2412 Iclis 1, Daleth
The bridge was burning.
That was all that ran in Xanthy's mind while the flames bit at her soles. She couldn't open her mouth to scream. Her knees locked together; arms remained heavy at her sides like a pair of steel bars.
The sky was pale gray; the rain threatened to pour any time soon. Would that quench the flames? Lightning crackled. The planks groaned. A breeze blew by, rocking the bridge harder than Xanthy could balance herself against. Her knees slapped the creaking boards as she braced her fall with her palms. Not even a yelp resounded from her throat. Raging torrents of the river beyond the cracks between the planks screamed below her.
Where was she going? Where had she come from? She looked back to find thick walls of fog eating at everything she tried peering into. The flames chewed on everything they touched—the ropes, the planks, her clothes. Xanthy gritted her teeth. When in doubt, move forward. She crawled along the length of the bridge, clamping her jaw against the burns that formed on her arms.
If she could just reach solid ground.
An arm forward. The other. Next, the legs. Slow.
Something creaked underneath Xanthy's knee. The plank snapped. Air left Xanthy's chest as she clawed at the other planks when the earth's pull gripped her legs. The great river roared below her. Water crashed against pointed rocks, even splattering the tips of her boots dangling in the cold air. Her heart thundered in her ears.
Her nails dug into the burning plank as she hoisted herself up. She grunted, pushing against nature dragging her down. The flames howled. Thunder crunched. The river shrieked. Before her eyes, the planks splintered. No, no. The wood snapped. She fell.
Her eyes flew open, instantly recognizing the bare ceiling of the Temple of Souls. She's not on a bridge. She's safe.
Or at least as safe as she thought she could be.
It's just a dream, nothing more.
Just a week ago, Xanthy found herself in the middle of a siege organized by Carleon's heir, Kymalin. The brownies' shadows got stolen by none other than Jarvik's daughter, Marin. Xanthy also had her head bashed with icicles—a feat she couldn't still wrap her head around. After all that, she's trying to at least have that sense of assurance that as of the moment, she's safe.
Xanthy was, truthfully. Ezril had been gracious enough to let them stay at the Temple for as long as they wanted to. "It's the least I could do after helping us," Ezril had said when Xanthy thanked the High Priestess. Xanthy had only nodded. Perhaps, helping people was her mission.
Back in her given room, she groaned and rubbed her face. Sleep ebbed from her eyes as she stood up. She bathed—a feat she still had a hard time believing she could freely do from now on—and dressed in clothes she requested from the Temple. She slapped her cheeks to give them a bit more color. There. Another day.
The corridors were bursting with activity as serzhakis and blaxis scampered around, carrying boxes and repair tools or yelling into their soul ports about a missing hammer. Xanthy adjusted the bow strapped across her chest, straightened out her tunic, and finger-combed her wet hair.
She walked to the nearest soul door nearest to her room in the Second of the Lower and flipped the dials in her own soul port to their usual setting. The air gave one solid whoosh as her surroundings warped and reordered themselves. Soon, the altar room's statues loomed over her as she walked towards the Temple's grand stairs.
June was waiting for her in their usual meeting spot at the feet of Niklar Sylra's, statue. As always, June looked perfect with not a speck of blemish in him. Xanthy gravitated to him as if she was being shoved forward by some unknown force.
"Good morning," June flashed Xanthy one of his signature goofy grins.
Xanthy rolled her eyes. "Quit the pleasantry," she turned away from him and stared at the expanse of trees, fog, and mountain silhouettes beyond them. "What are we doing today?"
June raised his eyebrows. "I thought you already quit?" He tapped his chin as he stared up at the sky in thought. "I clearly remember yesterday. You were saying, 'I'm never learning magic again!'."
He stomped his foot and waved his arms just like Xanthy did yesterday when her rysteme spell didn't work. The impression was spot on that it brought blood rising to Xanthy's cheeks.
She crossed her arms and ballooned her cheeks with a puff of breath. "I was frustrated, that's all," she faced him. "Now, can we try that again?"
June chuckled. "Try what again? The spell or the kiss?"
Xanthy was certain her face resembled ajilte now. "O-of course, the spell!" she waved her hands in June's face. "The spell. The spell."
June laughed and Xanthy didn't stop herself from joining him. He threw an arm around Xanthy's shoulders and led her down the stairs just like he did every time they decided to head out.
Xanthy tried to distance herself from every memory of them doing couple things. The past few days felt like a dream. There were no immediate concerns for them to think about, there was no danger anywhere, the Heiress was quiet, and Xanthy had a boyfriend.
Even after hours with him, she still couldn't wrap her head around the fact that a boy liked her, she liked the boy back, and now, they're together. As in together together. It's like she ate too much butterbread and had spent the past week hallucinating while her poor stomach tried to melt the food down. Her head was light and she had that weird energy around her that she knew if she didn't control would drive her to start bouncing.
However, it wasn't a dream. June was here just as she was. He wasn't going to vanish around the corner unlike the dream she had with the burning bridge. Xanthy chuckled to herself. What had that been about?
They reached the end of the stairs and the forest yawned before them. Paulsaris neighed from their stable below the Temple's grand stairs. The wind blew colder than before. If anything, today's fog carpeting the silhouettes of trees seemed thicker.
Xanthy, like all the other times they went inside, took a deep breath and steeled her nerves. Focus on magic today. Worry about the boyfriend later. Today, June had a tome propped in front of Xanthy, courtesy of the Temple of Souls' library. Xanthy squinted at the letters thankfully written in the Ylanenla koset as she chanted a series of words to bend the shadows. The canopies' rustling leaves were a constant ring in Xanthy's ear as she let her tongue roll over the words.
The first time June proposed learning that spell, Xanthy just laughed. "Shadows couldn't be manipulated if they're part of the soul," she had said back then.
"But then we see Cardovia's people doing it," June had reminded her. Xanthy recalled how fast her amusement had vanished at the mention of the notorious organization that had been terrorizing Umazure as of late.
June was right, though. If they were going to come to at least Cardovia's little finger, learning how to summon the shadows and travel through it was the best thing any of them could start with.
A shiver passed across Xanthy's spine. Cardovia. The first time they encountered them was in the tunnels in Cardina. She may have not figured it out the first time, but upon analyzing their timing and their magic, Xanthy was sure the black clad individuals chasing them in the tunnels' maze were from the Heiress. Their army above ground laid waste on the Elred's army and the Heiress killed Nyxis's brother after using the Human prince as some kind of a puppet.
Then Kymalin, whom Reeca identified as someone who willingly worked for Cardovia, led most of Carleon's own army against the banshee territory. The siege had resulted in hundreds of wounded soldiers and Temple people and almost as many killed. The traitors were now being dealt with but that still didn't discount the fact that they were manipulated into rebellion. Through what means, Xanthy didn't want to find out.
The Rekshais, whom Ezril explained had to use the priestal artifacts, had spent days in the infirmary for days because of the heavy price of using the sacred objects. Then Marin, who had gone to Cardovia for help, stole Cyrdel's maximizer to milk the brownies in Depandes of their shadows. When Ravalee checked with her about the death count, Xanthy forgot how to breathe for a second.
Seven hundred and two, Ravalee's grief-stricken voice rang in Xanthy's head that fateful night of their conference. That's the total count of those who died. Those who got their shadows back are either dysfunctional or have literally gone mad. The King and Queen are coping but are still weak, leaving Cyrdel to herd the Court of Varis all on his own. Airene and I are doing our best to lift him out of the prison he built around himself.
Even now, Xanthy was still figuring out what Ravalee meant with "prison". Cyrdel was happy when he and Ravalee left Carleon. How could a bright person like him succumb to such a state that Ravalee described him to be? Xanthy didn't think it was possible but there they were.
Xanthy's stomach soured. That's just what Cardovia was. They're like a rabid graspel that would drag down everything it sank its teeth into. Everywhere those black-clad people appeared, destruction followed. If Xanthy and her friends hadn't been there to help during both attacks, so many more would have died.
Elred had called the Virtakios a savior. Ezril warned her that Xanthy's choices regarding her power might doom Umazure and the fairies with her folly. Who would she believe? She had been thinking for days and she still hasn't figured it out.
Where would she stand in this war? The answer she came up with was no less than desultory. As the Virtakios, she would have to stand in the middle of it. This war happened because of her and for her.
June cleared his throat, jolting Xanthy back to the present. The tome's graying pages blinked at her. The sunlight passing through the trees' crowns cast a dappled shadow upon the words.
"You're staring at me, for like, five minutes," June tapped a finger against the tome's spine. "Are you really finding me that attractive?"
Xanthy frowned. "Shut up."
With a sigh, she focused back on the book. Her eyes skimmed through the words she long ago memorized. "Magic requires unlimited imagination to be able to cast successfully," June had said yesterday to which Xanthy rolled her eyes. Well, forgive her for not imagining enough. She may have spent her whole life just surviving.
Still, he had a point. If not for firing at the enemy with burning spells, Xanthy had no volition to discover magic's wonders. Magic was just a quick means to escape, fight, and survive. What's the point of using it for enjoyment? Now, that sentiment bit her at the rear.
Because unlike any spell Xanthy had tried before, shadows have a different property into them that made it difficult to manipulate, much less wrap around oneself to be used as transport. The tome had explained that a normal person had two kinds of shadows—the part of the soul consisting of the memory and personality and the one that bled off their feet when light shines on them.
The latter was an extension of the former and by no means could be separated, only sent forward in space and manipulated. The shadow was a testament of their substance and summoning or bending them already leaned into soul magic. Only the Virtakios, the half-bloods, and the fairies could do spells like this.
Xanthy knitted her eyebrows when June explained to her the theory behind the spell. What it was trying to achieve was the assertion of command over other things' substance as well as her own. It's like seeing into the trail dimension, but this time, into the shadow layer.
As confusing as it was, Xanthy waddled into magic's waters as a dagrine would to an ocean. Sooner or later, she's going to find out that she's in too deep and the shore already miles away.
The words flew out of her mouth. Her tone was an awkward sound in her ears. Her magic blazed through her fingertips, reaching out to the shadows around her and inside her. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to tune out the forest's sound.
I command thine heart and soul, bind to thine master, she finished.
Her vision darkened. Panic gripped her throat. She didn't tap into the Virtakios, did she? Why was it so dark? She could still feel her toes, though. What—
Strange howls filled her ears as the world faded in a haze of darkness. June was yelling in the background but the words joined the shrieks and became lost to her understanding. With arms outstretched, she closed her fist. The darkness was under her control. She was in control.
Her magic burned hotter and hotter on her skin. With a cry, she swept her arm and the darkness followed. She was in control. She flexed her fingers and the darkness danced with them. She pictured a wall of darkness and her magic made it happen. Soon, a concrete square of nothing but watery void stared back at her. She was in control.
She laughed, a real choked out sound escaping from her lips. "June, can you see this?" she whirled to him, keeping her hold on the howling shadows while her magic blazed underneath her skin and set her cheeks on fire.
He smiled at her though he was paler than he should be. "See? I told you. It's all from imagination."
Xanthy released her spell. Her arms were quite heavy from sockets as she staggered and plopped down next to June. She rested her head against a trunk, feeling its coarse bark digging into her scalp.
"Did you get anything from that?" she didn't look at him and instead watched the trees sway with a hushed rhythm, riding along the passing breeze.
June propped a compact pad of parchment beside the tome. A stick of charcoal pressed between two, thin wooden sticks poised atop it. Xanthy had guessed that it's an instrument people use for writing.
June tapped his chin as he peered down his notes scrawled in hurried Keijula koset. Xanthy wouldn't understand it anyway, even if she tried. "The Virtakios seem to have the ability of amplifying any spell it influences," June concluded before writing something down in his ever growing list of the things he had observed about the Virtakios.
"I didn't call upon it," Xanthy wrinkled her nose. "It's just me."
June shook his head. He pointed at the third item in his list with the other tip of his writing tool. Xanthy squinted. It looked gibberish.
"The virtakios is like another vessel of power inside her, power can be borrowed and unleashed, but still, it's kept under lock and key," June scratched his head as he read what he wrote aloud. He cocked his head to Xanthy's direction then shook his head. "I don't think this is true anymore," he crossed it out. The charcoal made a distinct scritch, scritch noise against the parchment with that action.
June faced her fully. "Remember when you said you can draw from it and can suppress it? I don't think you can't. Not anymore."
Xanthy rubbed her arms. She didn't like this conversation. "You think I'm losing control?"
June nodded, setting a new bout of dread in Xanthy's gut. "I analyzed the trail left by your spell and the one left by mine. There's no doubt. Yours left a louder and more prominent trail, indicating that either the magic is simply too strong or the spell is hard. I think the first one implies to you," he scratched his head with the top of his writing tool. "Both of us could agree that it's not from anything but the Virtakios."
Xanthy frowned. What should she feel about that? With the Virtakios being the most understudied branch of magic, she didn't know what to believe anymore. What was the Virtakios? How did one control it? What were its limits? Xanthy didn't know. That's why she agreed to study it with June.
That didn't mean that she liked what she was hearing now.
Xanthy leaned her head against June's shoulder and heaved a sigh. "What do we do? You've seen what it did to me and to the people around me when I lost control," her nails dug on her arms, leaving crescent marks. "I don't want that to happen again."
June snaked an arm around her waist. "Then don't assert control. The Virtakios is you. You are the Virtakios. It's one truth we couldn't counter. I think the best thing to do for now is to embrace it. Let it become you," he shut the tome with his other hand and set it aside so he could look at Xanthy. "The Virtakios doesn't have a mind of its own. It simply follows your deepest desires and acts on it. I think part of the solution is to wish for everyone's good and not destruction."
Xanthy sniffed. A smile crept to the sides of her lips. "Wow, you sounded like Emory there."
She chuckled when June grimaced. June hated being compared to Emory the Bard, a fairy who was known for writing songs to expose the faults of the people in power in his time. These were often hidden in symbolism using animals and made up names so at the end of his life, he had a collection of stories, poems, and songs which all contained some hidden meaning.
The people loved it, especially the lower class. Decoding his stories became a pastime and even inspired other writers to publish tomes of their own trying to bust the real meanings of Emory's works.
One such work was the children's rhyme, Ten Clever Fairies. When Xanthy first read the words to the song, she had wrinkled her nose. "This is too gory," Xanthy had said.
"It's the truth," June had said with a shrug.
Xanthy mirrored his action and rolled her eyes. "Alright, Emory."
June's glare that day was so adorable that Xanthy resorted to calling him Emory every once in a while. He would pout and whine the same way he did when Cyrdel called him Just June. It's...cute. June also had a tendency to spout poetic things when he was trying to give advice. So Emory was fitting on that end, too. It's a perfect name for June.
A sharp pinch ignited in Xanthy's arm. She yelped and backhanded June in the chest. "What was that for?"
"Stop calling me that or I'll pinch you harder," June narrowed his eyes even when a smile was playing at the corner of his lips.
Xanthy snorted and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Do that and I'll lock your magic for a week."
June paled before putting his hands up. "Fine, alright," he shook his head with a sigh. "Will I ever get to win an argument?" he muttered
"When I defeat you in karavag, perhaps," Xanthy shrugged as she turned to him.
His eyes widened and crossed his arms. "That's unfair!"
Xanthy drew closer and kissed his cheek, freezing him in his place. She winked at him as she leaned away. "That's how life is, love."