I drag the dusty book out from the farthest corner of the shelf. Layers of dust have settled on it and it looks like nobody has bothered to open it for a long time. The green in the cover has almost turned brown but the title is still gleaming in gold beneath all that—real gold.
Magie Ancienne
The Book of Ancient Magic. I run my fingers along the cracked spine. Living in the woods all my life, I have never had a chance to access all the ancient literature but coming to the University of Sundale, I was determined to uncover the secrets of who I am. The magic flowing in me had never been identified or defined, but I too have the right to know what my powers can do. The traditional elemental magic possessed by all the other faeries around me wasn't for me. I couldn't control air, water, fire, earth or space, nor could I imbibe strength from the sun and the moon like the royals. So what was I?
The delicate yellowed pages threaten to crack at every turn while I breeze through the descriptions of elementary magic. They're the same old boring and I skip over the first few pages, landing on a page where my eyes got glued to one word purple flames. That is it. That is me. There's a neat diagram of a fairy silhouette illustrated with flames in purple ink rising from it. The symbol at the centre of her chest is a purple gemstone surrounded by four other stones—yellow garnet for fire, blue sapphire for water, an emerald for earth, and a diamond for space. The entire system is surrounded by two branches, one gold, and one silver—the sun and the moon.
My eyes travel down the page and get stuck on one line.
They cannot exist.
What now?
According to the text, a fairy bestowed with the power of all six elements is not possible, because a single individual can't contain all the magic in themselves. It's too vast and too deadly having even two elements combined. Their birth is also unheard of because such a fairy needs to be born in a field of moonflowers when there is a full lunar eclipse and the planets line up together with the moon on the same night, so the combined power of the planets witnesses the birth of an individual who will be blessed with all powers. But there are no known records.
The doubt which was seeded in me just got deeper. Fleurian fairies don't exist and yet the kind of magic I have in me can be explained by this one definition.
I pick up the book and head straight for the wood-panelled counter behind the reading area. The middle-aged woman with a shock of orange hair reminds me of someone from my past but I brush off those thoughts. She looks at me from over the rim of her glasses and puts down a slim book that she's been reading. I notice it's a book of ritualistic incantations.
"Hey sweetie, how can I help you?"
She has a singsong voice like an opera artist.
"Do you have a book on Fleurian fairies?"
"Fleurian fairies, interesting," she mumbles, scanning me from top to bottom. "Why would you need to know about them?"
"It's just an assignment for extra grades in—umm—history of the land." I put on a forced smile to seem genuine.
"Oh!" She seemed surprised but didn't push the matter further. Instead, she powered on her computer and started scrolling through her library logs. "There's no evidence-based text or study on Fleurian fairies because as you might have noticed they don't exist." She raises her eyes meaningfully at the book in my hand.
"Yes ma'am." I nod.
"But you might find some folklore surrounding the flower-fae." I'm a little put out but I don't show it to her. "Third book, fifth shelf, second rack, fourth aisle."
I nod a thanks at her and make my way towards the rows of books. The whole shelf I realise is dedicated to fae myths and folklore. The shelves are stacked with books on all creatures ever mentioned in legends. Fleurians was easy to find because it is the tiniest book on the shelf—so much for information.
But my curious eyes travel downwards towards the 'N' shelf and I pluck out a thin book that looked out of place from the rest. 'Noires' the title reads. My heart is beating fast as I collect the books and make my way to the farthest corner of the reading room. It was nearing dinner time so a lot of students are leaving. They'll have food, chat with friends, roam on campus and maybe party all night while here I am, twenty-one and young and I don't have a personal life. Rather I don't have a life. My life is there's, all of my actions from childhood are controlled by them.
As tempting as it is to open the Book of Noires, I decide to open Fleurians instead. It is scary when you want to know what's inside a book and yet you know you'll never be the same again after this. The book is written by someone called C Fogfeather.
Fleurians come from an area towards the far South of the Lumerian kingdom, beyond the forests, a little place called Lunar Creek where the moonflowers grow in abundance. Fairies in civilized societies marry within their closed circles where the powers are declared and matched beforehand to maintain the 'purity' of the race. The fairies in the wild don't bother about class and creed while marrying. Most often they don't officially harness their powers because they work in fields and grow crops and flowers for survival. They don't need magic lessons or use magic in their daily life. So fairies with different magical abilities come together to make fairies who have a little of both traits. They're called duolings and trilings if one of their parents was at duoling.
So if a triling falls in love with another triling, they can end up making a baby who has all six elements in him/her. The only problem is that whatever the genetic constitution a child has, once they grow up, they can manifest only one magic—at most two, the others are dormant. But if the child is born on a night of the lunar eclipse, the power of the moon might bring the eclipsed powers to the surface and make them extremely powerful
—or so Miss Fogfeather says.
My thoughts drift back to my mother. My sweet, soft-spoken mother with her soft golden curls framing her face. I don't remember if I've seen her practice magic but I always remember her being able to communicate with the birds and the bees, who gave her locations of exotic flowers which she then scoured and gathered for her potions. So earth powers and air powers were very dominant in her trait. Who knew if she was a lunar fairy too? If yes, then my nonexistent father whom I have never seen might have been the child of a solar fairy from some generation. For centuries, the solar fairies have always been associated with royal and noble bloodlines. So what does that mean?
But my thoughts are interrupted by a little note at the extreme bottom of the page, so tiny that it's almost difficult to read.
Anyone with six dominant powers can't control so much magical energy and every time they use this power, they burn themselves from the inside. So there is no chance that a Fleurian fairy will live to be an adult because as a child, experimenting with their magic is enough to incinerate them from the inside out if they harness the full potential.
Fuck, dude!
My hands are shaking. My mouth feels like sandpaper. "It's all a myth, Lark! There's no guarantee that this Fogfeather woman is right or if you really are a Fleurian." I say to myself. " Maybe you're just an ordinary Lunar fairy. They're so rare that nobody knows what they can do."
The self-soothing words don't work though. I've never thought about how I would die. But knowing that my magic, the essence of who I am can kill me, is definitely something unexpected. But who is this Fogfeather?
I whip out my phone and log into the fae-web, punching in her name in the search bar, and crossing my fingers. Maybe she's just a writer who cooks up her own theories. Maybe there are some articles on the web disproving all of her claims and exposing her as a fraud. But the internet is empty of scandals. C Fogfeather is definitely a historian with loads of fancy degrees to her name. Many of her other predictions and legends have been scientifically proven true after people refused to believe her. But there is no address mentioned for this person.
The only option of contact is an email. I open the link to her email and start typing in a message but I realise I don't know what to ask or what I want to know. There are so many things and yet there's nothing.
"I'm closing the place down, honey." The librarian is at my desk. "Oh yeah," I say absent-mindedly, trash the email to my drafts and get up. My feet are heavy as I trudge to my dorms and flop on my bed. Sleep grabs me by the neck and pulls me in deep.
Author's Note:- What do you think about Fleurian fairies? Do you like the world building so far?