by Lisa Daniels
The woods here were cold and dark. She rubbed her hands constantly, which made the leather crackle and groan. Her eyes darted for danger. One foot in front of the other. Her shoulder ached from the fall, but mostly her body remained unharmed.
She stopped for a moment.
Maybe she should just run for it. Find somewhere so far away that nothing would ever bother her again. She entertained the thought before dismissing it.
No. Seon couldn’t do that. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t just up and leave. Not when the mystery of her magic still boiled inside her. It trapped her not only because the others wanted to coax it out of her, but because she wanted to become stronger. Useful. To hear more than just one-dimensional thoughts of inanimate objects. Zannis had acted awed, impressed at Seon's ability. They made her keep it secret, but it didn't seem so impressive.
Something scratched at her consciousness. Colder than the world around her. Something sad and deep and lost. Her magic instantly started seeking out the source like invisible tendrils, where the shadows began flickering at the edge of her vision. How long had it been since she saw this? The uneven shapes led her somewhere.
She followed the sadness, the lost feelings, crunching through the path and brushing past pinewood trees which prickled her. The heady scent of winter and forest illuminated her brain, clearing her thoughts.
I’m stupid. I shouldn’t be doing this. I need to head back.
She didn't, though. The fact her magic was leading the way made her all the more determined to listen. She must find out what it meant. The sadness continued to tug at her heartstrings, and she stumbled on for another five minutes before encountering an odd lump upon the ground.
The sadness originated from here. Nervous and puzzled at the same time, Seon began brushing at the snow which covered the lump. She heard the soul of the thing urging her on.
Her gloves brushed something, making a scratching sound. As if touching fabric.
She uncovered more, and saw a dead body frozen by the snows. It didn't seem real. A silent, stiff thing encased in an icy sarcophagus. Breathing faster, she focused on unveiling the whole thing.
The clothes were intact. They looked like the kind of robes everyone at the school wore. Gray, a little worn from the ice and winds that whipped over it, or even from a deadlier fall than Seon's.
A former student? The death didn’t frighten Seon, because the soul kept singing to her. She saw only the frozen features of a young woman, her once brown eyes glassy, and her skin oddly glossy.
Had the school lost someone recently, or some time ago? Assuming she even came from it. Seon had no way of dating the perfectly preserved corpse. Crouching by the body, listening to the lonely hum, Seon wondered what she could do. What was the point in being able to hear this if nothing could be done? Surely her magic allowed her to help it. She just needed to figure out how.
She sat by the corpse and started probing through the robes, trying to find some item of identification. A grim but necessary task. All she found in the end was a silver locket with someone’s blonde hair inside it. No name was apparent, though the hair belonged to someone else, since the woman had dark tresses. Examining further, Seon spotted an etching on the locket that read: A W.
Her initials. Maybe. Sighing, she took the locket, considering what to do next. It didn’t feel right to just leave the corpse. Nor to continue walking, when she still heard the soul.
A chill went through Seon. Nothing to do with the environment, and more related to a memory. Maybe the soul can’t return home. Hesitating, Seon tried to concentrate on the soul. Straining her mind to hear it better. She closed her eyes to help focus.
There must be a way for me to help. There must be!
Something slithered over her leg, and she snapped her eyes open, seeing nothing. Her heart pulsed faster.
Can you hear me?
Seon jerked her hand away from the body at this phrasing. As soon as she heard the words, a wave of despair slammed into Seon, forcing her to bend her spine as if enduring a great weight. It's not my despair.
She gritted her teeth, resisting the obnoxious influence.
Can you hear me?
“Yes,” Seon answered out loud. She shivered, feeling dizzy and sick. This was the first time she’d ever heard coherent words rather than the suggestion of language, or the susurration of darkness.
Shock seemed to pulse through the soul’s mournful melody, and the sound faded. Really? You hear?
“Really.” Now Seon had no idea what to say. Probably best to stick to the basics. “What happened to you?”
A hesitation. Did those brown eyes move? No. Impossible.
I don’t know the way home.
“What happened to you?” Seon wanted the answer to this question first.
More silence. I was ill.
Ill? Seon hesitantly opened the robes of the dead woman. She struggled to do so, since everything had a sheen of ice. Under the gray robes lay pale, frozen skin with dark smudges across the breasts, above the heart.
Oh no. This was the disease Zannis mentioned. The same one that destroyed all human magic users years ago.
How old was this corpse? How long had she been here, so well preserved?
Months? Years? Centuries? Maybe she came from the time before drakes and wyrms took over the world. Maybe she comes from when humans still held power.
“How old are you?”
I don’t know the way home. Can you help me?
The inner voice took on a desperate longing. Seon felt something clutching at her, grabbing her flesh, though she couldn’t see what it was.
Can you help me?
Seon got up, terrified, heart almost bursting out of her chest. The invisible thing here clung with the desperation of an addict. Not willing to let go.
Help me! You must!
“I don’t know how!” Seon yelled. She now swiped at her body, trying to prise away the invisible fingers.
Yes, you do. The voice took on a dark, accusing tone.
No, she didn’t. But the soul seemed quite content to drag her down, pull her back towards the corpse.
Show me the way home.
It needed to stop saying that. Seon had no idea. But, given that it refused to let her escape, she tried searching, thinking if she looked for a door or something, it would stop. But how to do that? Maybe by locating the source of the sound, or delving deeper into herself.
The soul dug harder, and Seon winced.
I don’t know the way home. Please. Please.
How sad, really. It was like a broken doll. Unable to think full thoughts, unable to function properly without a body. Only able to repeat the desperate, haunting obsession to find a way home.
To death.
Nothing made itself obvious to Seon. So, in a burst of ill temper and fear, she closed her eyes and envisioned a door. A wooden door with a fancy archway. For good measure she imagined the light, similar to the vision she experienced with Zannis. She built up the image in her head, fashioning rusted black loops upon the door. She then creaked it open, allowing a glimmer of light to shine through.
“Okay, the way home is here.”
Seon waited for those invisible claws to loosen their grip.
Where?
“Here,” Seon said, now feeling foolish. Of course she couldn’t just imagine a door. How was that supposed to help anything?
Something blurred past her. To her astonishment, she saw the soul appear at the door in her mind. A faint image of the girl it once belonged to. She definitely wasn't imagining that. Somehow the spirit stood by the random door she'd created.
Here?
“Um… yes?”
The soul peered at the door, before stepping through it. The light blazed, and the door swung shut.
The weight upon Seon’s body vanished. The claws stopped digging. She opened her eyes and stared at the empty corpse. She no longer heard the sadness, or had it vibrating in her bones.
Did it work?
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Maybe, if she chose to believe what she saw, and thought about the lack of pressure upon her soul. No more voices whispered. The only worthwhile thing that remained now was the locket. Seon tucked it into her pocket and continued trekking through the forest, seeking a way back.
The image of that girl slipping through the door lingered. A fullness wedged in her throat and made her heart throb.
I can't believe I did that. A smile spread across her lips, widening when she found a path which looked as if it had seen plenty of activity in the past few days, with trenched boot prints and cart tracks.
Wait until I tell Artiz what I did! Then the smile faded. Seon's anger was what distracted her in the first place.
Why bother telling him anything?
Mood instantly soured again, Seon strolled down the path, knowing she’d likely need to curve all around the mountain to find the path that led to the school.
At least nothing else should happen. Right?
Around the bend, she saw a group of four people walking along, talking to one another.
She squinted at them. They wore robes of a rich brown color. All were men. She heard their voices, and fear slithered through her. A lonely woman on a mountain, and a group of men. No. Don’t show the fear, just keep walking.
The men caught sight of her, and stopped. She walked right up to them, gaze fixed ahead. They didn’t part ways.
“Excuse me, I need to pass,” Seon said. She managed to keep the tremor out of her voice.
Yellow eyes gleamed. City insignias displayed on their gloves.
Wyrms. Oh. I spoke way too soon about no more trouble appearing. Oh no.
What were wyrms doing all the way up here, close enough to the school to be a threat? Couldn't be good. She prayed desperately that they'd let her through, that they wouldn't cause a scene...
“Oh, I don’t think you need to pass at all, human,” the lead wyrm said. An evil grin highlighted his face.
“I need to get back to my grandma,” Seon invented wildly. “She’s expecting me to bring her bread. She trades with the drakes in the area. Please, just let me pass. I won’t be any bother.”
An attempt at implicating she was involved with drakes and invoking a sense of mercy fell on deaf ears, cold hearts.
“Guess your grandma’s starving to death,” another wyrm remarked.
Hands seized Seon around the throat and slammed her against a tree.
“No! What are you doing?” The hands squeezed around her throat tighter.
“What whores deserve,” the wyrm said.
He began tugging at her clothes.
Chapter Five
Seon screamed, flailing. A rough hand smashed against her mouth, stifling the sounds, obscuring her vision.
“Oh, shut up, you beast. You think anyone’s gonna miss you here? Rats like you, scurrying on the mountains, thinking you’re safe. Nowhere’s safe,” the lead wyrm hissed, eyes darkening in lust as the front of Seon’s robes were ripped open. “It's offensive for you to even think you can get away from us.”
She angled her face enough to bite down on the fleshy part of the wyrm's palm. In the air she snatched as he jerked away, she managed another scream. Pain exploded in her jaw as knuckles impacted it. Now she started sobbing. A foot made contact with her side, bruising her ribs. Her legs buckled, but her body was supported by the wyrm's choke-hold on her. The wyrms laughed raucously, their faces full of hate, seeing nothing but a bug to squash.
A deafening roar cut through the air, as if the mountain itself had gained a voice. The wyrms froze. Seon whimpered as a huge, dark shape barrelled into the human-form wyrms, sending her sliding to the ground and skidding. Wedged at the bottom of the path in a groove, she saw a drake tearing into the wyrms, dagger sharp teeth shredding them apart.
Two had died by the time the others morphed into their wyrm forms – but in a cacophony of screams and bellows, the drake slammed into the side of one wyrm. The wyrm tumbled, bouncing off the mountain with agonized screeches. The last wyrm, although much bigger than the drake, found it difficult to balance himself on the thin path and fight. The drake fought to kill. It fought to make the wyrm suffer.
Seon gasped as she saw Artiz bite into the wyrm's throat and bite deep. The wyrm collapsed in a ring of dark red snow.
Artiz came for her. Artiz found her. And not a moment too soon.
Seon shivered. She didn’t feel the slightest glimmer of pity for those wyrms – only relief. Hatred coursed through her veins.
They deserved it. Every stinking one of them.
Artiz prioritized survivors before Seon. He headed straight for the wyrm who had tumbled down the mountain.
Seon did up her robes with numb hands in leather gloves. A few moments later, Artiz soared back up to the mountain, sniffing around for Seon. When he detected her again, he flapped closer, hovering and stretching out his talons. Blood dripped from his snout. He bobbed with each wing flap.
Seon stepped into the talons, and Artiz lifted her away to the school.
They arrived and Artiz rushed her to the medical bay, morphing so he could carry her in his arms. He sat by her side as the healers checked in. A kindly old mage helped accelerate tissue healing with a light touch. Skin re-knitted under his care. The cold evaporated.
When the healer finally left Seon alone with Artiz, she received a death-glare.
“You, woman, are a walking disaster.” Strong fingers threaded into her hair. “You need to be more careful.”
Now this was unfair. “You think I asked for all that to happen? Do you?” Seon attempted to sit up in the bed, but Artiz gently applied pressure on her shoulders, keeping her down. Electricity seemed to crackle from his gray eyes.
“If you didn't intend for that to happen, you could have fooled me. You went into the run mad. Distracted. You looked ready to murder when you left me. Why?”
Seon’s cheeks flushed at the audacity of that statement. How dare he? “I’m not a whore.”
“What?”
She exhaled sharply. “I don’t like you implying that I’m a whore. I get enough flak from it without my own teacher saying the same.”
“When did I ever call you a… oh.” He hesitated. “Is that why you ran away?”
“I didn’t fucking run away! I fell!” Seon stuck her arms up in exasperation. “I fell, and when I was trying to head back, I bumped into four wyrms who thought it appropriate to try and rape me!”
“Did you antagonize them in any way?”
“No!” Now Seon gaped in utter disbelief at Artiz. “How could you even say that? I walked. They blocked the way. I asked if I could get past. They said no.” She brimmed in indignation. “I’m a woman on my own on a lonely mountain trail. What more antagonizing do they need?”
Artiz pinched the bridge of his nose, gathering his wits together. “Alright. I apologize for my assumptions. Forgive me. I was... just worried about you. When you didn’t turn up for your third lap, I wondered what had happened.” He bit his lip. “I saw the skid marks from the path, and I feared that you died from the fall.”
“You saw where I fell? And you still shout at me with these accusations? That makes what you said even worse. Just leave me alone.” Her words came as a venomous hiss.
“I’m sorry.” His face twisted into a peculiar expression. Pain? Regret? Annoyance? “It's easier to be angry at you than to be scared.”
Seon didn’t speak for a few moments. Artiz showed no signs of leaving. Curse him, really. She didn’t want him to go. But she didn’t want him to stay, either. As long as he didn’t see her as anything else but the product of her past, and not the person she was today.
Eventually, a little reluctantly, she told him about the soul she encountered. About hearing it in the snows, and finding the frozen body and locket. She told him of releasing the soul, though she still wasn’t sure if it had worked as effectively as she wanted.
When she had finished, Artiz remained silent for a respectful moment.
“Let me see the necklace.” She gave it and he examined the engraving and blonde lock inside it. “I don’t know who this is. But we keep records of former students. Maybe we can find out from there.” He tucked the locket away, then gave Seon a small smile. It lifted up her spirits to see it. “You did good. I think the training is paying off. And maybe you were supposed to find that body. It sounded like that soul needed you.”
Seon didn’t believe in fate. “A lucky coincidence.”
He reached out to touch the top of her hand. She stared at that hand connected with hers, unwilling to pull away. Enjoying the contact. “I know you’d much rather be flinging fireballs around, but what you do is incredibly important. More important than anyone else in this school. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Keep up the good work.” He bent to kiss the top of her knuckles, and she flushed. Such gestures might go to her head if he kept up like that. Treating her as if she were the most valuable thing in the room. Or in his eyes.
When he departed, a strange emptiness settled in her. If only he could have stayed longer. She didn’t want to be alone, replaying the thoughts of what happened, thinking about the terrible loneliness of that lost and ravenous soul.
Isera visited her a short while later, bringing food that she’d made herself, flat baked bread with honey. “Congratulations on surviving the wyrms. Everyone’s talking about it right now.”
“Oh?” Seon accepted the bread, now curious. “They are?”
“Yes,” Isera said with a grin. “They’re worried you ran into them so close to our school. They’re wondering if it means the wyrms are aware there’s a school teaching magic in the mountains and are searching for it.”
“I thought about that as well. Why else would they be up here in a place where they're not supposed to be?” Seon scowled.
