.” With a flick of her wrist, a bouquet of flowers appeared on the table, the same ones Aria had seen in the haunted forest. They were all sorts of colors, salmon reds, cerulean blues, and golden rod yellows. There were pastel purples and sea greens, and even mercurial blues. Aria’s mouth watered though she didn’t want it to and she stepped forward. There was a glint in Cassareece’s eyes as though this was a test—if Aria didn’t pass the woman would be angry.
Aria focused on the petals and reaching out she pretended to detach one with her hand. Her mind moved it to her mouth and she forced it into her mouth. Her lips clamped down on the substance and something changed. A thrill moved through her, taste exploding through her mouth like a symphony. She savored the sweetness of the petals and forced more into her mouth.
“I like them, why do they taste so good?”
Cassareece smirked. “It’s a secret. Now, for a name…” she tapped a perfect finger on her lips, the fingernail adorned with a sheen of sparkles. Aria took another of the orange petals in her mouth and clamped down on it, but the taste that went through her was disgusting. She tried to spit it out but it was impossible, the petal melded into her form and coursed through her and she shuddered as the feeling passed. Cassareece seemed to watch her reaction with full perplexity.
“Kali Elle,” Cassareece said.
“What?” Aria asked while trying not to gag on the petals. She glanced at the bouquet, which was mostly picked through, a few orange, sea green, and salmon red petals left. All the blue and purple ones were gone. She didn’t want more, but she didn’t know what to do with the rest of them.
“The name that will follow you for eternity.” Cassareece pointed a finger at Aria’s sternum an elaborate emblem appearing above the white dress she formed onto herself. The emblem turned gold and as it touched Aria’s energy she screamed, feeling like a sharp lance was carving the name into her soul. She wanted to slap Cassareece, but she couldn’t reveal her secret, she couldn’t let Cassareece know she was a Flame. She breathed deeply, attempting to withstand the pain until it was over, the mark forever etched onto her form. She wobbled on her feet and fought not to fall over as Cassareece let out another vile laugh.
“Do you not like the name I chose?”
Aria took a gulp of air, feeling lightheaded, from the flowers, the mark, the crown she made. “The flowers. What do I do with the rest of them?”
Cassareece shrugged. “The children should like them, if you’ve had your fill you could share.”
Aria nodded, moving to the table and carefully levitating the bouquet into her arms. She stole a quick glance at Cassareece’s blue lightning eyes, not knowing what to make of her. “I should go.” She moved to the door, expecting Cassareece to follow her but the woman didn’t move. “You should go, too.”
Cassareece seemed pulled out of a daydream. She followed Aria out of the cairn to the fading light and the skeletal trees with their puffs of cotton. “Don’t you want to know what the name means?”
Aria stopped in her tracks, curiosity getting the better of her. She didn’t know why Tor called her Aria or why Cassareece chose Kali Elle, but she couldn’t deny that defining herself was important. She felt so young, so naïve, and so foolish all of the time. She couldn’t afford to be that way if she were to help Tor win the war. “Tell me.”
“You will not tell Tor of our meeting?”
Aria shook her head. If that was the only way to get the answer, she’d obey. “He won’t know you came.”
Cassareece sized her up. Nervousness flitted through Aria as Cassareece stared her down, inspecting everything from her violet tinged skin to her long violet swathed white hair. “It means the girl who will bring death.”
Aria was speechless. Her insides burned and her head throbbed and she wanted to bring death to Cassareece, but she couldn’t even touch her, let alone cause the woman harm. She tried to smooth out her expression and seem indifferent, but of all the things she could have been named, a destroyer wasn’t what Aria wanted at all.
“You don’t like it do you?”
“I—”
“Keep our end of the bargain and do not tell Tor. I will return someday, Kali…Elle.” She winked and she was gone.
Aria trudged through the forest, the bouquet of flowers dragging along the floor behind her. It was like she had them by some invisible string. They skipped over the bumps and cracks, twisting and shaking off leaves until she broke through the tree line and spied the flower shaped lake in the middle of the low cut green grass.
Laughter interrupted Aria in her tracks. On the edge of the lake, behind the village and far from the shores, were the bluffs. Thick vibrant trees, full of orange and yellow leaves wavered in the wind. Their trunks were beige and below them the grass grew almost two feet tall. She found the children climbing trees and jumping into soft grass. Their faces glinted with the shimmer from the silver quenny fruit, a sign of their youth. Their mouths were painted rosy red on the girls and faded beige on the boys. They wore simple summer dresses, tunics and breeches, leather sandals strapped to their feet. They looked up when they saw her and stopped playing. One jumped out of a tree and landed at Aria’s feet, a sheepish expression crossing the young boy’s face.
Aria held her hands out and commanded the bouquet into her arms. She curtsied and held a sea green petal out to one of the young girls in a light blue dress. “I came to share these with you.”
The boys and girls gathered, the boys brushing grass off their tunics, the girls kneeling to get a closer look at the petals.
“They come from the haunted forest,” one of the boys said, authority and fear in his tone. He crossed his arms and glared at the other children.
Aria pulled her mouth to one side in a frown and took the last blue petal off the bouquet, carefully guiding it to her mouth. She pressed down on it, closed her eyes, letting it flood her, forcing a shower of sparks to color her aura with spires of amethyst flames. “They taste very good.”
The children were awestruck and before the boy could stop her, the young girl in the light blue gown held her hand out. “I want the orange one,” she said. Aria detached it from the flower and held it to her.
“Afton,” the boy said, but the girl in the light blue gown flitted away, while others stretched their hands out, waiting for a petal. Aria appeased each of them in turn, giving away the sea green, orange, and salmon colored petals until there was nothing but the deep greenish stems and sharp leaves. She watched them press petals into their mouths one by one, their eyes lighting up with the energy therein.
A shout sounded from across the field and Aria stepped through the tall grass. The boy who didn’t take a petal stood over Afton, the girl in the light blue gown. Her fragile frame rocked like a stormy sea. “You hurt her,” the boy accused. “The petals are poison!” he shouted for everyone to hear.
In minutes the children were on their knees, clutching their stomachs. Some of them retched, spitting, and choking, while others shivered and shook like Afton. Aria’s eyes widened as her good fortune turned to nightmares and cotton-like substance rose out of Afton’s little body.
The boy backed up and fell on his back, shielding his face, and reciting an incantation.
“They tasted good…” Aria whispered unable to conceal her shock. The boy regained himself and stalked over to her, swinging a heavy fist in her direction. Aria stood silent as his fist went through her and
he stumbled, landing on his hands and knees. He shot a reproachful look in her direction.
“You are an unnatural thing!”
Aria felt something cold near her, and glanced to her left only to see the cottony substance of Afton beside her. She was no longer the malformed white wisps, but a fully transparent version of her living self.
“You weren’t wrong, they tasted good until the storm began,” Afton said.
The boy stood and pointed at her. “Go, before I bring the elders.”
Aria glanced at Afton, a sickly feeling spreading through her. “Come, we must call the Ferryman.”
Afton followed Aria through the haunted forest. Unlike Skeld the girl was fascinated by everything the forest had to offer. She wanted to taste more of the poisonous flowers, and she wanted to play in the branches. She wanted to unravel the cotton from the trees and make friends with the other ghosts. She almost got caught in fourteen different trees, and Aria found herself using her odd abilities to free her. By the time they reached the shores, Aria was exhausted. She glanced at the sea and hated the sight ahead of her. The usual yellow line of the horizon had become a streak of red, black clouds roiled over the sky while the water below reflected their menacing intent. She neared the grassy shore and tried to dip her fingers in the water but felt nothing. She raised her hands to the sky and recited the incantation. Afton didn’t deserve to lose her life but she was gone, and she deserved to return.
“Nobody knows how to call the Ferryman,” Afton whispered when Aria was done. They stood side by side, Aria in her white gown and Afton in her light blue one. They didn’t hold hands because Aria couldn’t feel her, living or dead, and Afton clasped her hands together, whispering other things to herself.
“Tor told me how.”
Afton dared a sidelong glance at her. “You must be very special to know the secrets of the land.”
Aria laughed. “I know nothing.”
“You know more than I.”
Aria was going to rebut her, but the boat appeared on the horizon and glided towards them cutting through the shapes of the clouds on the sea. Moments later it fetched up against the shore and the Ferryman glared at Aria.
“You bring me one so young.”
Aria couldn’t take her eyes off him, fighting the urge to burst into a shower of sparks. The same feeling she experienced the first time she saw him cut through her from head to toe as Afton stepped forward.
“It was an accident. I ate the poisonous flowers,” Afton said boldly.
The Ferryman didn’t dare a glance at the young girl, his hooded face focused on Aria, but his next words were meant for the girl. “Do you have a coin to pay me?”
Aria caught Afton biting her lip out of the corner of her eye. “No…but I beg you, please take me.”
The Ferryman extended his skeletal hand towards Aria. “Will you pay the fee for her?”
“I—I don’t have a coin…” Aria could barely speak, her tongue feeling three times its usual size. The Ferryman withdrew his hand and went to push off the shores when Aria stepped forward and without thinking, caught him by the arm. Lightning shot through her fingers as she gripped the fabric of his cloak hard, the sensation of it under her fingertips surreal. She couldn’t help it; tears sprang to her eyes and slid down her violet tinged cheeks. The Ferryman wrenched his arm out of her grip and looked at Afton.
“I will take you,” he said, his voice hoarse compared to its gravelly quality moments ago. When Afton was safely in the boat, the Ferryman turned to Aria. “You owe me. I will return to collect.” He pushed off from the shores and disappeared in a cloud of mists.
Aria couldn’t think straight as she watched them go. Had she really touched him? Was that what it was like to touch something? She expected her form to move through his the way it had with the ghosts and the people and the trees, but with the Ferryman it wasn’t like that.
Where he was, he was solid.
And it made her giddy.
Tor stood over the Flames when Aria returned. He had the feather crown in his hands, fingers worrying over the intricate pattern. Aria recalled Cassareece and her frozen hands, and shuddered to herself. “Where were you?”
“I took a walk,” Aria said not wanting to talk about Cassareece, the poison petals, the Ferryman or the name etched onto her soul, the name that turned her into something terrible for all eternity.
Tor picked up the wand and waved it in the air, but nothing happened. “They won’t work for me, but I created them.”
Aria shot him a half smile. “You need to invoke them,” she said, not entirely sure how she knew the answers. She saw the other Flames as beings like her, but trapped inside inanimate objects. “And you have to let them be who they are.”
“What they are,” Tor said, correcting her. He flexed his gray scaled hand and gripped the wand harder. “These are weapons.”
“I’m not a weapon.”
Tor looked at her, apologies in his gold lightning eyes. Aria hadn’t noticed it before but Tor wasn’t like the children. He was more like Cassareece. She didn’t like the thought and to distract herself she commanded the crown out of his other hand. It floated to her and rested on her head, the feather sticking up. “Do you like what I made?”
Tor pursed his lips. “You took my breastplate to make that.”
“You took too long in the village.”
Tor put the wand down and picked up the lantern, opening the inner chamber and touching the orb inside. It reacted and Tor winced, pulling his finger out like it had bit him. “The people are going to die. I couldn’t leave.”
“Tiki doesn’t like being in the lantern.”
“This is the Kuliana Kulnindom.”
“It doesn’t matter what you call her, she prefers Tiki.”
Tor put the lantern down and faced Aria. “You have me confounded. Tell me Aria, how do I use them?”
Aria was going to tell him everything he needed to know when another thought entered her mind. Names. Cassareece named her something deadly and terrible, and the Kuliana Kulnindom named itself Tiki, a short and simple name. Aria didn’t know what Tiki meant but she was forever curious as to why Tor named things the way he did. “Why do you call us by these names?”
Tor sighed and sat down on the bench on the far end of the cairn. He ran his hands over his face. “It is customary to name things. Trees, lakes, seas, skies. We name things to know what they are, what they mean, what they do.”
“Why did you name me Aria?” She said it even though she was afraid of the answer.
Tor smiled. “It means songbird.”
Aria felt relieved. His name for her was benign, beautiful even. “What about the other Flames?”
Tor looked at the floor. “I…”
“I cannot help you use them if you do not tell me what you called them.”
“They weren’t like you.…” He moved to the sword and put his hand on the hilt carefully, so it didn’t light up and shoot lightning across the cairn. Aria glanced warily at the crack in the stone the sword had already produced. “This is Cara Najeel, the Ruby Sword. The others are the same. Tineca Maliorn means Citrine Shield, Ortel Nuite means Azurite Crown, Kuliana Kulnindom means Carnelian Lantern, Callen Hyloma means Emerald Shell, Comim Ramm means Quartz Wand, Murr Karraske means Obsidian Scythe, and Mylinn Windall means Iolite Staff.”
Aria moved to the staff and waved her hand over top of it. The crystal lit up and it shone with a deep indigo aura. “You will call her Isadora from this day forward, and she will do as you command.” Aria tried to will the staff to move but found it impossible. Interference caused her to feel fatigued to the point of passing out. Vertigo clouded her vision as she knelt on the floor and something peculiar happened. Aria saw a set of indigo tinged feet hit the floor, and when she looked up, Isadora stood before her, holding the white staff in her left hand. Her form was fluid, the way Aria was when she first formed.
“Isadora?” Tor asked, testing the name on his lips.
Isadora’s form was humanoid but indigo, no lips or eyes or nose yet. She was the silhouette of a woman. She went to speak and her ethereal form cracked, white lines appearing in jagged crisscrosses along her form until it shattered in a shower of dust and was sucked back into the crystal in the center of the calcified anemone. The staff teetered, but Tor saved it before it hit the ground.
Aria was more than tired from the ordeal. She didn’t think she could stand another moment. She glanced at the other Flames, determination in her to free them from their tiny prisons.
“I don’t understand. Aria, what was that?” Tor seemed perplexed as he placed the staff in its spot beside the other Flames and sat on the bench.
“You need to listen to them.”
“And you will help?”
“I will do what I can.”
Tor stood and nodded. “Good. I need to return to the village.” He stopped at the mouth of the cairn and shot her a cautionary glare. “Do not leave the cairn. Do not come to the village. The war is coming, and I cannot let anyone know about you. Not yet.”
Aria felt the guilt inside of her deepen as she swallowed hard and nodded. She couldn’t tell him that she’d already done so many bad things. He lingered for a moment then escaped into the night.
Aria woke on the floor in the cairn hours later. For a moment she thought she was blind but her hand pulsed and a faint shimmer emitted from her pale violet tinged body. She sat up slowly, the fire in the pit snuffed, the crispy smell of smoke lingering in the air. She wanted to obey Tor’s tenet but she couldn’t deny the Ferryman his payment. She got to her feet, the makeshift white dress scraping along the floor as she quickened out of the cairn and into the night. The haunted forest was alive, poisonous flowers lighting the way as she traipsed along the vein-like paths towards the east shore. The closer she came, the more she buzzed, her form threatening to erupt in fiery tentacles of flame. She slowed, her breathing heavy as she smelled salt, and broke through the last of the rotting trees, beholding the green sea.
Villains Page 5
