by Iyanna Orr
“I’ve come to collect my book,” he said snidely.
“Your book? Since when is it your book?” Michael asked. “The last time I checked, an ancestor hadn’t written a letter to you inside it.”
Gideon’s eyes blazed, but he didn’t step over the threshold.
“Scum like that thing shouldn’t be allowed to gallivant around the universe!” Gideon spat. His face went red enough to rival the wound he was hiding. “He isn’t supposed to exist! They have no reason to live.”
“Well, this Nephalem does,” Max interjected. “And I am not going to consent to you taking that book out of this room or put your mangy paws all over it.”
“Consent?” Gideon laughed. Swirling pools of blue shot daggers at Max. “This is my world. Haven’t you heard? The Monsilian people don’t want you here, just as they didn’t want your whore of a mother! You think she died giving birth to you? When in our history have you ever heard of a woman dying before she fulfilled the duty she was supposed to? Never is when! After the people had realized what she’d done, broken the rules of our celestial universe and gave birth to two bastards, they hunted her down and damned her to the Esabyss!”
There was only silence. There was nothing to expose what Max and Michael were feeling. Chandler didn’t even know what the Esabyss was, but even he knew an insult when he heard one. Michael all but winced away from Gideon when it fell from his lips. Max, though, stood dangerously close to Michael’s vest, where the dim swords were visible.
“Get out,” Michael finally said. His jaw was working and the tight muscle jumping.
“Wait a minute,” Rory said. Every eye turned to glare at him, but he ignored them as he stepped up to Gideon and put the book in his hands. Nobody said a word as Gideon darted off with it as if he hadn’t just told the Dukes their mother had been murdered. But neither of them were worried about it as they were staring at Rory. The human boy himself was untroubled. The stir-crazy look in his eyes was easy for Chandler to see. He’d known him far longer than they had. And when Rory was stir-crazy, bad things tended to happen. Seeing the looks they were given him, he shrugged. “Oops.”
They went to sleep that night, but Chandler could still see. It was very dark when the door to the room slid open though he knew it’d been locked. He could do nothing about the figure gliding across the room and setting something down on the bed. The figure didn’t linger long, turned back to the door and departed, but not before the light outside illuminated his profile revealing to Chandler a dark tree-shaped birthmark across his temple. His brows furrowed. Where had he seen that before?
He didn’t wonder long. The morning came soon after; revealing to Michael the book laying at Rory’s sleeping feet. He woke everyone in the room before dashing away. Chandler followed close behind, only to see him running toward the door with the name Clay etched into it. Michael slammed the door open, moving aside as the rest came barging in after.
Gideon Clay lay on his desk, face down. His hands were out to the sides of his head, lying in blood that seemed to cover the entire surface. After just looking for quite some time, Damian walked over and picked up the man’s head; only to have it come off from the desk in his hands. Chandler heard retching sounds, and Damian’s wife disappeared out the door. Nimue followed soon after. Rory stood casually in the doorway, a scary glint in his eye. Chandler had never seen anything like it, and apparently, neither had Max. She walked up to him, narrowed eyes looking closely into his. Even Chandler knew this wasn’t just stir crazy anymore. This was something else entirely. Eventually, Rory left the room, whistling. Damian, Michael, and Max watched him go.
“The planet is doing something to him,” Damian finally said. A heavy sigh came from his chest. “Humans haven’t been here in so long. I haven’t thought of checking the long-term side effects.”
“Side effects?” Michael asked. “What are you talking about?”
“When the humans first started to show up here, we didn’t just take them in as was reported in all the stories. Steps had to be taken to stop them from being overwhelmed by the magic. There was a spell that allowed the magic to seep in slowly until Monsil deemed their minds ready to face the entirety of it.
“If the spell wasn’t cast within the first few hours of being exposed to the magic, the humans became… emotional time bombs, for lack of a better phrase. Most became unresponsive, slipped into comas, but the rare few became dangerous to themselves and us. They did terrible things to people until we were forced to put them down.”
“Put them down?” Max repeated. “They are not animals, Damian! They are people!”
“By the time we took that final step, they were far from people, Maxine,” Damian said sternly. “That is why we must fix Rory before it’s too late.”
“How long do you think he has?” Michael questioned.
“At this rate, he has less than a few hours. The spell would take stronger magic than anyone of us has. We need all the magic we can get.”
“Good thing we have the magic of the entire planet on our side then,” Michael said, sliding his eyes toward Max. Damian turned to look at her, as well. She looked between the two of them and heaved a sigh.
“Tell me what to do.”
And Chandler was sucked away again. There were no more visions, just the luxury of sleep and the promise of Rockbryr when he woke.
Chapter 12 – Rockbryr
Chandler woke a week later. Or so he was told.
Pulling himself from the bed was hard, and his legs almost gave out the first time he stood on them. It didn’t last long, though, and within a few hours, Chandler was sitting in front of a tub of water, washing off the grime and grit that had settled into his skin, as he lay unconscious. Knowing he was leaving made him feel lighter.
He returned to his room to find the werecat waiting for him.
When his door opened, and he saw her sitting in his bed, he stopped in the doorway. He hadn’t seen her since the morning he woke to find that she was gone; the place she slept on had been cold. Chandler didn’t know why it’d felt wrong for her to vanish like she did, so instead of asking himself that question, he’s shaken it away and went on with his day. But he couldn’t begin to describe the look on her face when she looked up at him. Perched on the edge of his bed, her body trembled with an emotion that she held closely. The lightness of the morning was gone in an instant; pushed to the back of Chandler’s mind as his brows furrowed. For the first time since he’d met her, she looked vulnerable and, in a way, hopeless.
He finally stepped inside and closed the door behind him. She remained quiet as he walked to the closet door. Wordlessly, he pulled down the old cloak and draped it over her shoulders. Her small hands immediately grabbed for it, tightening it around her. Chandler dropped down onto the bed and waited.
“My species is one that remains a mystery to the rest of the Downworlds. We had our own planet, yet we could only be found when we wanted. We came into being soon after Earth created itself. As the second dimension, called Leander, we were given certain privileges. We were allowed to travel between the two worlds. There weren’t so many rules back then. We simply lived as we saw fit.” She glanced at Chandler and shrugged. “Of course, I wasn’t alive to see it. But I can remember everything from my parents, grandparents and any ancestors as far back to the beginning of our species.
“We worship a God named Vepkhia and a Goddess called Nadir. There was a story everyone was told growing up about the power we possessed, being able to switch from one form to another and have it accept us so readily.” She glanced over at him again, then swiftly away. “I mean no harm when I tell you that your kind, the way you can imitate anybody and anything, was immediately labeled a mutt. The ancients claimed it went against nature itself to be so many things and, yet, only one at the same time. Anyway, the God and Goddess, the first of our kind, were really the first humans, but they were lost on our planet. Feline predators, cannibals through and through, roamed in hopes of coming across the we
aker of its kind. Instead of finding something to eat, the great cat, Zenec, found the Goddess.
“He didn’t know what to make of her. As a planet of four-legged animals that could barely mate to keep the species alive, he had never seen anything so different. She was simply a hairless two-legged creature, obviously less powerful than he was and very vulnerable to anything that would happen to her. So, despite every instinct telling him to feast on her and taste this new specimen, he mated with her instead.”
She was quiet while Chandler digested it. A nauseated feeling was curling in the pit of Chandler’s gut, but he wouldn’t voice his own opinions. He’d grown up on Earth, a place where animals, considered magical or not, just did not simply decide to... involve themselves with humans. He was glad she wasn’t looking his way just so she wouldn’t have to see the plainly disgusted look on his face.
“How did that work, exactly?” he asked, his voice going unconsciously louder as he struggled to keep his own feelings from registering in his words. It didn’t work because she laughed at him.
“It’s okay to feel that way,” she informed him. “I know what it sounds like. But at the beginning of the world, there was no such thing as physics; no genetic material to write the reproductive code of what the offspring would look like. Neither were there rules about the mixing of species. The Goddess didn’t care about what the child would be. The timeless bond of mother and child began with her because her baby was born a feline cub. And Zenec, knowing she would not understand how to raise it, stayed around, protecting the both of them.
“When the cub, named Seneca, came to her first month, she shifted. After that, they discovered the change was like clockwork. She changed after every month. She was either human, spending time with the Goddess and learning to be human, or she was an animal, spending time with Zenec. After some time, her mother was killed by a sickly, starving feline. But by then, Seneca was nearing adulthood, and she spent all of her time roaming with her father.
“The God had created a similar life to the Goddesses. Yet, he didn’t mate with the animals; no, he simply studied them and lived among them. He knew he was growing old and would soon die when he first saw Seneca. He didn’t understand how there was yet another human living on the planet, and he hadn’t found them. Of course, he believed the Goddess had perished when they’d been separated. So, when he followed the human wandering with the animal, imagine his surprise when she turned into one of them. He was fascinated and convinced her that she was meant for him. She was only a year and five months old, but her human body aged quickly, giving her the appearance of a young woman.
“She stopped aging after that, but he continued to follow her. He slowly began to wither away while she traveled and never aged a day. It was only when he was sure he was about to die that he revealed himself to her and her protective animal. Zenec almost killed him then and there, but Seneca stopped him, knowing she needed a way to continue her race. So, she mated with him, just as her father and mother had. Then, she allowed her father to kill him. Like an animal, she had a litter of cubs and not just one child. The five females were all born with the ability to transform, but of the three males, only one could shift into an animal. It was hard to raise them, but when they were old enough, they were sent away to make the decision to mate with the felines and create more werecats. Or they could die in the wild, eaten by a species that was very well their family.”
She paused, staring across the room. While she’d been speaking, she’d curled into a ball, lying with her head in Chandler’s lap. He looked down at her and noticed how small she seemed.
“I have all of this locked inside my brain,” she whispered. “But none of it mattered. I remember when Legacy came into being, about four thousand years after us. Everyone was excited because it was the first planet that had created beings that were just like the humans of Earth, at least, on the outside. On the inside, they were the complete opposite. Diviant, the dominant species on Legacy, can live twice as long as the average human, and when they mate or… ‘marry’ as the Earth people say, they do it for life. When they have children, they keep no secrets; they let them know about the evil of the world before they find out for themselves. Yet, none of them encountered evil until Drake arrived.
“Once he arrived, our history didn’t matter. We were shunned, simply because he didn’t want anyone with a higher status alive in the universe.” Her voice began to tremble. “Within the first year of taking the throne, he destroyed our planet. We weren’t even given a chance to join him like the dimensions after five. One through four were slaughtered, and the remnants of the planets left to drift in space, a reminder of what being more powerful got you.
“I don’t remember how I got here, Chandler. I can’t remember what my mother or father looked like. I can’t even remember when it all ended!” she cried. “Maybe I wasn’t there, but I wish I had been! I wish I’d died with my parents, so I wasn’t stuck here, seeing the man who killed them every single day.”
He let her cry, pulling the cloak more firmly around her.
“What do you mean stuck, werecat?” Chandler asked. Surprising him, she laughed through her tears. “What?”
“I didn’t mean what I said about names, you know.” She sniffled and looked up at him, eyes bright. “You can always ask me my name.”
“Oh,” he paused. “What is your name?”
“I’m Seneca,” she said. “I was named after my many-times-great-grandmother. As for what stuck means,” she added, eyes going dull. She looked away from Chandler. “I can’t leave the castle, no matter how hard I try. I just woke up here days after my home was destroyed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to be stuck here forever. Promise me you’ll kill him and set me free.” Chandler turned his eyes on her and felt a cool hand slide into his own.
“I promise you, Seneca, I won’t abandon you here. When the time is right, I will come back, and I’ll give you your freedom.”
When the sun rose the next morning, Chandler left as promised. Drake only supplied him with four guards; all of which had won the fights in the tournament at some stage or other. Every one of them was good but mostly reserved. He didn’t know whether it was an order they were following or if they just thought talking to a new “royal” wasn’t a good idea. Because of it, Chandler only learned their names later.
The man who led the gathering was Sir Yves. Knighted more than thirty years ago, the man had a French accent, but he claimed never to have heard of it. Chandler put him in his fifties with graying hair and eyes to match. His ancestors came from a place called Crowtol, in the eighth dimension. Yves refuses to think of Legacy as home, so he works under the king because Drake couldn’t care less about where anyone came from.
Sir Leon had only just reached his twentieth birthday. His hair was long and dark, emphasized by the dirt and mud that pinned it together. As soon as they’d crossed the gate from Legacy, Chandler told him that he should bath once they got to the manor. Of course, the man didn’t reply. He’d been born under Drake’s rule, as the son of the head of Drake’s armies. He grew up learning the trade and was to be appointed leader once his father died. “Drake is keen on having his entire army die in battle and not in bed with family by their side,” he spat bitterly one night. “Mother wants a way out, but I cannot give her one. Father is disgustingly loyal to the regime Drake has built, but it’s only because Drake didn’t kill him outright when Father gathered an army to rally against his throne. Instead of becoming an enemy of Drake’s, he became what he is today.” Leon was obviously a more complex knight that Yves. Chandler thought over what Leon told him for a long while after that but left the matter where it was.
The next knight, silent and unapproachable, was just a few years older than Leon. His name was Avan, and nobody knew where he came from. One day, he showed up at Legacy castle with Drake and has been the best fighter among the knights ever since. Chandler vaguely remembered Avan from the fights. It had b
een on horseback for the knights, but he’d been on foot, dodging the swords attempting to take his head off from above. After the winner had been declared, he’d helped Chandler up from the ground, where he lay as his wounds healed. Even then, the knight had never said a word.
The moment Thackory spoke, Chandler knew he wasn’t to be trusted. He didn’t like Chandler and made sure the younger boy knew Thackory would be keeping a close eye on him. Chandler didn’t miss the way Thackory found a way to ride behind the group as they headed for Rockbryr. He could feel the weight of the knight’s gaze against the back of his skill for hours at a time.
Still, it was Thackory who decided Chandler needed to know and be warned about their crossing before they reached it. It was two days’ ride away from Legacy castle and half a day’s ride to Death Ring. The name caught Chandler’s attention more than anything else he’d been warned of since beginning the journey.
“The people here hate magic,” he said. “They live the way they do because magic once tore their village to pieces; then, turned around and killed most of their men. It cut the throats of children and raped the women. Its size was reduced by half in the time it took for it to end, and most of the children born nine months later were the offspring of the attacking sorcerers. Each of these children was gathered together, given up willingly by their mothers, and a ring of fire was drawn around the village. In each direction on the compass, a pyre was placed.”
“There were sixteen pyres,” Yves said. His accent was thick but smooth enough that Chandler could still understand what was being said. “It followed the compass of dimension forty-three, a world of dragons; one direction on the compass for each planet and each dragon species. As folk who hated magic, they respected the dragons’ decision not to meddle in the affairs of other species. They never leave their dimension, and no one ever goes there.” Thackory gave Yves a nod and continued.
